CHAPTER XVII--THE MAN IN THE CABIN

Why, of course they could not keep it to themselves! At least, the three girls could not. They simply had to tell Miss Cullam and Tom, and the other Ardmore freshmen and Ann of their discovery.

So every day after that the visitors from the East "went prospecting." They searched up and down the creek for several miles, turning over every bit of "sparkling" rock they saw and bringing back to the camp innumerable specimens of quartz and mica, until Mr. Hammond declared they were all "gold mad."

"Why, this place has been petered out for years and years," he said. "Do you suppose I want my actors leaving me to stake out claims along Freezeout Creek, and spoiling my picture? Stop it!"

The idea of gold hunting had got into the girls, however, as well as into Flapjack Peters and his daughter. The other Western men laughed at them. Gold this side of the Hualapai Range had "petered out." They looked upon the old-timer as a little cracked on the subject. And, of course, these "tenderfoots" did not know anything about "color" anyway.

Even Miss Cullam searched along the creek banks and up into the low hills that surrounded the valley.

"Who knows," said the teacher of mathematics, "but that I may find a fortune, and so be able to eschew the teaching of the young for the rest of my life? Gorgeous!"

"But pity the 'young'," begged Jennie Stone. "Think, Miss Cullam, how we would miss you."

"I can hardly imagine that you would suffer," declared the mathematics teacher. "Really!"

"We might not miss the mathematics," said Rebecca, wickedly. "But you are the very best chaperon who ever 'beaued' a party of girls into the wilds. Isn't that the truth, Ardmores?"

"It is!" they cried. "Hurrah for Miss Cullam!"

Ruth, however, despite the discovery of the possibly gold-bearing quartz, was not to be coaxed from her work. Each morning she shut herself into the "sanctum sanctorum" and worked faithfully at the scenario. Likewise, Rebecca stuck to the typewriter, for she had work to do for Mr. Hammond now, as well as for Ruth.

Some part of each afternoon Ruth took for exercise in the open. And usually she took this exercise on ponyback.

Riding alone out of the shallow gorge one day, she struck into what seemed to her a bridlepath which led into "dips" and valleys in the hills which she had never before seen. Nothing more had been observed of either the lone horseman or the supposed squaw for so many days that their presence about Freezeout Camp had quite slipped Ruth Fielding's mind.

Besides, there were so many men at the camp now that to have fear of strangers was never in the girl's thoughts. She urged her hardy pony into a gallop and sped down hill and up in a most invigorating dash.

Such a ride cleared the cobwebs out of her head and revivified mind and body alike. At the end of this dash, when she halted the pony in an arroyo to breathe, she was cheerful and happy and ready to laugh at anything.

She laughed first at her own nose! It really was ridiculous to think that she smelled wood smoke.

But the pungent odor of burning wood grew more and more distinct. She gazed swiftly all around her, seeing no campfire, of course, in this shallow gulch. But suddenly she gathered up the bridle reins tightly and stared, wide-eyed, off to the left. A faint column of blue smoke rose into the air--she could not be mistaken.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" thought Ruth. "Another camping party? Who can be living so near Freezeout without giving us a call? The lone horseman? The Indian squaw? Or both?"

She half turned her pony to ride back. It might be some ill-disposed person camping here in secret. Flapjack and Min had intimated there were occasionally ne'er-do-wells found in the range--outlaws, or ill-disposed Indians.

Still, it was cowardly to run from the unknown. Ruth had tasted real peril on more than one occasion. She touched the spur to her pony instead of pulling him around, and rode on.

There was a curve in the arroyo and when she came into the hidden part of the basin the mystery was instantly explained. A fairly substantial cabin--recently built it was evident--stood near a thicket of mesquite. The door was hung on leather hinges and was wide open. Yet there must be some occupant, for the smoke rose through the hole in the roof. It struck Ruth, for several reasons, that the cabin had been built by an amateur.

She held in her pony again and might, after all, have wheeled him and ridden away without going closer, if the little beast had not betrayed her presence by a shrill whinny. Immediately the pony's challenge was answered from the mesquite where the unknown's horse was picketed.

Ruth was startled again. No sound came from the cabin, nor could she discover anybody watching her from the jungle. She rode nearer to the cabin door.

It was then that the unshod hoofs of her pony announced her presence to whoever was within. A voice shouted suddenly:

"Hullo!"

The tone in which the word was uttered drove all the fear out of Ruth Fielding's mind. She knew that the owner of such a voice must be a gentleman.

She rode her pony up to the open door and peered into the dimly lighted interior. There was no window in the cabin walls.

"Hullo yourself!" she rejoined. "Are you all alone?"

"Sure I am. I'm a hermit--the Hermit Prospector. And I bet you are one of those moving picture girls."

A laugh accompanied the words. Ruth then saw the man, extended at full length in a rude bunk. One foot was bare and it and the ankle was swathed in bandages.

"Sorry I can't get up to do the honors. Doctor's ordered me to stay in bed till this ankle recovers."

"Oh! Is it broken?" cried Ruth, slipping out of her saddle and throwing the reins on the ground before the pony so that he would stand.

"Wrenched. But a bad one. I'm likely to stay here a while."

"And all alone?" breathed Ruth.

"Quite so. Not a soul to swear at, nor a cat to kick. My horse is out there in the mesquite and I suppose he's tangled up----"

"I'll fix that in a moment," cried Ruth. "He'd better be tethered here on the hillside before your door. The grazing is good."

"Well--yes. I suppose so."

Ruth was off into the mesquite in a flash. She found the whinnying pony. And she discovered another thing. The animal's lariat had been untangled and his grazing place changed several times.

"You've hobbled around a good bit since your ankle was hurt," she said accusingly, when she returned to the cabin door. "And see all the firewood you've got!"

"I expect I did too much after I strained the ankle," the man admitted gravely. "That's why it is so bad now. But when a man's alone----"

"Yes. When he _is_ alone," repeated Ruth, eyeing him thoughtfully.

He was a young man and as roughly dressed as any of the teamsters at Freezeout Camp. There was, too, several days' growth of beard upon his face. But he was a good looking chap, with rather a humorous cast of countenance. And Ruth was quite sure that he was educated and at present in a strange environment.

"Have you plenty of water?" she asked suddenly, for she had seen the spring several rods away.

"Lots," declared "the hermit." "See! I've a drip."

He pointed with pride to the arrangement of a rude shelf beside the head of his bunk with a twenty-quart galvanized pail upon it. A pin-hole had been punched in this pail near the bottom, and the water dripped from the aperture steadily into a pint cup on the floor.

"Would you believe it," he said, with a smile, "the water, after falling so far through the air, is quite cooled."

"What do you do when the pail is empty?" the girl asked quickly.

"Oh! I shall be able to hobble to the spring by that time. If the cup gets full and I don't need the water, I pour it back."

Ruth stood on tiptoe and looked into the pail. Then she brought water from the spring in her own canteen, making several trips, and filled the pail to the brim.

"Now, what do you eat, and how do you get it?" she asked him.

"My dear young lady!" he cried, "you must not worry about me. I shall be all right. I was just going to cook some bacon when you rode up. That is why I made up a fresh fire. I shall be all right, I assure you."

Ruth insisted upon rumaging through his stores and cooking the hermit a hearty meal. She marked the fact that certain delicacies were here that the ordinary prospector would not have packed into the wilds. Likewise, there was vastly more tea and sugar than one person could use in a long time.

Ruth was quite sure "the hermit" was not a native of the West. She was exceedingly puzzled as she went about her kindly duties. Then, of a sudden, she was actually startled as well as puzzled. In a corner of the cabin she found hanging on a nail a rubber bathcap on which was stenciled "Ardmore." It was one of the gymnasium caps from her college.