CHAPTER XVIII--RUTH REALLY HAS A SECRET

Ruth Fielding came back from her ride to Freezeout Camp and said not a word to a soul about her discovery of the young man in the cabin. She had a secret at last, but it was not her own. She did not feel that she had the right to speak even to Helen about it.

She was quite sure "the hermit" had no ill intention toward their party. And if he had a companion that companion could do those at Freezeout no harm.

Just what it was all about Ruth did not know; yet she had some suspicions. However, she rode out to the lone cabin the next day, and the next, to see that the young man was comfortable. "The Hermit Prospector," as he laughingly called himself, was doing very well.

Ruth brought him two slim poles out of the wood and he fashioned himself a pair of crutches. By means of these he began to hobble around and Ruth decided that he did not need her further ministrations. She did not tell him that she should cease calling, she merely ceased riding that way. For a "hermit" he had seemed very glad, indeed, to have somebody to speak to.

Ruth was exceedingly busy now. The director, Mr. Grimes--a very efficient but unpleasant man--arrived with the remainder of the company, and rehearsals began immediately. Hazel Gray, who had been so fresh and young looking when Ruth and Helen first met her at the Red Mill, was beginning to show the ravages of "film acting." The appealing personality which had first brought her into prominence in motion pictures was now a matter of "registering." There was little spontaneity in the leading lady's acting; but the part she had to play in "The Forty-Niners" was far different from that she had acted in "The Heart of a School Girl," an earlier play of Ruth's.

Mr. Grimes was just as unpleasantly sarcastic as when Ruth first saw him. But he got out of his people what was needed, although his shouting and threatening seemed to Ruth to be unnecessary.

With Ruth Mr. Grimes was perfectly polite. Perhaps he knew better than to be otherwise. He was good enough to commend the scenario, and although he changed several scenes she had spent hard work upon, Ruth was sensible enough to see that he changed them for good cause and usually for the better.

He approved of Min's part in the play, and he was careful with the Western girl in her scenes. Min did very well, indeed, and even Flapjack made his extra three dollars a day on several occasions when he appeared with the teamsters in the "rough house" scenes in the night life of the old-time mining camp.

The film actors were not an unpleasant company; yet after all they were not people who could adapt themselves to the rude surroundings of the abandoned camp as easily, even, as did the college girls. The women were always fussing about lack of hotel requisites--like baths and electric lights and maids to wait upon them. The men complained of the food and the rude sleeping accommodations.

Ruth learned something right here: All the girls from Ardmore save Rebecca Frayne and Ruth herself came from wealthy families--and Rebecca was used to every refinement of life. Yet the Ardmores took the "roughing it" good-naturedly and never worried their pretty heads about "maid service" and the like.

Some of the film women, seeing Min Peters about in her usual garb, undertook to treat her superciliously. They did not make the mistake twice. Min was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and she intended to be treated with respect. Min was so treated.

Helen Cameron was much amused by the attitude her brother took toward the leading lady, Hazel Gray. Miss Gray was not more than two years older than the twins and when the film actress had first become known to them Tom had been instantly attracted. His case of boyish love had been acute, but brief.

For six months the walls of his study at Seven Oaks were fairly papered with pictures of Hazel Gray in all manner of poses and characterizations. The next semester Tom had gone in for well-known athletes, not excluding many prize fighters, and the pictures of Miss Gray went into the discard.

Now the young actress set out to charm Tom again. He was the only young personable male at Freezeout, save the actors themselves, and she knew them. But Tom gave her just as much attention as he did Min Peters, for instance, and no more.

There was but one girl in camp to whom he showed any special attention. He was always at Ruth's beck and call if she needed him. Tom never put himself forward with Ruth, or claimed more than was the due of any good friend. But the girl of the Red Mill often told herself that Tom was dependable.

She was not sure that she ever wanted her chum's brother to be anything more to her than what he was now--a safe friend. She and Helen had talked so much about "independence" and the like that it seemed like sheer treachery to consider for a moment any different life after college than that they had planned.

Ruth was to write plays and sing. Helen was to improve her violin playing and give lessons. They would take a studio together in Boston--perhaps in New York--and live the ideal life of bachelor girls. Helen desired to support herself just as much as Ruth determined to support herself.

"It is dependence upon man for daily bread and butter that makes women slaves," Helen declared. And Ruth agreed--with some reservations. It began to look to her as though all were dependent upon one another in this world, irrespective of sex.

However, Tom was one of those dependable creatures that, if you wanted him, was right at hand. Ruth let the matter rest at that and did not disturb her mind much over questions of personal growth and expansion, or over the woman question.

Her thought, indeed, was so much taken up with the picture that was being made that she had little time to bother with anything else. She almost forgot the lame young man in the distant cabin and ceased to wonder as to who his companion might be. She certainly had quite forgotten the specimens of ore which had been sent to the Handy Gulch assayer's office until unexpectedly the report arrived.

Helen and Jennie, as well as Peters and his daughter, were interested in this event. The others of the Ardmore party had only heard of the supposed find and had not even seen the uncovered bit of ledge from which the ore had been taken.

"Why, perhaps we are all rich!" breathed Jennie Stone. "Beyond the dreams of avarice! How much does he say?"

"One hundred and thirty-three dollars to the ton. And it's 'free gold,'" declared Ruth. "It can be extracted by the cyaniding process. That can be done on the spot, and cheaply. Where there is much sulphide in the ore the gold must be extracted by the hydro-electric process."

"Goodness, Ruth! How did you learn so much?" gasped Helen.

"By using my tongue and ears. What were they given us for?"

"To taste nice things with and drape 'spit-curls' over," giggled Jennie.

They went to Peters and Min and displayed the report. The old prospector could have given the thing away in the exuberance of his joy if it had not been for the good sense his daughter displayed.

"Hush up, Pop," she commanded. "You want to put all these bum actors on to the strike before we've laid out our own claims? We want to grab off the cream of this find. You know it must be rich."

"Rich? Say, girl, rich ain't no name for it. I know what this Freezeout proposition was when it was placer diggings. Where so much dust and nuggets come from along a crick bed, we knowed there must be a regular mother lode somewheres here. Only we never supposed it was on that side of the stream an' so far away. It looked like the old bed of the crick lay to the west.

"Well, we've got it! A hundred and thirty-three dollars per ton at the grass-roots. Lawsy! No knowin' how deep the ledge is. An' you ladies only took specimens in one spot. We want to take others clean acrosst the ledge--as far as we kin trace it--git 'em assayed, then pick out the best claims before any of these cheapskates around here can ring in on it. Laugh at _me_, will they? I reckon they'll find out that Flapjack is wuth something as a prospector after all."

He quite overlooked the fact that the three college girls had found the ore--and that somebody had uncovered the ledge before them! But Min did not forget these very pertinent facts.

"We got to get a hustle on us," she announced. "No knowin' who 'twas that first opened that prospect, Pop. Mebbe he was green, or he ain't had his samples assayed yet. We got to get in quick."

"Sure," agreed Flapjack.

"And the best three claims has got to go to Miss Ruth and Miss Cam'ron and Miss Stone. They found the place. You an' I, Pop, 'll stake out the next best claims. Then the rush kin come. But we want to git more samples assayed first."

"Is that necessary?" Ruth asked, quite as eager as the others now. Somehow the gold hunting fever gets into one's blood and effervesces. It was hard for any of them to keep their jubilation from the knowledge of the whole camp.

"We dunno how long this ledge of gold-bearing rock is," Min explained. "Maybe we only struck the poorest end of it. P'r'aps it'll run two hundred dollars or more to the ton at the other end. We want to stake off our claims where the ore is richest, don't we?"

"Let's stake it _all_ off," said Helen.

"Couldn't hold it. Not by law. These big minin' companies git so many claims because they buy up options from different locaters all along a ledge. There's ha'f a hundred claims belongs to the Arepo Company, for instance, at one workin's. No. We've got to be careful and keep this secret till we're sure where the best of the ore lays."

"Oh, let's go at once and see!" cried Jennie.

"We'll go this afternoon," Ruth said. "All five of us."

"I hope nobody will find the place before we get there," Helen observed.

"No more likely now than 'twas before," Min said sensibly. "Pop'll sneak out a pick and shovel for us, and meet us over there on the ridge."

So it was arranged. But the three college girls were so excited that they were scarcely fit for either work or play. They set off eagerly into the hills after lunch and met Flapjack and his daughter as had been appointed.