CHAPTER XIX--SOMETHING UNEXPECTED

The old prospector was wild with joy. He had already dug several holes down to the surface of the ledge along the ridge north of the spot where the first sample of gold-bearing rock had been secured. He claimed that each spot showed an increase in the amount of gold in the rock.

"It's ha'f a mile long, I bet. An' the farther you go, the richer it gits. I tell you, we're goin' all to be as rich as red mud! Whoop!"

"Hold in your hosses, Pop," commanded Min, sensibly. "Them folks down in camp may see you prancin' around here, and they'll either think you are crazy or know that you've struck pay dirt. And we don't want 'em in on this yet."

"By mighty! Listen here, girl!" gasped the old man. "We're goin' to be rich, you and me. You're goin' to dress in the fanciest clo'es there is. You'll look a lot finer than that there leadin' lady actress girl. Believe me!"

"Now, Pop, be sensible!"

"You're a-goin' to be a lady," declared Flapjack.

"Huh! Me, a lady, with them han's?" and she put forth both her calloused palms. "A fat chance I got!"

With tears in her eyes Ruth Fielding said: "Those hands have earned the right to be a 'lady's', Min. If there is gold here in quantity, you shall be all that your father says."

"Of course she shall!" cried the other college girls in chorus.

"Well, it'll kill me, I know that," declared Min. "I'd just about bust wide open with joy."

Flapjack dug seven holes that afternoon, and they took seven specimens of the rock with the bright specks in it. The college girls thought they could detect an increasing amount of gold in the ore as they advanced up the ledge.

The old prospector insisted upon filling in each hole as they went along and putting back the tufts of bunch grass in order to make the place look as it ordinarily did. Tiny numbered stakes driven down into the loose and gravelly soil was all that marked the places from which the specimens were taken. Of course, the specimens themselves were properly marked, too.

The gold seemed to be right at the grass-roots, as Flapjack had said. He told them the ledge was all of twenty yards wide, with the width increasing as the value of the ore increased. The full length of the ledge was still unexplored, but the depth of the vein of gold-bearing quartz was really the "unknown dimension."

"But we're going to be rich, girls!" whispered Jennie Stone, almost dancing, as they went back to the camp at dusk. "Rich! why, I've always been rich--or, my father has. I never thought much about it. But to own a real gold mine oneself!"

The thought was too great for utterance. Besides, they had agreed not to whisper about the find at the camp. Not even Miss Cullam knew that the report had come from the assayer regarding the first specimen of ore the girls had found.

It was not hard to hide their excitement, for there was so much going on at Freezeout Camp. Mr. Grimes was trying to rush the work as much as possible, for the picture actors were complaining constantly regarding their trials and the manifold privations of the situation.

The college girls and Ann Hicks, however, were having the time of their lives. They dressed up in astonishing apparel furnished by the film company and posed as the female populace of Freezeout Camp in some of the episodes. Min, in the part Ruth had especially written for her, was a pronounced success. Miss Gray, of course, as she always did, filled the character of the heroine "to the queen's taste"--and to Mr. Grimes' satisfaction as well, which was of much more importance.

The weather was just the kind the "sun worshippers" delighted in. The camera man could grind his machine for six hours a day or more. The film of "The Forty-Niners" grew steadily.

Ruth had practically finished her part of the work; but Rebecca Frayne was kept busy at her typewriter during part of the day. Therefore, Ruth easily got away from the sanctum sanctorum the next forenoon and went up to the ridge again with Flapjack and Min.

It had been settled that Helen and Jennie should remain with the other girls and keep them from wandering about on the easterly side of the stream.

Flapjack had been on the ridge since early light. He was taking samples every few rods, and Min was wrapping them up and marking the ore and the stakes. Beyond a small grove of scrubby trees they came in sight of what Flapjack declared was probably the end of the gold-bearing rock. There was a dip into another arroyo and beyond that a mesquite jungle as far as they could see.

"Well, she's more'n a ha'f a mile long," sighed the old prospector. "Ev'ry thing's got to come to an end in this world they say. We needn't grow bristles about it---- Great cats! What's them?"

"Oh, Pop!" shrieked Min, "We ain't here first."

"What _are_ those stakes?" asked Ruth, puzzled to see that the peeled posts planted in the gravelly soil should so disturb the equanimity of the prospector and his daughter.

"Somebody's ahead of us. Two claims staked," groaned Flapjack. "And layin' over the best streak of ore in the whole ledge, I bet my hat!"

There were two scraps of paper on the posts. Min ran forward to read the names upon them. Flapjack rested on his pick and said no further word.

Of a sudden Ruth heard the sharp ring of a pony's hoof on gravel. She turned swiftly to see the pony pressing through the mesquite at the foot of the ridge. Its rider urged the animal up the slope and in a moment was beside them.

"What are you doing on my claim and my partner's?" the man demanded, and he slid out of his saddle gingerly, slipping rude crutches under his armpits as he came to the ground. He had one foot bandaged, and hobbled toward Ruth and her companions with rather a truculent air.

"What are you doing on my claim?" "the hermit" repeated, and he was glaring so intently at Flapjack that he did not see Ruth at all.

The prospector was smoking his pipe, and he nearly dropped it as he stared in turn at this odd-looking figure on crutches. It was easy enough to see that the claimant to the best options on Freezeout ledge was a tenderfoot.

"Ain't on your claim," growled Peters at last.

"Well, that other fellow is," declared "the hermit," "Let me tell you that my partner's gone to Kingman to have the claims recorded. They are so by this time. If you try to jump 'em----"

"Who's tryin' to jump anything?" demanded Min, now coming back from examining the notices on the stakes. "Which are you--this here 'E' or 'R'yal?'"

"Royal is my name," said the man, gruffly.

"Brothers, I s'pose?" said Min.

The young man stared at her wonderingly. "I declare!" he finally exclaimed. "You're a girl, aren't you?"

"No matter who or what I am," said Min Peters, tartly. "You needn't think you can stake out all this ledge just because you found it first--maybe."

It was evident that both Flapjack and his daughter considered the appearance of this claimant to the supposedly richest options on the ledge most unfortunate.

"I know my rights and the law," said the young man quite as truculently as before. "If it's necessary I'll stay here and watch those stakes till my--my partner gets back with the men and machinery that are hired to open up these claims."

"By mighty!" groaned Flapjack. "The hull thing will be spread through Arizony in the shake of a sheep's hind laig."

"Well, what of it? You can stake out claims as we did," snapped "the hermit." "We are not trying to hog it all."

"These men you're bringin' 'll grab off the best options and sell 'em to you. You're Easterners. You're goin' to make a showin' and then sell the mine to suckers," said Min bitterly. "We know all about your kind, don't we, Pop?"

Peters muttered his agreement. Ruth considered that it was now time for her to say another word.

"I am sure," she began, "that Mr.--er--Royal will only do what is fair. And, of course, we want no more than our rights."

The man with the injured ankle looked at her curiously. "I'm willing to believe what you say," he observed. "You have already been kind to me. Though you didn't come back to see me again. But I don't know anything about this man and this--er----"

"Miss Peters and her father," introduced Ruth, briskly, as she saw Min flushing hotly. "And they must stake off their claims next in running to the two you and your partner have staked."

"No!" exclaimed Min, fiercely. "You and the other two young ladies come first. Then pop and me. It puts us a good ways down the ledge; but it's only fair."

The young man looked much worried. He said suddenly:

"How many more of you are informed of the existence of this gold ledge?"

"After my claim," said Ruth, firmly, "I am going to stake out one for Rebecca Frayne. She needs money more than anybody else in our party--more even than Miss Cullam. The others can come along as they chance to."

"Great Heavens!" gasped the young man. "How many more of you are there? I say! I'll make you an offer. What'll you-all take for your claims, sight-unseen?"

"There! What did I tell you?" grumbled Min Peters. "He's one o' them Eastern promoters that allus want to skim the cream of ev'rything."