CHAPTER XX--THE MAD STALLION

Somehow Ruth Fielding could not find herself subscribing to this opinion of "the hermit" so flatly stated by Min Peters. She begged the prospector's daughter to hush.

"Let us not say anything to each other that we will later be sorry for. Of course, we all understand--and must admit--that the finding of this gold-bearing ledge is a matter that cannot be long kept from the general public."

"Sure! There'll be a rush," growled Flapjack.

"And when this feller's men git here they'll hog it all," declared Min.

"They won't hog our claims--not unless I'm dead," said her father violently.

"Oh, hush! hush!" cried Ruth again. "This is no way to talk. We can stake out our claims and the other girls can stake out theirs. You understand we honestly found this ore just the same as you and your partner did?" she added to the lame young man.

"I found it first," he said, gloomily. "I found it months ago----"

"Great cats!" broke in Flapjack. "Why didn't you file on it, then, and git started?"

"Yes, Mr. Royal," said Ruth, puzzled. "Why the delay?"

"Well, you see, I hadn't any money. I had to write to--to my partner. Ahem! I had to get money through my partner. I was afraid to file on the claim for fear the news would spread and the whole ridge be overrun with prospectors before I could be sure of mine."

"And what you considered yours was the cream of it all," repeated Min, quickly.

"Well! I found it, didn't I?" he demanded.

"We were going to do the same thing ourselves," Ruth said. "Let us be fair, Min."

"But this feller means to git it all," snapped the prospector's daughter, nodding at "the hermit."

"It means a lot to me--this business," the young man muttered. "More than I can tell you. _It means everything to me_."

He spoke so earnestly that the trio felt uncomfortable. Even Min did not seem able to ask another personal question. Her father drawled:

"Seems to me I seen you 'round Yucca, didn't I, Mister?"

"Yes. I stayed there for a while. With a man named Braun."

"Yep. Out on the trail to Kaster."

"Yes," said "the hermit."

"Oh!" ejaculated Ruth, suddenly. "Was his rural delivery box number twenty-four?"

"What?" asked "the hermit." "Yes, it was."

Ruth opened her lips again; then she shut them tightly. She would not speak further of this subject before Flapjack and Min.

"Well," the latter said irritably. "No use standin' here all day. We're goin' to stake out them claims and put up notices. And we don't want 'em teched, neither."

"If mine are not touched you may be sure I shall not interfere with yours," said the young man stiffly, turning his back on them and hobbling to his waiting pony.

Ruth wanted to say something else to him; then she hesitated. Then the young man rode away, the crutches dangling over his shoulder by a cord.

She left Peters and Min to stake out the claims, having written the notices for her own, and for Helen's and Jennie's and Rebecca Frayne's claims as well. It was agreed that nothing was to be said at the camp about the find. As soon as she arrived she took Helen and Jennie aside and warned them.

"As Min says, we'll 'button up our lips,'" Jennie said. "Oh, I can keep a secret! But who will go to Kingman to file on the claims?"

That was what was puzzling Ruth. Flapjack, who knew all about such things--and knew the shortest trail, of course--was not to be trusted. He had money in his pocket and as Min said, a little money drove the man to drink.

"And Min can't go. She is needed in several further scenes of the picture," groaned Ruth.

"I tell you what," Helen said eagerly, "we have just got to take one other person into our confidence."

"You are right," agreed Ruth. "I know whom you mean, Nell. Tom, of course."

"Yes, Tom is perfectly safe," said Helen. "He won't even go up there and stake out a claim for himself if I tell him not to. But he _will_ rush to Kingman and file on our claims."

"And take these specimens of ore to the assayer," put in Ruth.

It was so agreed, and when Min and her father reappeared at the camp the suggestion was made to them. Evidently the Western girl had been much puzzled about this very thing and she hailed the suggestion with acclaim.

"Seems to me I ought to be the one to file on them claims," Flapjack said slowly. "And takin' one more into this thing means spreadin' it out thinner."

"I wouldn't trust you to go to Kingman with money in your pocket," declared his daughter frankly. "You know, Pop, you said long ago that if ever you did strike it rich you was goin' to be a gentleman and cut out all the rough stuff."

"That's right," admitted Mr. Peters. "Me for a plug hat and a white vest with a gold watchchain across it, and a good _seegar_ in my mouth. Yes, sir! That's me. And a feller can't afford to git 'toxicated and roll 'round the streets with them sort of duds on--no sir! If this is my lucky strike I've sure got to live up to it."

Ruth wondered if clothes were going to make such a vast difference to both Min and her father. Yet lesser things than clothes have been elements of regeneration in human lives.

However, it was agreed that Tom must be taken into the gold hunters' confidence. He was certainly surprised and wanted to rush right over to look at the ridge. But they showed him the gold-bearing ore instead and he had to be satisfied with that.

For time was pressing. "The hermit's" partner might return with a crowd of hired workers and trouble might ensue. Without doubt Royal and his mate had intended to open the entire length of the ledge and gain possession of it. The mining law made it imperative that the claims should be of a certain area and each claim must be worked within so many months. But there are ways of circumventing the law in Arizona as well as in other places.

"I wonder who that partner of the lame fellow is?" Ruth murmured, as they were talking it over while Tom Cameron was making his preparations for departure.

"Same name as R'yal," said Min, briefly. "Must be brothers."

This statement rather puzzled Ruth. It certainly dissipated certain suspicions she had gained from her visits to the cabin in the distant arroyo, where "the hermit" lived.

Tom left the camp before night, carrying a good map of the trails to the north as far as Kingman. He was supposed to be going on some private errand for himself, and as he had no connection at all with the moving picture activities his departure was scarcely noted.

Besides, Mr. Grimes and the actors were just then preparing for one of the biggest scenes to be incorporated in the film of "The Forty-Niners." This was the hold-up of the wagon train by Indians and it was staged on the old trail leading south out of Freezeout.

The wagons that had carted the paraphernalia over from Yucca had tops just like the old emigrant wagons in '49. There were only a few real Indians in Mr. Grimes' company; but some of the cowboys dressed in Indian war-dress. For picture purposes there seemed a crowd of them when the action took place.

Everybody went out to see the film taken, and the fight and massacre of the gold hunters seemed very realistic. Indeed, one part of it came near to being altogether too realistic.

One of the punchers working with the company had announced before that there was either a bunch of wild horses in the vicinity, or a lone stallion strayed from some ranch. The horse in question had been sighted several times, and its hoofprints were often seen within half a mile of Freezeout.

The girls, while riding in a party through the hills, had spied the black and white creature, standing on a pinnacle and gazing, snorting, down upon the bridled ponies. The lone horse seemed to be attracted by those of his breed, yet feared to approach them while under the saddle. And, of course, the horses of the outfit were all picketed near the camp.

In the midst of the rehearsal of the Indian hold-up, when the emigrant's ponies were stampeded by the redskins, the lone horse appeared and, snorting and squealing, tried to join the herd of tame horses and lead them away.

"It's an 'old rogue' stallion, that's what it is," Ben Lester, one of the real Indians remarked. He had been to Harvard and had come back to his family in Arizona to straighten out business affairs, and was waiting for the Government to untangle much red tape before getting his share of the Southern Ute grant.

"He acts like he was locoed to me," declared Felix Burns, the horse wrangler, who, much to his disgust, had to "act in them fool pitchers" as well as handle the stock for the outfit. "Looky there! If he comes for you, beat him off with your quirts. A bite from him might send man or beast jest as crazy as a mad dog."

"Do you mean that the stallion is really mad?" asked Ruth, who was riding near the Indians, but, of course, out of the focus of the camera.

"Just as mad as a dog with hydrophobia--and just as dangerous," declared Ben. "You ladies keep back. We may have to beat the brute off. He's a pretty bird, but if he's locoed, he'd better be dead than afoot--poor creature."

The strangely acting stallion did not come near enough, however, for the boys to use their quirts. Nor did he bite any of the loose horses. He seemed to have an idea of leading the pack astray, that was all; and when the ponies were rounded up the stallion disappeared again, whistling shrilly, over the nearest ridge.