CHAPTER XXII--RUTH HEARS SOMETHING

Ruth Fielding was particularly interested in the situation of "the hermit," Edith Phelps' brother. But she was not deeply enough interested in him or in his desires to give up her own expectation from the gold-bearing ledge on the ridge.

She remembered very clearly what Helen Cameron had told her about this young Royal Phelps. She had not known his name, of course, and the fact that Min Peters that day on the ridge had not explained fully what Royal's last name was, had caused the girl some further puzzlement.

The character the tale about Edith's brother had given that young man did not seem to fit this "hermit" either. This fellow seemed so gentlemanly and so amusing, that she could scarcely believe him the worthless character he was pictured. Yet, his presence here in the wilds, and Edith's coming out to him so secretly, pointed to a mystery that teased the girl of the Red Mill.

When they came to the cabin door, and Royal Phelps slid carefully out of her saddle, Ruth said easily:

"I wish you'd tell me all about yourself, Mr. Phelps. I am curious--and frank to say so."

"I don't blame you," he admitted, smiling suddenly again--and Ruth thought that smile the most disarming she had ever seen. Royal Phelps might have been disgraced at college, but she believed it must have been through his fun-loving disposition rather than because of any viciousness.

"I don't blame you for feeling curiosity," the young man repeated, seating himself gingerly in the doorway. "If I had a chair I'd offer it to you, Miss Fielding."

"Thanks. I'll hop on my pony. I'll get yours for you before I go."

"Wait a bit," he urged. "I am going with you when you return to that town. That wild beast of a horse may be rampaging around again."

"Ugh!" ejaculated Ruth with no feigned shudder. "He was awful!"

"Now you've said something! But you are a mighty cool girl, Miss Fielding. What Edie would have done----"

"She would have done quite as well as I, I have no doubt," Ruth hastened to say. "And I have been in the West before, Mr. Phelps."

"Yes? You are really a movie actor?"

"Sometimes."

"And a college girl?"

"Always!" laughed his visitor.

"I believe you are puzzling me intentionally."

"I told you that I was puzzled about you."

"I suppose so," he laughed. "Well, tit for tat. You tell me and I'll tell you."

"I trust to your honor," she said, with mock seriousness. "I will tell you my secret. Really, I am not a movie actress--save by brevet."

"I thought not!" he exclaimed with warmth.

"Why, they are very nice folk!" Ruth told him. "Much nicer than you suppose. I am really writing the scenario Mr. Hammond is producing."

"Goodness!" he exclaimed. "A literary person?"

"Exactly."

"But why didn't Edie tell me something about you? She went over there and took a peep at you."

"I fancied so. The girls thought her an Indian squaw. That would please Edie--if I know her at all," said Ruth with sarcasm.

"I'll have to tell her," he grinned.

"Better not. She does not like us any too well. Us freshmen, I mean. You know," Ruth decided to explain, "there is an insurmountable wall between freshmen and sophs."

"I ought to know," murmured Royal Phelps, and his face clouded.

Ruth, determined to get to the root of this mysterious matter, thrust in a deep probe: "I believe you have been to college, Mr. Phelps?"

He reddened to his ears. "Oh, yes," he answered shortly.

"And then did you come out here to go into the mining business?" she continued, with some cruelty, for he was writhing.

"After the pater put me out--yes," he said, looking directly at her now, even though his face flamed.

Ruth was doubly assured that Royal Phelps could not be as black as he was painted. "Though I do not believe any painter could reflect the Italian sunset hue that now mantles his brow," she thought.

"I am sorry that you have had trouble with your father. Is it insurmountable?" she asked him quietly, and with the air that always gave even strangers confidence in Ruth Fielding.

"I hope not," he admitted. "I was mad enough when I came away. I just wanted to 'show him.' But now I'd like to _show him_. Do--do you get me?"

"There is no difference in the words, but a great deal in the inflection, Mr. Phelps," Ruth said quietly.

"Well. You're an understandable girl. After I had come a cropper at Harvard--silly thing, too, but made the whole faculty wild," and here he grinned like a naughty small boy at the remembrance--"the pater said I wasn't worth the powder to blow me to Halifax. And I guess he was right. But he'd not given me a chance.

"Said I'd never done a lick of work and probably wouldn't. Said I was cut out for a rich man's wastrel or a tramp. Said I shouldn't be the first with _his_ money. Told James to show me the outer portal with the brass plate on it, and bring in the 'welcome' mat so that I wouldn't stand there and think it meant _me_.

"So I came away from there," finished Royal Phelps with a wry face.

"Oh, that was terrible!" Ruth declared with clasped hands and all the sympathy that the most exacting prodigal could expect. "But, of course, he didn't mean it."

"Mean it? You don't know Costigan Phelps. He never says anything he doesn't mean. Let me tell you it won't be a slippery day when I show up at the paternal mansion. The pater certainly will not run out and fall on either my neck or his own. There'll be nobody at the home plate to see me coming and hail me: 'Kill the fatted prodigal; here comes the calf!' Believe me!"

"Oh, Mr. Phelps!" begged Ruth. "Don't talk that way. I know just how you feel. And you are trying to hide it----"

"With airy persiflage--yes," he admitted, turning serious. "Well, pater's made a lot of money in mines. I said to Edie: 'I'll shoot for the West and locate a few and so attract his attention to the Young Napoleon of mines in his own field.' It looked easy."

"Of course," whispered Ruth.

"But it wasn't."

"Of course again," and the girl smiled.

"Grin away. It helps _you_ to bear it," scoffed Royal Phelps. "But it doesn't help the 'down and outer' a bit to grin. I know. I've tried it ever since last fall."

"Oh!"

"I finally got to rummaging out through these hills. I came with a party of sheep herders. You know the Prodigal Son only herded hogs. _That's_ an aristocratic game out here in the West beside sheep herding. Believe me!

"It puts a man in the last row when he fools with sheep. When I went down to Yucca nobody would have anything to do with me but old Braun. And he was owning sheep right then.

"If I went into a place the fellows would hold their noses and tiptoe out. You know, it's a joke out here: A couple of fellows made a bet as to which was the most odoriferous--a sheep or a Greaser. So they put up the money and selected a judge.

"They brought the sheep into the judge's cabin and the judge fainted. Then they brought in the Greaser and the sheep fainted. So, you see, aside from Greasers, I didn't have many what you'd call close friends."

Ruth's lips formed the words "Poor boy!" but she would not have given voice to them for the world. Still, for some reason, Royal Phelps, who was looking directly at her, nodded his head gratefully.

"Tough times, eh? Well, I'd seen something up here in these hills. I'd been studying about mineral deposits--especially gold signs. I saved enough money to get a small outfit and this pony I ride. I'd brought my gun on from the East. I started out prospecting with scarcely a grubstake. But nobody around here would have trusted a tenderfoot like me. I was bound to do it on my lonely, if I did it at all."

"Weren't you afraid to start off alone?" asked Ruth. "Mr. Peters says it is dangerous for _one_ to go prospecting."

"Yes. But lots of the old-timers do. And this 'new-timer' did it. Nothing bit me," he added dryly.

"So I came back here and knocked up this cabin. Pretty good for 'mamma's baby boy,' isn't it?" and he laughed shortly. "That's what some of the Lazy C punchers called me when I first came into their neighborhood.

"Well, mamma's boy played a lone hand and found that ledge of gold ore. For it is gold I know. I had some specimens assayed."

"So did we," confessed Ruth, eagerly.

He scowled again. "You girls--movie actresses, college girls, or whoever you are--are likely to queer this whole business for me. Say!" he added, "that one in the overalls isn't an Ardmore freshman, is she?"

"Hardly," laughed Ruth. "But she needs a gold mine a good deal more than the rest of us do."