CHAPTER XXIII--MORE OF IT

Royal Phelps continued very grave and silent for a few moments after Ruth's last statement. Then he groaned.

"Well, it can't be helped! None of you can want that ledge of gold more than I do. That I know. But, of course, your claims are perfectly legitimate. It is a fact the men Edith will bring out with her are under contract. I sent her to a lawyer in Kingman who understands such things. An agreement with the men covers all the claims they may stake out on this certain ledge--dimensions in contract, and all that. I wanted to start the work, make a showing with reports of assayers and all, then send it to a friend of mine in New York who graduated from college last year and went into his father's brokerage shop, and he would put shares in my mine on the market. With the money, I hoped to develop and--Well! what's the use of talking about it? We'll get our little slice and that is all, if you girls and the other folks that have staked claims hang on to your ownings."

"Tell me how you came to get Edith into it?" asked Ruth without commenting upon his statement.

"Why, she's a good old sport, Edie is," declared the brother warmly. "She stood up to the pater for me. She can do most anything with him. But I've got to do something before he lets down the bars to me, even for her sake.

"We kept in correspondence, Edie and I, all through the winter. When I found this gold I wrote her hotfoot. I did not dare file my claim. It would cause comment and perhaps start a rush this way."

"I see."

"And you can easily understand," he chuckled, "how startled Edie was when, as she told me, she learned that several girls she knew were coming out here to old Freezeout to work with some movie people. Of course, she did not tell me just who you were, Miss Fielding."

"I suppose not."

"No. Well, she was suspicious of you, she said. Wanted to know just when you were coming and how. She desired to get to Yucca as soon as possible, but she had to spend some time with the pater. Poor old chap! he thinks the world and all of her--in his way.

"Well, she had to do some shopping in New York, and went to a friend's house. The chauffeur who drove them around was a decent fellow and she told him to keep a watch on the Delorphion for you folks. You went there, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Ruth, remembering Tom's story.

"So did she--for one night. She took the same train you did and an accident gave her some advantage. I don't think she was nice to that friend of yours that she made tag on with her as far as Handy, where I met her," added Royal Phelps, slowly.

"Oh!" was Ruth's dry comment.

"But she was mighty secretive, you know," apologized the young man. "You see, we really had to be."

"I suppose so."

"Well, that's about all. Edie brought the money. She has some of her own and the pater gave her five thousand without asking a question. She and I are really partners. We're going to show him--if we can."

"I think it is fine of you, Mr. Phelps!" cried Ruth, with enthusiasm. "And--and I think your sister is a sister worth having."

"Oh, you can bet she is!" he agreed. "Edie is all right. I couldn't begin to pull this off if it were not for her. I expect the pater will say so in the end. But if I can show some money for what I have done--a bunch of it--it will be all right with him."

Ruth made no further comment here. She saw plainly that Royal Phelps' father probably weighed everybody and everything on the same scales upon which precious metals are weighed.

"Now I'll catch your pony, Mr. Phelps," she said. "If you want to ride back with me I'll introduce you to the girls and Miss Cullam."

"That's nice of you. Perfectly bully, you know. Or, as they say out here, 'skookum!' But I guess I'd better wait till Edie returns. Let her do the honors. Besides, I am not at all sure that we sha'n't be enemies, Miss Fielding--worse luck."

"Oh, no, Mr. Phelps," Ruth said warmly. "Never _that!_"

"I don't know," he grumbled, hobbling on his crutches now while she walked toward the pony that was trailing his picket-rope. "You see, I'm pretty desperate about this gold strike. I've a good mind to go up there on the ridge and pull up all your stakes and throw 'em away."

"I wouldn't," she advised, smiling at him. "Mr. Flapjack Peters has what they call a 'sudden' temper; and his daughter, we found out coming over from Yucca, is a dead shot."

"I want a big slice of that ledge," said the young man, sighing. "Enough to make a showing in the Eastern share market."

"Let us wait and see. You know, you might be able to buy up us girls--three of us who hold the next three claims to yours and your sister's."

"Oh! Would you do it?" he demanded, brightening up.

"Perhaps. And we might wait for our money till you got the mine to working on a paying basis," Ruth said seriously. "Besides, there is Min Peters and her father. If you would take them into your company, so that they would have an income, Peters would be of great use to you, Mr. Phelps."

"Look here! I'll do anything fair," cried the young man. "It isn't that I am just after the money for the money's sake----"

"I understand," she told him, nodding. "We'll talk about it later. After we get reports on the ore that Peters took specimens of, all along the ledge. But I am afraid your sister's bringing workmen up here will start a stampede to Freezeout."

"What do we care, as long as we get ours?" he cried, cheerfully. "Whew! The pater may think I am some good after all, before this business is over."

They mounted their ponies and rode to the camp. They followed the very route Ruth had come, but did not see the wounded wild horse again. Royal Phelps left her when they came in sight of Freezeout and Ruth rode down into the camp alone.

She told the camp wrangler something about her adventure and the next day he went out with some of the Indians and punchers working for the outfit, and they ran down the black and white stallion.

However, Ruth had less interest in the wild stallion than she had in several other subjects. She quietly told the girls and Miss Cullam now about the possible discovery of a rich gold-bearing ledge so near camp. The Ardmore's were naturally greatly excited.

"Stingy!" cried Trix Davenport. "Why not tell us all before?"

"Because those who found it had first rights," Ruth said gravely. "I _did_ stake out a claim for Rebecca. And I think Miss Cullam comes next."

"Oh, girls! _Real gold?_" gasped the teacher, while Rebecca was speechless with amazement.

There was certainly a small "rush" that evening for the gold-bearing ledge. Miss Cullam staked her claim and put up a notice next to Rebecca Frayne. All the other Ardmore's followed suit; even Ann Hicks was bitten by the fever of gold seeking.

They must have been watched, for not a few of the actors began to stake out claims as best they knew how and put up notices on the outskirts of the line along the summit of the ridge followed by those first to know of the gold.

The Western men, the teamsters and others, laughed at the whole business and tried to tease Flapjack Peters; but they could get nothing out of him. Then some of them saw samples of the ore. The next morning found Freezeout Camp almost abandoned. Everybody who had not already done so was prowling around that half mile ridge of land, trying to stake claims as near to the top of the ledge as he could.

"And at that," Min said gloomily, "some of these fellers that caught on last may have the best of it. We don't know where the richest ore is yet."

Mr. Hammond and his director were nearly beside themselves. That day the company was so distraught that not a foot of film was made.

"How can I tell these crazy gold hunters how to act like _real_ gold hunters?" growled Grimes.

"If other people come flocking in the whole thing will be ruined," groaned Mr. Hammond.

Ruth Fielding did not believe that. She began to get a vision of what a real gold rush might mean. If they could get a _bona fide_ stampede on the film she believed it would add a hundred per cent. to the value of "The Forty-Niners."