CHAPTER VIII--MIN

"Well, let's go along and see Flapjack's daughter," Tom proposed. "I don't want to make the acquaintance of any strange girl without somebody to defend me," and he grinned at the girl of the Red Mill.

"Oh, yes. We know just how desperately timid you are, Tommy-boy," she told him, smiling. "I will be your shield and buckler. Lead on."

The house had a yellow front, but was elsewhere left bare of paint. It stood away from its neighbors and, as Ruth and Tom Cameron approached it, it seemed deserted. From other houses they were frankly watched by slatternly women and several idle men.

Tom rapped gently at the front door. There was no reply and after repeating the summons several times Ruth suggested that they try a rear entrance.

"Huh!" complained the boy. "This Min they tell of must be deaf."

"Or bashful. Perhaps she is nothing but a child and is afraid of us."

Tom merely grunted in reply, and led the way into a weed-grown yard. The fence was of wire and laths--the kind bought by the roll ready to set up; but it was very much dilapidated. The fence had never been finished at the rear and up on a scrubby side hill behind the house a man was wielding an axe.

"Maybe he knows something about this Flapjack Peters person," grumbled Tom.

"Knock on the back door," ordered Ruth Fielding briskly. "If that guide has a daughter she must know where he's gone, and for how long. It's the most mysterious thing!"

"It gets me," admitted Tom, knocking again.

"Mr. Hammond said that he knew this guide and that he believed he was a fairly trustworthy person. He is what they call an 'old-timer'--been living here or hereabout for years and years. Just the person to find Freezeout Camp."

"Well, there must be other men who know their way about the hills," and Tom turned his back to the door to look straight away across the valley toward the faint, blue eminences that marked the Hualapai Range.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" sighed Ruth, likewise looking at the mountains. "How clear the air is! See that peak away to the north? We saw it from the car window. That is the tallest mountain in the range--Hualapai Peak. Oh, Tom!"

"Yes?" he asked.

"That man looks awfully funny to me. Do you see----?"

Tom wheeled to look at the person chopping wood a few rods away. The woodchopper wore an old felt hat; from underneath its brim flowed several straggly locks of black hair.

"Must be an Indian," muttered Tom.

"It must be a woman!" exclaimed Ruth. "It is a woman, Tom! I'm going to ask her----"

"What?" demanded the youth; but he trailed along behind the self-reliant girl of the Red Mill.

The woodchopper did not even raise her head as the two young folks approached. She beat upon the log she was splitting with the old axe and showed not the least interest in their presence.

Ruth led the way around in front of her and demanded:

"Do you know where Mr. Peters' daughter is? We had business with him, and they tell us he is away from home."

At that the woman in men's shabby habiliments raised her head and looked at them.

"Jiminy!" exploded Tom, but under his breath. "It is a girl!"

Ruth was quite as curious as her companion; but she was wise enough to reveal nothing in her own countenance but polite interest.

The masquerader was both young and pretty; only the perspiration had poured down her face and left it grimy. Her hands were red and rough--calloused as a laboring man's and with blunted fingers and broken nails.

When she stood up straight, however, even the overalls and jumper she wore, and the broken old hat upon her head, could not hide the fact that she was of a graceful figure.

"I beg your pardon," said Ruth again. "Can you tell me where Miss Peters is?"

"I can tell you where _Min_ Peters is, if you want to know so bad," drawled the girl, red suffusing her bronzed cheeks and a little flash coming into her big gray eyes.

"That--that must be the person we wish to see."

"Then see her," snapped the other ungraciously. "An' I s'pose you fancy folks think her a sight, sure 'nuff."

"You mean _you_ are Mr. Peters' daughter?" Ruth asked, doubtfully.

"I'm Flapjack's girl," the other said, biting her remarks off short.

"Oh!" cried Ruth. "Then you can tell us all about it."

"All about what?"

"How it happens that your father is not here at Yucca to meet us?"

"Huh! What would he want to meet you for?" asked the girl, shaking back her straggly hair.

"Why, it was arranged by Mr. Hammond that Mr. Peters should guide us into the Range. We are going to Freezeout Camp."

"Wha-at?" drawled Min Peters in evident surprise. "You, too?"

Tom here put in a word. "I am the one who telegraphed to Mr. Peters when we were on the way here. It was understood through Mr. Hammond that Mr. Peters was to hold himself in readiness for our party."

"Then what about them other girls?" demanded the girl, with sudden vigor. "They done fooled pop, did they?"

"I don't understand what you mean by 'those other girls,'" Ruth hastened to say.

"Why, pop's already started for the hills. I I dunno whether he's goin' to Freezeout or not. There ain't nobody at that old camp, nohow. Dunno what you want to go there for."

Ruth waived that matter to say, eagerly:

"How many girls are there in this party your father has gone off with?"

"Two. He 'spected more I reckon, for there's a bunch of ponies down in Jeb's corral. But the girl that bossed the thing said you-all had backed out. It looked right funny to _me_--two girls goin' off there into the hills. And she was a tenderfoot all right."

"You mean the girl who 'bossed' the affair?" asked Tom, curiously.

"Yep. The other girl seemed jest driftin' along with her. _She_ knowed how to ride, and she brought her own saddle and rope with her. But that there tenderfoot started off sidesaddle, like a missioner."

"A 'missioner?'" repeated Ruth, curiously.

"These here women that sometimes come here teachin' an' preachin'. They most all of 'em ride sidesaddle. Many of 'em on a burro at that. 'Cause a burro don't never git out of a walk if he kin help it. But I've purty near broke my neck teachin' four or five of the ponies to stand for a sidesaddle--poor critters. I rid 'em with a blanket wrapped 'round me to git 'em used to a skirt flappin'," and she spoke in some amusement.

"Well," Ruth said, more briskly, "I don't exactly understand those girls going without us. One of them I am sure is our friend. The girl who evidently engaged your father is not a stranger to us; but she was not of our party."

"What in tarnation takes you 'way into them mountains to Freezeout?" demanded Min Peters. "There ain't a sign of color left there, so pop says; and he's prospected all through the range on that far side. Why, he remembers Freezeout when it was a real camp. And I kin tell you there ain't much left of it now."

"Oh!" cried Ruth. "Have you seen it?"

"Sure. I been all through the Range with pop. He didn't have nobody to leave me with when I was little. I ain't never had no chance like other girls," said Min, in no very pleasant tone. "Why I ain't scurcely human, I reckon!"

At that Ruth laughed frankly at her. "What nonsense!" she cried. "You are just as human and just as much of a girl as any of us. As I am. Your clothes don't even hide the fact that you are a girl. But I suppose you wear them because you can work easier in men's garments?"

"And that's where you s'pose mighty wrong," snapped Min.

"No?"

"I wear these old duds 'cause I ain't got no others to wear. That's why."

She said it in an angry tone, and the red flowed into her cheeks again and her gray eyes flashed.

"I never _did_ have nothin' like other girls. Pop bought me overalls to wear when I was jest a kid; and that's about all he ever did buy me. He thinks they air good enough. I haf to work like a boy; so why not dress like a boy? Huh?"

Tom had moved away. Somehow he felt a delicacy about listening to this frank avowal of the strange girl's trials. But Ruth was sympathetic and she seized Min's unwilling hand.

"Oh, my dear!" she cried under her breath. "I am sorry. Can't you work and earn money to clothe yourself properly?"

"What'll I do? The cattlemen won't hire me, though I kin rope and hog-tie as well as any puncher they got. But they say a girl would make trouble for 'em. Nobody around here ever has money enough to hire a girl to do anything. I don't know nothing about cookin' or housework--'cept to make flapjacks. I kin do camp cookin' as good as pop; only I don't use two griddles at a time same's he does. But huntin' parties won't hire me. It sure is tough luck bein' a girl."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Ruth again. "I don't believe that. There must be some way of improving your condition."

"You show me how to earn some money, then," cried Min. "I'll dress as fancy as any of you. Oh! I was watchin' you girls troop up from the train. And that other girl that went off with pop this mornin'. _She_ gimme a look, now I tell you. I'd like to beat her up, I would!"

Ruth passed over this remark in silence. She was thinking. "Wait a moment, Min," she begged, "I must speak to Mr. Cameron," and she led Tom aside.

"Now, Tommy, we've just got to get to Freezeout Camp some way. We don't want to wait here a week or more for the movie company to arrive. Mr. Hammond expects me to have the first part of the scenario ready for the director when he gets on the ground. And I _must_ see the old camp just as it is."

"I'd like to know what that Edith Phelps has got to do with it--and why Ann Hicks went off with her," growled Tom.

"Oh, dear! Don't you suppose I am just as curious as you are?" Ruth demanded. "But _that_ doesn't get us anywhere."

"Well, what will get us to Freezeout?" he asked.

"Getting started, first of all," laughed Ruth. "And we can do it. This girl can guide us just as well as her father could. We can get a man or a boy to look after the ponies and the packtrain. A 'wrangler' don't they call them on the ranch?"

"The girl looks capable enough," admitted Tom. "But what will your Miss Cullam say to her?"

Ruth giggled. "Poor Miss Cullam is doomed to get several shocks, I am afraid, before the trip is over."

"All right. You're the doctor," Tom said, grinning. "Looks to me like some lark. This Min Peters is certainly a caution!"