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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle, by Laura Lee
+Hope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle
+       Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run
+
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2006  [eBook #19318]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Emmy, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 19318-h.htm or 19318-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/1/19318/19318-h/19318-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/1/19318/19318-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+
+or The Girl Miner of Gold Run
+
+by
+
+LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale," "The Outdoor Girls at Wild
+Rose Lodge," "The Moving Picture Girls," "The Bobbsey Twins," "Bunny
+Brown and His Sister Sue," "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's," Etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES
+
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
+
+(Fifteen Titles)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
+
+(Twelve Titles)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
+
+(Eight Titles)
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+Copyright, 1922, by Grosset & Dunlap
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+
+[Illustration: A LANDSLIDE--AND THEY WERE DIRECTLY IN ITS PATH!
+
+_The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page_ 96)]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+          CHAPTER                           PAGE
+
+              I A SUMMER IN THE SADDLE        1
+
+             II GREAT HOPES                   9
+
+            III ENTER PETER LEVINE           22
+
+             IV AN IMITATION HOLD-UP         33
+
+              V THE HANDSOME COWBOY          43
+
+             VI AT THE RANCH                 52
+
+            VII A SUDDEN STORM               62
+
+           VIII ALONG THE TRAIL              72
+
+             IX DANGER AHEAD                 81
+
+              X THE LANDSLIDE                88
+
+             XI IN THE CAVE                  97
+
+            XII IN THE DARKNESS             106
+
+           XIII THE LURE OF GOLD            112
+
+            XIV A DISCOVERY                 120
+
+             XV ALLEN ARRIVES               129
+
+            XVI A TIP                       137
+
+           XVII THE NET TIGHTENS            145
+
+          XVIII IN THE SHADOWS              154
+
+            XIX THE NEW MINE                165
+
+             XX THE VIOLINIST AGAIN         173
+
+            XXI A STARTLING TALE            180
+
+           XXII THE PLAN                    188
+
+          XXIII GREAT DAYS                  198
+
+           XXIV THE END OF PETER LEVINE     202
+
+            XXV INNOCENT                    210
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A SUMMER IN THE SADDLE
+
+
+"Hello, hello! Oh, what is the matter with central!"
+
+The dark-haired, pink-cheeked girl at the telephone jiggled the receiver
+impatiently while a straight line of impatience marred her pretty mouth.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!"
+
+"At last! Is that you, Mollie Billette? I've been trying to get you for
+the last half hour. What's that? You've been home all morning twiddling
+your thumbs and wondering what to do with yourself? Of course! I knew it
+was central's fault all the time! Now listen! Goodness, what are you
+having over at your house? A jazz dance or something? I can hardly hear
+you speak for the noise."
+
+"No, it isn't a dance," came back Mollie's voice wearily from the other
+end of the wire. "It's just the twins. They want to talk to you. Hold
+the wire a minute while I shut them in the other room."
+
+Followed a silence during which Betty Nelson could distinctly hear the
+wails of Mollie's little brother and sister as they were ushered
+forcibly into an adjoining room. Then Mollie's voice again at the phone.
+
+"Hello," she said. "Still there, Betty? Guess I can hear you a little
+better now. Mother's out, and I've been taking care of the twins. Just
+rescued the cat from being dumped head down in the flour barrel."
+
+"Sounds natural," laughed the dark-haired, pink-cheeked one, as she
+visualized Mollie's little brother and sister, Dodo and Paul. They were
+twins, and always in trouble.
+
+"Anything special you called up about?" asked Mollie's voice from the
+other end of the wire. "Want to go for a ride or something?"
+
+"Not the kind of ride you mean," said the brown-eyed, pink-cheeked one,
+with a knowing little smile on her lips.
+
+At the lilt in her voice Mollie, at her end of the wire, sat up and
+stared inquiringly into the black mouth of the telephone.
+
+"Betty," she said hopefully, "you are hiding something from me. You
+have something up your sleeve."
+
+"You're right and wrong," giggled Betty. "I'm hiding something from you,
+but I can't get it up my sleeve, it's too big!"
+
+"Hurry up!" commanded Mollie in terrific accents. "Are you going to tell
+me what's on your mind, Betty Nelson?"
+
+"When will you be around?" countered Betty.
+
+"In five minutes."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Betty, wait! Is it good news?"
+
+"The best ever," and Betty rang off.
+
+She twinkled at the telephone for a minute, then called another number.
+
+"That you, Gracie?"
+
+The fair-haired, tall, and very graceful girl at the other end of the
+wire acknowledged that it was.
+
+"Please suggest something interesting, Betty," she added plaintively, as
+she took a chocolate from the ever-present candy box and nibbled on it
+discontentedly. "I woke up with the most awful attack of the blues this
+morning."
+
+"What, with a whole summer full of blessed idleness before you?" mocked
+Betty.
+
+"Too much idleness," grumbled Grace. "That's the trouble."
+
+"Enter," said Betty drolly, "Doctor Elizabeth Nelson."
+
+Grace digested this remark for a moment, staring at the telephone in
+much the same manner as Mollie had done a few minutes before. Then she
+swallowed the last of her chocolate in such haste that it almost choked
+her.
+
+"Betty," she said, "I have heard you use that tone before. Is there
+really something in the wind?"
+
+"Come and see," said Betty and a click at the other end of the wire told
+Grace that the conversation was over.
+
+"Oh bother!" she cried, her pretty forehead drawn into a frown. "Now I
+suppose I've got to get dressed and go over there before I can find out
+what she meant."
+
+In the hall she nearly ran into her mother, who was dressed to go out.
+Mrs. Ford was a handsome woman, prominent in the social circles of
+Deepdale. She was kindly and sympathetic, and all who knew her loved
+her.
+
+So now, as she regarded her mother, a loving smile erased the frown from
+Grace's forehead.
+
+"I declare, Mother, you look younger than I do," she said fondly.
+"Whither away so early?"
+
+"The art club, this morning," replied Mrs. Ford, her eyes approving the
+fair prettiness of her daughter. "Are you going out? I thought you were
+deep in that new book."
+
+"I was," said Grace, with a sigh for what might have been. "But Betty
+called up and said she wanted me to come over. There's something in the
+wind, that's sure, but she wouldn't give me even the teeniest little
+hint of what it was. I wasn't going at first, but I----"
+
+"Thought better of it," finished Mrs. Ford, with a smile. "Better go,"
+she added, as she opened the door. "My experience with Betty Nelson is
+that she usually has something interesting to say. Good-by, dear. If any
+one should 'phone while you are here, will you tell them that I shan't
+be back till late afternoon?"
+
+Grace promised that she would and moved slowly up the stairs.
+
+Meanwhile Amy Blackford, the last of the trio to whom the dark-haired,
+pink-cheeked little person who was Betty Nelson had telephoned, had
+stopped merely to remove the apron from in front of her pink-checked
+gingham dress and was now flying along the two short blocks that
+separated her house from the Nelsons'.
+
+As for poor Mollie Billette, she was nearly distracted. Torn with
+curiosity, as that young person very often was, to know the facts that
+had prompted Betty's early call, she yet could not satisfy that
+curiosity. When she had told Betty that she would be around in five
+minutes she had fully meant to make that promise good. But--she had
+forgotten the twins!
+
+Upon entering the room where she had locked them while she talked to
+Betty, she found a sight that fairly took her breath away.
+
+Unfortunately, some one had left an open bottle of ink on the table. One
+of the twins, deciding to play "savages," had pounced upon the ink
+bottle as a means of making the play more realistic!
+
+"Oh, Dodo! Oh, Paul! How could you be so naughty?" moaned Mollie,
+sinking to the floor, while the tears of exasperation rolled down her
+face.
+
+"Paul did it," accused Dodo, waving a pudgy, ink-stained little fist in
+the direction of her brother. "He said, 'let's use this ink and play
+we're savagers----'"
+
+It was upon this scene that Mollie's little French-American mother, Mrs.
+Billette, came a moment later.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" she cried, raising her hands in the French gesture all French
+people know so well. "What is this? Mollie, have you gone quite mad?"
+
+Whereupon Mollie shook the tears of woe from her eyes and explained to
+her mother just what had happened.
+
+"And I was in such a hurry to get to Betty's," she finished dismally. "I
+just know she has something exciting to tell us. And now I don't suppose
+I will get there for hours."
+
+"Oh yes, you will," said Mrs. Billette, with the delicious, almost
+imperceptible, accent she had. "The ink has not yet dried, and luckily
+there is not much about the room. Run along, dear. I fully realize," she
+added, with the smile that made Mollie adore her, "that this, with you,
+is a very important occasion."
+
+"And you are the most precious mother in the world!" cried Mollie,
+flinging young arms about her mother and giving her a joyful hug. "I
+might have known you would understand." And before the words were fairly
+out of her mouth she was flying up the stairs.
+
+When she reached Betty's house at last, out of breath but happy, she
+found that Grace and Amy were there before her. She found them all,
+including Betty, up in Betty's room, a pretty place done in ivory and
+blue, awaiting her coming as patiently as they could.
+
+"Betty wouldn't tell us a thing until you came," was the greeting Grace
+flung at her.
+
+"So don't be surprised if you aren't very popular around here," laughed
+Betty, sitting very straight in her wicker chair, feet stretched out and
+crossed in front of her, hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her face was
+a pretty picture of animation.
+
+"Who cares for popularity?" cried Mollie, as she flung her sport hat on
+the bed and turned to face Betty. "Betty Nelson, bring out that
+surprise."
+
+"Who said it was a surprise?" asked Betty tantalizingly, but the next
+minute her face sobered and she regarded the girls gravely.
+
+"Girls," she said, "I think I see a chance for the most glorious outing
+we have had yet. How would you like----" she paused and regarded the
+expectant girls thoughtfully. "How would you like a summer _in the
+saddle_?"
+
+"In the saddle?" repeated Grace wonderingly, but Mollie broke in with a
+quick:
+
+"Betty, do you mean on horseback?"
+
+"Real horses?" breathed Amy Blackford.
+
+"Yes," said Betty, nodding. "That's just exactly what I mean."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GREAT HOPES
+
+
+"But where are we to do all this?" asked Grace skeptically. "Is somebody
+giving away steeds for the asking? Wake me up, somebody, when Betty gets
+through dreaming."
+
+"Keep still, you old wet blanket," cried Mollie. "Can't you see Betty is
+really in earnest?"
+
+"Never mind them," said Amy, leaning a little breathlessly toward Betty.
+"Let them fight it out between themselves. What is the great news,
+Betty?"
+
+"It _is_ great news," said Betty radiantly. "Listen, my children. Mother
+has received a legacy from a great uncle that she had almost forgotten
+she had."
+
+"Money?" queried Grace, interested.
+
+"No, that's the best part of it," said Betty. "Oh, girls, it's a ranch,
+a great big beautiful ranch in the really, truly west!"
+
+"Honest-to-goodness, wild and woolly?" queried Mollie, beaming.
+
+"Better than that," answered Betty with the same lilt to her voice that
+the girls had heard over the telephone. "I shouldn't wonder if we should
+find the real old-fashioned, movie kind of cowboys there--sombreros, fur
+leggings, bandannas, and all."
+
+"But where," interrupted Mollie, who had been waiting with more or less
+patience for Betty to come to the point, "do we come in, in all this? I
+fail to see----"
+
+"Oh hush," cried Betty, her eyes dancing. "You interrupt entirely too
+much. Where do we come in, she wants to know," she paused to bestow a
+beaming glance on Grace and Amy. "That's the biggest joke of all. Where
+do we come in? Why, honey dear, we're the whole show!"
+
+"The whole show," they murmured, beginning to see the light.
+
+"You bet," said the brown-haired, rosy-checked one slangily. "Now
+listen. I think I've about argued mother and dad around to the point
+where they'll agree to let us have the use of this wild and woolly
+rancho for a real outdoor adventure. How does that idea strike you?"
+
+"Listen to the child," cried Mollie pityingly. "Such a question!"
+
+"It would be heavenly!" raved Grace. "Think of riding around all day in
+fur leggings and a sombrero. Wide hats are always becoming to me," she
+added musingly.
+
+The girls laughed and Betty threw a pillow at her, missing her by a
+hair's breadth.
+
+"You needn't worry about your hat," laughed Betty. "Reckon there won't
+be anybody around there to admire you but Indians and broncho busters."
+
+"Oh, aren't the boys coming?" Grace asked, her disappointment in her
+voice.
+
+"They haven't been asked, silly," Mollie interrupted impatiently. "Tell
+me, Betty," she cried, turning to the Little Captain. "Is it really
+certain that we'll have this chance?"
+
+"No, it isn't," admitted Betty, her bright face sobering. "That's why I
+don't want you to get too excited about it. You see," her voice lowered
+confidentially, "dad might decide to sell it."
+
+"Sell it!" they cried in dismay, and Grace added, with a decision that
+made the girls laugh:
+
+"Oh, he mustn't do that until the fall, anyway."
+
+"All right, Gracie," said Betty, with a chuckle. "I'll give dad his
+orders."
+
+"But why does he want to sell it, Betty?" Amy questioned.
+
+"We-el," said the Little Captain slowly. "You see mother has already
+received an offer of fifteen thousand dollars for it. There's a ranchman
+out there, I think his name is John Josephs, or some such name, who
+seems to want to get hold of our ranch. So his lawyers have offered
+mother fifteen thousand for it."
+
+"That's a pretty good lot of money," said Amy thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, it is," agreed Betty. "And dad seems to think that the best thing
+mother could do would be to take the money and get rid of the ranch. He
+says it will be a sort of white elephant on our hands, since there isn't
+very much chance of our going out there to live," she ended, with a
+chuckle.
+
+"Well," said Grace, with an injured air, "I don't see why you called us
+all over here just to disappoint us. If your father is going to sell the
+place, then we certainly sha'n't be able to make ourselves beautiful
+with bandannas and picturesque hats----"
+
+"Ah, but you did not let me finish," hissed Betty, melodramatically. "We
+have one ally--my mother."
+
+"Your mother!" cried Mollie, eagerly. "Then she doesn't want to sell the
+ranch?"
+
+"Right, the first time," cried Betty hilariously. "I think mother has a
+sneaking notion that she might look pretty good in a cowboy make-up
+herself. You see," she added, with a twinkle, "mother has never had a
+chance to own a real honest-to-goodness ranch before."
+
+"Oh, isn't she sweet!" cried Mollie fervently, adding, as one to whom
+inspiration had come: "I tell you what, Betty, we'll take her with us!"
+
+"How sweet of you," drawled Grace. "Especially since the ranch belongs
+to her!"
+
+The other girls chuckled and Mollie looked rather sheepish.
+
+"Oh, well," she admitted, "I guess it would be a case of her taking us
+along."
+
+"And I don't envy her the job," said gentle Amy unexpectedly, while the
+girls gazed their reproach.
+
+"Betty," said Mollie, "there is one very important thing that I would
+like to know."
+
+"Well, I'm the original little information bureau," Betty assured her.
+"What will you have?"
+
+"Does your dad really want to sell the ranch? Or is your mother likely
+to win out?"
+
+"Oh, mother always gets her way," said Betty confidently, adding:
+"Besides, the ranch was left to mother, you know, and not to dad. So
+really she has the say about it."
+
+"Yes, but she might change her mind," said Grace pessimistically.
+"Fifteen thousand dollars is a lot of money, you know. She might decide
+to sell the ranch, after all."
+
+"Well," said Betty, with an air of importance that the girls were quick
+to notice, "there is another reason why mother will probably hold on to
+the property, for a little while at least."
+
+"Yes?" they queried eagerly.
+
+"You see," Betty continued thoughtfully, "mother has an idea that this
+John Josephs is a little too anxious to buy the ranch. It's right up in
+the gold region, you know----"
+
+"Gold!" shrieked Mollie. "You never said a word about gold, Betty
+Nelson! Do you mean there may be gold----"
+
+"Now she _is_ getting interesting," admitted Grace, shaken out of her
+usual calm.
+
+"How romantic," murmured Amy, breathing fast.
+
+"Yes," said Betty ruefully. "That's what dad says mother is--romantic!
+He says there isn't a chance in a thousand that there is real gold
+anywhere near that ranch----"
+
+"Stop, woman, stop!" cried Mollie, with her most tragic scowl. "Wouldst
+put an end to all our dreams in one fell swoop----"
+
+"Probably that is all we shall do--just dream," said Betty, insisting
+upon being practical. "It's an idea of mother's, that's all. But she is
+really determined to see the ranch, at least, before she makes up her
+mind whether to sell or not. In fact," she hesitated, colored a little,
+then went on bravely, "dad has decided to send Allen out there to look
+up the title. There is some trouble about that, I think----"
+
+"Oh, now we know why she is so anxious to be a little cow girl," teased
+Grace, while the others regarded Betty's pretty color gleefully.
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty!" cried Mollie, shaking her head dolefully, "you are
+altogether hopeless!"
+
+For Allen Washburn, of whom Betty had spoken in connection with the
+ranch, was a very promising young lawyer. Also this promising young
+lawyer was very fond of Betty Nelson. And while the girls are shaking
+their heads over this fact a little time will be taken to describe the
+Outdoor Girls to those readers who have not already met them and to
+review briefly the many and varied adventures they had had up to this
+time.
+
+Betty Nelson, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and rosy-cheeked, was the natural
+leader of the four Outdoor Girls, a fact which had led to her being
+dubbed "Little Captain" by the adoring girls. Betty's father, Charles
+Nelson, had made a good deal of money in his manufacture of carpets,
+and Betty's mother was a very sweet lady whom the name of Rose fitted
+exactly.
+
+Next came Mollie Billette, dark-haired and with snapping black eyes, who
+was almost as French in her manner as her very French mother.
+
+Readers of the present volume must already feel very well acquainted
+with Grace Ford. Grace was the Gibson type, tall and slender and
+fair-haired and very pretty, with a decided liking for looking in
+mirrors.
+
+Last of the quartette came Amy Blackford. Amy was the ward of John and
+Sarah Stonington, and for a long time she had thought her own name was
+Stonington. The mystery of her past had been cleared up, however, and
+Amy had come into her own. Shy, gentle, sweet, she was beloved and
+protected by the more hardy and active Betty and Mollie. And Amy, as shy
+girls sometimes will, had begun to think very much of Grace Ford's
+attractive brother, Will--which is a reminder that it is time to
+introduce "the boys."
+
+Allen Washburn and his open fondness for Betty have already been spoken
+of. Allen was tall, nearly six feet. Sunburned and handsome of face and
+quick of action, Allen attracted every one wherever he went. And, truly,
+Betty was no exception to this rule! Allen had been one of the first to
+volunteer his services to the good old army of the U. S. A., and while
+he had gone over only a buck private, he had come back a lieutenant.
+
+There was Will Ford, Grace's brother, whom Grace and Amy both adored.
+Will had been in the secret service when our country entered the war,
+and because of this he had been the victim of considerable
+misunderstanding. Afterward he had joined the army with the other boys.
+This was after some skillful secret service work that won the praise of
+the government, as well as the fervent admiration of the boys and girls.
+
+The other two boys were Frank Haley and Roy Anderson who had come into
+the little group because of their friendship for Will and Allen. They
+were fine, clean-cut, likable boys, who had come through the war with
+colors flying.
+
+The young folks had lived all their lives in Deepdale, a thriving little
+city with a population of about fifteen thousand people and situated in
+the heart of New York State. Deepdale was situated on the Argono River,
+a beautiful and romantic stream where pleasure craft of all sorts
+disported themselves. A branch line of the railroad connected with the
+main line directly to what the four Outdoor Girls believed to be the
+most wonderful of all cities, New York.
+
+The name of "Outdoor Girls" had come to the quartette from the fact
+that they invariably spent their summer vacations, and winter holidays
+also, in some sort of outdoor sport. They could ride, swim, play tennis,
+drive, and, in fact, do everything that is expected of the athletic
+young girl of to-day.
+
+They would never forget that first tramping tour when they had tramped
+for miles over the country, meeting with a great many unusual adventures
+on the way, as related in the first volume of this series, entitled,
+"The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale." Nor those other times at Rainbow Lake,
+in Florida, at Ocean View, and later at Pine Island, where they had come
+across that marvelous, mysterious gypsy cave.
+
+Then had come the war with the boys on the other side, and the girls
+doing their "bit" at a Hostess House. And a little later what black
+distress overwhelmed them, when Will Ford was reported wounded and
+Allen's name was among the missing! This all happened while they were at
+Bluff Point taking a much-needed vacation from their work at the Hostess
+House.
+
+In the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girls at
+Wild Rose Lodge," the girls had had same very exciting experiences. An
+old man, Professor Dempsey, by name, who had retired to a little log
+cabin in the woods to recover his health, had chanced to do the girls a
+very great favor. Of course the girls were grateful to him and were very
+much interested when he told them of his two sons who were in the war.
+Later, when the girls read of the death of his two sons in the paper,
+they went to the old man's lonely cabin in the woods, but found
+themselves too late. According to a friendly neighbor, the old man had
+become temporarily insane at the terrible news, had wrecked his cabin in
+an insane frenzy, and disappeared.
+
+Later, at Wild Rose Lodge, the girls were frightened several times by a
+strange apparition lurking in the woods around the lodge and Moonlight
+Falls, a beautiful fall of water not far from the cottage where the
+girls were staying. Later the boys came home from France and helped the
+girls solve the mystery.
+
+And now here was Betty proposing another outing that promised to be more
+fun than any the Outdoor Girls had had yet. No wonder that in the clamor
+of their excited questions and answers no one heard the telephone
+ringing noisily in the hall.
+
+Finally the Nelsons' maid came trudging up the stairs to answer it
+herself.
+
+"If I can hear myself think," she grumbled, as she took the receiver
+from the hook. "With all them girls a-gabberin' an' a-talkin' at the
+top o' their lungs. Hello--I can't hear you--you'll have to talk
+louder--you don't know the noise they is in this house. Miss
+Betty?--jus' a minute----"
+
+"A gen'leman to speak to you, Miss Betty," she announced a moment later,
+looking in on the hilarious girls. "An' le's hope you can hear him
+better'n I could, that's all," she grumbled, as Betty pushed by her in
+the doorway and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
+
+"Oh, they'll keep quiet now, all right," she said, with a laughing
+glance over her shoulder at her chums. "They'll want to hear what I have
+to say."
+
+At which taunt the girls started such a dreadful clamor that she really
+had all she could do to hear Allen at the other end of the wire. Oh,
+yes, it was Allen!
+
+"Sech a noise," grumbled the maid, as she trudged down the steps again.
+"I never did see sech wild uns!"
+
+"Hello, hello, Allen," called Betty into the telephone. "The girls are
+here and--what's that? At Walnut Street? All right, that will be fine. I
+can't talk now. Tell you why later. Yes, we'll be there. Don't be silly.
+Good-by!"
+
+Her face was flushed when she confronted the girls again.
+
+"The boys have a half holiday--it's Saturday, you know," she told them,
+while they regarded her mischievously. "And they want us to pick them up
+in the car, get some lunch somewhere, and make a day of it. I told him
+we would."
+
+"By 'him' I suppose you mean Allen," said Mollie, to which Betty ducked
+her a bow and the other girls giggled. "I like their nerve wanting us to
+pick them up. Why doesn't Frank come for us in his big car?"
+
+"Allen figured it would take too long for them to come home and get it."
+
+"My, they must be in a hurry to see us," said Grace, with a simper that
+sent the girls off into gales of laughter.
+
+"Well," said Betty finally, "are you coming, or are you not?"
+
+For answer Mollie jumped up, pressed a hat upon Grace's indignant head,
+handed Amy her coat, and crushed her own sport hat down on her dark
+hair.
+
+"Be this our answer," she said dramatically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ENTER PETER LEVINE
+
+
+It is to be feared that the boys did not have as pleasant a time on that
+Saturday afternoon motor drive as they had hoped to have. For, whereas
+the girls should have showered their attentions upon them, the boys,
+they insisted upon talking about nothing but Gold Run Ranch, which was
+the name of the property left to Mrs. Nelson by her great uncle.
+
+"You aren't very complimentary to us," Frank grumbled, as he hunched
+himself over the wheel of Mollie's car. "You seem mighty glad to go out
+to this forsaken old ranch where you won't see us for the whole summer."
+
+"I guess we can stand it if you can," Mollie responded lightly, which
+only caused him to glower the more.
+
+"Now I'll say Allen knew what he was doing when he studied law,"
+remarked Roy Anderson gloomily, as he glanced over his shoulder at young
+Allen Washburn, who was driving Betty's neat little roadster with Betty
+herself beside him. "He sure falls in soft on this job."
+
+"Meaning, I suppose," drawled Grace, "that he will have the pleasure of
+our company at Gold Run Ranch. Never mind, old boy, you needn't look so
+dreadfully gloomy. Have a chocolate and brace up."
+
+"You give it to me," said Roy, laughing. Grace obediently popped a large
+juicy one into his mouth. It may be remarked that after this performance
+he really did look more cheerful.
+
+"Anyway, we'll be back sometime, I suppose," said Mollie, continuing on
+the subject that was uppermost in her mind.
+
+"Yes, if we don't run away with some of those handsome cowboys," put in
+Amy, with a chuckle. "Betty says they abound around Gold Run Ranch."
+
+The girls giggled, but Will looked fierce.
+
+"You had better not," he said, and though his look was for all the
+girls, Amy knew that the words were for her. She colored prettily and
+promised with her eyes that she wouldn't.
+
+Grace caught this by-play as she munched a chocolate grumpily. Adoring
+her brother Will as she did, she had always been a little jealous of his
+fancy for Amy.
+
+"Anyway, they don't have to be so silly in public," she told herself
+resentfully. As she roused herself from her musing, she heard Mollie
+say, with a laugh:
+
+"Don't be surprised if we come home with our pockets full of gold. Mrs.
+Nelson thinks there is some of it about there."
+
+"Oh, are you still talking about that silly old ranch?" Grace broke in
+petulantly. "I don't know why you are getting so excited about it when
+there is more than a chance that we sha'n't go at all."
+
+"Hooray!" cried Frank, and stepped on the accelerator.
+
+Mollie, beside him, turned to look at him coldly.
+
+"I'm glad you feel that way about it, Frank Haley," she said primly.
+"But I'm very sorry to say we don't."
+
+"Now, I have put my foot in it," cried Frank ruefully, turning his
+irresistible smile full upon her. "What shall I do to make up, Mollie?
+Hold your hand or something?"
+
+His free hand closed over hers, but she snatched her own away with
+indignation that ended in a chuckle.
+
+"Tend to your knitting," she warned him. "Didn't you see that we almost
+ran over that dog?"
+
+But however much they might joke about the possibility of their not
+realizing their dreams for the summer, the Outdoor Girls were really
+worried about it, and the next few days were anxious ones for them.
+
+Suppose Mrs. Nelson should yield to her husband's arguments and resolve
+to sell the ranch after all? For awhile it almost seemed as though she
+were about to do this very thing, and the suspense nearly drove the
+girls frantic.
+
+Then something happened to turn the tide in their direction. And how the
+girls afterwards blessed that loud-necktied, check-suited man!
+
+It was Betty who came to the door to admit this angel in disguise, it
+being the hired girl's day out. Her first glance at the stranger served
+to stamp him as one of those loud-voiced, flashily dressed persons
+commonly referred to as "sports," and at this first glance Betty took a
+violent dislike to him.
+
+However, being accustomed to treat every one with kindliness, she asked
+him gravely whom he wished to see.
+
+"Is Mrs. Nelson at home?" he asked ingratiatingly.
+
+"Why, yes," hesitated Betty, then her natural courtesy getting the
+better of the dislike she felt for this person, she added politely:
+"Won't you come in? I will call mother."
+
+With blandly murmured thanks the owner of the checked suit stepped over
+the threshold, his eyes still on Betty to such an extent that she was
+glad to be able to slip upstairs out of his sight.
+
+"Mother," she explained hurriedly, finding that lady in her pretty
+dressing room, "there's a horrid person downstairs who wants to see you.
+I don't like his looks, and if you don't want to see him I can tell him
+you aren't at home----"
+
+"Heavens, Betty, is he as bad as all that?" asked Mrs. Nelson, as she
+rose hastily and gave an automatic pat to her hair. "I hope he doesn't
+steal the silver. You shouldn't have left him alone, dear----" and with
+these words she swept out of the room and down the stairs.
+
+Betty heard her greet the man, and then slipped off to her own room and
+picked up some half-finished embroidery.
+
+"I hope he doesn't bother mother too much," she mused aloud. "I never
+saw a more unpleasant looking person in my life. I wonder what he can
+want, anyway."
+
+It was fully half an hour later that she heard the closing door
+downstairs that told her their unwelcome visitor had left. A minute
+later her mother herself opened the door of Betty's room, looking so
+troubled and unsettled that Betty jumped to her feet in quick alarm.
+
+"Mother, did that man say anything to make you feel bad?" she cried.
+"Because, if he did----"
+
+"No, no, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, sinking into a chair, while her eyes
+sought the window thoughtfully. "I am worried, that's all."
+
+Betty drew a low chair over beside her mother, and, sitting down, took
+Mrs. Nelson's hand in both her own.
+
+"Tell me, dear," she urged.
+
+Mrs. Nelson drew her troubled gaze away from the window and looked at
+the Little Captain intently.
+
+"Betty," she said, "there is something strange about this Gold Run Ranch
+of ours. This man----"
+
+"Yes?" prompted Betty, as her mother paused.
+
+"This man who called this morning wanted to buy the ranch for a western
+client of his. It seems this client is willing to pay me my own
+price--within reasonable limits of course. He seemed so strangely eager
+to make a deal with me----"
+
+"Yes?" prompted Betty again, beginning to look worried herself.
+
+"Well," continued Mrs. Nelson, "I decided then and there that I
+wouldn't sell to anybody."
+
+"Oh, Mother!" Betty was all eagerness now, "do you really mean it?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Nelson, determination replacing uncertainty.
+"There must be something unusual about Gold Run or John Josephs and this
+man, too, wouldn't be so anxious to get it away from me. I am certainly
+not going to let them drive me into selling, until I see my property at
+least."
+
+"Good for you, Mother!" cried Betty enthusiastically. "I've been
+fearfully worried for fear you wouldn't see it that way. Did you tell
+the man in the check suit that?"
+
+"No, I didn't," said Mrs. Nelson, smiling as she pressed Betty's hand.
+"Now you will see what a schemer your mother is, my dear. I told him I
+hadn't definitely decided yet on any course, that I had already had a
+very good offer for my ranch, and that he would have to see Allen
+Washburn, our attorney. I wanted Allen to have a chance to size this man
+up and see if he has the same impression of him that I had."
+
+"Mother," breathed Betty admiringly, "I think you are wonderful." Then
+after a little pause, she added shyly: "You really think a great deal
+of--of Allen's ability, don't you, Mother?"
+
+"I do, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, stroking the brown head gently. Then she
+added with a hint of mischief in her voice: "Your father and I have come
+to feel toward him almost as if he were our son."
+
+"Oh--" murmured Betty, very faintly.
+
+Two days went by--anxious ones for the girls. In the Nelson home, this
+time in the pretty living room, Allen Washburn was now a guest.
+
+"Well," Mrs. Nelson said, with more than a hint of eagerness in her
+voice, "what did you think of our loudly-dressed friend, Allen?"
+
+"Was he as bad as Mrs. Nelson's description makes him out to be?" asked
+Mr. Nelson, smiling genially through a cloud of cigar smoke.
+
+Betty, in a corner of the lounge, was trying her best to be calm while
+she waited eagerly for Allen's reply.
+
+"I don't know just how Mrs. Nelson described this fellow to you, I'm
+sure," he answered, with a smiling glance toward Betty's mother. "But
+I'm quite sure that she didn't say anything bad enough."
+
+"Then you didn't like him either?" asked Mrs. Nelson quickly.
+
+"I neither liked him nor trusted him," Allen replied decidedly, adding
+with a wry smile: "He calls himself Peter Levine, but I'm willing to
+wager about anything I have that that isn't his real name."
+
+"You think he's a sharper then?" Mr. Nelson interjected.
+
+"Yes, sir," responded Allen, his young face earnestly intent. "He looks
+to me like one of these confidence men who abound in the western boom
+towns--men who can talk the other fellow into putting his last cent into
+some 'sure thing.' 'Sure thing,'" he repeated disgustedly. "The only
+sure thing about most of those schemes is the certainty of 'going bust'
+and losing every penny you have in the world."
+
+"And yet," Mr. Nelson commented, "these sharpers, 'confidence men,' as
+you call them, often manage to keep just within the law."
+
+"Oh yes," said Allen, "they manage to keep the letter of the
+law--sometimes. But that is just a caution to save their own necks. It's
+the spirit of the law that they violate. But we are getting away from
+the point," he added, pulling himself up short with an apologetic smile
+toward Mrs. Nelson. "We were speaking of this Peter Levine. My summing
+up of him is that he is entirely untrustworthy."
+
+Mrs. Nelson shot a triumphant glance at her husband.
+
+"You see?" she said. "I was sure Allen would agree with me."
+
+"Of course I may be mistaken," Allen continued, rather hesitantly. "But
+I have a very distinct impression, a sort of seventh sense we fellows in
+the law game call it, that this Levine is in league with John Josephs,
+the man that offered you fifteen thousand for the ranch."
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Nelson, startled. "How can you know that?"
+
+"I don't know it," Allen told her. "I only suspect."
+
+"Then what would you advise us to do?"
+
+"Hold tight and not sell till you have had a chance to look matters over
+on the ground--not from a distance."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Nelson rising resignedly and knocking the ashes from
+his cigar, "I suppose that settles it. I shall have to leave my business
+to go to smash," he added, with a chuckle, "while I take my family into
+a barbarous land where every second man you meet has designs on a
+well-filled pocketbook----"
+
+But he got no further, for Betty had run over to him and turned him
+imperiously around till his smiling eyes looked down into her gleeful
+ones.
+
+"Daddy," she cried, "do you really mean it? We can all go to Gold
+Run--you and mother and the girls? We'll have to have the girls, you
+know!" she ended on a pleading note.
+
+"Oh yes, of course," said Mr. Nelson resignedly. "We will have to have
+the girls."
+
+It was a very radiant Betty who, a few minutes later, saw Allen Washburn
+to the door.
+
+"And to think," she murmured, while Allen smiled down at her, "that I
+didn't like that perfect angel, Peter Levine, at first. Why, I should
+have welcomed him with open arms!"
+
+"Why?" asked Allen, taken by surprise.
+
+"Don't you know?" asked Betty, mischievously wide-eyed. "If he hadn't
+happened along just when he did our glorious adventure would have
+dwindled into a might-have-been. Why, I could love him for it."
+
+"Good-night, I'm going!" ejaculated Allen, and before Betty could gasp
+he had flung out of the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" she called, laughter in her voice.
+
+"To kill Peter Levine," growled a voice out of the darkness, and Betty,
+closing the door very softly, chuckled to herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN IMITATION HOLD-UP
+
+
+It was all over. The bustling days of preparation for the long trip,
+during which the girls had hardly had time to give vent to their
+excitement, had passed, and here they were actually finding their places
+in the puffing, western bound train.
+
+"Here's number five," Grace said, as she slid into a velvet-covered seat
+with a sigh of thankfulness. "Who is coming in here with me?"
+
+"Guess I'm elected," laughed Betty. "And here's number seven for Mollie
+and Amy, and mother and dad are in six right across the way. That
+completes the family party."
+
+They were hardly settled when there was a last warning cry of "All
+aboard" and the train began to move ever so slowly from the station.
+
+The girls peered out to wave good-by to the boys and some of their other
+friends who had come to see them off. The young fellows looked rather
+gloomy--all except Allen. The latter shouted something that they took to
+be "See you later!" and then the train swept around a curve, hiding the
+station from view.
+
+"Well," said Grace, with a sigh, as she opened her grip to fish for the
+inevitable candy box, "the boys seemed to take our flitting pretty hard.
+They looked as if we were already dead and buried."
+
+"Far from it," murmured Betty happily, her eyes on the ever changing
+view from the window. "I feel as if we were just beginning to live."
+
+The hours of the morning passed like minutes to the girls, and they were
+surprised when the porter came through with his "Foist call fo' dinnah!"
+
+The afternoon passed uneventfully, and they amused themselves by making
+up stories about their fellow passengers. There was the quaint little
+man in number four who reminded them of Professor Arnold Dempsey and who
+might very easily have been a professor, judging from the number of
+books he carried.
+
+Then there was the freckled-faced small boy in number three whose antics
+kept his mother in a continual state of "nerves." Once when he bounced
+one of those implements commonly known as "spit balls" off of the
+bookish little man's bald head, the girls thought they would die trying
+to stifle their merriment.
+
+Then there was the very pretty, but much be-powdered and rouged girl
+behind them in number nine. Grace embarrassed Betty very much by turning
+around to look at her every five minutes or so.
+
+"She's a moving picture actress or something, I'm sure of it," Grace
+confided in Betty's unsympathetic ear. "I wonder if I could fix my hair
+the way she does. She fascinates me."
+
+"She seems to," Betty retorted dryly, adding with a twinkle. "You may be
+able to fix your hair like hers--though I doubt it--but please remember
+that your mother doesn't want you to use rouge."
+
+"Well, you know I wouldn't do that," said Grace in a huff, adding
+maliciously, "I guess you are just jealous, that's all."
+
+"Uh-huh, that must be it," said Betty, with an unruffled good-nature
+that made Grace secretly ashamed of herself.
+
+"I'm sorry, Betty," she said after a rather long pause, adding
+generously: "You don't need to be jealous of anybody."
+
+"Thanks," Betty answered, with a smile. "I knew you didn't mean it,
+dear."
+
+And so the long hours of the afternoon wore away, dusk came, shrouding
+the swiftly moving landscape in a veil of mystery. So engrossed were
+the girls in contemplation of the changing beauty of nature that it
+seemed almost sacrilege when the blatant lights of the train flashed
+forth, bringing them violently back to a realization of time and place.
+
+"Don't you want any supper?" Mr. Nelson was asking, in his pleasant
+voice. "It isn't like the Outdoor Girls to overlook meal time."
+
+"Far be it from us to spoil our good reputation," cried Mollie
+buoyantly, and away they rushed to the dressing room to wash for supper.
+Though dining on a train was no novelty to the girls, they never lost
+the keenness of their first delight in the experience.
+
+"It's fascinating," Mollie remarked once, spearing desperately at an
+elusive potato as the train jerked and jolted over the rails at sixty
+miles an hour, "to see how often you can raise your coffee cup without
+spilling the coffee all over your food!"
+
+On this night at supper Mollie was so screamingly funny that the girls
+had all they could do to keep their hilarity from making them
+conspicuous.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Nelson at a table for two across the aisle smiled
+indulgently at their charges, and once Mrs. Nelson met her husband's
+glance and chuckled fondly.
+
+"Pretty nice set of girls?" she said softly.
+
+"Pretty nice!" Mr. Nelson agreed.
+
+"I'm beginning to wish we were at Gold Run now," confided Mollie, after
+dining. She and Amy had slipped into the seat opposite Betty and Grace.
+
+"Oh, I think it's all fun," cried Betty, for she was always the last of
+the Outdoor Girls to feel tired. "We change at Chicago to-morrow
+afternoon," she added. "And then two more nights on the train, and then
+Gold Run!"
+
+"Oh, that sounds good," cried Mollie, adding eagerly: "Tell me, Betty,
+shall we be able to choose any horse we want for our own particular
+mount?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Betty, adding with a smile: "It will be interesting to
+see the kind of horse each one of you will choose. Amy will like the
+gentle one, Grace will choose hers for its looks and yours will be the
+most vicious one in the pack, Mollie."
+
+"Well, I like that!" said Mollie unperturbed. "She wants to kill me off
+even before I get there."
+
+"Pack?" murmured Amy. "Is a 'pack' of horses right?" But no one answered
+her.
+
+"I wonder," mused Grace dreamily, "if there will be a tan one--all tan,
+you know, without even a spot of any other color----"
+
+"Oh, of course," laughed Betty. "If we haven't an all tan one in the
+corrals at Gold Run, we'll send to the nearest ranch and have one
+imported for you. Don't worry your little head about that."
+
+A little while after that they stopped at a water station, and most of
+the passengers got off to stretch their cramped limbs. And, as the
+conductor informed them that they would be there for fifteen minutes at
+least, the girls followed the general example.
+
+However, in their enthusiasm at finding the good old solid earth under
+their feet once more, they wandered too far, and the warning toot of the
+starting train found them quite a distance from the platform.
+
+They had not earned the title of Outdoor Girls for nothing, however, and
+by sprinting for all they were worth they were able to make the last car
+just in the nick of time.
+
+"Whew, that was a close call," said Betty as they made their way,
+panting, through to their own car, where Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were
+looking frantically for them. "No more water stations for us."
+
+Darkness fell, and the porters moved about, making up berths and
+answering the hundred and one insistent calls of the passengers.
+
+The girls went to bed with no protest whatever and were soon sleeping
+the sleep of healthy youth. It was toward midnight that they were rather
+rudely jerked out of this beautiful sleep by a sudden and almost violent
+stopping of the train.
+
+Betty, who was sleeping in a lower berth, she and Grace having decided
+to take turns, sat up and peered out of the grimed window into the
+gloom. No station lights greeted her, as she expected confidently they
+would. Nothing but inky, startling blackness.
+
+That she was not the only one roused was proved by the subdued sound of
+voices raised in sleepy protest.
+
+"They ought to put that engineer in prison for stopping like that," said
+a man's voice.
+
+"Gee! I thought it was a wreck, sure," came another surly voice.
+
+At this moment a couple of legs dangled themselves over the side of
+Betty's berth and in another minute the owner of them slid down beside
+Betty. Betty giggled nervously, but Grace clutched her arm and shook it.
+
+"Listen!" she said. "There's nothing to laugh about. This is a hold-up,
+that's what it is! You know what your father said about there being a
+lot of them around this place."
+
+That this conclusion had been reached by some one else in the car was
+proved by a woman's voice that rose shrilly above the rest.
+
+"It's a hold-up, that's what it is!" she cried, adding, with what seemed
+to Betty ridiculous panic: "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?"
+
+"Better stop making a fuss, first off," growled another masculine voice,
+and again Betty giggled nervously.
+
+"Goodness, I hope I don't have to get out in my nightie," she said, and
+poked her head out through the curtains.
+
+"Look out," warned Grace, pulling her back. "You may get shot or
+something."
+
+"Don't be silly," retorted Betty, not altogether decided whether to be
+frightened or amused by the situation. "There isn't anything out there
+but a lot of funny looking heads sticking through the curtains."
+
+"I don't see how you can laugh about it," said Grace, through chattering
+teeth. "I don't think it would be any j-joke to have all our m-money
+taken from us----"
+
+"Sh-h--be quiet," warned Betty, peeping again through the slit in the
+curtain. "Somebody's coming. Listen!"
+
+Grace listened, and so, evidently, did every one else in the car. No
+wonder that, scared though she undoubtedly was, Betty found humor in
+the situation. Heads of every kind and description stuck through the
+curtains, women's, some in boudoir caps, some without, men's heads,
+either bald or with hair grotesquely ruffled by sleep, and on every face
+depicted every one of the varied emotions which have disturbed the human
+race since time began. And there they were, all frozen to immobility by
+the sound of two men's voices raised in heated discussion.
+
+Then the owners of the voices came into view, and the expression on all
+the faces changed to bewildered amazement. Instead of the masked bandit
+which they had half expected to see there was a very portly and very
+excited gentleman and with him was a conductor, not so portly but just
+as excited.
+
+"I tell you," the conductor was saying, his face red with wrath, "you
+are violating the rules of the company by flagging this train for a
+personal matter----"
+
+"You have told me that before," roared the portly gentleman, waxing
+almost apoplectic. "And I've told you I don't care a hang for the rules
+of the company. What I want to find is my daughter and that young scamp
+she ran away with. And if you don't help me, I'll wring your neck!"
+
+"I tell you there is no couple answering your description on this
+train," rasped the conductor, as the two made their way, shouting and
+gesticulating, through the two rows of amazed heads and so on into the
+next car.
+
+"Well, I'll be blowed," commented the voice belonging to one of the
+heads; and as if that were a signal, all the other heads promptly
+withdrew to the accompaniment of exclamations and laughter.
+
+In the darkness of the berth Betty chuckled.
+
+"Oh, they did look so funny, Gracie," she said. "All those people with
+their heads stuck out into the aisle. You should have taken a peek."
+
+"Humph," grunted Grace, unsympathetically, as she prepared to climb into
+her berth again. Then she said: "I hope if that man's daughter takes a
+notion to run away again, she won't do it on our train, that's all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HANDSOME COWBOY
+
+
+Next morning the girls were hilarious over the mirthful episode in the
+train the night before. Betty and Mollie "took off" the expressions on
+the faces of their fellow passengers till Amy and Grace shouted with
+glee.
+
+"Oh, stop it, you two," gasped Grace, finally. "I'm sore from laughing.
+I think you would make a hit as clowns in a circus."
+
+"My, isn't she complimentary?" lisped Mollie, and the girls went off in
+fresh gales of merriment.
+
+"I wish," said Grace, after a pause, "that we were going to reach Gold
+Run this afternoon, instead of Chicago. I'm half afraid to spend another
+night in the sleeper after the scare we got last night. It might be a
+_real_ bandit this time."
+
+"Oh, what would we care?" said Betty carelessly. "I'd rather like to
+meet a train robber, myself."
+
+"About all a bandit could do would be to take our money," added Mollie.
+
+"All!" cried Grace indignantly. "Yes, that's all. And what would we do
+without any money, I'd like to know!"
+
+"Goodness, we could always sell the ranch," said Betty, so
+matter-of-factly that the girls chuckled. "We have Peter Levine to fall
+back on, you know."
+
+"'Peter Levine,'" repeated Amy, then added quickly: "Oh yes, he was the
+man who wanted your mother to sell the ranch."
+
+"Yes, and it was too bad of you to keep him all to yourself, Betty,"
+said Grace reproachfully.
+
+"You might at least have shown him to the rest of us."
+
+"He wasn't anything to show," said Betty, experiencing again the feeling
+of distaste she had had for the man. "He was one of the most unpleasant
+looking men I ever saw. Just the same," she added lightly, "we owe him a
+lot. If it hadn't been for him we probably wouldn't be sitting in this
+beautiful train, speeding to our great adventure. I told Allen I could
+almost love Peter Levine for it."
+
+"You did?" queried Mollie, her eyes dancing. "What did he say?"
+
+"He left me rather suddenly," said Betty, with a chuckle at the memory.
+"He said he was on his way to kill Peter."
+
+"Poor Allen," laughed Grace. "It must be awful to be that way. When is
+he coming out to Gold Run, Betty?"
+
+"As soon as he finishes this case he is on now," answered Betty,
+flushing in spite of herself as she thought of Allen. "There is really
+no great hurry about it, you know. Dad has made up his mind to take a
+regular vacation while he's about it, and I imagine mother won't care if
+she never gets home."
+
+That afternoon they changed trains at Chicago, bemoaning the fact that
+they had not time to see something of the great city before they
+traveled farther west. There was only half an hour between trains and,
+as every one knows, there can be little sightseeing done in that limited
+space of time. As it was, for some reason they could not ascertain, the
+outgoing train was over an hour late in starting. If they had known this
+fact in advance they might have managed to spend their time more
+profitably than in cooling their heels in the station waiting room.
+
+As it was, it was a rather disgruntled set of girls who boarded the
+train for Gold Run and allowed Mr. Nelson and the porter to find their
+seats for them.
+
+"I don't see why trains can't be on time," grumbled Mollie, as she
+peered at the rather distorted image of herself in the narrow mirror
+between the windows. "Here it is nearly seven o'clock and I'm as hungry
+as a bear."
+
+"Well," said Betty, cheerfully, "something tells me they have a diner on
+this train. Come on, girls, let's wash our hands and get something to
+eat."
+
+The girls hardly knew which they enjoyed the most, their dinner or the
+novel scenery that slipped past them so swiftly. It was their first
+venture into this part of the world, and they found the initiation
+fascinating.
+
+"The trouble is," complained Amy, "it will be dark before long and we'll
+have to miss all this," with an expressive sweep of her hand toward the
+car window.
+
+"It is too bad," said Betty, regretfully adding, with a light laugh: "If
+we were only like the princess in the story, the members of whose royal
+house never slept, we would probably see more of the scenery."
+
+That night the girls proved that Grace was not alone in her fondness for
+sleep. There being no more interruptions in the shape of fuming
+gentlemen on the trail of runaway daughters, they slept soundly through
+the long hours while the train plunged onward through the inky
+blackness of the night. They did not stir until the sun, shining on
+their faces, roused them to the realization that another beautiful day
+had dawned.
+
+That is, it was beautiful up to noon. Then it clouded down, and they ate
+lunch while the rain dashed furiously on the windows of the dining car.
+
+"I am thankful we are under cover," said Betty.
+
+"Fancy riding on the ranch in this rain," put in Amy.
+
+"No life in the saddle for me when it rains," broke in Grace.
+
+During the afternoon the girls napped and read. When the time came to
+get supper they were glad to see that they had run away from the storm
+and the sun was setting clearly.
+
+"Funny, how sleepy one gets," drawled Grace, about nine o'clock. "I'll
+not stay up late."
+
+No one wanted to do that, and in less than an hour all were sleeping
+soundly while the long train rumbled along on its trip westward.
+
+"And this is the day," breathed Mollie the next noon, as they made their
+way from the dining car through some half dozen other cars to their own.
+"Betty, I feel as if I couldn't wait to see your beautiful ranch."
+
+"I wonder," said Grace as they dropped into their seats once more, "if
+those cowboys are really as good-looking as you say, Betty. I must
+admit," she added, as she viewed the rather monotonous landscape
+petulantly, "I haven't seen anything that looks like a cowboy yet."
+
+"Goodness, hear the child!" cried Betty airily. "She hasn't been near a
+ranch, yet she expects to see whole droves of cow-punchers----"
+
+"Look," Mollie interrupted, grasping her arm. They were slowing down at
+a station and there were no less than three picturesque looking young
+fellows loitering about the place. One was astride an extremely nervous
+horse that shied as the train puffed to a standstill and rose on his
+hind legs as though trying his best to shake his rider off. "There's a
+real show for you," Mollie cried joyfully. "How does that look to you,
+Gracie? True to life?"
+
+"Um, that's better," admitted Grace, while the girls craned their necks
+for a better view of the horseman. "Now if they only have that sort of
+thing at Gold Run----"
+
+"Well, we'll have a chance to find out pretty soon whether they do or
+not," broke in Betty, the thrill of suppressed excitement in her voice.
+"Dad says we ought to get there in an hour."
+
+"An hour!" wailed Amy, as the train jolted on its way once more and the
+romantic group on the station were lost to view. "And I thought we were
+almost there!"
+
+But the hour passed more quickly than the girls had anticipated, for the
+view from the car windows, becoming more and more interesting, absorbed
+their attention. As a general rule the country was flat, but now and
+then in the background could be caught glimpses of heavily wooded
+mountain ranges that would offer chances for all sorts of adventures to
+the four eager Outdoor Girls.
+
+"I wonder if there are wild animals in those woods," said Amy, her eyes
+widening at the thought. "Real ones."
+
+"You don't suppose they import stuffed ones, do you?" asked Grace dryly.
+
+"Of course there are wild animals--lots of 'em," said Betty, feeling
+more and more gloriously excited as they neared their destination.
+"Maybe we can borrow a gun or two from the cow-punchers and have a shot
+at 'em--animals, I mean, not cow-punchers," she explained, with a
+giggle.
+
+On top of these rather wild imaginings came Mr. Nelson, telling them it
+was time to get their things together, for they were within a few
+minutes of Gold Run.
+
+"I know how long it takes you girls to put a hat on," he laughed. "So I
+think you had better start right away."
+
+Then--Gold Run! with the dash for the door and Grace running back to
+rescue a half-empty but still precious candy box and Mollie wanting to
+know if Amy would please stop pressing her suitcase in the middle of her
+back----
+
+Someway, Mr. Nelson managed to get them all safely to the station
+platform, whereupon he breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"Whew! that's the hardest job you ever gave me, Rose," he remarked to
+his wife, with a chuckle.
+
+Here, as at most of the other stations, was a handful of cowboys who had
+come to meet the train. One of these, a handsome young fellow, detached
+himself from the rest and approached Mrs. Nelson, sweeping off his
+sombrero as he did so.
+
+"Mrs. Nelson, ma'am?" he asked in a soft drawl that captivated the girls
+immediately.
+
+Mrs. Nelson smiled assent and the young fellow indicated a buckboard
+drawn up to the station.
+
+"I brought the wagon," he said, with a grin that showed a beautiful set
+of white teeth. "An' some saddle hosses, thinkin' you might like to
+ride----"
+
+However, the ladies decided on the buckboard, which was driven by a
+shy-eyed, sandy-haired young fellow who gave the girls one frightened
+glance and looked swiftly away again, for all the world, Mollie said
+afterwards, as if he expected them to bite him.
+
+Mr. Nelson elected to ride horseback with Andy Rawlinson, which was the
+name of the good-looking cowboy.
+
+As the driver chirruped to the horses and they clattered over the bumpy
+road, Grace turned to Betty with a smile.
+
+"I have realized the ambition of a life time!" she said dramatically. "I
+have seen one handsome cowboy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AT THE RANCH
+
+
+To the girls, that jolting ride was like an adventure straight from the
+Arabian Nights. The fact that they were squeezed four in a seat which
+was meant to accommodate only three, served to dampen their enthusiasm
+not a trifle. Mrs. Nelson, riding in front with the bashful driver,
+vainly sought to engage him in conversation. After repeated failures she
+settled down to enjoy the ride in silence.
+
+A dozen yards or so ahead of them Andy Rawlinson and Mr. Nelson cantered
+up the dusty road, their horses' hoofs making the dust fly in a white
+cloud.
+
+"Goodness!" sneezed Betty, extracting a small handkerchief from her
+pocket and applying it to her nose, "I do hope those two keep their
+distance. We'll be simply choked with dust."
+
+"I wonder," said Grace, as she rubbed her dust-filled eyes, "if they
+don't have any rain in this part of the world."
+
+"Of course they do; only this happens to be the dry season," said
+Mollie, instructively, from the heights of her superior intelligence. At
+least, that is what she called it.
+
+"I'll say it's dry," grumbled Grace.
+
+"Ooh, look," Amy interrupted ecstatically. "Isn't that a cactus over
+there? Oh, I've wanted all my life to see some real cacti. Now I know
+we're in the West."
+
+The girls were silent for a moment, gazing out over the rolling plain--a
+plain studded with stunted trees and sickly-looking bushes with here and
+there a cactus plant for variety's sake--out to the hazy mountains
+beyond, serene, calm, majestic, jutting jaggedly into the dazzling blue
+of a cloudless sky.
+
+"The mountains!" murmured Betty, half to herself. "How I love them. The
+plains are fascinating in a cruelly romantic way, but somehow the
+mountains make one think of hidden springs rushing swiftly into noisy
+foolish little brooks, of bird songs, and the smell of cool damp earth,
+of the crackling of dry twigs under one's feet, and the pungent woodsy
+smell of camp fires--but there," she broke off confusedly, as she
+realized the girls were regarding her with fond amusement. "I didn't
+mean to wax so poetic."
+
+"It's all right, honey," said Mollie, giving her hand a warm little
+squeeze. "You rave right along. I know just how you feel, for I get that
+way myself sometimes."
+
+"There _is_ something mighty wonderful about the mountains," added Grace
+softly.
+
+"Oh, I love them, too," broke in Amy, adding with such earnestness that
+the girls looked at her wonderingly. "They are everything that Betty has
+said. And yet when Betty spoke of the plains as being cruel I couldn't
+help wondering if the mountains weren't sometimes like that, too."
+
+"What do you mean?" they queried, with quick interest.
+
+"I was thinking," Amy continued slowly, "that the mountains might not
+seem so kind to one who was lost in them--without a gun perhaps. I have
+heard Will say that a person who had no knowledge of woodcraft would
+find it almost impossible to recover his path, once he had lost it.
+And," she added, with a shudder, her eyes fixed steadily on the distant
+mountain range, "there are wild animals in those forests."
+
+"Of course there are," agreed Betty lightly, as she saw how serious the
+girls' faces had become. "Oodles of foxes and bears and raccoons and
+things. Why, how would you expect to get pretty furs when you wanted
+them if those things didn't exist? Cheer up, Amy dear. We're a long way
+from being lost in the woods without a gun!"
+
+A minute later the girls lost interest in everything but the immediate
+present. For, in the distance, but distinctly visible, loomed a long low
+ranch house which the silent driver beside Mrs. Nelson deigned to admit
+was on Gold Run Ranch.
+
+"You see it, girls?" cried the lady, turning a beaming face to the
+girls. "You know, I feel just like a little girl with a beautiful new
+toy."
+
+"And we're awfully glad you've got the toy, Mrs. Nelson," said Grace,
+fervently.
+
+"Look," cried Mollie suddenly. "Your father and that cowboy are turning
+off from the main road. That must be where the ranch begins. Oh, girls,
+oh, girls, I'm glad I came!"
+
+A few minutes later their jolting buckboard turned in after the two
+horsemen, and since the new road proved to be nothing but two deep ruts
+worn in the grass and as the ponies attached to the buckboard showed
+considerable excitement at coming near home, the girls found themselves
+holding on to each other convulsively to keep from being thrown out on
+the stubbly grass at the side of the road.
+
+"Whew, I'm glad that's over!" exclaimed Mollie, as the driver drew in
+the rearing horses and spoke to them soothingly. "Come on, girls," she
+added, making ready to jump out. "I'm going to remove myself from this
+buckboard before one of those horses decides to sit in my lap."
+
+The girls laughed and followed her with alacrity.
+
+"Oh," cried Betty, hugging Amy ecstatically, simply because she happened
+to be the nearest one to hug. "There are the horse corrals over there!
+And, oh, girls! look at the cows, dozens and dozens and dozens of 'em.
+Mother," she cried, turning wide-eyed to the latter, "do all those
+'anymiles' really belong to you?"
+
+"I presume they do, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, her own face flushed with
+excitement. "I can't quite take in the amazing truth of it yet."
+
+They were standing beside the first of a long line of low buildings that
+seemed little more than glorified sheds and which the girls decided must
+be the "bunk houses" for the ranch hands.
+
+And while they were wondering if it would be possible to slip over to
+the corrals for a closer look at the horses, Mr. Nelson sauntered up to
+them, with handsome Andy Rawlinson keeping diffidently a little in the
+rear.
+
+"It's nearly supper time," he informed them smiling. "And Andy here," he
+indicated young Rawlinson, who grinned an acknowledgment, "says that
+everybody has supper sharp on the minute of six. So what do you say if
+we go up to the house and have a little refreshment?"
+
+The girls were not altogether reluctant to obey, much as they desired a
+closer look at the bronchos, for they realized that they were pretty
+hungry.
+
+The ranch house was one of those quaint old structures which had begun
+as a tiny, one-story frame cottage and had gradually been added to until
+now it seemed, Betty said, to "spread all over the landscape." It had
+porches and doors in the most unexpected places, but the whole house was
+painted such an immaculate white and the shutters were such a friendly
+green that the effect of the place was indescribably charming.
+
+"If the house is as clean inside as it looks outside," whispered Grace
+to Betty as Andy Rawlinson led them up on to one of the many porches,
+"I'll never dare go in. I never felt so mussy and dirty in all my life."
+
+"Never mind, we're all in the same boat," said Betty encouragingly, and
+then they stepped into one of the pleasantest rooms they had ever seen.
+
+It was big and cool and airy, in spite of the fact that supper
+preparations were going on at one end of it. Rough picturesque looking
+chairs were scattered about, and over near the windows a long table was
+invitingly set for six. And oh, the delicious odor of cooking things
+that was wafted on the air!
+
+At sight of them a stout but immaculately neat and rosy-faced woman left
+whatever she was doing with a frying pan on the stove and came over to
+them, wiping her hands on her apron, her face wreathed in smiles.
+
+"Go long with you, Andy Rawlinson," she cried as the youth lingered
+rather awkwardly in the doorway. "There's no need for you to tell me who
+these folks are, for I already know them for the new master and his lady
+and the young ladies, bless their pretty sweet faces. Come right in, all
+of you, and Lizzie here," turning to a wholesome-looking, mouse-haired
+girl who had come in from the other room, "Lizzie will take you to see
+the rooms and you can have your pick. But don't be long," she cautioned,
+as they started to follow Lizzie and she turned back to her frying pan
+on the stove, "for supper is all ready and you must be nearly famished."
+
+If the girls had been impressed by the quaintness of this quaint old
+house from the outside, they were even more delighted by its interior.
+
+They passed down a rather dark and narrow hall at the end of which were
+three low steps leading to such a series of rooms as the girls had never
+seen before, each furnished neatly but plainly, the only touch of color
+being the gay cretonne curtains at the windows. The rooms all seemed to
+be connected by doors and to reach these doors one was obliged to go up
+two steps or down three or up one, as the case might be.
+
+"Goodness," cried Betty, when Lizzie had led the way through three of
+these quaint little rooms and the open doors seemed to reveal several
+others, "I wonder if all these rooms were really occupied."
+
+"Yes, miss," said Lizzie, halting and speaking unexpectedly. "They was a
+time when these rooms wuz all filled. Old Mr. Barcolm"--this being the
+name of Mrs. Nelson's great uncle--"had a many children and
+grandchildren an' seemed like he was sot on 'em all livin' with him. But
+they got to quarrelin' and all left th' old man an' he was so mad he cut
+'em all out o' his will. At least," she finished, as though warned by
+the intent look of her listeners that she had said more than she had
+intended to, "that's what they says. But mebbe it ain't the truth, fer
+all I knows."
+
+Then she led them on again through the maze of rooms while the girls
+thought amazedly of what she had told them. Finally she came to a stop
+in a room, larger than the rest, and turned her rather stolid gaze upon
+Mr. and Mrs. Nelson.
+
+"Miz Cummins," she announced, dully--the girls were afterward to find
+out that Cummins was the name of the rosy-faced woman who had met them
+so cordially at the door and who seemed to be general housekeeper for
+the place--"Miz Cummins thought as how this would be a good room fer the
+mister and missus. They is some nice rooms back of these fer the young
+ladies. She sed, if you liked any of the other rooms better, to take
+your pick. They's fresh water in the pitchers," indicating a washstand
+with a bowl and two pitchers of gleaming water upon it, "an' if you want
+anythin' else, you wuz please to tell me." And with these words, uttered
+so precisely that it sounded like a rehearsed speech, which, in fact, it
+was, Lizzie disappeared, leaving the travelers to themselves.
+
+"Come on, girls," cried Betty, pushing them before her into the next
+room. "Let's see what kind of rooms 'Miz Cummins' has picked out for
+us."
+
+They were not at all unusual rooms, being both about the same size and
+nearly square and furnished about as simply as they could possibly be.
+
+"If it weren't for the different colored cretonne at the windows," said
+Mollie, with a chuckle, "these rooms might be twins. You and Grace can
+have the lavender cretonne, Amy, and Betty and I will take the blue."
+
+"Don't those beds look heavenly?" sighed Grace, as she pulled off her
+hat and threw herself upon the big, snowy-sheeted bed.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Amy, in dismay. "She's flopped. Get her up, somebody,
+before she gets the bed so dirty I can't sleep in it to-night."
+
+For answer Betty made a dash for Grace, pulled her to her feet, and
+pushed her over to the washstand.
+
+"See that water, Grace Ford?" she cried sternly. "Now use it!"
+
+"And make it snappy," added Mollie slangily, as she and Betty
+disappeared into the adjoining room. "I can smell 'Miz Cummins'' cooking
+clear in here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SUDDEN STORM
+
+
+The girls spent the rest of that day getting acquainted, at which
+agreeable task Andy Rawlinson, the head cowboy, assisted pleasantly. The
+latter introduced them to several others of the ranch hands, all of whom
+were as picturesque and good-natured as Andy himself.
+
+Escorted by Rawlinson and followed by the admiring glances of the other
+cowboys, the girls were introduced to the interior of the bunk houses
+which, with their rude wooden cots built into the side of the walls,
+their scanty and rather severe furniture, and the romantic looking
+trophies fastened to the bare boards of the walls, filled the girls with
+curiosity and interest.
+
+Then on to the corrals, where some spectacular broncho busting was
+staged for the sole benefit of the visitors. In this dangerous business
+Andy himself took a part, and the girls gasped with dismay and later
+with admiration as the boy ran alongside a vicious looking animal for a
+few paces, then flung himself recklessly upon the beast's back and
+clung there, seemingly defying all the laws of gravitation.
+
+"Oh, he surely will be killed!" cried Amy, clutching Betty in terror.
+"That horse will throw him----"
+
+"Keep quiet, can't you, Amy?" cried Mollie impatiently, beside herself
+with excitement. "Don't you suppose he has ever done this sort of thing
+before?"
+
+Then followed such an exhibition of sheer grit and skill and dauntless
+courage as none of the girls would ever forget.
+
+The vicious brute raced madly around and around the corrals, cruel head
+upflung, nostrils dilated, but still the man upon his back clung with
+maddening persistence. Then he stopped so suddenly that the man was
+almost flung over his lowered head and the girls held their breath, but
+Andy recovered himself and touching the spurs to the beast's belly, sent
+it flying round the corral once more. There was sweat on its body and
+the flaring nostrils were blood red with the effort, but the spirit of
+the beast was still unbroken.
+
+Around and around the ring he plunged, the other horses galloping wildly
+from his path, then suddenly as though the thing on his back had
+maddened him past bearing, he began to buck and to plunge and to rear
+himself on his hind legs in a desperate effort to throw himself
+backward, until it seemed to the fascinated, terrified girls that Andy
+Rawlinson surely must be killed.
+
+[Illustration: HE CLUNG TO THE HORSE'S BACK AS THOUGH HE HAD BEEN A PART
+OF HIM.
+
+_The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle._ _Page 64_]
+
+But Andy Rawlinson had not spent his twenty-eight years in the saddle
+for nothing. He clung to that horse's back as though he had been a part
+of him, and when the outraged beast tried to throw himself over backward
+for the second time, Andy evidently decided that he had played enough.
+
+A cruel blow of his spurred heel brought the beast almost to its knees
+with a whinny of pain. Then it jumped high in the air, and once more
+began its furious race with this mysterious and horrible being that
+clung so tenaciously to his back.
+
+Andy rode him hard, cruelly hard, and when the beast, panting, sweating,
+beaten, would have stopped he dug the spurs in and drove him on, on,
+until the broncho's breath came in sobbing gasps and his legs trembled
+under him.
+
+Betty, who could never bear to see anything hurt, shouted to Andy
+Rawlinson as man and beast came abreast of her:
+
+"Isn't that enough?" she cried. "You've beaten him. Stop! Please
+stop!"
+
+And Andy Rawlinson, flashing his pleasant smile, flung himself from his
+mount, while the beautiful horse stood there, quivering, head hung in
+shame----
+
+"Game hoss, that," said Andy, as he vaulted the low railing and
+approached the girls. "Fought like a thoroughbred."
+
+"And you were wonderful," cried Betty, with her warm impulsiveness. "I
+never saw finer riding. We were all afraid you were going to be killed."
+
+Andy was pleased, but he looked at Betty rather quizzically.
+
+"Strange," he drawled, with a smile on his face, "strange what
+impressions you get sometimes. Now I kind o' thought you was mad at me,
+the way you called out to stop. Anyways, you looked mad."
+
+"I was only sorry for the horse," Betty explained gravely. "He was game,
+as you say, and I hated to see his spirit entirely broken."
+
+Andy Rawlinson looked at her with admiring approval in his nice eyes.
+
+"There speaks the real lover of animals," he cried enthusiastically. "I
+hate to break a good hoss myself, but you see it has to be done--for the
+sake of the hoss. A hoss that's a bad actor is mighty like a mad dog.
+It has to be killed--or broke. So we break 'em. But now," he said,
+glancing toward the corrals, "I reckon you young ladies would like to
+pick out some nice gentle hosses to ride while you're here."
+
+The girls nodded and crowded forward eagerly while Andy called to some
+of the cowboys who had been lingering enviously near.
+
+"Bring out the sorrel and Nigger, will you, Jake?" he said to one of
+them. "I'll corral Lady and Nabob."
+
+The girls watched with interest while the boys corraled the four horses
+Andy had selected and led them forth for the visitors' inspection.
+
+They were splendid specimens of horse flesh, and for a moment the girls
+were simply lost in admiration. Nigger, as his name implied, was a
+magnificent coal-black animal without a speck of white upon him
+anywhere. He and Betty seemed to form a mutual admiration society on the
+instant, for with a gentle whinny he cantered up to the girl and began
+nosing inquisitively in her pocket in search of sugar. Luckily Betty had
+brought some with her, and she fed a couple of lumps to the beautiful
+animal, thereby definitely sealing their pact of friendship.
+
+"Oh you, Nigger!" crooned Betty joyfully, as she rubbed the velvet
+muzzle. "You and I are going to be great little pals, aren't we? You
+perfect old darling!" And Nigger whinnied again and nosed about for more
+sugar.
+
+"Well, I like that," cried Grace, breaking the silence in which they had
+all been enjoyably regarding the little scene. "Betty doesn't have to
+choose her horse--it chooses her."
+
+"Oh well, Betty always did have a way with her," laughed Mollie, and
+promptly turned her attention to the remaining three horses.
+
+"Lady" was a lovely white filly with whom Amy fell in love immediately.
+
+"This one's mine," she cried, putting a possessive hand on Lady's flank
+while the latter turned her dainty head and regarded the girl out of
+softly-wistful brown eyes. "I wanted her as soon as I saw her."
+
+Her claim was not disputed, for Grace was raving over the horse called
+Nabob, who was, by a strange coincidence, that very light tan color
+which she most adored.
+
+"How did you know I always wanted a horse just like this?" she cried,
+turning joyfully to Andy Rawlinson who, with the other "boys" had been
+looking on amusedly.
+
+"Well," drawled Andy, with a grin, "seems like you are all suited pretty
+well."
+
+For Mollie, whose adventurous spirit craved a spice of the dangerous in
+everything, had taken immediately to the sorrel, who had apparently been
+given no name. He was a skittish horse, gentle, as Andy explained, but
+"pow'ful nervous--had to be sort o' coaxed along."
+
+"You're my horse, all right," Mollie declared, stroking the animal's
+muzzle fearlessly, unmindful of rolling eyes and nervously twitching
+ears. "I don't like 'em too tame, old boy. And by the way," she added,
+struck by a sudden inspiration, "I've thought of just the name for you.
+I'm going to call you 'Old Nick.'"
+
+And so, when the selection had been made, to everybody's satisfaction,
+nothing would do but the girls must try their mounts that very evening.
+They had brought their riding tags in preparation for their summer in
+the saddle, and when they had slipped into the tight breeches, and
+leather leggings, tailored coat, and snug fitting hat, they looked like
+what they were--four thoroughly modern and very pretty Outdoor Girls.
+
+Later, when they rode proudly about the ranch on their splendid mounts,
+the ranch hands were lost in admiration of them.
+
+"Gosh," said one, removing his hat and fanning himself with it, for the
+evening was warm, "when Andy said they was four girls comin' from the
+city to visit us I was plumb skeered. But these here girls, they ain't
+no ordinary kind, no siree. An' they sho' does know how to ride."
+
+However, the girls were satisfied with a rather short ride that evening
+for they were out of practice and they knew that sore muscles would be
+the price of over-exertion.
+
+In the days that followed they took longer and longer rides, even
+venturing along the rough forest trails when Andy Rawlinson was with
+them as guide and protector. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson rode, too, but, not
+being as strenuous as the girls, they were glad to have any one as
+capable as Andy Rawlinson to look out for their charges.
+
+But one day, much as they liked him, the girls got a little tired of
+Andy's chaperonage, and at Mollie's suggestion they decided to "give him
+the slip."
+
+"Anybody would think he was our granny, the way he dictates to us," she
+complained, as she flicked a fly from Old Nick's side, thereby causing
+him to shy wildly. "We know our way about all right now, and I'm sure we
+Outdoor Girls never needed anybody to look out for us, anyway."
+
+"Hear, hear," laughed Betty, half way between conviction and protest. "I
+don't like to have Andy around all the time, any more than you do,
+Mollie, but I'm not sure that we know our way about as well as we might.
+If we should get lost----"
+
+"Oh, don't be an old wet blanket," cried Mollie impatiently, and as Amy
+and Grace seemed for once to be of her mind, Betty had nothing to do but
+to surrender as gracefully as she could.
+
+It was after lunch that the girls managed to slip away without being
+observed to where their mounts were tethered at the edge of the
+woodland. And oh, what a glorious sense of freedom when they were
+mounted and cantering down a cool forest trail--alone!
+
+They had been this way with Andy before, so they had no fear of losing
+their path and they urged their horses to more and more speed,
+intoxicated by the sense of freedom.
+
+What they did not notice was that the sun had disappeared behind an
+ominous bank of clouds and the wind was rising threateningly. And so
+they were caught fairly and squarely by the deluge that swept upon them
+with a bewildering suddenness.
+
+Where to go? Where to turn for shelter from the driving rain and moaning
+wind? They checked their horses while they gazed at each other wildly.
+
+Suddenly Betty's straining eyes made out what seemed to be the outline
+of a little shed or cabin, half hidden by surrounding foliage.
+
+"There's a house over there," she cried, hastily dismounting and tying
+Nigger to a tree a little off the path. "Maybe whoever lives there will
+let us in till the rain stops."
+
+The girls followed her example and hurriedly made their way on foot
+toward their one hope of refuge. When they reached the house Betty
+started to knock, then paused uncertainly, her hand uplifted. For above
+the beat of the rain and the shrill whine of the wind came a strain of
+music, mournful, yet exquisitely beautiful. Amazed, forgetful of their
+discomfort, the girls listened while the throbbing, haunting melody
+wailed itself to a close.
+
+"I--I've heard that music before," Betty murmured, then rapped gently,
+almost timidly, on the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ALONG THE TRAIL
+
+
+Betty's knock had to be repeated twice before the occupant of the cabin
+responded.
+
+"Knock harder, Betty, if----" Mollie was beginning when the door opened
+at last and a very strange person stood upon the threshold. Tall, with
+stooped shoulders and a head bent a little as though he had spent
+countless hours over his violin, with long, curly hair, and with the
+visioned eyes of the musician, the man was a figure that would have made
+people turn to stare at him anywhere.
+
+"I--we--we are very sorry to trouble you," said Betty hesitatingly, as
+the musician made no effort to break the silence. "But it is raining
+hard, as you see, and we thought----"
+
+The man started and frowned.
+
+"Ah yes, of course," he said, moving aside and motioning them into the
+room. "You will find shelter here, but very little else, I fear."
+
+As the girls entered rather hesitantly the man turned from them
+abruptly and, lifting the violin that lay upon the rough board table, he
+began with the utmost gentleness to put it in its case. The girls had
+the rather uncomfortable impression that the man was forcing himself to
+be polite to them--that if he had been any other than a gentleman he
+would have refused them admittance.
+
+They looked uneasily at each other and then toward the one window in the
+room, and one thought was in the minds of all of them--to escape from
+the enforced hospitality of this man.
+
+"I think the rain is letting up a little," said Grace softly.
+
+"I reckon we won't have to stay more than a few minutes," agreed Betty,
+then, as their long-haired host put down his case and turned toward
+them, she ventured a shy compliment.
+
+"We heard you playing as we came along," she said. "It was very
+wonderful."
+
+"Thank you," said the man gruffly, and turned away so abruptly that
+Betty felt as if some one had struck her.
+
+Mollie looked indignant and Amy put an arm about Betty as she whispered:
+
+"The rain has nearly stopped, honey. Don't you think we had better go?"
+
+So, with half-hearted expressions of thanks from the girls and no
+expression of regret at all from the man, the new acquaintances parted,
+the girls hurrying down the dripping path to where their horses were
+tethered.
+
+Once Mollie looked back toward the cabin, and her indignation burst
+forth.
+
+"Look, he could hardly wait for us to get outside to shut the door," she
+said. "Of all the ill-mannered----"
+
+"Oh, I don't think he meant to be ill-mannered," interposed Betty
+mildly, as she reached Nigger and he whinnied a welcome. "He was just
+distantly polite, that's all. He didn't want to be bothered, probably,
+and he had a hard time to keep from showing it."
+
+"Huh," grunted Mollie, as she flung herself upon Old Nick's back and
+patted him soothingly. "I'm sure he has some real reason for not wanting
+folks around. He acted mighty funny to me," she said.
+
+"Goodness, hear the child!" cried Grace, as they rode swiftly back the
+way they had come through the fine drizzle. "She never can resist making
+a thief or something out of a perfectly ordinary person."
+
+"Seems to me he is anything but ordinary," interposed Amy thoughtfully.
+"No ordinary person could play the violin the way he was playing it
+when we came up to the house. That sounded like the work of a master."
+
+"Yes," agreed Betty, a faraway look in her eyes. "He plays exquisitely,
+if he does live in a little house away up in the woods. And I can't
+shake off the impression that I have heard that same selection played in
+just that same way somewhere before."
+
+Though this first excursion had been somewhat of a failure, the girls
+were by no means discouraged and in the days that followed they rode
+almost constantly. Finally they began to know their way about like the
+natives.
+
+Their rides were taken mostly in the open country, however, for in the
+woods they knew lurked very real dangers. But these they avoided more to
+save Mrs. Nelson worry than from any personal fears.
+
+But one day, feeling more than usually adventurous and growing more and
+more confident of their ability to find their way around alone, they
+dared venture along a rocky trail that offered wonderful romantic
+opportunities.
+
+"Oh, this is the life!" cried Grace, as Nabob stepped daintily over the
+rocks and underbrush that almost completely overgrew the narrow path. "A
+peach of a horse under you, the whole day before you, and nothing to do
+but enjoy yourself. Whoa-up there, Nabob. What's the matter with you?"
+for the horse had whinnied softly and shied almost imperceptibly to the
+side of the trail.
+
+At the same time the other horses seemed to catch some of Nabob's
+uneasiness, and the girls were kept busy for the next few minutes
+soothing them and coaxing them back into a normal mode of progress.
+
+"Something scared them," said Amy nervously. "Don't you think we had
+better go back, girls? This trail seems to be getting narrower and
+narrower. I don't believe anybody comes along here very often."
+
+"Well, what of it?" cried Mollie sharply. "That's what we are here for,
+isn't it? If we wanted people, we could have plenty of them right back
+on the ranch."
+
+"Stop quarreling, girls," said Betty, matter-of-factly. "We'll eat
+pretty soon and that will make everybody feel better." Kindly Mrs.
+Cummins had put up an appetizing lunch for the girls.
+
+"Look!" she cried a moment later, as the trail broadened out and they
+reached a rather open space in the woods through which they could look
+straight down--for they were on a considerable elevation--into the
+thriving little mining town of Gold Run. "I didn't know you could see
+Gold Run from here."
+
+"Doesn't it look funny and tiny?" cried Mollie, reining in beside her.
+"It must be an awfully long way off."
+
+"Wouldn't this be a good place to eat?" queried Amy hopefully, and the
+girls laughed at her.
+
+"We aren't hungry enough yet," said Betty, as she turned her horse to
+continue down the trail.
+
+They rode on, following the trail as it wound deeper and deeper into the
+woodland, catching glimpses now and then of the mining camp down in the
+hollow.
+
+It seemed as if they were really getting closer to Gold Run and,
+fascinated by the new game they were playing, forgetting their fears in
+the new sights and sounds all about them, the girls rode farther and
+farther into the heart of a forest, whose smiling face often served to
+hide some hideous danger.
+
+But to the girls all was beauty and sunshine and they conversed merrily
+as they cantered along.
+
+"When is Allen coming, Betty?" asked Grace. "I had an idea he would be
+here before this."
+
+"Why, dad has written, asking him to come as soon as he can," answered
+Betty, striving to look unconscious. "You know what that girl Lizzie
+said about mother's relatives--she never knew she had them till she came
+here--and dad thinks some of these people may make up their minds to
+contest the will. They haven't made trouble yet--but you never can tell.
+Listen, girls," she added suddenly. "Will you promise not to breathe a
+word of it if I tell you a big secret?"
+
+"Hope to die," they chorused piously.
+
+"Well, our old friend Peter Levine has been around pestering mother
+again."
+
+At this news, Grace, who was riding ahead, checked her mount so suddenly
+that Betty had all she could do to keep Nigger from swallowing Nabob's
+tail.
+
+"For goodness' sake, put out your hand when you do that next time,"
+laughed Betty.
+
+"Well," said Grace as she gave Nabob a gentle slap that started him on
+again, "Peter Levine must want that ranch very badly, to be following us
+all over the continent this way."
+
+"He seems to be rather anxious," said Betty dryly. "He has offered
+mother twenty thousand for it this time."
+
+"Going up," cried Mollie, with a chuckle. "If your mother holds on much
+longer, Betty, she will be a millionaire."
+
+"Well, mother is more certain than ever that there is something unusual
+about Gold Run Ranch," went on Betty, as she urged Nigger up a gentle
+slope. "She confidently expects to discover a gold mine, and so that's
+another reason why she thinks Allen ought to be here."
+
+"Goodness, let's all get out and dig," cried Mollie.
+
+"Can we have all we find, Betty?" called Amy, with a laugh.
+
+"Every last gold brick," answered Betty happily, and then they came upon
+another open space, and there, lying not more than half a mile below
+them, was the mining town of Gold Run.
+
+"Now here's the place to have some lunch," said Betty, slipping to the
+ground and leading Nigger off a little way into the woods where she
+tethered him securely. "We can look right down into the town and eat our
+lunch at the same time."
+
+The girls followed suit, and it did not take them long afterward to
+discover that they were very hungry. So out came the lunch basket, and
+never did biscuits and cheese and fried chicken taste more delicious
+than they did to the girls right there in that romantic little spot in
+the woods.
+
+"I hope it doesn't rain the way it did the other day," said Mollie, as
+she lazily surveyed a cloudless sky.
+
+"We haven't even a cabin in the woods to go to this time," said Grace,
+adding, as the thought brought up a picture of the long-haired musician
+who had been so painfully polite: "I wonder what our friend, Long Hair,
+lives on, anyway. Maybe he goes out and kills bears and things. They say
+bear meat is very good eating," she added reflectively.
+
+"Maybe we can catch one ourselves and take it home for dinner,"
+suggested Mollie, and the girls looked as if they did not like her
+suggestion at all.
+
+"Methinks the bear would be more likely to catch us," Betty was saying
+when a chorus of low whinnyings and stampings coming from where the
+horses were tethered caused them to jump to their feet in alarm.
+Suddenly the nervousness of the animals changed to panic and they began
+to rear and plunge, straining madly at the tethering straps, snorting
+and screaming with terror.
+
+"Look!" cried Mollie, her voice shrilling above the noise. "There! In
+the woods! Oh, run for your lives, girls! Run!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DANGER AHEAD
+
+
+Coming toward the girls through the trees, crouched low, sinister eyes
+fixed upon them, were two great timber wolves. The girls, terrified as
+they were, saw at a glance that it would be of no use to run, the
+movement would only infuriate the beasts and precipitate their attack.
+
+"The trees!" gasped Betty, feeling herself in the grip of the deadly
+inertia that one experiences sometimes in a nightmare. "Make for the
+trees, girls; they are our only chance."
+
+Luckily, the branches of the trees swung low to the ground, or the girls
+could never have saved themselves. As it was, they had barely time to
+swing themselves free of the ground when the great beasts darted into
+the open, fangs bared, snarling hideously. Then----
+
+Bang! Bang! Two sharp reports from the direction of the woodland and one
+of the wolves sprang clear of the ground, then slunk into the
+underbrush, while the other staggered, fell, struggled to its feet,
+fell again, and after one convulsive movement, lay still.
+
+While the girls stared, unable to follow this swift turn of events,
+there was the sound of running feet coming in their direction and the
+next moment two figures broke through into the cleared space.
+
+One was a little wizened man who seemed, for all his apparent age,
+extremely agile. The other was a girl, a splendid, big creature, who
+stood as tall as the man, and who, like him, carried a rifle.
+
+The two ran to the fallen animal, talking excitedly, and turned it over
+to be sure it was dead. They were so absorbed that they did not notice
+the girls, who dropped down quietly from their perches in the trees. The
+sight of the guns carried by the newcomers had had a tremendously
+reassuring effect upon them. The wonderful sensation of relief that
+swept over them as they realized their almost miraculous escape, was so
+keen as to be almost pain.
+
+Still, they were not quite free from fear as they approached the
+prostrate body of the big beast, over which their rescuers were still
+bending. It was the girl who first discovered them.
+
+"Hello!" she cried, straightening up and turning upon the girls a frank
+regard. "You was the ones this old boy was after, eh? Look, Dad," she
+added, pointing to where the four horses were still bucking and snorting
+in fright. "There's the hosses we heard, but I reckon 'twas these gals
+the wolves was after."
+
+"I guess you're right," said Betty, trying to smile through a shiver.
+"It wasn't very much fun while it lasted, either."
+
+At this the old man, who had very kindly, keen blue eyes in his seamed
+and wrinkled face, turned and spat upon the ground meditatively.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me," he said, looking from one to the other of
+the girls, "that you purty young girls was out hyar all alone, without
+even a gun to protect yourselves with?"
+
+"I guess we were." It was Mollie who spoke this time, and her tone was
+rueful. "We aren't used to this part of the world, you see, and so we
+didn't know what a risky thing we were doing."
+
+"They are most as bad as the Hermit of Gold Run, aren't they, Dad?"
+asked the big girl, her eyes twinkling. "He goes about everywhere
+through the woods without a gun and only his violin for company; and,
+somehow or other, the beasts never molest him. Some says he charms 'em
+with his violin, but I think it's just luck," she added, with a wise
+shake of her head.
+
+The girls, whose curiosity had revived as their fears subsided, listened
+with interest to this rather long speech of the mountain girl.
+
+"Has this--er--hermit, as you call him----" Betty interrogated eagerly,
+"has he long curly hair and is he tall----"
+
+"With stooped shoulders?" finished Amy.
+
+The mountain girl looked amazed.
+
+"Why yes. Do you know him?" she asked, adding, as though to explain her
+surprise: "He doesn't like to see people, you know, and folks round here
+don't know much about him 'cept that he plays the violin. That's why
+they calls him the hermit, 'cause he lives alone an' hates everybody."
+
+"All except Meggy, here," interposed the old man, a look of pride in his
+eyes as he gazed at his daughter. "He likes her fust rate. She says it's
+'cause she takes him grub an' good things to eat. But I know better."
+
+"Pshaw, Dad," cried the girl, flushing with embarrassment. "It's jest
+one of your idees that people like me better'n most when they don't at
+all." As though to change the subject, she touched the stiff animal at
+her feet with the toe of her stout boot.
+
+"What you aim to do with this one, Dad?" she asked. "It was your bullet
+got him. Mine went wild, an' I jest injured the other feller."
+
+"Waal," said the old man, his gaze fixed speculatively on the big beast,
+"he's not wuth the trouble o' skinning an' his meat ain't much good, so
+I reckon we'd better leave him, daughter. Time I was gettin' back to the
+mine."
+
+He turned to go, but Betty was before him, hand outstretched
+impulsively.
+
+"Oh, but you must let us thank you," she cried. "If you and your
+daughter hadn't happened along just then I don't know what we should
+have done."
+
+"Oh, thet's all right, thet's all right," said the old miner, too
+embarrassed to meet her eye. "Glad we could be some use to you, ma'am.
+But ef you'll take an old man's advice," he added, as he and his
+daughter started through the woods in the direction of Gold Run, "you
+won't go roaming around in these parts without a gun onto you. 'Tain't
+safe, noways."
+
+"We won't," they promised.
+
+Once their protectors were gone they were wild with impatience to get
+out of this place of dangers. Their fingers trembled as they untied the
+horses, and it was as much as they could do to get the animals to stand
+still long enough to mount them.
+
+However, once in the saddle, they galloped along that narrow trail at
+full speed, regardless of rocks and old stumps of trees and treacherous
+holes, their one thought to reach the open road--and safety.
+
+When at last the plain stretched before them, level and red hot in the
+blazing afternoon sun, they all uttered a silent prayer of thankfulness.
+
+"You were right, Amy," said Betty suddenly, as Amy came up abreast of
+her, "when you said the mountains could be cruel too."
+
+"We'll not ever dare tell the folks," said Grace, shuddering at the
+memory of their close escape. "They would never let us out of their
+sight again."
+
+"It was mighty lucky for us that Meggy and her father happened along
+just as they did," said Mollie. "I know I couldn't have held on very
+long where I was, and once on the ground I'd have made a lovely tender
+morsel for the little wolves."
+
+"You flatter yourself," retorted Grace, and Amy shivered.
+
+"I don't know how you girls can joke about such a thing," she said. "I
+was about frightened to death."
+
+"I suppose you think the rest of us enjoyed it," said Mollie, and at
+this point Betty thought it was about time to interfere.
+
+"Wasn't it odd--Meggy's speaking of our friend the musician and calling
+him the Hermit of Gold Run?" she said. "I'm glad the poor lonely fellow
+has a nice girl like Meggy to befriend him."
+
+"Huh, he didn't seem to want befriending very much when we saw him,"
+said Mollie. "We couldn't have been frozen more completely if we had
+dropped on an iceberg."
+
+"Oh, well, he has 'ze temperament,'" said Grace, with an elaborate
+gesture.
+
+"Seems kind of strange, his living up there all alone," said Amy
+thoughtfully. "You would think any one who could play the way he can
+would hate to bury himself in the wilderness. Unless----" she paused,
+and Mollie jumped joyfully into the opening.
+
+"Unless there is some reason why he has to," said the latter, adding
+with an I-told-you-so air, "I thought there was some mystery about that
+man, and now you are beginning to think so yourselves. You just keep
+your eyes open and watch for a surprise!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LANDSLIDE
+
+
+After their perilous adventure, the Outdoor Girls shunned the forest
+unless they were accompanied by one or more of the cowboys at the ranch.
+Andy Rawlinson escorted them whenever he could, but his duties as
+foreman of the ranch kept him very busy and he sometimes appointed one
+of the ranch hands to take his place.
+
+However, these excursions became less and less frequent as the girls
+became more interested in the booming mining town of Gold Run.
+
+This they had visited with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson and Andy, and the whole
+thing made them feel more than ever as if they were living some motion
+picture drama.
+
+There was the regulation general store and the inevitable dance hall
+where the lucky miners came to spend their golden nuggets and the
+unlucky tried to drown their misery in the companionship of others.
+
+Their eyes wide with interest and pleasure and their tongues busy with
+questions, the girls cantered down the narrow, crooked wagon road called
+"Main Street." They read the names over the doors of the dingy little
+shops, commenting gayly upon their queerness.
+
+"Peter Levine, Attorney," read Betty aloud from a sign just a little
+dingier than the rest. Then she drew rein and waited for her mother, who
+was riding more slowly with Mr. Nelson. The other girls, who had ridden
+on ahead, suddenly missed her, saw that she had stopped, and came back
+curiously.
+
+"Look, Mother," Betty was saying as they came up. "This is where dear
+Peter Levine hails from. His checked suit and loud tie must look funny
+in that dingy little shop," she added, with a chuckle.
+
+"Well, let's ride along," suggested Mrs. Nelson nervously. "He might see
+us and take it into his head to come out. And I don't want to have
+anything more to do with him until Allen comes."
+
+"Allen," thought Betty, as they turned and cantered on again. "I wish he
+would hurry a little. He seems an awfully long time coming."
+
+After they had seen all that there was to see of the town itself, Andy
+led them to some of the important mines on the outskirts. They listened
+with lively interest while the young fellow explained to them how the
+ore was extracted from the mountain side where it had lain unmolested
+for thousands of years.
+
+"It almost seems a shame to disturb it," said Amy at this point, and the
+girls laughed at her.
+
+"Just give me a chance at it, that's all," said Mollie longingly.
+
+At one of these mines they met the old man and his daughter, Meggy,
+whose timely arrival a few days before had saved their lives. The two
+were in the midst of their work, the girl lifting and hauling with all
+the strength of a man, and they scarcely looked up as the party passed
+them, although the old man responded with a wave of his hand when Andy
+Rawlinson called to him.
+
+"How's it goin', Dan?" asked the former.
+
+"Oh, well enough, well enough," responded the man, with what seemed to
+the girls enforced cheerfulness. "We'll strike gold afore to-morrow,
+sure."
+
+"Poor old Dan Higgins," said Andy, with a sobering of his good-natured
+face. "He's always goin' to strike gold 'to-morrow.' Sure, there's no
+one I'd rather see strike it rich than Dan an' that girl of his. But I'm
+'fraid they're jest plumb unlucky. Funny thing, luck--and gold," he went
+on to soliloquize. "Some young fellers they come out here, thinkin' they
+can get back to the girl at home in a couple o' years with their
+pockets plumb full o' nuggets, an' instead, they toil their lives away
+till their hair grows white an' their skin gets crackly like parchment,
+an' never even a glimpse o' yellow. An' mebbe the feller next to him
+drills a hole three feet deep and he strikes a vein. Yes siree, if ever
+there was a real thing in this world, that thing is luck."
+
+The girls were impressed and their hearts ached for Dan Higgins, his
+years of hope and work and his profitless mine. As for the girl, his
+daughter, Meggy----
+
+"Are you sure Dan Higgins hasn't any chance of striking gold?" asked
+Betty, gravely.
+
+"Not a bit of it," returned Andy Rawlinson quickly. "There's gold all
+around here--everybody thought Dan was mighty lucky when he staked out
+his claim. He may find gold yet. But," he added, and there was a
+fatalistic quality in his tone that chilled the girls, "you always have
+to reckon on luck."
+
+In the days that followed it became quite the usual thing to see the
+Outdoor Girls, mounted on their splendid horses, galloping along the
+open road or cantering through the town of Gold Run. It was not long
+before they became general favorites in this country where girls of
+their type were scarce, and the girls knew most of the rough but
+good-hearted miners by name. But perhaps of them all, their best and
+staunchest friends were old Dan Higgins and his daughter, Meggy.
+
+The girls often visited the mine and were always greeted with the utmost
+heartiness by its owners. Once Betty had caught Meggy looking longingly
+at Nigger as he was trying his best to get some nourishment from the
+stubbly grass, and with the quick impulsiveness that was hers, she asked
+the girl if she would like a ride.
+
+At the sudden radiance that flooded Meggy's face, Betty turned away
+abashed. She felt as though she had been given a glimpse of the girl's
+soul.
+
+Meggy had her ride, and in the days that followed she had many others
+and the girl's fondness for Betty became almost worship. She liked the
+other girls, for they were always kind to her, but Betty was her idol.
+
+"I have wanted all my life to own a horse," she confided to the Little
+Captain one day, as she stroked Nigger's shining coat with almost
+reverent fingers. "It would be the first thing I would buy for myself if
+dad should strike it rich." Her tone was brave, but the eyes that sought
+her father's toiling figure were sad. "Poor old dad," she said softly,
+"I don't think he would keep on any longer, if it wasn't for me."
+
+On one of their visits to the mine the girls were astonished to find
+their mysterious musician there ahead of them. He seemed to be trying to
+help, but from where the girls watched unobserved, it looked as though
+he were more in the way than anything else.
+
+Meggy was the first to discover them, and as she called out a greeting,
+the Hermit of Gold Run rose quickly to his feet and disappeared into the
+woods.
+
+"Poor fellow," said Meggy, looking pityingly after him. "We let him try
+to help us because it seems to amuse him, but he really doesn't know how
+to work with his hands. His fingers were made for the fiddle."
+
+"I certainly would like to find out more about that man," said Mollie,
+her forehead puckered into a puzzled frown. "He sure does act pretty
+funny."
+
+"We'll have to visit him again some day," said Betty lightly, and then
+turned to question Meggy on the progress of the mine.
+
+On their way home they took up the subject of the strange musician whose
+queer comings and goings had begun to be of more than usual interest to
+them.
+
+"He acts--in a--a stealthy way," said Grace, striving for the exact
+words to express her meaning. "He positively sneaked away from us this
+morning. It seems to me people don't act like that unless they are
+afraid of something."
+
+"He might just be afraid of people," Betty reminded her. "Or he may
+dislike people and want to be left alone. That would account for the
+name of 'hermit' that the natives around here have given him."
+
+"But an ordinary hermit wouldn't be able to play like a virtuoso,"
+objected Amy.
+
+"Well, nobody said he was an ordinary hermit," retorted Mollie.
+
+"To change the subject before you girls get to the hair-pulling stage,"
+laughed Betty, as she turned Nigger's head toward the ranch, "I wish we
+could do something for Dan Higgins and Meggy. It's a shame for that
+splendid, loyal girl to have to spend all her youth, when she might be
+having good times like other girls, in doing the kind of work that's
+only fit for a man to do."
+
+"And she's so brave about it, too," added Grace admiringly. "She keeps
+her head up like a thoroughbred."
+
+"I've asked her to come over to the ranch," Betty went on thoughtfully.
+"She has a passion for horses, you know, and I told her we'd have Andy
+Rawlinson pick her out a beauty from the corrals. I could see that she
+was awfully tempted, but she said no, she couldn't leave her father."
+
+"Probably the real reason she refused was because she hadn't decent
+clothes to wear," said Mollie sagaciously. "The poor girl is almost in
+rags."
+
+"I wish we could help," sighed Betty. "But she and her father are proud,
+like most of the other people around here. They just have to stand on
+their own feet."
+
+"I wonder if they have enough to eat," mused Amy. "It would be dreadful
+to think of them actually hungry."
+
+"Oh, I guess there's no danger of that," said Mollie. "As long as there
+are wild animals in the woods and Dan Higgins and Meggy have guns they
+won't starve to death."
+
+"And maybe they really will find gold, anyway," said Grace hopefully.
+
+They rode along silently for a while. In their abstraction they had
+taken the long way home, instead of cutting directly across the ranch in
+the direction of the house. They were on a rather narrow trail, so
+narrow, that they could not ride two abreast but were strung out in
+single file, Indian fashion. On one side of them rose the mountain, huge
+and majestic, and on the other was a sheer drop of a hundred feet or so
+into a rocky canyon.
+
+The girls had always loved this ride because of the wonderful view it
+afforded them of the surrounding country. But that very morning Dan
+Higgins had warned them not to go that way.
+
+"The mountain is pow'ful oncertain," the old man had told them. "Part of
+it is apt to fall on you any time if you get too close to it."
+
+Betty thought of this warning, but too late. An ominous rumbling jerked
+her eyes upward and she saw a sight that almost froze the blood in her
+veins. It seemed indeed to her terrified fancy as if the whole mountain
+were falling upon them. A great mass of dirt and brush and rock was
+hurtling down upon them with sickening velocity. A landslide--and they
+were directly in its path!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN THE CAVE
+
+
+Luck was with the Outdoor Girls that day--or fate--call it what you
+will. In the side of the mountain close to where they were, had been
+drilled a hole forming a large, artificial cave--probably the work of
+some miner who had abandoned operations almost at the beginning either
+from lack of funds or ambition.
+
+Into this hole the girls dashed, driven on by their frightful peril. Amy
+was the last to enter, and she had barely urged her nervous little filly
+into the opening when, with a terrific rumbling and rattling, the mass
+of earth and stones fell, covering the mouth of the cave and leaving
+them in such absolute darkness that it seemed as if they must suddenly
+have been stricken blind.
+
+"Oh! oh!" moaned Amy, her trembling hand striving vainly to quiet the
+frightened animal under her. "We're buried alive, girls, we're buried
+alive! We'll never get out of this--never!"
+
+"Please stop that, Amy," Betty's voice came out of the darkness, harsh,
+unnatural, like the crack of a whip. "The only danger we're in is the
+danger of losing our heads. Whoa, there, Nigger, old boy. Take it easy,
+beauty--there's nothing to be frightened about--there--there----" and
+she crooned to the big beast soothingly.
+
+Someway, the other girls managed to follow her example, enough at least
+to quiet their restless mounts. Grace was sobbing, more from nervousness
+than fright, but she managed to say with a catch in her breath, "Stand
+still, Nabob--don't be such a s-silly. Isn't your Auntie Grace here with
+you?"
+
+But it was Mollie who had the real problem. For while "Old Nick's"
+skittishness was more amusing than dangerous in the open, here, in this
+small place, with the other horses already difficult to manage, any real
+panic on his part would be more than likely to precipitate a real
+tragedy.
+
+In the dark, unable to see a foot before their faces, only the power of
+their wills to prevent a stampede of their panicky horses which would
+mean death to them all and, worst of all, the possibility of smothering
+or starving to death in this walled-in cave! This was the appalling
+situation which confronted the four Outdoor Girls.
+
+Mollie, her teeth grimly set, her knees dug into Old Nick's sides, was
+doing her best to keep him from trying to climb on the back of one of
+the other horses.
+
+"Oh, Mollie, make him stop it," cried Amy frantically. "He'll kill poor
+Lady. Make him stop!"
+
+"What do you suppose I'm trying to do," gritted Mollie between clenched
+teeth. "Do you think I like riding the side of a wall? Get down there,
+Old Nick, you wicked beast. Just wait till I get you outside."
+
+Although this threat was uttered sternly, Mollie had never been nearer
+to crying in her life. Luckily, a cruel dig of her spurs in the horse's
+side brought the big beast to his senses. He dropped to the ground and
+stood there, quivering in every muscle and nickering plaintively.
+
+"Good work, Mollie, old girl," cried Betty's voice encouragingly, and
+Mollie, wiping a tell-tale drop from the corner of her nose, answered in
+a voice that held never a quiver: "I couldn't fail you, Little Captain.
+Not at a time like this," and then she felt very brave and heroic.
+
+The horses were quiet, huddled together at the farther end of the cave
+as though they found comfort in company, and thus one great danger was
+passed. But the girls had still the other and greater one to face.
+
+"We'd better dismount," said Betty's voice, surprisingly calm and
+matter-of-fact. It was this ability of Betty Nelson's to keep her nerve
+and her head in any difficulty, to see almost at a glance the best thing
+to do and the best way to do it, that had led the girls to call her
+their Little Captain. And now as they listened to her cool voice,
+directing them as always in an emergency, some of her self-control
+communicated itself to them and they followed her leadership without
+question.
+
+"The horses will stand quietly now, I think," she said, and swung
+herself cautiously from Nigger's tall back and felt her way slowly past
+the horses, out to the small open space between them and what had once
+been the mouth of the cave.
+
+The girls followed her example, the horses making no protest, save to
+whinny anxiously and crowd a little closer together.
+
+"Where are you, Betty?" cried Grace plaintively, stubbing her toe on a
+stone and emitting an injured "ouch."
+
+"I'm over here," responded Betty reassuringly. "Stretch out your hand
+and I'll grab it."
+
+"Oh, for a match, my kingdom for a match!" said Mollie, brushing her
+hand across her eyes as though to relieve them of the weight of that
+terrific darkness. "Why aren't we men so we could carry 'em in our
+pockets--the matches I mean, not the men," she added with a chuckle that
+ended in a sob.
+
+"Well, here we are," said Grace, when they had found each other in the
+inky blackness. "Now you've got us, Betty, what are you going to do with
+us?"
+
+"I don't know--yet," responded Betty honestly. "I guess we've got to
+talk it over and decide what it is best to do."
+
+Amy groaned.
+
+"Meanwhile we smother," she said.
+
+"Nonsense," retorted Betty briskly. "There's enough air in this place to
+keep us alive for twenty-four hours at least."
+
+"Twenty-four hours," protested Amy, the panic she had felt at the first
+threatening to overwhelm her again. "But, Betty, there isn't a chance in
+the world that anybody will come along here in the next twenty-four
+hours."
+
+"That's right, too," agreed Mollie, a prickly sensation of pure fright
+tickling the roots of her hair. "Dan Higgins said this trail was
+practically never used because of the danger from the mountain. This is
+a pretty pickle, this is!"
+
+"And even if anybody should come along," Grace pointed out gloomily,
+"they couldn't be expected to guess that there are four girls and four
+horses buried in this hole in the wall."
+
+"And I don't believe we could ever in the world make ourselves heard
+through that mass of rocks and dirt," added Mollie. "Looks as though we
+had just about come to the end of our rope, I should say."
+
+Amy began to cry again softly, and Betty, who had been listening with
+increasing irritation to this conversation, burst forth indignantly:
+
+"Of all the silly things I ever heard!" she denounced them hotly, "I
+think you girls are the worst. You seem to forget that you are Outdoor
+Girls and that we have been in a good many tight places that were almost
+as bad as this. Why, we can't expect to have good times and adventures
+without once in a while getting the worst of it. If this is the way you
+are going to take a little bad luck," she finished her tirade in a fury
+that whipped the girls like a lash, "then I'm through, that's all. I
+refuse to be one of four Outdoor Girls that don't deserve the name."
+
+She paused, and the girls were silent for a moment, feeling a little
+dazed. The tongue-lashing had been just what they needed, as Betty very
+well knew. It made them angry.
+
+"Oh well," said Mollie sullenly, "if you are so much better than the
+rest of us, Betty, perhaps you can tell us what to do. I'm sure we would
+be just as glad to get out of this as you."
+
+"Then help me think of some way to do it," Betty retorted, more quietly.
+"Surely we can't accomplish it by making up our minds ahead of time that
+we are doomed."
+
+"Suppose you suggest something, yourself," said Grace resentfully.
+
+"All right," said Betty, whose quick mind had been working busily. "I am
+as sure as you girls are that the possibility of rescue from anybody
+outside is slight. Of course," she added breathlessly, "when we don't
+come home dad and mother would become worried and start a search party."
+
+"They wouldn't miss us before night though," said Grace.
+
+"Exactly," Betty caught her up. "And at night they wouldn't be as apt to
+discover the landslide as they would in the daylight. They would
+naturally think of the woods first. But the next day, anybody familiar
+with the trail would be sure to notice that there had been a landslide
+and they would be almost sure to connect it with us----"
+
+"But Betty," wailed Grace, forgetting that a moment before she had been
+angry with the Little Captain, "all that is just supposition, and you
+know as well as we do that we are likely not to be discovered
+until--until----"
+
+"It's too late," finished Mollie. "Why don't you say it? It's the
+truth."
+
+"And since it is the truth," Betty took her up briskly, "there is all
+the more reason why we should take things in our own hands and work out
+our own salvation."
+
+Betty impatiently cut short Amy's discouraged "How?"
+
+"Now listen," she said. "There are plenty of stones in this cave----"
+
+"My toes cry aloud that they know it," interjected Grace, but no one
+laughed--they were too intent upon Betty. They were beginning to realize
+what she had in mind, and the realization brought a thrill of hope.
+
+"If we could find any sharp enough--stones I mean," Betty went on, "we
+might use them as a sort of shovel and try to dig our way out. Of
+course," she added, as the girls began to grope eagerly among the dirt
+and debris at their feet for stones sharp enough to answer the purpose,
+"the mouth of the cave may be choked up too solidly with dirt and
+underbrush and things for us to get through. But in that case we'd just
+have to think up some other way, that's all."
+
+"I've got a peach," cried Mollie slangily, as her hand struck a big
+stone sharp enough to serve her purpose. "I ought to be able to dig my
+way through the side of a house with this fellow."
+
+"And here's the very one that got too familiar with my toe," said Grace,
+as she picked up another serviceable stone. "I'm going to get even with
+it now. I shall make it work as it never worked before."
+
+After much groping and knocking of heads together, Betty and Amy also
+armed themselves with imitation shovels, and so the work began.
+
+And it was work indeed. For what seemed hours to the anxious girls they
+toiled, digging sometimes with the stones, sometimes in desperation with
+their hands until it seemed to them they must have dug their way half
+through the mountainside. And still that blank wall of dirt, that
+impenetrable darkness, that stubborn barrier between them and the
+blessed sunshine. Amy was the first to give way.
+
+She sank back on the dank floor of the cave and buried her face in her
+dirt-stained hands.
+
+"We'll never get out of here!" she sobbed. "And I'm st-starving to
+d-death!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE DARKNESS
+
+
+Now the girls had been hungry before the accident occurred and, it being
+several hours since then, they were, by this time, as any one could
+readily see, in a rather bad state. Therefore, Amy's complaint was very
+unfortunate and, had it not been for Betty, it might have ruined the
+morale of the girls completely.
+
+"Good gracious, Amy, don't talk about starving to death," cried Mollie,
+dismayed. "That's coming too near the truth for comfort. Oh, this
+miserable stone. It's cutting clear through my hand!"
+
+"And my back is nearly broken," said Grace, adding, as she turned
+ferociously upon the still-sobbing Amy: "Stop that crying, Amy
+Blackford. Don't you know it is catching?" and a suspicious break at the
+end of her sentence, proved the truth of the assertion.
+
+"Girls, please don't," begged Betty, still digging automatically at the
+stubborn wall of stones and dirt. "If you all begin to cry, then we
+might just as well throw up our hands and say we are beaten."
+
+It was not long after that that the girls found what they called their
+"second wind." They forgot that they were ravenous, that their backs
+ached and that their hands were scratched and torn. They worked
+furiously in the darkness, their goal the out-of-doors they loved so
+well.
+
+For a long time they did not notice that the air was becoming very close
+and oppressive and that the perspiration that bothered them so was
+caused not alone by their exertion. And when the realization did come it
+had the effect of goading them on to more furious effort.
+
+That the horses also felt the change in the atmosphere, was attested to
+by their increased nervousness. The trampling of their hoofs sounded
+ominous to the girls--they made queer little puffing noises as if they
+were getting their breath with greater and greater difficulty.
+
+In one terrible instant the girls realized what might happen when what
+was discomfort to the animals now, should become torture. Maddened by
+pain and fright, it would be no longer possible to quiet them. And
+then--and then----
+
+"Don't you think we'd better stop and try to quiet the horses?" asked
+Mollie once, as the champing and snorting in the blackness behind them
+became more marked.
+
+"I don't think it would do any good," Betty answered between clenched
+teeth as she scooped and dug, scooped and dug. "Better keep on working,
+girls. It's the one chance we have."
+
+Oh, the horror of it, the nightmare of it! The heavy air, the hideous
+dark, the nervous trampling of those death-bearing hoofs---- The girls
+spoke no longer. They were beyond speech. Almost maddened by terror
+themselves, they scooped and dug, scooped and dug----
+
+Once they thought they heard voices outside, and shrilly they cried to
+their imaginary rescuers. No answering "hallo" reached them, and the
+only effect of their cries seemed to be to add to the fright of their
+horses and so endanger themselves still more.
+
+On, on, on--while their aching muscles seemed to grow numb with the
+strain and their lungs nearly burst with the pressure upon them.
+
+At last they gave in--it seemed that they had to give in. All except
+Betty, who kept on desperately, doggedly, her muscles barely able to
+respond to the last call she was making upon them.
+
+"I can't go on any more. I'm all in," said Mollie, a desperate quiet in
+her voice. "My arms are like lead and my hands are so numb I can't feel
+the stone. I guess this is the last adventure of the Outdoor Girls. We
+have just had one too many, that's all."
+
+"Oh, Mollie!" Betty drew in a labored breath that caught on a sob.
+"Please don't give up--please! I've counted on you----" she paused,
+jerked her head up, her attention turned on the spot where her hand
+still automatically dug at the earth.
+
+She sniffed, experimentally, sniffed again, stilling the wild throb of
+hope that was almost a pain at her heart.
+
+"What is it, Betty, what is it?" cried Mollie, sensing something
+strange. Amy and Grace fought off the dizziness that was stealing over
+them and leaned forward.
+
+But Betty had jumped to her feet, had dropped the stone and was tearing
+with her bare hands at that thin place--that thin place---- It gave
+under her mad onslaught, and suddenly her hand slipped through into the
+air--the air---- A breath of it swept into her tortured lungs, and she
+leaned there, laughing, crying, the tears of sheer weakness running down
+her dirt-stained face.
+
+"Girls!" she babbled, "out there is the air--the good old air--enough of
+it for all of us! We're saved, do you hear? We're saved!"
+
+Exhausted as they were, the girls tore at the tiny hole that Betty had
+made until there was an opening big enough for them to crawl through.
+
+And oh! the indescribable ecstasy of it, the joy of it, just to lie
+there, trembling with weakness, and drink in great drafts of that
+life-giving air, thinking of nothing, caring for nothing but that they
+were alive there in their great out-of-doors. One never comes really to
+appreciate life until one has been close to death.
+
+It was a long time before they ventured to go on. They had not realized
+how near exhaustion they had been until the tension had relaxed. When at
+last they did start for home, on foot, they were still trembling and
+they dared not glance down the canyon at their right for fear of
+becoming dizzy.
+
+They had been long hours in the cave, and when they finally left the
+trail and cut across the plain toward the ranch it was nearly dark. They
+did not realize the startling sight they must present to any one who
+might not know of their plight until they met Andy Rawlinson and some
+other boys from the ranch starting out to search for them.
+
+At sight of the mud-stained, blood-stained Outdoor Girls, Andy Rawlinson
+fairly tumbled from his pony and came running toward them while the
+other boys stood agape.
+
+"What in the world----" began Andy, but Betty stopped him with a weary
+gesture. As briefly as she could she told him what had happened and
+asked him to go back and get their horses.
+
+"It's getting pretty dark now, you know," she reminded him, when he
+seemed inclined to linger and ask questions. "Soon you won't be able to
+see what you're doing. Won't you please hurry?"
+
+"Surest thing you know," responded the boy quickly, his nice eyes full
+of sympathy for them. "Some of the boys will see you home--your folks
+are getting awfully worried about you, you know--and the rest of us will
+go on and dig out the poor bronchos. So long. We'll be back pronto."
+
+"And now home," sighed Betty, as she looked at the ranch house just
+visible in the distance. "And a bath--and something to eat. What does
+that sound like, girls?"
+
+"Heaven!" they answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE LURE OF GOLD
+
+
+The task of releasing the imprisoned horses was not such an easy task as
+the girls and even Andy Rawlinson had thought it would be.
+
+In the first place, it took Andy and his company some time to discover
+the place along the trail where the landslide had occurred, for Betty's
+account had been hasty and excited and she had overlooked several
+details that might have helped them in their work.
+
+And when they did reach the scene of what might have been a tragedy the
+ranch hands were appalled by the immensity of the landslide. There had
+been several small ones in that vicinity, but this was what Andy termed
+a "humdinger."
+
+There was a stamping and snorting from inside that dirt-choked cavern
+that, there in that lonely spot on the very edge of night, seemed
+positively uncanny to the men who stood and listened.
+
+"Better get busy, boys," said Andy suddenly. "Those hosses ain't goin'
+to get any easier in they minds an' it's about time we dug 'em out of
+there. Back to Gold Run as fast as we can get there for the right kind
+of tools from the miners. We may need some more men, too. Gosh, but I
+didn't know it was as bad as that," he added with a glance over his
+shoulder as he turned his pony and dashed back down the trail in the
+direction of Gold Run. "Reckon 'twas just plain grit that got those
+girls out."
+
+Back in Gold Run they found several miners who were willing to offer
+both themselves and their tools toward the work of liberation, and soon
+the cowboys returned, accompanied by men with lanterns, and fell to work
+with a will.
+
+Two hours later, Andy Rawlinson ventured into the blackness of the cave,
+swinging his lantern before him, and led forth the first of the
+frightened horses.
+
+Meanwhile the girls had bathed away the stains of their adventure, and
+after a hearty meal cooked by an over solicitous "Miz Cummins" and
+served by a frankly envious and inquisitive Lizzie, they felt
+considerably more like their old self-confident selves.
+
+However, they begged not to have to go to bed, as Mrs. Nelson anxiously
+suggested, until the boys had returned with their horses.
+
+"I'm beginning to get dreadfully worried," Betty confessed after an
+interval of staring out into the darkness. They were on the biggest of
+the many porches boasted by the quaint old ranch house, waiting eagerly
+for the first sound that would announce the return of Andy and the
+others with their horses.
+
+"I'd never get over it if anything happened to Old Nick," said Mollie,
+taking up Betty's theme. "Maybe we'd better borrow some other horses
+from the corral and follow them."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Nelson, his voice sounding
+unusually stern there in the darkness. "I am going to keep my eye on you
+for the rest of to-day, at least!"
+
+And so they contented themselves as well as they could with waiting and
+finally were rewarded by the regular beat of galloping horses in the
+distance.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Betty, springing to her feet, then turned to her
+father pleadingly: "You won't mind if we go down to meet them, will you,
+Dad?" she asked. "They are our chums, you know--the horses, I mean."
+
+Mr. Nelson nodded, and down the steps the girls sprang, racing out to
+meet that sound of galloping hoofs which was coming ever nearer. A few
+minutes later they were caressing the nervous animals that had gone with
+them into the very shadow of death, rubbing their noses, laughing and
+crying over them and calling them endearing names till it's a wonder the
+cowboys, who stood by, grinning sympathetically, did not turn green with
+envy.
+
+"Some anymiles do have all the luck," said one of them.
+
+After that the girls and their horses were almost inseparable. If left
+to themselves, the latter would follow the girls around like dogs. Even
+"Old Nick," who had been the most difficult to understand and win, now
+was devoted to Mollie. She was the only one who could quiet him, and
+though there were some who did not care to ride him because of his
+skittishness, he was never anything but gentle and docile with her.
+
+As the days passed the girls became more and more interested in Meggy
+Higgins until the longing to give her one good time, in spite of her
+pride, became almost an obsession with them.
+
+One day Betty begged so hard that the girl finally consented to take a
+holiday and go out with them for a day's fun. But Meggy surrendered
+reluctantly, in spite of the fact that this invitation of the girls had
+been like a glimpse of wonderland to her.
+
+"I reckon dad can get along one day without me, specially as the hermit
+can do part of my work. Pa's broke him in so he can be real helpful
+now----"
+
+But she got no farther, for Betty threw her arms around the surprised
+girl and hugged her happily.
+
+"I'm awfully glad!" she cried, adding with eyes that sparkled: "I tell
+you what I'll do. I'll let you ride Nigger. There's a darling little
+brown colt over at the ranch that I've been just dying to try out."
+
+Sudden tears sprang to Meggy's eyes, and with the disgust of all
+mountain folk for the expression of sentiment, she turned away
+impatiently to hide this tell-tale sign of weakness. But Betty had
+glimpsed the tears and she was satisfied.
+
+The day was all that even Meggy Higgins' starved imagination could have
+expected of it. The miner's daughter was so beatifically happy that the
+girls found a new and most satisfying thrill in her enjoyment.
+
+All her short, work-driven life Meggy Higgins had wanted a horse, a
+beautiful, sleek animal with supple limbs and shining coat like the one
+that she was riding now--Betty's Nigger. Many have desired a fortune,
+some political fame, others social position, but Meggy merely desired a
+horse. And even this had been denied her because her father had been
+dazzled by the lure of gold, a fortune always just before his eyes, but
+never to be grasped.
+
+The girls were sorry for old Dan Higgins and his thwarted hopes. But
+they were infinitely more sorry for this girl of his to whom hardship
+was a daily reality and pleasure a golden vision to be indulged in only
+by girls whose fathers did not own a worthless claim.
+
+"Sometimes," spoke up Mollie, as she reined Old Nick into a walk, "I
+wish I had the courage to rob somebody else's mine, Meggy, and plant the
+gold in yours. It doesn't seem fair for you to work all the time and get
+nothing for it."
+
+The girl smiled sadly.
+
+"I'm used to that," she said, with a grim philosophy far beyond her
+years. Then she added, with a quick loyalty that made the girls' hearts
+warm to her: "I don't mind. I'd do anything for dad an' I guess if he
+thought I was gettin' discouraged he'd jest plum up an' quit. He's
+gittin' old, he is, an' he ain't that spry like he used to be. All he
+has is his hope in that mine--an' me. Ef you killed that you might as
+well kill him."
+
+After a while they stopped in the shade of some stunted trees and had
+lunch. The girls could tell from Meggy's popping eyes that the
+delicacies they drew forth from Miz Cummins' lunch basket had never
+been dreamed of in all her hum-drum, joyless life.
+
+Tongue sandwiches, buttered corn-bread, fried chicken that you were at
+perfect liberty to take up in your fingers and nibble to your heart's
+content, jelly and olives and hot cocoa in the thermos bottle with rich
+cream already in it--truly a feast even worthy of the Outdoor Girls!
+
+After lunch the girls strolled around a bit, leaving their mounts to
+graze lazily. They talked of many things, the adventures they had had,
+the curious people they had met in their adventuring, while Meggy
+listened to it all, drinking it in thirstily.
+
+"To think of all the things you've seen," she breathed at last. "An'
+I've spent all my time sence I was able to toddle, I reckon, betwixt our
+cabin an' the mine--back an' forth, back an' forth----"
+
+After that they rode on again and it was quite late in the day when they
+decided it was time to be going back.
+
+"I don't see," said Grace, as they neared the ranch, "why we don't lay
+out some claims and start digging ourselves, girls. The north end of
+this ranch is quite near the other mines. We might strike gold."
+
+The words were spoken laughingly, but Meggy took them seriously.
+
+"Mebbe there's some truth in that," she said soberly. "Dad allus
+reckoned they might be gold on Gold Run Ranch."
+
+A short time later they left her at the mine and Betty mounted Nigger,
+leading the brown colt by the reins. Meggy had tried to stammer some
+words of thanks, but the girls would have none of it. They waved to her
+gayly and started for home.
+
+After an unusually long and thoughtful silence, Amy spoke up softly.
+
+"Betty," she said, "if Meggy is right about the ranch, there being gold
+here, I mean, then what your mother had thought all along may turn out
+to be the truth."
+
+"Well," said Betty, a joyous lilt to her voice that the girls knew well,
+"Allen will be here in a few days and then we'll start our gold hunt.
+Gold!" she repeated softly. "There is something romantic in the very
+sound of it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A DISCOVERY
+
+
+Up to this time the weather had been remarkably fine, but on this
+particular morning the Outdoor Girls woke to find that the sky was
+overcast and there was every indication of a stormy day.
+
+"Oh bother," grumbled Mollie, as after their breakfast she gloomily
+surveyed the landscape from the cretonne-curtained window. "Just as I
+was about to suggest a real adventure, too!"
+
+"What do you mean--'real adventure?'" queried Grace, lazily. The day
+before she had bought a new box of candy and a magazine, and so it
+happened that she was the only one of the four of them who really did
+not care whether it rained or not.
+
+Mollie turned from the window and regarded them resentfully. Then she
+looked more hopeful as her eyes rested on Betty, who was sorting the
+contents of a too-crowded dresser drawer.
+
+"You are with me, anyway, aren't you, Betty?" she asked, almost
+wistfully. "We'll leave these other two at home, and you and I will go
+on our adventure."
+
+"All right," said Betty, with a lack of enthusiasm that fell with a
+dampening effect upon Mollie's ears. The disastrous quality of their
+last adventure had had a dampening effect on the girls' enthusiasm for
+this form of entertainment, and for the present they preferred the
+safety of the ranch to the lure of the great unknown, as it were.
+However, this condition of mind was only temporary. They would soon be
+as eager as ever for new experiences. "I'm game for anything, Mollie
+dear, as long as you keep away from land-slides and wild animals."
+
+"Just hear the child!" said Mollie disgustedly. "As if an adventure
+would be an adventure without a little danger mixed in!"
+
+"Just what is your great idea, Mollie?" asked Betty mildly. Mollie was
+beginning to glower. And if somebody did not stop her at the beginning,
+there was sure to be a fracas. Betty knew this from experience. "Suppose
+you tell us about it and get it out of your system. As I said before,
+I'm willing to do anything if it isn't hunting lions and tigers."
+
+Mollie grunted disgustedly.
+
+"Well, there isn't a thing really exciting about it, if that's what you
+mean," she said. "I just thought that since we had nothing special to do
+to-day we might visit the Hermit of Gold Run again. We might be able to
+solve the mystery about him in some way," she added as a special
+inducement, since the girls still seemed unenthusiastic.
+
+Grace laughed indulgently.
+
+"Just how do you expect to solve this mystery?" she asked, with a
+giggle. "You certainly can't do it by looking at him."
+
+"Oh well, if that's the way you feel," retorted Mollie, feeling very
+much abused, "I'm sorry I spoke about it. Only I thought we had already
+decided to pay him a visit."
+
+"And so we had," said Betty, closing the dresser drawer with a bang and
+coming unexpectedly to her aid. "And I, for one, am with you in that,
+Mollie. I have felt from the first," she went on earnestly, while Mollie
+regarded her with growing hope, "that I had not only heard the selection
+that that man played but that I had seen him somewhere before--quite a
+long time ago."
+
+Impressed by Betty's earnestness, Grace had laid down her magazine and
+Amy was becoming interested.
+
+"I know it's ridiculous," Betty continued, as though to justify
+herself, "but I can't help feeling that way, just the same."
+
+"That thing he played sounded familiar to me, too," Grace admitted, now
+entirely abandoning her magazine and sitting up. "It has been haunting
+me ever since we heard him playing that day, and yet I can't think of
+the name of it."
+
+Softly Amy began to hum a popular song, but Mollie interrupted her
+impatiently.
+
+"Well then, since you all feel that way about it," she said eagerly, "I
+don't see why it wouldn't be fun to scout around his cabin a little bit
+and see if we can't pick up some information. I'm really curious about
+him."
+
+"All right, let's," said Betty, with the decision for which she was
+famed. "Get your riding togs on, girls, and we'll play detective."
+
+This time it was Mollie who held back.
+
+"How about the weather?" she demurred. "Looks as if we were likely to
+get wet."
+
+"Who cares?" said Betty airily, adding, as she stopped at the door to
+make them a little bow: "It would give us an excuse to see His Highness
+again."
+
+Half an hour later they had saddled their ponies and were cantering off
+briskly to visit the Hermit of Gold Run.
+
+"Aren't you a little bit afraid to go in there?" asked Amy, reining in
+as they reached the narrow trail through the woods that led near the
+musician's cabin. "We might run into some wolves, as we did that other
+time."
+
+"We were much further in the woods than the Hermit's cabin," said Mollie
+impatiently. "And it was in an entirely different direction, too. Go
+ahead, silly, or I'll ride right over you," and as she was urging Old
+Nick forward until he crowded uncomfortably against the little white
+filly, Amy had no other course but to do as she was bid.
+
+Nevertheless, she was not the only one who was uneasy, and it might have
+been observed that the girls glanced often into the shadows of the
+underbrush on either side of the narrow trail.
+
+There were wild animals in that forest, as they had good reason to know,
+and though they seldom ventured this close to civilization, still there
+was no use in tempting fate!
+
+"I didn't know it was as far in as this," said Grace, after they had
+ridden some distance in silence. "Are you sure we haven't passed the
+cabin, Betty?"
+
+"Why, we aren't nearly there yet," was Betty's discomforting reply.
+"It's quite a way beyond that next turn in the trail."
+
+Grace said nothing, but she gripped the reins harder in her hands. She
+had made up her mind that at the first sign of danger she would turn
+Nabob and make a dash back down the trail for safety.
+
+After that the silence became so pronounced that Mollie noticed it and
+laughed nervously.
+
+"Why all the noise?" she asked jocosely. "It nearly breaks my ear
+drums."
+
+"Hush," cried Amy warningly. "I thought I heard something."
+
+"That was your own heart hammering against the tree trunks," retorted
+Mollie dryly, at which the girls giggled and the tension relaxed.
+
+"Let's talk about something nice," Betty suggested. "Gold, for
+instance."
+
+"Or Allen," teased Grace. "I reckon you won't be glad or anything when
+he gets here."
+
+"I guess mother will be gladder than any of us," replied Betty promptly,
+trying to shift the spotlight from herself. "She was so excited when I
+told her what Dan Higgins said about the possibility of there being gold
+on the ranch that she hardly closed her eyes all night. I told her she
+was getting to be a regular adventuress."
+
+"Like her daughter," said Mollie, with a chuckle.
+
+"Just think of the story we can tell the boys when we get home," said
+Amy rapturously, adding apologetically as the girls glanced at her: "If
+we find the gold, I mean."
+
+"Listen to the child!" cried Betty gayly, while the other girls laughed.
+"And we haven't begun to dig yet. Hold your horses, Amy dear, hold your
+horses."
+
+They did this very thing literally the next moment, for they came in
+sight of the queer little cabin of the man whom the natives called the
+Hermit of Gold Run.
+
+Quickly they jumped down, tethered the horses as they had done before on
+the day when they had first made the acquaintance of this remarkable
+man, and started rather hesitantly down the path toward the house.
+
+As they came nearer the haunting strains of the music that had puzzled
+them before once more floated out through the open windows and they
+paused, lost once again in the spell of it.
+
+The music stopped, and they went on, hardly knowing what their next move
+was to be, yet drawn irresistibly by their curiosity. Then once more
+they heard the violin, but evidently the mood of the player had changed.
+The melody fraught with pathos, wailing, pleading, no longer reached
+them. The theme had changed--light, airy, sparkling, it reminded the
+girls of fairies dancing on the grass in the moonlight.
+
+Mollie grasped Betty's arm.
+
+"I know that!" she cried excitedly. "It's something of Chopin's, a
+nocturne, I think. Girls, I know where I heard that selection played
+just that way before."
+
+They gazed at her, their eyes asking the question before their lips
+could form it.
+
+"At the Hostess House!" cried Mollie. "Don't you remember that concert
+we gave with some of the great artists?"
+
+"That big benefit!" cried Betty excitedly. "You've got it, Mollie!
+That's what I was trying to think of!"
+
+"Sh-h," said Grace, a finger to her lips. "He has stopped playing. He
+may hear us."
+
+"All right," said Betty. "Let's get back to the trail where we can talk
+this thing over."
+
+They did not stop at the trail, however, for some memory of the danger
+lurking in the woods drove them out on to the main road where they might
+talk in peace.
+
+"Now then," said Betty eagerly, as they reached the road, crowding their
+horses close together and reining them in to a walk. "What do you make
+of this, girls? If this man is really one of those artists that played
+at that big concert, then he is famous and there is something more than
+strange in his hiding up here in the woods."
+
+"Goodness, we don't need anybody to tell us that," said Grace. "He
+certainly must be in hiding for something he's done--unless he has been
+disappointed in love," she added sentimentally.
+
+"I don't believe he was ever in love with anything but his violin," said
+Mollie.
+
+"Can't somebody think of the name of the violinist that played at the
+benefit?" asked Betty, who had been trying for some minutes past to
+accomplish that very thing.
+
+"It was something like Croup, I think," said Mollie, wrinkling her
+forehead.
+
+"Goodness, how romantic," said Grace, with a laugh.
+
+"I tell you how we can find out the name," said Amy suddenly.
+
+"How?" they questioned.
+
+"I think I have a program, and I can send home for it," said Amy.
+
+"Good girl!" cried Mollie, slapping her on the back with a violence that
+nearly threw her from Lady's back and caused that gentle little animal
+to turn her head inquiringly. "We little thought we had a genius in our
+midst!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ALLEN ARRIVES
+
+
+Amy was delighted with the praise she received from the girls and the
+first thing she did after they returned to the ranch was to write home
+to her guardian for the concert program she had so luckily saved.
+
+Naturally the girls were more curious than ever after this second trip
+to his little cabin in the woods and longed to find out about this
+strange musician who hid himself so persistently from the world.
+
+"Of course," Grace said, during one of the many times when they talked
+the matter over, "we're not at all sure that the Hermit is the same man
+who played at our benefit."
+
+"Of course we're not," Mollie agreed with her. "There must be a great
+many musicians who can play those same selections that we heard him
+play."
+
+"That's all very true," said Betty argumentatively. "But if he is really
+this same musician that played at our benefit, then that explains the
+queer hunch I've had of having seen him somewhere before."
+
+"Well," said Mollie resignedly, "I guess all we can do for the present
+is to wait until Amy gets her program. When we find out the name of the
+violinist that played for us then we can decide what to do next about
+the Hermit."
+
+Reluctantly they admitted that what she said was true, and for the time
+being let the discussion rest there.
+
+Then came the day when Betty received a letter from Allen announcing
+that he would reach Gold Run the following afternoon on the
+four-thirty-five train. The letter ended by begging her to meet the
+train herself and please not to send any one else, for no one else would
+do!
+
+Betty's pretty face flushed a deeper pink and her eyes shone brighter as
+she read this passage--and two or three others--several times over. Then
+she went to find the girls and tell them the good news.
+
+They also had received mail from the other boys and some of the folks at
+home, and she found them all together on the eastern porch having the
+time of their lives. Mollie and Amy were perched on the railing while
+Grace and a box of candy reposed in a hammock.
+
+"Well, have you finished reading yours already?" Mollie greeted the
+Little Captain as she swung up the steps. "It was such a fat one I
+thought it would take you till lunch time at least to get through with
+it."
+
+"Speak for yourself," retorted Betty, too happy to mind being teased.
+"Guess what, girls!" she added, unable to keep the news to herself for
+another minute, "Allen arrives via the Western Limited at four-thirty or
+thereabouts to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"Hooray!" cried the girls, and momentarily forgot their own letters in
+very real delight. Allen Washburn was a favorite with all of them.
+
+"Will you let us all go to meet him, Betty dear?" asked Grace, with a
+twinkling smile. "Or does he insist on seeing you alone?"
+
+"Don't be silly," retorted Betty good-naturedly. "I know he would take
+it as a personal slight if you weren't all there to welcome him."
+
+"Well, I don't know," Mollie commented ruefully. "Something tells me he
+would manage to live through it even if we weren't there. But go on,
+Betty," she added. "Tell us what else he has to say."
+
+"That's pretty nearly all," said Betty truthfully. "He said he would
+save all the news until he saw me--us. One thing he did say," she
+added, dimpling: "The boys are simply wild with jealousy. They say it is
+all a deep dark scheme on Allen's part to get out here with us."
+
+"Us!" repeated Grace, with a giggle. "Much he cares about the rest of
+us."
+
+Be that as it may, they certainly all turned out that following
+afternoon to meet the Western Limited which was bearing Allen swiftly
+toward them.
+
+There was the usual gathering of picturesquely garbed miners and
+cow-punchers on the platform, and for most of these the girls had a
+smile and a nod.
+
+"Seems funny to think how strange everything looked to us when we first
+came," remarked Grace, as they waited for the train. "Now we feel as
+much at home as if we had lived here all our lives."
+
+"The people are all so nice and friendly, too," said Amy. "It's
+wonderful how soon you come to know them."
+
+"It is a nice atmosphere," Betty agreed. "At home in the East we want to
+know pretty much all there is to know about people we make our friends.
+But out here they take you for granted. Nobody seems to care where you
+came from or who your relatives are----"
+
+"Huh," grunted Mollie. "I guess in a good many cases it wouldn't do to
+be too curious," she said cynically. "If you believe the stories you
+read and the movies you see everybody who has committed a crime anywhere
+from petty larceny to murder skips out West to escape just punishment."
+
+"Then at this moment," drawled Grace, glancing around at the rather
+harmless looking crowd on the station platform, "we are surrounded by
+thieves and murderers. Though I must say they are a pretty nice looking
+set," she added, and the girls giggled.
+
+"Grace could forgive a man anything, if he was only good-looking
+enough," remarked Amy.
+
+"Here comes the train!" cried Betty suddenly, as the Western Limited
+thundered around a curve in the distance and steamed toward them.
+Immediately she forgot everything but that Allen was on that train and
+that in a moment more she would see him----
+
+Then Allen himself, handsome as ever, eagerly scanning the faces on the
+platform as he jumped from the train the instant the porter opened the
+door.
+
+It took him barely a moment to discover the group of girls, and he came
+toward them, hand outstretched, eyes alight with greeting.
+
+"Well, if this isn't great!" he cried in his hearty voice, shaking
+hands with all of them but looking mostly at Betty. "Knew I could trust
+the Outdoor Girls to turn out for a rousing welcome. How's everything?"
+
+"Just fine," they assured him, and then Betty took him in hand.
+
+"We've brought a wagon along from the ranch to carry your luggage," she
+said, dragging him over to the wagon beside which two of the boys from
+the ranch were waiting bashfully. "Come over and meet a couple of our
+cow-punchers, and they will help you load your trunk on board."
+
+All this accomplished, the cowboys and Allen having formed an immediate
+and staunch friendship, Betty introduced the latter to the horse she had
+brought for him to ride. The pony was a magnificent animal, dark brown
+in color with a curve to his graceful neck and a flash to his eye that
+proclaimed his thoroughbred ancestry.
+
+"Say, you old peach of a horse," said Allen, fondly stroking the soft
+muzzle, "you're just about the most perfect thing of your kind I've ever
+seen. It seems almost a sacrilege to ride you."
+
+"His name is Lightning," Amy volunteered. "The boys call him that
+because he can outrun almost any other horse on the ranch. Though," she
+added loyally, "I shouldn't wonder if Lady could beat him if they
+should give her a head start."
+
+This characteristic speech brought a laugh, and Allen regarded the four
+other beautiful horses in the group.
+
+"You girls seemed to have picked winners yourselves," he said
+admiringly. He studied them a moment, then his eyes narrowed quizzically
+as he turned to Betty.
+
+"I'll bet you a box of candy against a pair of gloves," he said, "that I
+can tell which horse belongs to which. Do you take me?"
+
+"Of course," said Betty. "Go ahead."
+
+He guessed them nearly right, except that he gave Nigger to Mollie and
+Old Nick to Betty.
+
+"Almost does not avail," sang Betty gayly. "You owe me a box of candy,
+Allen Washburn."
+
+He looked at her for a moment laughing, and suddenly her gaze faltered.
+There had been something new and forceful about Allen ever since he had
+come back from the war that had made Betty a little afraid of him. But
+she did not think any the less of him--oh, no indeed!
+
+"I'll give you a dozen of them if you'll take them," he was saying
+ardently--evidently in reference to the candies.
+
+"And if she won't take 'em, I will," said Grace, with a gusto that made
+them all laugh.
+
+On the way home the girls, with what they thought was great
+consideration, cantered along in front, leaving Allen and Betty to bring
+up the rear. Allen blessed them for it, but Betty was furious and kept
+up such a running fire of comment and laughing narrative that Allen had
+no chance to say the things he had wanted to say.
+
+Only once as they neared the ranch she paused a moment, pointing out
+over the dazzling plains to the purple tipped mountains in the distance.
+
+"Isn't the country beautiful, Allen?" she asked breathlessly. "I've
+fallen dead in love with it."
+
+"It looks too good to be true," Allen agreed seriously, then added
+boyishly, with a glance that took her in, as well as the scenery: "Just
+now, I don't care if I never go home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A TIP
+
+
+For the next few days the girls took possession of Allen, showing him
+the sights with a will and showering him with details of their
+adventures till the poor fellow's head was in a whirl and he could
+hardly tell whether it was the wolves or the landslide that had
+frightened the girls into the cave on that memorable afternoon.
+
+"Seems to me," he said, as the girls showed him the cave--at a safe
+distance from the mountain, one may be sure--"that you young ladies need
+a chaperone pretty badly."
+
+"Do you think you're it?" teased Mollie.
+
+"Great guns! I should hope not," said Allen, with a flash of his white
+teeth. "I would rather face a dugout full of Boches than try to keep
+tabs on you girls. See here," he added, suddenly serious. "Do you mean
+to tell me that you were really caught in that cave with your horses and
+nothing to dig your way out with but your hands?"
+
+"And a few sharp stones that we found," Betty nodded soberly.
+
+Allen whistled softly.
+
+"No, I should think not," he said slowly. "It's a wonder that with you
+and your horses, too, in that small space, you didn't smother before aid
+could reach you."
+
+"We should have," spoke up Amy quickly, "if it hadn't been for Betty.
+She was the one who kept us at it when we were ready to give up."
+
+"Yes, and she was the one that kept at it when the rest of us _had_
+given up," Mollie reminded her. "She was the one who kept digging until
+she forced the hole through. If it hadn't been for her we would have all
+given up and just died there, I guess."
+
+Betty, who had been getting redder and redder through this recital of
+her heroism, found it hard to meet Allen's eyes as he turned to her with
+all his heart in his own.
+
+"The girls give me altogether too much credit," she protested. "Anybody
+will fight when he has his back against the wall. And now let's take
+Allen to see Dan Higgins' mine," she added lightly. "Dan Higgins and his
+daughter Meggy are great friends of ours, Allen, and I know you will
+love them as much as we do."
+
+"Your friends will always be mine," Allen assured her gallantly, and
+they rode off gayly toward Gold Run.
+
+On the way they told him a good deal of Dan Higgins and Meggy, and Allen
+listened with sympathetic interest.
+
+"That surely is tough," he said boyishly. "But of course his case is no
+different from that of hundreds of others who have come out here to
+'God's Country' in the hope of beating the daily grind and jumping to
+fortune at one fell swoop. That sounds rather Irish, doesn't it?" he
+added, with his contagious grin.
+
+"You're right about that, I suppose," said Betty gravely. "As you say,
+Dan Higgins is just one of a hundred others in the same pitiful fix. But
+at least he has had his dreams and the excitement of gambling. He chose
+this sort of life, and so we don't feel so awfully sorry for him. But it
+is his daughter Meggy that we pity. She is really a wonderful girl,
+Allen, and to condemn her to a life of work and poverty is really a
+crime."
+
+"Well, I didn't do it," said Allen plaintively, adding quickly as
+Betty's face clouded: "I beg your pardon, little girl, I didn't mean to
+be flippant. But, like her father, there are many others in the
+position of this girl. A man can't choose to live a life like that
+without dragging his family into it too."
+
+"Then he shouldn't have a family," said Mollie hotly. "He should make up
+his mind to be an old bachelor--though I don't think there is anything
+worse under the sun," she added, with such emphasis that the girls
+giggled.
+
+"I agree with you there," said Allen, adding whimsically: "But what a
+man should do and what he does do are often very different things."
+
+"But you speak of Dan Higgins and Meggy as if they were just ordinary
+people," Grace objected, as she flicked the reins gently on Nabob's
+arching neck. "You seem to forget that they saved our lives--probably."
+
+"No, I don't forget that," said Allen gravely. "And I respect your wish
+to do something in return. I also owe them a debt of gratitude." His
+eyes unconsciously sought Betty's, and a quick glance passed between
+them that was more eloquent than words.
+
+"Then you will help us to help him?" said Betty quickly.
+
+"I'll do anything I can," Allen answered, adding, rather dubiously: "But
+I don't see what any one can do for them. If the old man hasn't struck
+gold yet and is short of funds to finance further search, I don't see
+what any one can do for him. Do you?" he added, looking at her.
+
+"No-o," admitted Betty reluctantly. "I haven't thought of a way yet. But
+I'm sure I shall," she added so bravely that the girls wanted to hug
+her.
+
+They reached the Higgins' mine soon after this, and at the sound of
+their approach Meggy ran eagerly out to them, as she always did. But
+when she saw Allen, looking to her unsophisticated eyes like some hero
+out of a story book, handsome and city-bred, she halted and turned red
+with embarrassment.
+
+However, Allen, by his own gracious and friendly manner, soon set her at
+ease, but her eyes continued to follow every movement of his as though
+in amazement that such a perfect creature could live.
+
+"Better look out, Betty," Grace whispered to the Little Captain when
+nobody was looking. "Meggy thinks Allen is pretty nice. Just watch her,
+she's hypnotized."
+
+But Betty only smiled. Somehow, she felt pretty sure of Allen.
+
+The latter struck up a great friendship with old Dan Higgins right
+away--wonderful how everybody took to Allen, thought Betty proudly--and
+soon they were talking like old friends. In five minutes Allen had
+found out more about Dan Higgins' mine and his prospects than the girls
+would have learned in a year.
+
+Toward the end Allen managed to put a few adroit questions concerning
+Gold Run Ranch and the possibility of there being gold upon it.
+
+"Waal now," drawled Higgins, spitting upon the ground reflectively,
+"folks here'bouts used to wonder why old Jed Barcolm didn't get busy and
+find out if there was gold on thet property, but somehow th' old man
+never seemed to get interested. Conservative old fellow, Jed Barcolm,
+anyways--allus said he'd made enough raisin' cattle and didn't aim to do
+no prospectin' at his time o' life."
+
+"But you think there is a good possibility of there being gold on the
+ranch?" insisted Allen, and the girls held their breath.
+
+Dan Higgins gave him a shrewd look and spat once more.
+
+"You thinkin' of doin' a little prospectin' on your own hook, Son?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Heavens, no!" answered Allen with convincing sincerity, adding with a
+smile: "It is barely possible that my client might, though."
+
+The old man started and stood upright, squaring his thin shoulders
+belligerently.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me you're one o' those ornery lawyer cusses,"
+he said, with a disgusted emphasis that angered the girls but apparently
+left Allen unmoved.
+
+"A lawyer--but not ornery, I hope," he said pleasantly. "And my client
+is Mrs. Nelson, the new owner of the ranch. Is there anything else you
+would like to know about me?"
+
+But the old man's anger had departed and he regarded Allen with a shrewd
+twinkle in his kindly blue eyes.
+
+"Sorry, Son," he said. "I reckon there are some honest lawyers, though I
+never ain't met one yet--not round here leastways."
+
+"Thanks for a rather doubtful compliment," laughed Allen. It was evident
+that he was enjoying the old man extremely. "I assure you, though I am
+not always honest, there are times when I try very hard to be." Then he
+suddenly added: "By the way, do you happen to know a man around
+here--one of those ornery lawyers--by the name of Peter Levine?"
+
+Again Dan Higgins spat disgustedly.
+
+"Know him!" he answered with a wealth of scorn in his voice. "I reckon
+most everybody round here knows him--an' they's mighty few knows any
+good o' him. Take my advice, Son, an' keep away from him."
+
+"Thanks," said Allen dryly. "But the problem seems to be to keep him
+away from us. He is representing a client who wants to buy Gold Run
+Ranch."
+
+The old man started and a gleam of excitement shot into his eyes while
+Meggy, seeming to share his emotion, crept closer to him.
+
+"Peter Levine wants you to sell," he repeated eagerly, then relaxed once
+more into his drawl, though his eyes reflected a strange inward turmoil.
+"Listen, Son," he said. "Ef you let that snake in the grass argy you
+into sellin', you're a bigger fool 'n I take you to be. An' what's
+more," his voice lowered and the girls leaned forward eagerly, "if Peter
+wants that there property of yourn there's gold on it, you can bet your
+last dollar onto it. Pete ain't no angel, an' he don't work for
+nothing."
+
+Burning with excitement themselves, the girls marveled that Allen could
+take this statement so calmly.
+
+"Thanks for the tip," he said, in his ordinary voice. "I had some such
+idea myself, but it certainly helps to have my judgment backed by
+somebody who knows the people in the case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE NET TIGHTENS
+
+
+Allen learned much about Peter Levine and his associates and about Gold
+Run itself in the following conversation, and when he and the girls
+finally said good-by to the old man and his daughter and started off
+down the trail again, he was more than satisfied.
+
+As for the girls, they could hardly wait to get out of earshot of the
+mine before letting loose a flood of excited comment.
+
+"Well, I don't see anything to get so excited about," said Allen, after
+they had rattled on for several minutes. "Dan Higgins didn't tell us
+anything we didn't already know--or suspect, anyway. He simply confirmed
+our suspicions, that's all."
+
+"Seems to me that's enough," retorted Mollie. "It's one thing to think a
+thing yourself and an entirely different thing to find out somebody else
+thinks it too."
+
+"Don't be an old granddaddy, Allen," Betty said, adding threateningly:
+"If you don't look out we won't let you have any of that wonderful gold
+we are going to find--not one little tiny nugget."
+
+"That's gratitude for you," said Allen reproachfully. "Not one little
+nugget for a fellow who finds her a fortune."
+
+"You haven't found it yet," Amy reminded him.
+
+"No," said Allen suddenly animated, "I haven't found it--not yet--but
+I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track. Look here," he appealed to them:
+"It seems reasonable to me to suppose that if Peter Levine and the
+people above him are so anxious to get the property they know pretty
+well where they stand. They don't want the ranch simply because they
+_think_ there is gold on it."
+
+"Then you think----" Betty was beginning breathlessly, when Allen
+interrupted her with a rush of words.
+
+"Yes, that's just what I think," he said. "I've been pretty well over
+the whole of this ranch since I came, and I've noticed that this extreme
+northwest portion of it, the only part where there would be any
+possibility of finding gold, is pretty well deserted most of the
+time--absolutely so at night----"
+
+"Then you think," Betty burst forth, "that these people, whoever they
+are, may have made actual tests? That they are sure there is gold here?"
+
+Allen nodded.
+
+"That is my theory," he said gravely. "But of course the only way to
+prove the truth of it is to keep my eyes open and catch them, if that is
+possible, in the act."
+
+"But how could one conceal such a thing?" Grace objected. "A big thing
+like a mine can't be hidden away in the daytime like a rag doll. There
+must be some signs about the place to show that people have been
+here----"
+
+"Exactly," said Allen. "There probably are signs--only nobody has had
+the incentive--or the interest, maybe--to hunt for those signs up to
+this time. Although," he added thoughtfully, "there are many ways of
+camouflaging the entrance to a mine so that a casual observer, even an
+interested one, possibly, would be fooled--branches, leaves, a rock or
+two."
+
+"But wouldn't there be noise?" It was Amy who put the objection this
+time. "I should think they would make enough disturbance to rouse
+suspicion at least."
+
+"They might not," Allen contended. "Remember, they are right in the
+mining territory, so that if any of the miners heard an unusual noise
+they would think it was one of their neighbors working late. Anyway,"
+he finished, "their operations would necessarily have to be small, and
+they might be so small as not even to arouse suspicion. Sometimes," he
+added, and the girls hung on his words as though they were prophetic,
+"there need be no actual digging to ascertain that there is gold in a
+certain region. Sometimes the bed of a spring if sifted to get rid of
+pebbles and other debris will reveal gold enough to make the finder
+certain that there is a rich gold vein close by."
+
+"Goodness, let's go and hunt up some springs!" cried Mollie
+irrepressibly. "What's the use of leaving all this gold finding to Mr.
+Peter Levine?"
+
+"I remember seeing an old broken sieve around the ranch house
+somewhere," Grace suggested helpfully. "Don't you suppose we can go back
+and get it?"
+
+"But, Allen," Betty asked anxiously, "how do you expect to find out
+about these men? I suppose you intend to show them up?"
+
+"I most certainly do," responded Allen cheerfully. "It would give me the
+greatest delight to land Mr. Peter Levine and his associates in jail."
+
+"Well, you'd better look out you don't get landed yourself," said Mollie
+sagely. "I imagine these particular gentlemen are pretty handy with
+their guns--like most of the other people around here--and I reckon they
+wouldn't be very backward about using them."
+
+"It would be fifty-fifty, at that," said Allen, adding grimly: "I'm not
+so very unhandy with a gun myself. But the war's over and I haven't any
+idea of staging a tragedy," he added lightly, anxious to banish the
+cloud that had come over Betty's bright face. "I shall keep out of sight
+till I have them just where I want them, and when they find themselves
+caught I don't think they'll do much fighting. All crooks are more or
+less cowards, you know."
+
+"But what are you going to do in the meantime--while you are waiting for
+a chance to show them up?" Betty persisted. She did not half like the
+way things were going--even if there was a chance of finding a fortune
+on the ranch. It seemed to her that Allen was putting himself into too
+great danger. And if anything happened to him, what would all the gold
+in the world be worth?
+
+"'In the meantime?'" Allen was answering her question lightly. "Why, in
+the meantime I intend to keep my eyes and ears wide open and do a little
+scouting around Gold Run until I get a line on the doings of Peter
+Levine and his crowd--if he has a crowd. He may just be in partnership
+with one other rascal like himself, for all I know. That's one of the
+first things I want to find out. After the information of our friend,
+back there at the mine," he added, "there is no longer any doubt in my
+mind that this Levine is a crook."
+
+"Humph," said Betty, "I was sure of that the first time I laid eyes on
+him."
+
+"And yet you said you could almost love him for making your mother
+decide to come out here," Allen reminded her quizzically.
+
+"And you said you were on your way to kill him," said Betty, adding with
+a chuckle: "What made you change your mind?"
+
+"I didn't change my mind," retorted Allen, with a grin. "I just didn't
+happen to meet him, that's all."
+
+They had nearly reached the ranch house before Betty thought to ask
+Allen if he had talked his plans over with her mother.
+
+"No, I haven't," he admitted. "As a matter of fact, I hadn't made any
+definite plans until I had this confab with Dan Higgins. He made me see
+the whole thing straight, so to speak. I'll have a talk with your mother
+and father to-night," he promised.
+
+He kept his promise and had the satisfaction of knowing that both his
+clients were backing him heartily.
+
+"Go to it, Allen," Mr. Nelson said at the end of the conference. "Seems
+to me that you have gotten the correct angle on this thing, and if you
+need any help from me just call on me. Only," he warned, "don't run
+yourself into unnecessary trouble."
+
+"I've found, sir," said Allen, with that straight-forward look that made
+every one like and admire him, "that it's usually the fellow who runs
+away from trouble who gets the most of it. I'm not worrying about that
+end of the business."
+
+But if he did not worry, Betty certainly did in the days that followed.
+She had dreams at night in which she saw Allen riding about in the
+shadows. There would be a report, two reports, and he would topple over
+backwards to lie crumpled up and motionless. No wonder that she became
+pale and lost her appetite and made her mother worry even in the midst
+of the excitement over this double hunt--the hunt for men and gold.
+
+One night after dinner Allen asked her to ride with him a little way,
+said it would do him a lot of good just to talk to her. Betty agreed,
+and they cantered off in the twilight, their bodies swaying to the
+rhythm of the beautiful animals under them.
+
+For a long time they were silent, just enjoying the rapid motion, the
+sweet scented air that fanned their faces, the beauty of the hazy
+mountains in the distance. Then, suddenly Allen spoke.
+
+"Betty," he said, swinging round toward her, "you aren't letting this
+thing get on your nerves, are you?"
+
+"Wh-what do you mean?" she asked faintly. "What thing?"
+
+"This gold business--the excitement of it all," he said, waving his hand
+largely as though to take in the whole landscape. "I've noticed you
+looked tired lately," he went on gently, "and I've worried about it,
+little Betty. I--I have almost dared to hope," he leaned toward her, but
+Betty was looking the other way, "that you were a little anxious about
+me. Were you?"
+
+"Why--I--yes--no--why--I don't know," cried Betty wildly, then, meeting
+his eye, she laughed, a twinkling little laugh. "You shouldn't ask
+questions like that, not so suddenly, anyway," she said primly. "It
+isn't fair."
+
+"Never mind, I got my answer," said Allen jubilantly, and again Betty
+found it a little hard to look at him. "You mustn't worry though,
+little girl," he went on gently. "There isn't any danger--really. I'm
+just playing a delightful little game--and I'm going to win. Went to see
+Levine to-day, representing your mother," he added, and his tone
+suddenly became grim. "He made me feel, or at least he tried to make me
+feel, that he had as much respect for my ability as he would for a
+little speck of dirt."
+
+"The very idea!" cried Betty indignantly. "I'd just like to tell him
+what I think of--your ability----" she faltered on these last words, for
+Allen was gazing at her with a most disconcerting light in his eyes.
+
+Suddenly she whirled Nigger's head about and urged him to a gallop.
+
+"Race you home, Allen!" she challenged. "Winner gets the other fellow's
+piece of cake."
+
+"Who cares for cake!" cried Allen, but it might have been noticed that
+he followed her just the same.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+IN THE SHADOWS
+
+
+Allen was acting in two capacities at this time--that of lawyer and that
+of private detective. He probably would not have taken this role for
+anybody but Betty and her family, but in order to serve them he was
+willing to do pretty nearly anything.
+
+So he had taken to scouting around the northern end of the ranch after
+dark, in the hope that he might possibly discover something that would
+help him in his theory that there was really gold on the ranch and,
+also, that Peter Levine and his cronies, whoever they were, knew of it.
+
+However, as the days passed, bringing no new developments, the young
+fellow began to think that he had let his imagination run away with him.
+He even began to formulate plans by which he could lure the unsuspecting
+Peter Levine into telling what he knew.
+
+And then--just when he was beginning to despair of being any help at all
+to Betty and her family--fate or luck, or whatever one wishes to call
+it, chose to smile upon him once more.
+
+He was prowling around when quite unexpectedly he found himself
+confronted by Andy Rawlinson. He had struck up quite a liking for the
+head cowboy, and the two walked along together.
+
+Gradually they neared a patch of timber near the northern boundary of
+the ranch. The cowboy said he was looking for two calves that had
+strayed away.
+
+"And it ain't no use to follow 'em into the woods on hossback," he
+explained.
+
+"I have an object in coming here," declared Allen, at last. "I am
+watching out for Peter Levine." He felt he could trust Rawlinson.
+
+"I thought as much," replied the head cowboy, with a chuckle. "Believe
+me, I wouldn't trust Levine out o' my sight, if I was the boss. I've
+seen him prowlin' around here several times."
+
+"Then you think he has some secret motive in getting hold of the ranch?"
+
+"Sure as shootin'. That feller is a bad one--take it from me."
+
+"Please don't make too much noise around here," went on Allen. "I was
+thinking he might come again in the dark some night--to do a little
+prospecting, or something like that."
+
+"I get you. It would be just like him. Quiet it is." And after that the
+pair spoke only in whispers.
+
+Nothing was seen of the calves, and presently Rawlinson was on the point
+of going back, when, all at once, something occurred to make him remain.
+
+The night was intensely dark; not a star twinkled through the storm
+clouds that scudded across the sky. Allen had just stubbed his toe on a
+projecting root and had muttered something uncomplimentary to the
+darkness of the night when an unusual sound caught the ears of the two
+young men and stopped them dead in their tracks.
+
+Some one was coming through the brush. Some one, like Allen, had
+stumbled and was muttering under his breath.
+
+"Shut up, can't you?" a second voice growled, and Allen's hand
+instinctively went to Rawlinson's arm to quiet him.
+
+"Two of them," he thought exultantly, as he held himself and the cowboy
+against the trunk of a tree. "There may be some action after all."
+
+The two strangers passed close enough to Allen and Rawlinson to have
+touched them. But they did not notice the young men.
+
+Allen and the cowboy, their blood tingling with excitement, followed the
+pair, and when, some hundred yards on, the strangers stopped, they
+stopped too, keeping within the shadow of the trees.
+
+The strangers were bending over some sort of paper which they were
+examining by the light of an electric torch.
+
+"Here's the place, Jim," one of the men said, pointing first to the
+paper and then into the shadow of the woods. "There's gold running wild
+around here, man. I've tested the bed of the creek that runs down there,
+and it's chock full of yellow men. Why, if we can get hold of this ranch
+we're rich men--rich over night, I tell you!"
+
+"Huh!" grunted the other, noncommittally. "How are you goin' to get hold
+of this ranch? Ain't done it yet, so's any one could notice it."
+
+"No, that's where you come in, Jim," replied the other, and as he turned
+eagerly to his companion Allen and Rawlinson recognized the features of
+Peter Levine. "This woman, this Mrs. Nelson who owns the place, won't
+sell. I'm afraid she may have an idea that there's gold here. And she
+suspects me, for some reason."
+
+The other man laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"'Tain't hard for most of us to guess the reason for that, Pete." And
+at the sneer Levine gave a grunt.
+
+"You must have your little joke, Jim," he said. "But now let's get down
+to business. The woman distrusts me and she has sent for this insolent
+cub lawyer--Washburn, his name is. He's been to see me already, the
+unwhipped pup," he went on, while in the shadows Allen's hands gripped
+themselves into fists, "trying to find out more about my client and John
+Josephs. Say, that's a good joke, Jim. Here they are after that
+imaginary ranchman, John Josephs, and my client who they think are
+crooks, when all the time little Peter Levine is their meat and they
+don't know it."
+
+"You didn't let on you wuz the one that wanted the place?" questioned
+Jim, who was evidently able to appreciate this joke. "You wuz just the
+lawyer, and so nowise interested except jest in the fee?"
+
+"Righto!" chuckled the other. "And a good-sized fee it will be if once I
+can get my hands on it."
+
+"Which you ain't--yet," the other reminded him. "Get busy, Pete, and
+tell us your scheme. I don't want to be standin' around here all night."
+He gave an uneasy glance over his shoulder, and Allen and Rawlinson
+shrank still further into the shadows. They were not yet ready to make
+their presence known.
+
+"All right," said Peter Levine, speaking hurriedly. "If you'll agree to
+my suggestion, you're in for easy money, Jim. All you have to do is to
+approach this Mrs. Nelson and make her an offer for the ranch--for
+yourself, you understand. She doesn't know you, and she may have become
+tired of mooning around here by now, and there's just a chance that
+she'll take you--that is, if you handle the cards right. No eagerness,
+you understand--just sort of offhand and careless, as if you didn't care
+much whether she took you or not."
+
+"Huh!" said the other, with his noncommittal grunt. "Sounds easy, don't
+it? But what do I get out of it, ef I pull this deal off, eh?"
+
+"Half of all the gold we find, Jim," said the other, waving his hand
+largely. "You'll never regret it if you put this thing through. You'll
+be a rich man."
+
+"All right, I'm on," said Jim.
+
+"Then I guess it's about time we got back," returned Peter Levine, and
+the two men moved as if to leave that vicinity.
+
+"We don't want them to get away," Allen whispered excitedly to
+Rawlinson. "I want to get hold of that paper if possible."
+
+"I reckon that will be easy, Washburn," returned the head cowboy. "I'm
+armed, you know, and I'll take my chances against those two rascals any
+time. Just follow me."
+
+Without waiting for Allen to reply to this, Andy Rawlinson ran forward
+swiftly and silently, and in a few seconds had confronted the rascally
+pair. He had drawn his pistol, but he did not raise the weapon.
+
+"Halt, both of you!" he cried, sharply. "Hands up there!"
+
+"Hi! what's the meaning of this?" cried Levine, in astonishment. "Who
+are you?"
+
+"It's Rawlinson, the head man here," muttered the man called Jim.
+
+"Right!" answered the cowboy. "And here is a particular friend of yours,
+Levine," he added, as Allen stepped closer.
+
+"Washburn!" muttered the rascally lawyer from Gold Run. And then he
+added quickly: "Have you been spying on us?"
+
+"If we have, that's our affair," answered Allen coolly. "You'd better
+keep those hands up," he went on quickly, as he saw the two rascals
+making a move as if to start something.
+
+"They'll keep 'em up all right enough," broke in Rawlinson. "I reckon
+you know me," he went on sternly. "And I'll stand for no foolin'."
+
+"We haven't been doing anything wrong," came from Levine, lamely.
+
+"Oh, no! Of course not!" said Allen sarcastically. "Only trying to get
+hold of a bonanza for next to nothing!"
+
+"Wait a minute, Washburn," came from the head cowboy. "Just relieve 'em
+of their weapons first. Then maybe we'll be able to talk with more
+satisfaction."
+
+With Rawlinson confronting them, Levine and his companion did not dare
+offer any resistance, and quickly Allen took their weapons from them and
+handed the firearms to Rawlinson.
+
+"Now I'll thank you, Levine, for that paper you were examining so
+carefully just a few minutes ago," went on the young lawyer.
+
+"This is robbery!" fumed Peter Levine. "I'll have you before the courts
+for this."
+
+Allen eyed him steadily.
+
+"Do you represent the law in this place?" he asked. "If so, I am sorry
+for the inhabitants. But there is no use in prolonging this discussion,
+Levine. I want that paper. Hand it over at once."
+
+The rascally lawyer from Gold Run attempted to argue, but the sight of
+Rawlinson's weapon subdued him, and presently he handed over the
+crumpled sheet, which Allen seized with much satisfaction. During this
+transaction Jim remained sullenly silent.
+
+"Now I guess that's about all," said Allen to the cowboy.
+
+"If that's the case I guess we can bid you skunks good-evening," came
+quickly from Rawlinson. "Both of you beat it. And don't ever let me
+ketch you around here again."
+
+"What about my gun?" came feebly from Jim.
+
+"I'll send the guns over to Levine's office to-morrow," answered the
+head cowboy. "Now clear out, and be quick about it." And a moment later
+the two rascals stumbled away through the darkness.
+
+"This is certainly what I call luck," cried Allen excitedly, as he gazed
+at the scrap of paper Levine had passed over. "Rawlinson, you have
+certainly helped me do a good night's work. If what that scoundrel said
+is true, this will mean a fortune for Betty and her mother."
+
+"I'm glad I chanced along, Washburn," answered the head cowboy. "After
+this I think I'll set a guard. If it leaks out that there is gold on
+this ranch there will be all sorts of fellows beside those skunks trying
+to locate claims around here."
+
+"Will you go up to the house with me?"
+
+"No. I'll stick around here a while and see if those fellows come back.
+Besides, I want to see if I can get any trace of those strayed-away
+calves. You go ahead. You can tell me about it later. You can take their
+guns with you if you will."
+
+Half running, half stumbling, in his eagerness, Allen reached the house,
+took the steps of the porch three at a time, and burst into the big
+homelike kitchen, where he found the family assembled.
+
+"We've got 'em, folks!" he cried, waving the scrap of paper over his
+head, while they stared at him as though they thought he had gone mad.
+"I've been out hunting and brought home a prize. Come look at it."
+
+He went over to the table beside which Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were sitting
+and laid the two captured pistols upon the table. Infected by his
+excitement, the girls crowded around, demanding an explanation.
+
+[Illustration: THE GIRLS CROWDED AROUND, DEMANDING AN EXPLANATION.
+
+_The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle._ _Page 163_]
+
+"Pistols!" cried Betty, her eyes wide with dislike of the things. "Where
+did you get them, Allen?"
+
+"Oh, just picked them off the trees by the roadside," said Allen airily.
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he laid the scrap of paper beside the
+weapons on the table. "There," he said, dramatically, "is the key that
+may open your door to a fortune."
+
+"A map," said Mrs. Nelson, her eyes glistening. "Oh, Allen, you've found
+out something wonderful. Tell us about it, please."
+
+And so Allen recounted what had taken place during that fruitful half
+hour in the shadows of the trees. His audience listened breathlessly.
+
+"Then this thing," said Mr. Nelson, taking the bit of paper which was
+crossed and criss-crossed with a number of lines and dotted with numbers
+until it seemed more like a jig-saw puzzle than a map, "is supposedly a
+map which will point out the probable location of gold."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Allen.
+
+"Then," said Mr. Nelson, feeling the thrill of adventure in his own
+blood, "we'll begin to look for this gold to-morrow. That is--" He
+paused and looked quizzically about at the group of tense young faces.
+"If everybody is willing."
+
+"Oh-h," was all that they could say--just then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE NEW MINE
+
+
+The next day much excitement filled the ranch house. Betty declared that
+she had not slept a wink the night before, worrying for fear her father
+had not meant what he said.
+
+But Mr. Nelson had meant what he had said, and there was Mrs. Nelson as
+eager as the girls to keep him to his word.
+
+"The ranch is mine, you know," she laughingly reminded the girls. "And
+if there are gold mines on it I certainly intend to find them."
+
+It was settled, and Mr. Nelson and Allen set out for town to make
+arrangements for the enterprise. The girls wanted to go too, but Mr.
+Nelson pointed out that he and Allen could probably do the work more
+quickly if they were alone, and it was upon this point and this point
+only that the girls consented to let them go.
+
+"But that needn't keep us from the saddle," Mollie decided, as they
+watched the two men canter swiftly away. "I don't know about the rest
+of you, but I'm just longing for action."
+
+"Ditto," cried Betty, then added with bright eagerness: "Girls, I know
+what we can do! Let's go down to the place where Allen found those two
+men last night. That's where the mines are, you know, and we might stake
+out claims or something."
+
+"Your mother might have something to say to that," said Grace, making a
+funny face. "It isn't quite the thing to stake out claims on somebody
+else's property."
+
+"Oh well, you needn't be so particular," cried Betty airily. "Come on,
+girls, who's with me?"
+
+It seemed they all were, and, fairly dancing with excitement, they made
+their way to the corrals where Andy Rawlinson saddled their horses for
+them.
+
+The horses seemed to catch some of the girls' excitement, and it was all
+that the latter could do to hold the animals in.
+
+"It must be in the air," laughed Grace, as she pulled in Nabob sharply.
+"We've all got the gold fever."
+
+"Let's give them their heads," said Mollie suddenly. "I'd like a regular
+gallop this morning."
+
+"All right, let's go," sang out Betty, and in another minute they were
+off, the horses galloping like mad and the girls laughing and shouting
+in utter abandonment to their high spirits.
+
+At this rate it took them only a few minutes to reach the spot where
+Allen had had his adventure the night before.
+
+They reined in sharply, and Betty jumped down, throwing the reins over
+Nigger's neck and giving him a fond little pat on the flank.
+
+"There, old boy," she said. "Go and eat some grass for yourself while we
+do a little prospecting. Girls," she added as they in turn dismounted
+and ran up to her, "from Allen's description, it must have been just
+about here that he stood." She indicated the bent tree with the great
+bowlder behind it that Allen had described to them. "And the two men
+must have stood in there among that heavy shrubbery somewhere."
+
+"Then this is where they will begin work," cried Amy, a faint flush
+warming her face. "Oh, Betty, it all seems like a fairy story."
+
+"Fairy story, nothing!" exclaimed Mollie. "This is a real,
+honest-to-goodness adventure story. My, it's a wonder Allen didn't get
+shot up last night," she added thoughtfully. "It must have taken nerve
+to stand here, listening to those old scoundrels and not knowing what
+minute they might find him out and fire upon him."
+
+"I think Allen is perfectly wonderful, anyway," said Grace, and Betty
+thrilled at the tribute. "He never seems to know what it is to be
+afraid. And he always gets what he wants, too."
+
+"And to think that 'John Josephs' never existed!" chuckled Betty. "Peter
+Levine must have quite a good deal of imagination."
+
+"Well, what's the use of standing here?" said Amy, after a moment of
+silent musing. "Let's look around a little bit and see what we can see."
+
+So for a while they thrashed around in the bush, accomplishing very
+little besides scaring some rabbits and woodchucks into their holes.
+They found the tiny creek Peter Levine had spoken of, and they gazed
+with interest at its muddy, sluggish water.
+
+"Who would ever think there was gold in the bottom of that?" whispered
+Mollie.
+
+When they finally became convinced that there was nothing more to be
+seen they started reluctantly home again.
+
+"Let's go around by the mine and see how Meggy and her dad are coming
+on," suggested Betty, and so they changed their course a little to
+include the mine.
+
+Meggy was glad to see them as usual but they could tell by the weariness
+of her bearing that there was no good news as far as she was concerned
+and they had not the heart to tell her their own.
+
+"Can't you come over to the ranch for a little while?" asked Betty,
+eager to do some little thing toward cheering the girl. But Meggy shook
+her head.
+
+"I can't leave father--even for a little while," she said sadly. "He
+ain't feeling well, and I'm afraid if his luck doesn't change pretty
+soon I--I--won't have any dad----" she choked and turned away. Betty was
+beside her in a moment, her arm about the girl's shoulders.
+
+"We're awfully sorry, honey," she said compassionately. "We didn't know
+that your father was feeling bad. Is he--is he really sick?"
+
+"Sick of life, I guess," said Meggy, conquering her emotion and
+instantly ashamed of it. "I've heered of people dyin' of a broken heart,
+an' that's what dad's doin', I guess. Bad luck can kill you if it keeps
+up long enough."
+
+The girls rode home saddened by this brief encounter. It seemed almost
+wrong for them to be happy when Dan Higgins was "dyin' of a broken
+heart" and Meggy, brave, splendid girl that she was, had almost lost
+hope.
+
+"If only everybody in the world could be happy," said Grace plaintively.
+"It just spoils all your fun when you know that other people are
+miserable."
+
+"The worst of it is," said Betty soberly, "that with all this luck
+coming our way we can't pass on a single little bit of it to that poor
+girl and her dad. If only they weren't so proud----" The sentence
+trailed off into a sigh, and she gazed pensively out over the plain.
+
+"Well, there's no use of crying over it," said Mollie briskly. "We may
+find a way of being useful to Meggy yet, and until then, as my mother
+says, 'let's be canty with thinking about it.' Oh, look, girls, here
+comes Allen. I wonder what kind of news he has."
+
+They galloped gayly to meet him, and Allen thought they made a very
+pretty picture as they swept up to him.
+
+"Well," he said as they surrounded him, "everything is settled and they
+are to begin work to-morrow morning. Our news has aroused great
+excitement in town, and there's a rush to establish claims near that end
+of our ranch. Better give your friend, Dan Higgins, a hint, so that he
+can get in first. So long. I'm on to the house for the map, and then I'm
+going to join Mr. Nelson again in town."
+
+So he dashed off in the direction of the ranch and the girls wheeled and
+galloped back in the direction they had come--back toward Dan Higgins'
+mine to warn him to stake a new claim before others reached the spot.
+
+They were so excited that it was hard to make their purpose clear at
+first, but when the old man and Meggy comprehended what they were trying
+to tell them, they were immediately galvanized to action.
+
+"I'll show you the best place," Betty eagerly volunteered.
+
+Mollie offered to stay behind and give the old man her horse, and in a
+minute Betty and Dan Higgins were galloping over the plain to that part
+of the ranch where the new gold mines were to be. They had not far to
+go, and they saw with relief that they were the first on the spot.
+
+Betty pointed out the place where Peter Levine had said there was gold
+running wild, and old Dan Higgins staked his claim as near to the place
+as he could without actually encroaching upon the ranch itself.
+
+With trembling fingers he printed on two big placards the exact
+dimensions of his claim, and, with Betty's help, nailed them to two
+trees at the two extreme ends of his new property, and began to dig.
+
+"Thar," he sighed, after a few moments, taking off his hat to mop the
+perspiration from his forehead, "I've made another bargain with luck,
+an' mebbe this time I'll win."
+
+"I'm sure you will," cried Betty, with conviction. "If there is gold on
+our ranch, and we are sure there is, then there is almost certain to be
+some on your property also. Oh, Mr. Dan Higgins, I so dearly hope that
+there is!" This was so evidently a cry straight from her earnest young
+heart that the keen eyes of the hardened old miner filled with tears and
+he patted Betty's head with an unsteady hand.
+
+"You're a mighty fine little gal," he said finally. "Ef an old man's
+gratitude means anything to you, you sure have got it. I've a sort of
+sure feelin' you've changed the luck for Meggy and me."
+
+They were silent on the ride back to the mine, but as they reached the
+last stretch of the trail that led down to it the old man shifted in his
+saddle and looked at Betty earnestly.
+
+"An' ef Meggy's mother was alive," he said simply, "she would thank you,
+too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE VIOLINIST AGAIN
+
+
+As Allen had predicted, there was a general rush on the part of the
+miners to establish claims on the property adjoining the ranch, and the
+girls congratulated themselves over and over again that they had reached
+Dan Higgins with the glad tidings in time for him to secure the best
+location.
+
+All day long the girls were in the saddle, hovering about the new gold
+diggings, fascinated at the way new mines seemed to spring up over
+night.
+
+Next to those on their own property, they were most interested in Dan
+Higgins' mine and in their hearts they would really rather have had him
+find gold than to find it themselves.
+
+"They need it so much more than we do," Betty said anxiously. "If Dan
+Higgins and Meggy have drawn another blank I don't know what they will
+do."
+
+In the midst of all this confusion and excitement, Amy received the
+program of the benefit concert given at the Hostess House for which she
+had sent home some time before. They had almost forgotten the hermit and
+it was with a shock of surprise that they remembered they had not seen
+him since the new mining operations. Before that they had run across him
+quite often attempting to help Meggy and Dan in his rather eccentric
+way.
+
+"Guess he must have been scared off by the crowd," said Mollie. "Too
+much excitement for the old boy."
+
+The four of them were sitting on the large front porch of the house,
+still in their riding habits, while their horses, at the foot of the
+steps, stamped their impatience to be off again. Nothing but the arrival
+of the mail could have drawn the girls from the fascination of the new
+gold diggings. They hardly took time to eat; and as for sleep, well,
+they took that in between times!
+
+Now Grace called to Amy, making room on the step beside her.
+
+"Come over here and show us your program," she said, extracting a bit of
+candy from some hidden recess somewhere about her person and popping it
+into her mouth. "I'm anxious to see what that violinist's name was."
+
+Amy obeyed, and as Grace opened the program Mollie and Betty drew closer
+and peeped over her shoulder.
+
+"Concerto--Liszt," read Grace, her finger pointing down the page. "No,
+that isn't it. That's for the piano. Hold on, here we are.
+Chopin--Nocturne--Paul Loup, violinist. There he is. Now will you please
+tell me how that helps us to find out anything about the hermit?" She
+paused with her finger still pointing to the name and looked up at them
+inquiringly.
+
+"We-el," said Betty thoughtfully, "it doesn't help very much, I must
+admit. It doesn't prove that Paul Loup is our Hermit of Gold Run. Only
+that funny feeling I have of having seen him before and heard him
+play----"
+
+"I tell you what we'll do!" Mollie snapped her fingers decisively. "It's
+a long chance and it may not work at all but--are you game to try it?"
+She paused and regarded the expectant girls eagerly.
+
+"Maybe," said Betty, noncommittally. "You might tell us the idea first."
+
+"Listen," cried Mollie. "My idea is that if we take the hermit by
+surprise, call him by his name of Paul Loup. Why--" She paused, and the
+light of inspiration filled her eyes. "I could even speak to him in
+French----"
+
+As the girls caught her full meaning they looked at her admiringly.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if that plan would work," said Betty swiftly. "Why
+can't we go now? Dinner won't be ready for a couple of hours."
+
+"Right you are," cried Mollie, taking the four steps at one jump and
+springing upon her astonished horse. "Come on, girls, are you with us?"
+
+"We'll have to lead 'em a merry pace," said Betty to Mollie a moment
+later as they galloped abreast up the road. "If we don't get them there
+in a hurry they're apt to get cold feet and think we're crazy."
+
+"Maybe we are," chuckled Mollie, urging Old Nick on to even greater
+speed. "I've had a suspicion that way several times before."
+
+It was Betty's turn to chuckle.
+
+"So have I!" she said, adding with a sigh of resignation: "But oh, it is
+so much fun. Look behind, Mollie. Are they still coming?"
+
+"Strong," reported Mollie, with a glance over her shoulder. Then, as
+they reached the trail that led through the woods, she reined in a
+little, motioning for Betty to take the lead. "You know the trail
+better," she said.
+
+Over the rough woodland trail their progress necessarily became slower,
+a fact which the girls did not relish at all. It gave them time to
+reflect on what a really rash adventure they had embarked, and any but
+the Outdoor Girls might have turned back even at this last minute.
+
+However, curiosity, together with some vague hope that they might become
+of service to this strange sad fellow, urged them on. If Paul Loup and
+the Hermit of Gold Run were really one and the same person, then surely
+there was a real mystery which they might in some way help to unravel.
+
+They did not linger any longer on the way than was absolutely necessary,
+for the terrible experience they had had with the timber wolves soon
+after their arrival had made them suspicious of the forest, and try as
+they would they could not suppress an uncomfortable desire to search
+every shadow for some sinister, lurking presence.
+
+In vain had the cowboys on the ranch assured them that wolves were very
+scarce in this part of the forest, especially in the summer, and that
+they had had an unusual and unique experience. As Amy had said, one
+experience like that was enough to last a lifetime.
+
+They came in sight of the cabin without mishap, however, and they
+tethered their horses a little farther from the house than usual, so
+that their stamping and neighing might not frighten the hermit away.
+
+Then they made their way with as little noise as possible along the
+narrow path.
+
+"Suppose he isn't at home?" whispered Mollie to Betty.
+
+"Then we're out of luck, that's all," returned Betty cheerfully.
+
+But the hermit was at home. They could see him moving about, and as they
+came nearer they smelled an appetizing odor of frying bacon, as though
+he were cooking his dinner.
+
+"Hope he asks us to stay to lunch," said Grace, and the girls giggled
+nervously.
+
+"We'll be lucky if he doesn't slam the door in our faces," said Amy
+pessimistically.
+
+It was Mollie who knocked this time--and it was no timid little rap
+either, but a good, hearty rat-at-tat, that brought the occupant of the
+cabin to the door in a hurry. He had the frying pan still clutched in
+his hand and on his long narrow face was such a look of dread that the
+girls felt sorry for him.
+
+"Well," he said, the emotion within him making his voice sound stern and
+forbidding, "what is it you wish? It is not raining to-day as it was
+that other time." He gazed significantly up at the cloudless sky seen in
+little blue patches through the trees, and the girls flushed, partly
+from embarrassment and partly from anger. Somehow, they had not been
+prepared to have him take this attitude, and they resented it.
+
+For a moment they stood miserably tongue-tied. Even their usually
+quick-witted Little Captain seemed suddenly to have been stricken
+speechless. They were just about to turn and run when Mollie saved the
+day for them.
+
+Pushing forward through the group she confronted the man on the door
+step.
+
+"_Vous etes Paul Loup, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?_" she said in a clear
+voice, gazing up at him fearlessly.
+
+While the girls gasped at her temerity a most astounding thing happened.
+The man dropped the frying pan and it clattered to the floor, its
+contents spilling out greasily. While they looked he seemed to crumple,
+shrivel, and his eyes stared at them glassily out of his white mask of a
+face.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried hoarsely, staggering back into the shack. "You
+have found me! But I swear to you I did not kill him. _Mon Dieu_, I
+could not kill my brother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A STARTLING TALE
+
+
+Hardly able to believe that they were actually living this weird thing,
+the girls crowded into the shack after the stricken man and found that
+he had sunk upon a bench and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Strangely enough, though it had been Mollie who had precipitated this
+thing, it was Betty who now took the lead. Softly she went over to the
+shrinking man and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
+
+"You say you did not kill your brother?" she questioned in so calm a
+voice that the girls marveled at her. "You are sure you did not?"
+
+"No! no!" cried the man again raising his haggard face, deep-lined with
+the marks of suffering, "No--I am not sure. Can you not see? It is that
+that is killing me. Yet in my sane moments I know that he was dead. He
+lay there, so white, so still, with only that red, red stream of blood
+to mar his whiteness. I leaned down, I listened to his heart----" The
+man had evidently forgotten the presence of the girls, engulfed as he
+was in the horror of the incident he related. Once more he was living
+the tragedy, and the girls, tense, strained, horrified, lived it with
+him.
+
+"I listened to his heart," the man repeated, his arms stretched out
+before him, his long, delicate hands gripped with a fierceness that made
+the knuckles go white. "There was no beating. I put my face close to his
+mouth to see if there was breath. But he had stopped breathing--forever!
+
+"My heart went cold. I seized him by the shoulders. I called him by his
+name--that brother that I had loved! Oh, how I had loved him. I begged
+him to come back to me, to open those gray lips that a moment before had
+been beautiful with life--to speak to me--and all the time----" his hand
+relaxed and pointed to the floor and the girls followed the movement
+fascinated--"there kept spreading and spreading on the rug a deep red
+stain--my brother's blood! _Mon Dieu!_ And when I staggered to my feet I
+found that the horrible stuff had clung to my fingers--they were dark
+and sticky--the fingers of a murderer! I went mad then, I think. I
+rushed from the house, from the place. One thing only was in my mind. To
+get away--to get away from Paris, that accursed city----" He paused,
+staring at the floor, and the girls waited, hardly daring to move for
+fear they would break the spell.
+
+"The rest is like a bad dream to me," the man continued in a weary
+voice. "Ghost-ridden, haunted, I came to this country incognito--under
+what you call an assumed name. For a short time I stayed in New
+Orleans----"
+
+"But your violin!" Betty interrupted in a voice that amazed her, it
+seemed so little and weak. "Surely you were under contract."
+
+The man turned on her what was almost a pitying look from his sunken
+eyes.
+
+"I could not play," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "To have
+gone to my manager would have been like going to the hangman--the
+electric chair, what you have in this country. No, mademoiselle, I was a
+murderer, a man hunted by his fellowmen. There was but one thing for me
+to do--to hide, to dodge about like a rabbit from a pack of baying dogs.
+Hide!" he added bitterly. "I could not hide from myself.
+
+"Always when the night grows dark and the wind it makes to howl around
+this place I can hear my brother's voice uplifted in anger. We quarreled
+over something my uncle had said--a foolish quarrel. He called me liar,
+and I--something snapped in my brain, I think, and for a moment
+everything went red. There was a wine bottle on the table--we had been
+drinking--blindly I struck out with it---- Now, when the darkness comes
+and the wildcat calls into the night with a scream like a soul in
+torment, I hear again the tinkling of that bottle as it shattered, the
+short groan, the falling of a heavy body.
+
+"It is a wonder that I have not gone mad," he said. "Many a time I have
+prayed that I might or that I might find courage to end this miserable
+life and go to join my brother. But I am a coward, a coward----" His
+voice lowered till it was almost inaudible and tears trickled through
+the long white fingers. "I have not the courage even to die. There is a
+tribunal above that I should have to face, more just, more awful, than
+any man-made law. There you have what Paul Loup has become."
+
+"But you must not speak that way," said Betty, whose quick mind had been
+forging ahead while the man had been speaking. "It is one thing to kill
+a man deliberately, and quite another to kill in hot blood, blindly.
+Besides," she added eagerly, "you are not even sure that you did kill
+your brother. Did you--have you seen the papers since--since you ran
+away?"
+
+"No," said the man. His tone was dead, hopeless. "I was afraid of what I
+might find there. He was dead, Mademoiselle," he added wearily. "When I
+say that there is a doubt of that it is simply to give myself one little
+excuse for continuing to live. He did not move, he did not breathe. Ah,
+yes, he was dead, quite dead."
+
+There was silence for a moment while Betty thought rapidly. Amy and
+Mollie and Grace stared wide-eyed with the feeling that they were
+witnessing some tremendous, swift-moving drama.
+
+"Of course," said the man, breaking the silence abruptly, his somber
+eyes upon Betty, "there is but one thing left for me now to do. I shall
+surrender to the authorities--a thing which I should have done long ago.
+Or," he added grimly, "you might rather go with me now. If you left me I
+might attempt to escape--so you will think, Mademoiselle?"
+
+There was a lift at the end of the sentence that made it a question and,
+startled, the girls looked at Betty to see what she would say.
+
+The Little Captain herself was startled. Evidently the man thought they
+had been tracking him, had used their knowledge to trap him.
+
+"Oh, it isn't as you think!" she cried impulsively. "We never had the
+slightest little wish to harm you. And please, please," she added
+earnestly, "don't give yourself up to the authorities, or do anything
+rash until you hear from me again. You may not believe me--I wouldn't
+blame you if you didn't----" she went on shyly, for the man had risen
+and was staring at her, "but all we want to do is to help you if we
+can----" she broke off confusedly for the look in the man's eyes
+silenced her.
+
+"You know I am Paul Loup," he cried hoarsely. "You have heard my story,
+my confession from my own lips, and still you say that you wish me no
+harm! Who are you? what are you? what do you want of me?" He had
+advanced toward them, and in a panic the girls moved back toward the
+open door. Only Betty stood fearlessly in his path.
+
+"We are the Outdoor Girls, and we are living just at present on Gold Run
+Ranch," she said quietly. "We found out who you were because you were
+good enough to play for us at a benefit we gave at the Hostess House at
+Camp Liberty some time ago. And we came up here because we thought that
+you were in trouble and that we might help you. If we can't help you,
+I'm sorry." And with head bravely uplifted Betty turned toward the door.
+
+She had almost reached it when he called to her.
+
+"You are a brave girl," said Paul Loup slowly, his eyes intent on
+Betty's pretty face, "How do you know that I--the murderer--will not
+kill you also for this knowledge you have of me?"
+
+Betty heard the frightened gasp of the girls behind her, but, strangely
+enough, she herself felt no fear.
+
+"You wouldn't do that," she said, her clear gaze holding his burning
+one. "You could not wish harm to a friend."
+
+"Is that what you wish me to consider you--a friend?" asked the strange
+man, feeling suddenly as though something warm and vital had closed
+about his heart.
+
+"If you will," replied Betty, reaching out her hand. "I would like very
+much to be."
+
+But Paul Loup, for all he was a murderer and an outcast, was also a
+Frenchman. With a quick gesture, ignoring her outstretched hand he
+caught her in his arms, held her there for a minute, then, releasing
+her, kissed her gently, first on one cheek, then on the other.
+
+"I had forgotten there were kind hearts in the world," he murmured
+brokenly, turning from her. "You have restored my faith. _Au revoir_, my
+friend."
+
+Someway, somehow, the girls found themselves outside that little cabin,
+making their way blindly down the path to where their horses were
+tethered. In a daze they mounted and rode off down the trail.
+
+When they came to the open trail they found that Betty was crying,
+openly, unashamed. Mollie pushed a handkerchief into her hand, but the
+Little Captain did not seem to notice it. She stared straight ahead, her
+cheeks burning, the tears rolling unchecked down her face.
+
+"Never mind, honey," said Mollie, trying to steady her voice. "It was
+hard for you, I know; but I would give anything I own to have made him
+feel that way about me. I don't care if he did commit murder. I'm for
+him--strong."
+
+"To be all alone," said Betty as though Mollie had not spoken, "and so
+heart-hungry that a little sympathy from a stranger----" A sob choked
+the rest of her sentence. But a moment later she faced the girls with a
+light of resolve shining in her eyes.
+
+"Girls," she said, "I don't believe Paul Loup is a murderer, and some
+way or other I'm going to prove it. A man like that just couldn't commit
+murder. I know it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE PLAN
+
+
+Certainly the girls had never expected such startling developments from
+Mollie's simple little ruse to find out who the mysterious Hermit of
+Gold Run was. In the beginning it had been something of a lark, and they
+never dreamed that their interest and curiosity would uncover such a
+tragedy.
+
+However, they were not at all in sympathy with Betty's conviction that
+Paul Loup had not really killed his brother.
+
+"I don't see how you get that way, Betty," Grace argued hotly. "We all
+feel as sorry for the hermit as you do, but we have his own word for it
+that he really killed his brother."
+
+"He did seem to be pretty sure of it," said Amy, with a quaver in her
+voice. "When the wind rose last night and wailed around the house, I got
+all creepy thinking of him alone up in that dreary little shack, living
+that whole horrible thing over again."
+
+It was the next day, and the girls were in the saddle, as usual. They
+had visited the new gold diggings and found everybody excited and
+optimistic, though no gold had been uncovered as yet. And now they were
+trotting slowly along the open road, their thoughts busy with the
+startling happenings of the day before.
+
+"It's a wonder he doesn't go crazy," shuddered Mollie, taking up the
+thread where Amy had dropped it. "I know I would. What was it he said
+about being 'ghost-ridden?'"
+
+"I don't believe he is ghost-ridden at all, except by his imagination,"
+said Betty positively. "I think if he had taken the trouble to look at
+the newspapers before he decided that he was a hunted man he might have
+saved himself a lot of trouble and unhappiness."
+
+"Goodness, how do you get that way, Betty?" Grace said irritably. "The
+man ought to be the best judge of whether he killed anybody or not."
+
+"Well," said the Little Captain stubbornly, "it seems to me it would
+have had to be a pretty heavy bottle with a pretty strong arm behind it
+to kill a man with one blow. And a scalp wound bleeds horribly, you
+know."
+
+The girls looked a little thoughtful, and for the first time since Betty
+had advanced her theory they began to think that there might possibly
+be something in it after all.
+
+"That's right," said Amy, and then went on to relate an experience she
+had had when skylarking with Sarah Stonington.
+
+"She had hold of that heavy rocking chair we have in the library," Amy
+said. "She was trying to pull it away from me, and I was hanging on to
+it for dear life.
+
+"Then suddenly I let go, and Aunt Sarah--she's pretty heavy, you
+know--lost her balance as the chair swung forward, and fell over
+backward, striking her head on the sharp edge of the piano."
+
+"Goodness, you must have been scared," commented Mollie.
+
+"'Scared!'" echoed Amy. "Why, I was struck dumb with terror. I thought I
+had killed her. She lay there all white and funny, and her head was
+bleeding dreadfully----"
+
+"There's your scalp wound for you," Betty pointed out. "Just a little
+scratch will make the whole place look like a shambles."
+
+"But what happened to your aunt Sarah, Amy," pursued Mollie
+interestedly. "We know she didn't die."
+
+"Well, I should say she didn't!" said Amy roundly. "She was as good as
+ever in ten minutes and laughing at me for being so frightened. But we
+had to have the rug sent away to get the stain out," she added
+significantly.
+
+"Huh," said the girls, and once more became thoughtful.
+
+"But suppose you were right, Betty?" said Mollie, after a while.
+"Suppose our poor musician is torturing himself by thinking he has
+committed a crime that he hasn't? What could you possibly do about it?"
+
+"I don't just know," Betty admitted truthfully.
+
+"We might ask your father," Grace hazarded, but Betty turned on her,
+startled.
+
+"That's just the thing I don't want to do!" she said hurriedly. "Dad is
+just the best and most easy-going father in the world, but he has a
+terribly stern sense of justice. I'm not sure he wouldn't think we were
+making ourselves--oh, what do you call it----"
+
+"Accessories after the fact?" suggested Mollie, helpfully.
+
+"That's it," said Betty. "He might argue that we were committing a crime
+ourselves by helping to hide a criminal----"
+
+"Well, maybe we are, at that," said Grace, uncomfortably.
+
+"They can put you in jail for that sort of thing, can't they?" added
+Amy, a suggestion which certainly did not add to the cheerfulness of the
+atmosphere.
+
+"I don't care," said Betty stoutly. "I'd rather go to jail than deliver
+a man to a doubtful justice--especially when he may really be innocent.
+Anyway," she added, reasonably: "who is there to know that we went to
+Paul Loup's cabin the other day? I'm very sure no one saw us go in or
+come out, and if we keep quiet no one will have to know. That's why I
+didn't even want to take dad into our confidence."
+
+"But if our musician is, as you think, innocent," Grace insisted, "then
+your father could do more for him than we."
+
+"But we don't know that he is innocent. That's only my idea," said
+Betty. "And dad would probably think it was a very foolish one. Maybe it
+is, for all I know," she added dubiously.
+
+"How about Allen?" said Grace suddenly after another rather long
+silence. "He would certainly sympathize with our poor hermit and, being
+a lawyer, he would probably be able to think up some way that we might
+establish the man's innocence or guilt without giving away his
+whereabouts. There, how's that for a brilliant idea?" she finished
+proudly.
+
+"I had already thought of that," admitted Betty, while the girls turned
+amused eyes upon her. "But I was almost afraid to suggest it."
+
+"Maybe Allen would agree with your father that we, ought to turn him
+over to justice," said Mollie, but Betty shook her head vigorously.
+
+"Never! Not Allen!" she declared fervently. "He believes the other
+fellow innocent until he is proved guilty."
+
+"So does the law," said Amy wisely.
+
+"Yes, but the law has sent many an innocent man to prison nevertheless,"
+retorted Mollie. "We don't always find justice in the courts."
+
+"Hear, hear," cried Grace. "Get a soap box, Mollie."
+
+"Then it is settled that we are to tell Allen, is it?" said Betty
+eagerly. "I'm sure he will find some way to help us."
+
+"If we can pry him loose from the mining outfit," laughed Mollie. "He
+seems to have gold fever worse than any of them."
+
+But Allen had been busy, during the intervals when he could tear himself
+away from the fascination of the mining operations, on some legal
+matters.
+
+Mrs. Nelson, and her husband also, had feared that these numerous
+relatives of her great uncle, of whose existence she herself had
+scarcely been aware, might see fit to contest the old man's will
+especially when it became apparent that his property at this time was
+far more valuable than it had been at the time of his death.
+
+Allen, after considerable investigation, was able to set their fears at
+rest upon this point, however, by asserting that the old gentleman had
+made only one will and that he thought it very doubtful under the
+circumstances that the relatives would take the case into the courts.
+They were not Mr. Barcolm's children and grandchildren, as Lizzie had
+supposed, but distant relatives whom at one time and another the old man
+had befriended and gathered about him, but who had later quarreled with
+their benefactor.
+
+"Anyway," Mrs. Nelson decided happily, "if we really do find some gold I
+will give each one of them a share of it, even to the littlest."
+
+On this particular afternoon the girls found Allen, not at the mines as
+they supposed they would, but at the ranch house busy with some papers.
+
+When they besought him to come out for a ride, he hesitated at first,
+saying that he ought to get his work done before night. But they finally
+persuaded him not to let duty interfere with pleasure.
+
+"All right," he surrendered at last. "If you will get one of the boys
+to saddle Lightning for me I will be with you in ten minutes."
+
+He kept his promise, and in a short time was listening to the strangest
+tale he had ever heard. As he listened his face became more and more
+serious.
+
+"But, girls, this thing sounds impossible!" he burst forth, finally.
+"Are you telling me that you, alone and unprotected, managed to inveigle
+this murderer into confessing his crime to you? Gee, it's--it's
+unbelievable! The four of you would be a great help to me in my
+profession," he added, with a chuckle.
+
+"I didn't think you would take it as a joke," said Betty, reproachfully.
+
+"It isn't a joke," returned Allen, his face grave again. "It's a mighty
+serious business, if you will excuse my saying so. It makes me sick when
+I think of the chance you took." He was speaking to all the girls, but
+his look of concern was for Betty.
+
+"Oh, we don't want to think about ourselves," said the latter,
+impatiently. "We've done a good deal more dangerous things than that in
+our lives. We thought--we hoped--you might help us to prove his
+innocence----"
+
+"But the man's guilty," said Allen, surprised. "We have that by his own
+confession----"
+
+With a glance of despair at the others, Betty interrupted him.
+
+"Listen to me, Allen," she said. "This is what I think----" And she went
+on to tell him her idea while he listened, at first with a smile of
+faint amusement on his lips which gradually changed to grave admiration
+as he realized Betty's unfailing faith in the basic goodness of human
+nature.
+
+"I hope you are right, little girl," he said at last, when she had
+finished and was looking at him earnestly. "I'd like to believe you were
+right----"
+
+"But you can't?" she finished for him, trying to stifle the
+disappointment in her heart.
+
+"No, I can't," he answered truthfully. "When a man is so sure of his
+crime that he flees his own country, gives up money and fame to escape
+the law, you may be pretty sure that his crime was a real one."
+
+"But, Allen, you don't know the man," Betty pleaded, pretty close to
+tears in the bitterness of her disappointment. "No one could make the
+kind of music he does and be truly wicked. I wish you could have met
+him. I think you would have tried a little harder to help him."
+
+"I'm willing to help him, if I can," Allen answered gently, feeling that
+he would be almost willing to step into this poor musician's place if
+he might have Betty plead for him as she had just done for the other.
+"What is it you would like me to do?"
+
+Then suddenly the great idea popped full grown into Betty's head.
+
+"I have it!" she cried. "Why not write to Paul Loup's manager in New
+York and ask him for particulars?"
+
+"Capital!" replied Allen approvingly, while the girls looked at their
+Little Captain admiringly. "If anybody ought to be able to give us
+information, he surely is the one."
+
+"And, Allen," begged Betty, reining her horse close to Allen and laying
+a timid hand on his arm, "you won't even whisper a word of what we've
+told you--not for your foolish old law, or anything else?"
+
+"Of course not," said Allen, smiling at her. "We have to give the poor
+fellow his chance."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+GREAT DAYS
+
+
+That very afternoon Allen composed a letter to Paul Loup's concert
+manager--advised and censored by the girls, of course--and they all rode
+off to town to mail it in time to catch the four o'clock outgoing mail.
+
+"Now," said Mollie, as, this duty well performed, they started back to
+the ranch, "I feel better. We've started something, anyway."
+
+"Let's hope that we can finish it," added Grace, dubiously.
+
+They did not expect an answer to this epistle within ten days, and in
+the meantime they found plenty to keep them busy around the ranch.
+
+Progress at the mines was swift, and almost any minute now they might
+expect to hear the glorious tidings that some one had "struck it rich."
+
+Nothing had been seen of Peter Levine since that memorable night when
+the map had been taken from him, and it was rumored that the rascally
+lawyer had left town.
+
+"And the longer he keeps away the healthier it will be for him, I
+reckon," Allen said, adding with a laugh: "Gee, but it makes me happy
+every time I think of how sore that chap may be."
+
+Betty had dimpled sympathetically.
+
+"You have an awfully mean disposition, Allen," she chided him.
+
+Meggy and Dan Higgins were working furiously at their mine, but after a
+few days Betty was quick to see that they were not progressing as well
+as some of the others. After all Meggy, though unusually strong and
+robust for her age, was only a girl and her father was an old man who
+had just about worn out his energies in a fruitless search for fortune.
+
+Betty had besought her father to send help to these good friends of
+hers, and Mr. Nelson had immediately complied.
+
+There had been some trouble with Dan at first--with Meggy too, for that
+matter.
+
+"We can't take nothin' thet we can't pay fer, sir," the old fellow
+assured Mr. Nelson positively. But the latter reminded him that he and
+Meggy had saved his daughter's life, as well as those of the other
+girls, and that this put him, Mr. Nelson, deeply in the others' debt.
+In view of this the old fellow finally surrendered. In his heart he was
+deeply, fervently thankful for the help of the young, able-bodied man
+whom Mr. Nelson provided and for whose services he paid.
+
+"But ef I strike thet thar gold vein, sir," Dan assured Mr. Nelson
+earnestly, "I'm goin' to make it up to you, sir, every cent of it."
+
+"All right, we can talk about that later," Mr. Nelson said, and laughed
+and walked on to view his own operations, feeling that he had done a
+very good day's work.
+
+One morning, as the girls mounted their horses and turned their heads in
+the direction of the gold diggings, they heard what seemed to be wild
+cheering and shouting in the distance and with one impulse they urged
+their horses to a gallop.
+
+"Somebody's found something!" shouted Mollie, as the cheering and
+shouting became more distinct. "Oh, girls, I wonder who it is."
+
+"Maybe a mine has caved in, or something," Grace called back,
+pessimistically. "You'd better not get too happy, all at once."
+
+"You old wet-blanket!" cried Betty, as she leaned forward and whispered
+in Nigger's ear, urging him to greater speed. "That kind of mine doesn't
+cave in very often. Oh, Nigger, hurry, old boy! Don't you know we've
+got to get there quickly?"
+
+As they approached the noise became tumultuous, and as they topped a
+small hill that brought them in full view of the new diggings they saw a
+sight that they would never forget as long as they lived.
+
+They gazed on what seemed to be a mob gone wild. Men grasped each other
+around the waists, performing some kind of crazy dance that looked like
+an Indian cakewalk. Others tossed their hats in the air and shot holes
+through them as they fell to the ground. And all were laughing, crying,
+shouting, waving arms and head gear in a sort of wild, feverish, primal
+jubilation.
+
+The girls caught the thrill of it and they tingled to their finger tips.
+Putting spurs to their horses, they galloped down into the thick of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE END OF PETER LEVINE
+
+
+The crowd scattered as the Outdoor Girls came whirling down into its
+midst, but in an instant it had closed about them again. They
+dismounted, leaving their excited horses to go where they would, and
+pushed their way through to the group that seemed to be the center of
+all this wild demonstration.
+
+And when they saw Meggy, fairly weeping with joy, and old Dan Higgins,
+holding a handful of precious golden nuggets, they nearly went mad
+themselves.
+
+They kissed and hugged Meggy till she cried aloud for mercy. They kissed
+and hugged old Dan, and he took it as though he had been used to being
+made much of by pretty girls all his life.
+
+Twenty years had fallen from the old man's age. No matter that he had
+wasted the best part of his life in a vain hunt for gold. His dream had
+been realized at last. There was a fortune in his grasp, and he felt
+again the thrill that had coursed through his veins when, as a young
+man, heart high with aspirations, he had started on his quest.
+
+He was young again! Young! It seemed as though the sight of those golden
+nuggets--his own--had renewed the fires of youth.
+
+Nimbly he sprang upon an empty powder keg and addressed his frenzied
+audience.
+
+"Friends and fellow gold hunters," he yelled, and there was a roar of
+appreciation. "They is a few words I'd like to say afore we go back to
+wrestlin' some more gold outen them rocks. An' these is them. Ef I'm a
+happy man to-day an' a rich one, then it's all due to these four young
+gals here. They set me on the trail o' this new thing when I was purty
+near tuckered out. You all knows 'em an' loves 'em. Now give 'em a
+cheer. Hearty, now, hearty----"
+
+Then arose such a roar that the Outdoor Girls' hearts swelled near to
+bursting and they felt the tears sting their eyes. That moment would be
+something to remember all their lives.
+
+The roar gradually subsided and the miners wandered back to their own
+operations again, followed by scattered groups of curious onlookers.
+They worked with redoubled energy, with redoubled hope. Gold had been
+found. More gold would be found. It was a thrilling, glorious race to
+see who would be the next to announce good fortune.
+
+Left to themselves, the girls crowded around Meggy, questioning her,
+congratulating her, demanding to know how it had all happened and when.
+
+"My--my mouth is so dry I can hardly speak," said Meggy, quivering with
+nervous reaction. "I--I can't jest make up my mind that it has happened
+yet."
+
+"We know," said Betty, soothingly. "You needn't tell us about it if you
+don't want to."
+
+"But I do--I've got to!" cried Meggy tensely. "Why, it seems like a
+dream. But I'm so happy, so wildly happy----" A sob caught in her throat
+and she paused for a moment, then went on swiftly, the words tumbling
+over each other in her eagerness: "It was jest this morning that it
+happened, jest a little while ago. You know we have been workin' awful
+hard the last few days, an' I was getting worried over dad again. He was
+gittin' that thin an' weak an' kind o' discouraged, too. Seemed like
+he'd jest made up his mind that there wasn't no luck fer him nowhere's.
+
+"Then----" she leaned forward, her eyes black as coals, her fingers
+clasped convulsively in front of her. "Then we uncovered it, that first
+little narrow vein o' gold runnin' through the rocks. I thought dad
+would go plumb crazy when he seen it. Honest, I was skeered for a
+minute, till I recollected thet joy never killed nobody.
+
+"Then I began to be skeered fer myself. I felt so kind o' queer an'
+wobbly inside o' me. Then dad came runnin' out to show the other fellers
+what he'd found, an' seemed like they went crazy too.
+
+"Then you come an'--an'--I guess thet's 'bout all."
+
+The girls drew a long breath.
+
+"All," repeated Grace, softly. "I should think it was about enough for
+one day!"
+
+"An' now," said Meggy, in a small little voice, "poor old dad an' me,
+we're rich--rich! Think of it--Meggy an' her dad! Now I can buy a hoss
+like--like--Nigger, mebbe----"
+
+"You funny girl," cried Betty, hugging her fondly. "Of course you can
+buy a horse--a dozen of them if you want to. But wouldn't you like
+anything else? Pretty clothes, a beautiful house to live in----"
+
+"Yes," agreed Meggy, but without any special enthusiasm. "I used to
+think when you gals come around lookin' all pretty an' stylish in your
+nice clothes thet I would like to dress thet way myself ef I wasn't as
+poor as dirt. An' I would like to live in somethin' besides a shack an'
+have sheets enough to your beds so's you could change 'em every day ef
+you wanted to. Sure, I'd like them things.
+
+"But a hoss----" Her voice lowered almost to a reverential pitch. "Ever
+sence I grew to be a long-legged gal, seems like all I've really wanted
+was a hoss. I s'pose," she turned dark, rather wistful eyes on the
+girls, "it's purty hard for you gals to understand what I'm talkin'
+about. You never longed fer a thing so's your heart ached till it seemed
+like it was dead inside of you. So you might think I was foolish to take
+on so 'bout only a hoss."
+
+"We don't think you're foolish, Meggy," said Betty, gently. "We think
+you're wonderful, and you deserve every bit of the splendid luck that
+has come to you. And I expect," she finished gayly, "that you will have
+the most beautiful horse in all Gold Run."
+
+Meggy's eyes lighted with joy. Then they misted suddenly as she looked
+at the girls.
+
+"It's jest like dad said," she murmured. "We wouldn't 'a' had nothin' ef
+it hadn't been fer you girls. You don't know how we feel about you,
+'cause we jest never could tell you."
+
+The days that followed seemed like a beautiful fairy tale to the happy
+girls. Peter Levine had known what he was talking about when he had
+asserted that "gold was running wild" about the northern end of the
+ranch and its environs.
+
+It was as though the finding of gold in the new Higgins' mine had been
+the key that unlocked the door to a steady stream of it.
+
+Every day brought glad tidings of a new find, and, as some of these were
+on the ranch, Betty began to realize that the Nelson family was becoming
+very wealthy. They had always been well-to-do, for her father had
+prospered in his business, that of carpet manufacturer in Deepdale. But
+now it seemed that they were to know what it felt like to be really
+rich.
+
+The girls realized this, and once Mollie put the new idea into words.
+
+"This is a wonderful thing for you, Betty dear," she said soberly. "You
+can have about anything in the world that you want now. I--I--hope you
+won't forget your old friends." She said the last laughingly, but Betty
+was deeply hurt and showed that she was.
+
+"If--if you ever dare say such a horrid thing to me again, Mollie
+Billette," she cried, half way between tears and anger, "I'll never,
+never forgive you! You--you--ought to know me better."
+
+And Mollie, heartily ashamed of herself, succeeded in placating the
+Little Captain only after having apologized most abjectly.
+
+Then one day something happened that amused them all mightily. They had
+all turned out to the gold diggings, Mrs. Nelson, Mr. Nelson, the four
+girls, and Allen. Mrs. Nelson and Allen were engaged in the joyful
+pursuit of trying to figure out how much her profits would be, when
+Betty edged up to Allen and, pulling his sleeve, pointed out a man some
+distance from them. The latter was standing alone, and he seemed to be
+regarding the operations rather morosely.
+
+"Peter Levine, by all that's holy!" murmured Allen. "Just hold tight for
+a minute, folks, and watch me chase him."
+
+With an elaborately casual air, Allen sauntered over to the morose
+individual. The man looked up as he approached, and the scowl on his
+face deepened.
+
+"Howdy," said Allen, loud enough to cause those near by to turn to look
+at him. "How's my old friend Levine this morning?"
+
+"None of your business," snarled the other, with a black look. "Lay off
+me, do you hear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I hear," said Allen, loudly and cheerfully. "I'm quite
+exceptionally good at hearing. Shall I tell these friends of ours what
+Andy Rawlinson and I happened to hear the other night, beneath these
+very trees? Why, Levine, where are you going?" he asked with feigned
+surprise, as the other started to take his leave. "Don't you want to
+hear----"
+
+"Shut your mouth!" snarled Peter Levine, furiously, then turned and
+slunk off, followed by the jeers and catcalls of the crowd.
+
+"You shore hev got his number, boy," said one old timer, admiringly. "He
+loves you like the fox loves a trap."
+
+Allen grinned boyishly. "Suits me!" he said cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+INNOCENT
+
+
+"That was good, Allen," said Mr. Nelson appreciatively, as the young
+fellow rejoined the group. "You've licked him in fine shape."
+
+"And we want to thank you for the way you have handled things for us,
+Allen," added Mrs. Nelson, warmly. "We might have got into all sorts of
+trouble if it hadn't been for you."
+
+The young lawyer was tremendously embarrassed by this praise, though
+Betty was aglow with it. It was splendid to have her family so fond of
+Allen.
+
+The latter noticed her silence, and under cover of the general
+conversation commented upon it.
+
+"How feels the millionairess this morning?" he asked lightly, though
+Betty felt that there was a deeper meaning hidden behind the words.
+
+"I'm feeling splendid," she answered, her voice vibrating with the joy
+of living. "Who wouldn't be--with all this?" and she waved her hand over
+the bustling scene.
+
+In spite of the excitement of all these wonderful happenings, the girls,
+especially Betty, had thought almost constantly of the poor musician
+whom his neighbors called the Hermit of Gold Run.
+
+He never came down to help Dan Higgins and Meggy any more, probably,
+Grace said, scared off by the bustle and confusion of the new gold boom.
+Meggy had mentioned casually once or twice that she still took food to
+the desperate man.
+
+"If he only doesn't give himself up to the authorities before we get
+news from the East!" Betty, worried, exclaimed over and over again.
+
+Then one day, along with the other letters in the mail, there arrived an
+important looking document from New York addressed to Allen.
+
+The latter was out at the gold diggings at the time, and the girls
+fairly lassoed him, bringing him home protesting but helpless.
+
+"I say, what's the row?" he demanded, and for answer Mollie thrust the
+important missive into his hand.
+
+"Read!" she commanded dramatically. "And tell us what lies within."
+
+Allen tore the envelope open and read the letter hastily through while
+the girls crowded around him and tried to read over his shoulder.
+
+Then he jumped to his feet and waved the paper at them excitedly.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, "this proves that Betty was right. The man didn't
+kill his brother--simply injured him. He was taken to the hospital and
+he recovered long since. The manager says he has been trying to locate
+Paul Loup for weeks. He is losing a fortune every day----"
+
+But Betty could wait no longer. She snatched the letter from him and
+read it through aloud while the girls gaped at her.
+
+"Come on," she cried, reaching for her sailor hat and pushing it down on
+her shapely little head. "Don't stand there like wooden Indians. We've
+got to take this news to Paul Loup."
+
+Bent on their joyful mission, the girls approached the lonely little
+cabin in the woods swiftly. As they came near they heard again that same
+hauntingly sweet melody that had so moved them the first time they had
+heard it.
+
+Yet now that they understood the pain that prompted the rendering of
+that exquisite harmony, it seemed too bitterly sad to be beautiful, and
+their hearts ached dully in sympathy with Paul Loup's despair.
+
+Tears were in Betty's eyes, but there was a smile on her lips, as she
+pushed open the door of the little shack and stood waiting on the
+threshold.
+
+The musician saw her, ended the throbbing melody with a crash of
+discord, and gazed at her mutely. In all his tall, gaunt body only his
+glowing eyes seemed really alive, but in those eyes there was a welcome
+that gave Betty courage.
+
+"Look!" she cried, holding out the paper to him. "This is from your
+manager. Read it--and see that you are innocent."
+
+Slowly the man laid down his violin and bow, slowly he took the paper
+from Betty's trembling fingers. Like a man in a daze he read it
+through--then read it through again.
+
+"I did not kill him--my brother," he murmured aloud. "My brother--that I
+love--I did not kill him. He is alive--he is well. _Mon Dieu_, then I am
+free! Paul Loup--he is not a murderer--a hunted thing. He is again the
+artist--free--_free_----" His voice, which had been gradually rising as
+the truth bore in upon him, rose to a jubilant shout and he threw out
+his arms passionately as though to encompass them all in his newly found
+love of life. "The world----" he said brokenly, "the world is very
+beautiful!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silently the girls rode through the sunshine and shadow-filled forest,
+their hearts filled with a happiness so poignant it seemed almost pain.
+
+"What a wonderful, wonderful summer!" breathed Mollie. "I don't believe
+we have ever had one like it, girls."
+
+"I wish we didn't have to go home," sighed Amy. "I shall miss my
+beautiful Lady so," and she laid a loving hand on the little animal's
+arching neck.
+
+"What about me?" wailed Grace. "I know I shall cry myself to sleep,
+longing for Nabob. He's one of the best chums I ever had."
+
+But the Little Captain did not hear them. Over and over again, like an
+echo, her mind was repeating those words of Paul Loup: "The world is
+very beautiful."
+
+"Girls," she murmured dreamily, "everybody is so happy--and I'm so
+happy--oh, please, don't wake me up--anybody!"
+
+And so, at the end of a wonderful outing, with life stretching
+gloriously before them, we will once more sadly, reluctantly, wave
+farewell to the Outdoor Girls.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of the "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH.  ILLUSTRATED.  UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several
+bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and
+wholesome, free from sensationalism, absorbing from the first chapter to
+the last.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.
+
+Telling how the girls organized their Camping and Tramping Club, how
+they went on a tour, and of various adventures which befell them.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.
+
+One of the girls becomes the proud possessor of a motor boat and invites
+her club members to take a trip down the river to Rainbow Lake, a
+beautiful sheet of water lying between the mountains.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.
+
+One of the girls has learned to run a big motor car, and she invites the
+club to go on a tour to visit some distant relatives. On the way they
+stop at a deserted mansion and make a surprising discovery.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.
+
+In this story, the scene is shifted to a winter season. The girls have
+some jolly times skating and ice boating, and visit a hunters' camp in
+the big woods.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          Or Wintering in the Sunny South.
+
+The parents of one of the girls have bought an orange grove in Florida,
+and her companions are invited to visit the place. They take a trip into
+the interior, where several unusual things happen.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.
+
+The girls have great fun and solve a mystery while on an outing along
+the New England coast.
+
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          Or A Cave and What it Contained.
+
+A bright, healthful story, full of good times at a bungalow camp on Pine
+Island.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          GROSSET & DUNLAP,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH SERIES
+
+By GERTRUDE W. MORRISON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH.  ILLUSTRATED.  UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is a series full of the spirit of high school life of to-day. The
+girls are real flesh-and-blood characters, and we follow them with
+interest in school and out. There are many contested matches on track
+and field, and on the water, as well as doings in the classroom and on
+the school stage. There is plenty of fun and excitement, all clean, pure
+and wholesome.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH
+          Or Rivals for all Honors.
+
+A stirring tale of high school life, full of fun, with a touch of
+mystery and a strange initiation.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON LAKE LUNA
+          Or The Crew That Won.
+
+Telling of water sports and fun galore, and of fine times in camp.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH AT BASKETBALL
+          Or The Great Gymnasium Mystery.
+
+Here we have a number of thrilling contests at basketball and in
+addition, the solving of a mystery which had bothered the high school
+authorities for a long while.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON THE STAGE
+          Or The Play That Took the Prize.
+
+How the girls went in for theatricals and how one of them wrote a play
+which afterward was made over for the professional stage and brought in
+some much-needed money.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON TRACK AND FIELD
+          Or The Girl Champions of the School League
+
+This story takes in high school athletics in their most approved and
+up-to-date fashion. Full of fun and excitement.
+
+
+          THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH IN CAMP
+          Or The Old Professor's Secret.
+
+The girls went camping on Acorn Island and had a delightful time at
+boating, swimming and picnic parties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+   Page 122, "draw" changed to "drawer". (dresser drawer)
+
+   Page 153, "get's" changed to "gets". (Winner gets)
+
+   Page 191, "Accessaries" changed to "Accessories" (Accessories
+             after the)
+
+   Page 204, "too" changed to "to". (I've got to!)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 19318.txt or 19318.zip *******
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