The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle Part 18

"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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sured 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 'G.o.d'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 grat.i.tude." His eyes unconsciously sought Betty's, and a quick glance pa.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sment.

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 n.o.body 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 friends.h.i.+p 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.