The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle Part 19

"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 a.s.sure 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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.sociates 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 grat.i.tude 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sociates 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 partners.h.i.+p 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."