Ruth Fielding In the Saddle; College Girls in the Land of Gold

She raised her quirt and brought it down upon her pony’s flank. He sprang forward under the lash but was not quick enough to escape the mad stallion. That brute got directly in the path and they collided.

Ruth was almost unseated, while the clashing teeth of the free horse barely grazed her legging. He snapped again at the rump of the plunging pony, but missed.

The girl was seriously frightened. What Ben Lester and the other cowpuncher had said about the stallion seemed to be true. Did he have hydrophobia just the same as a dog that runs mad?

Whether the beast was afflicted with the rabies or not, Ruth did not want either herself or the pony bitten. She had seen enough of half-tamed horses on Silver Ranch in Montana to know that there is scarcely an animal more savage than a wild stallion.

And if this black and white beast had eaten of the loco weed which, in some sections of the Southwest is quite common, he was much more dangerous than the bear Min Peters had shot as they came over from Yucca.

She tried to start her pony along the bottom of the arroyo on the back track; but the squealing stallion had got around behind them and again charged with open jaws, the froth flying from his curled-back lips.

So she wheeled her mount, clinging desperately with her knees to his heaving sides, and once more lashed him with the quirt.

Since she had ridden him that first day out of Yucca Ruth had been in the saddle almost every day since; but so far she had never had occasion to use the whip on her pony. He was a spirited bit of horseflesh, not much more than half the size of the stallion. The quirt embittered him.

Although he wheeled to run, facing down the arroyo again, he began to buck instead. His heels suddenly were thrown out and just grazed the stallion’s nose, while Ruth came close to flying out of her saddle and over his head.

If she was once unhorsed Ruth suddenly realized that her fate would be sealed. The stallion rose up on his hind legs, squealing and whistling, and struck at her with his sharp hoofs.

It was a moment of grave peril for Ruth Fielding.

Again and again she beat her mount, and again and again he went up into the air, landing stiff-legged, and with all four feet close together. Then she swung the stinging lash across the face of the stallion.

It was a cruel blow and it laid open the satiny, black skin of the angry brute right across his nose. He squealed and fell back. The pony whirled and again Ruth struck at their common enemy.

Lashing the stallion seemed a better thing than punishing her own frightened mount, and as the mad horse circled her the girl struck again and again, once cutting open the stallion’s shoulder and drawing blood in profusion.

The fight was not won so easily, however. The pony danced around and around trying to keep his heels to the stallion; the latter endeavored to get in near enough to use either his fore-hoofs in striking, or his teeth to tear the girl or her mount.

And then Ruth unexpectedly heard a shout. Somebody at the top of his voice ordered her to “Lie down on his neck – I’m going to fire!”

She saw nothing; she had no idea where this prospective rescuer stood; but she was wise enough to obey. She seized the pony’s mane and lay as close to his neck as possible. The next instant the report of a heavy rifle drowned even the squealing of the stallion.

He had risen on his hind feet, his fore-hoofs beating the air, the foam flying from his lips, his yellow teeth gleaming. A more frightful, threatening figure could scarcely be imagined, it seemed to the girl of the Red Mill in her dire peril.

At the rifle shot he toppled over backward, crashing to the earth with a scream that was almost human. There he lay on his back for a minute.

Out of the brush hobbled the young man named Royal. He was getting around without his crutches now. The gun in his hand was still smoking.

“Have you a rope?” he shouted. “If you have I’ll noose him.”

“No. I haven’t a rope, though Ann is always telling me never to ride without one in this country.”

“I think she’s right – whoever Ann is,” said the young man, with that humorous twist to his features that Ruth so liked. “A rope out here is handier than a little red wagon. Come on, quick! I only creased that stallion. He may not have had the fight all taken out of him – the ferocious beast!”

The black and white horse was already trying to struggle to his feet. Perhaps he was not badly hurt. Ruth controlled her pony, and he was headed down the arroyo.

“Where is your horse, Mr. Royal?” she asked the lame young man.

He started and looked a little oddly at her when she called him that; but he replied:

“My horse is down at the cabin. I was just trying my legs a little. Glory! I almost turned my ankle again that time.”

He was hobbling pretty badly now, for he had been too excited while shooting the mad stallion to be careful of his lame ankle. Ruth was out of the saddle in a moment.

“Get right up here,” she commanded. “We’ll get to your cabin and be safe. I can go back to camp by another way.”

“Not alone,” he declared, firmly, as he scrambled into her place on the pony. “I’ll ride with you. That beast is not done for yet.”

But the stallion did not pursue them. He stood rather wabblingly and shook his head, and turned in slow circles as though he were dazed. The rifle shot had not, however, permanently injured him.

They were quickly out of the sight of the scene of Ruth’s peril. The young man looked down at her, trudging hot and dusty beside the pony, and his face crinkled into a broad smile again.

“You’re some girl,” he said. “I’d dearly love to know your name and just who you are. My – That is, my partner says you are a bunch of movie actors over there at Freezeout. But, of course, that old-timer who was up on the ridge and the girl in – er – overalls, were not actors. How about you?”

“Yes,” said Ruth, amusedly. “I act. Sometimes.”

“Get out!”

“I did. Out of my saddle to give you my seat. You should be more polite.”

He burst into open laughter at this. “You’re all right,” he declared. “Do you mind telling me your name?”

“Fielding. Miss Fielding, Mr. Royal.”

He grinned at her wickedly. “You’ve got only half of my name,” he said.

“Indeed?” she cried. “Yes, I suppose, like other people, you must have a first name.”

“I have a last name,” he chuckled.

“What?” Ruth gasped. “Isn’t Royal – ”

“That is what I was christened. Phelps is the rest of it – Royal Phelps.”

“I knew it! I felt it!” declared Ruth, stopping in the trail and making the pony stop, too. “You are Edith Phelps’ brother. I was puzzled as I could be, for I believed, since the first day I met you, that must be so and that she had been with you at that cabin.”

“Why,” he asked curiously, “how did you come to know my sister?”

“Go to college with her,” said Ruth, shortly, and moving on again. “And she was on the train with us coming West.”

“And you did not know where she was coming? Of course not! It was a secret.”

“She knew where we were coming,” said Ruth, briefly.

“Then you’re not a movie actress?”

“I’m a freshman at Ardmore. But I do act – once in a while. There are a party of us girls from Ardmore, with one of the teachers, roughing it at Freezeout Camp. The movie people are there, too. We are acquainted with them.”

“Well, I’m mighty sorry my sister isn’t here – ”

“Is she your partner, Mr. Phelps?” Ruth asked.

“Sure thing! And a bully good one. When I was hurt and couldn’t ride so far, she set off alone to find her way over the trails to Kingman.”

“Oh!” Ruth cried. “Aren’t you worried about her? Have you heard – ?”

“Not a word. But it isn’t time yet. Edith is a smart girl,” declared the brother with confidence. “She’ll make it all right. I don’t expect her back for a week yet.”

“Oh! but we expect Tom – ”

“What Tom?” asked Phelps, suspiciously.

“My chum’s brother. He started – started day before yesterday – for Kingman to file on our claims. We expect him back in ten days, or two weeks at the longest. Why, we shall probably be all through taking the pictures by that time!”

“Look here, Miss Fielding,” said the young man, his face suddenly gloomy. “Can’t you fix it so we can buy up your claims along that ridge? It means a lot to me.”

“Why, Mr. Phelps!” exclaimed Ruth, “don’t you suppose it means something to the rest of us? If it is really a valuable gold deposit.”

“Not what it means to me,” he returned soberly, and rode in silence the rest of the way to the cabin.

CHAPTER XXII – RUTH HEARS SOMETHING

Ruth Fielding was particularly interested in the situation of “the hermit,” Edith Phelps’ brother. But she was not deeply enough interested in him or in his desires to give up her own expectation from the gold-bearing ledge on the ridge.

She remembered very clearly what Helen Cameron had told her about this young Royal Phelps. She had not known his name, of course, and the fact that Min Peters that day on the ridge had not explained fully what Royal’s last name was, had caused the girl some further puzzlement.

The character the tale about Edith’s brother had given that young man did not seem to fit this “hermit” either. This fellow seemed so gentlemanly and so amusing, that she could scarcely believe him the worthless character he was pictured. Yet, his presence here in the wilds, and Edith’s coming out to him so secretly, pointed to a mystery that teased the girl of the Red Mill.

When they came to the cabin door, and Royal Phelps slid carefully out of her saddle, Ruth said easily:

“I wish you’d tell me all about yourself, Mr. Phelps. I am curious – and frank to say so.”

“I don’t blame you,” he admitted, smiling suddenly again – and Ruth thought that smile the most disarming she had ever seen. Royal Phelps might have been disgraced at college, but she believed it must have been through his fun-loving disposition rather than because of any viciousness.

“I don’t blame you for feeling curiosity,” the young man repeated, seating himself gingerly in the doorway. “If I had a chair I’d offer it to you, Miss Fielding.”

“Thanks. I’ll hop on my pony. I’ll get yours for you before I go.”

“Wait a bit,” he urged. “I am going with you when you return to that town. That wild beast of a horse may be rampaging around again.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated Ruth with no feigned shudder. “He was awful!”

“Now you’ve said something! But you are a mighty cool girl, Miss Fielding. What Edie would have done – ”

“She would have done quite as well as I, I have no doubt,” Ruth hastened to say. “And I have been in the West before, Mr. Phelps.”

“Yes? You are really a movie actor?”

“Sometimes.”

“And a college girl?”

“Always!” laughed his visitor.

“I believe you are puzzling me intentionally.”

“I told you that I was puzzled about you.”

“I suppose so,” he laughed. “Well, tit for tat. You tell me and I’ll tell you.”

“I trust to your honor,” she said, with mock seriousness. “I will tell you my secret. Really, I am not a movie actress – save by brevet.”

“I thought not!” he exclaimed with warmth.

“Why, they are very nice folk!” Ruth told him. “Much nicer than you suppose. I am really writing the scenario Mr. Hammond is producing.”

“Goodness!” he exclaimed. “A literary person?”

“Exactly.”

“But why didn’t Edie tell me something about you? She went over there and took a peep at you.”

“I fancied so. The girls thought her an Indian squaw. That would please Edie – if I know her at all,” said Ruth with sarcasm.

“I’ll have to tell her,” he grinned.

“Better not. She does not like us any too well. Us freshmen, I mean. You know,” Ruth decided to explain, “there is an insurmountable wall between freshmen and sophs.”

“I ought to know,” murmured Royal Phelps, and his face clouded.

Ruth, determined to get to the root of this mysterious matter, thrust in a deep probe: “I believe you have been to college, Mr. Phelps?”

He reddened to his ears. “Oh, yes,” he answered shortly.

“And then did you come out here to go into the mining business?” she continued, with some cruelty, for he was writhing.

“After the pater put me out – yes,” he said, looking directly at her now, even though his face flamed.

Ruth was doubly assured that Royal Phelps could not be as black as he was painted. “Though I do not believe any painter could reflect the Italian sunset hue that now mantles his brow,” she thought.

“I am sorry that you have had trouble with your father. Is it insurmountable?” she asked him quietly, and with the air that always gave even strangers confidence in Ruth Fielding.

“I hope not,” he admitted. “I was mad enough when I came away. I just wanted to ‘show him.’ But now I’d like to show him. Do – do you get me?”

“There is no difference in the words, but a great deal in the inflection, Mr. Phelps,” Ruth said quietly.

“Well. You’re an understandable girl. After I had come a cropper at Harvard – silly thing, too, but made the whole faculty wild,” and here he grinned like a naughty small boy at the remembrance – “the pater said I wasn’t worth the powder to blow me to Halifax. And I guess he was right. But he’d not given me a chance.

“Said I’d never done a lick of work and probably wouldn’t. Said I was cut out for a rich man’s wastrel or a tramp. Said I shouldn’t be the first with his money. Told James to show me the outer portal with the brass plate on it, and bring in the ‘welcome’ mat so that I wouldn’t stand there and think it meant me.

“So I came away from there,” finished Royal Phelps with a wry face.

“Oh, that was terrible!” Ruth declared with clasped hands and all the sympathy that the most exacting prodigal could expect. “But, of course, he didn’t mean it.”

“Mean it? You don’t know Costigan Phelps. He never says anything he doesn’t mean. Let me tell you it won’t be a slippery day when I show up at the paternal mansion. The pater certainly will not run out and fall on either my neck or his own. There’ll be nobody at the home plate to see me coming and hail me: ‘Kill the fatted prodigal; here comes the calf!’ Believe me!”

“Oh, Mr. Phelps!” begged Ruth. “Don’t talk that way. I know just how you feel. And you are trying to hide it – ”

“With airy persiflage – yes,” he admitted, turning serious. “Well, pater’s made a lot of money in mines. I said to Edie: ‘I’ll shoot for the West and locate a few and so attract his attention to the Young Napoleon of mines in his own field.’ It looked easy.”

“Of course,” whispered Ruth.

“But it wasn’t.”

“Of course again,” and the girl smiled.

“Grin away. It helps you to bear it,” scoffed Royal Phelps. “But it doesn’t help the ‘down and outer’ a bit to grin. I know. I’ve tried it ever since last fall.”

“Oh!”

“I finally got to rummaging out through these hills. I came with a party of sheep herders. You know the Prodigal Son only herded hogs. That’s an aristocratic game out here in the West beside sheep herding. Believe me!

“It puts a man in the last row when he fools with sheep. When I went down to Yucca nobody would have anything to do with me but old Braun. And he was owning sheep right then.

“If I went into a place the fellows would hold their noses and tiptoe out. You know, it’s a joke out here: A couple of fellows made a bet as to which was the most odoriferous – a sheep or a Greaser. So they put up the money and selected a judge.

“They brought the sheep into the judge’s cabin and the judge fainted. Then they brought in the Greaser and the sheep fainted. So, you see, aside from Greasers, I didn’t have many what you’d call close friends.”

Ruth’s lips formed the words “Poor boy!” but she would not have given voice to them for the world. Still, for some reason, Royal Phelps, who was looking directly at her, nodded his head gratefully.

“Tough times, eh? Well, I’d seen something up here in these hills. I’d been studying about mineral deposits – especially gold signs. I saved enough money to get a small outfit and this pony I ride. I’d brought my gun on from the East. I started out prospecting with scarcely a grubstake. But nobody around here would have trusted a tenderfoot like me. I was bound to do it on my lonely, if I did it at all.”

“Weren’t you afraid to start off alone?” asked Ruth. “Mr. Peters says it is dangerous for one to go prospecting.”

“Yes. But lots of the old-timers do. And this ‘new-timer’ did it. Nothing bit me,” he added dryly.

“So I came back here and knocked up this cabin. Pretty good for ‘mamma’s baby boy,’ isn’t it?” and he laughed shortly. “That’s what some of the Lazy C punchers called me when I first came into their neighborhood.

“Well, mamma’s boy played a lone hand and found that ledge of gold ore. For it is gold I know. I had some specimens assayed.”

“So did we,” confessed Ruth, eagerly.

He scowled again. “You girls – movie actresses, college girls, or whoever you are – are likely to queer this whole business for me. Say!” he added, “that one in the overalls isn’t an Ardmore freshman, is she?”

“Hardly,” laughed Ruth. “But she needs a gold mine a good deal more than the rest of us do.”

CHAPTER XXIII – MORE OF IT

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

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

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

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

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

“I see.”

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

“I suppose not.”

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

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

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Ruth, remembering Tom’s story.

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

“Oh!” was Ruth’s dry comment.

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

“I suppose so.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, no, Mr. Phelps,” Ruth said warmly. “Never that!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Look here! I’ll do anything fair,” cried the young man. “It isn’t that I am just after the money for the money’s sake – ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, girls! Real gold?” gasped the teacher, while Rebecca was speechless with amazement.

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

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

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