CHAPTER XIII--AN URSINE HOLDUP
Peters was still struggling with his captors and talking wildly. Heevidently did not know his own daughter.
"Well, what you goin' to do with him?" demanded Bob, the pipeman. "Weain't expected to stand and hold him all day, if we ain't goin' to be'lowed to hang him--the ornery critter!"
"You shet up, Bob Davis!" said Min. "You ain't no pulin' infant yourselfwhen you're drunk, and you know it."
The other men began laughing at the angry miner, and Bob admitted:
"Well, s'posin' that's so? I'm sober now. And I got work to do. So'sthese other fellows. What you want done with Flapjack?"
Ruth Fielding was so deeply interested for Min's sake that she could nothelp interfering.
"Oh, Min, isn't there a doctor in this camp?"
"Yes'm. Doc Quibbly. He's here, ain't he, boys?"
"The old doc's down to his office in the tin shack beyant the hotel,"said one. "I seen him not an hour ago."
"Let's take your father to the hotel, Min," Ruth said. "These men willhelp us, I know. So will Tom Cameron. We will have the doctor look afteryour father."
"The old doc can dope him a-plenty, I reckon," said Bob.
"Sure we'll help you," said the rough fellows, who were not reallyhard-hearted after all.
"I dunno's they'll let him into the hotel," Min said.
"Yes they will. We'll pay for his room and you and the doctor can lookout for him," Ruth declared.
"You are good and helpful, Ruth Fielding," said Miss Cullam, comingforward, much as she despised the condition of the man, Peters. "Howterrible! But one must be sorry for that poor girl."
"And Min has pluck all right!" cried Jennie Stone, admiringly. "We musthelp her."
They were all agreed in this. Even Rebecca and Miss Cullam, who bothshrank from the coarseness of the men and the roughness of Min and herfather, commiserated the man's misfortune and were sorry for Min'sstrait.
Tom assisted in leading the wildly-talking Peters to the hotel. Ruth andMiss Cullam hurried on in advance to engage a room for the man whom theyassured the proprietor was really ill. Min, meanwhile, went in search ofthe camp's medical practitioner.
Dr. Quibbly was a gray-bearded man with keen eyes but palsied hands. Hehad plainly been wrecked by misfortune or some disease; but he had beenleft with all his mental powers unimpaired.
He took hold of the distraught Peters in a capable manner; and Tom, whoremained to help nurse the patient, declared to Ruth and Helen that henever hoped to see a doctor who knew his business better than Dr.Quibbly knew it.
"He had Peters quiet in half an hour. No harmful drug, either. Told meeverything he used. Says rest, and milk and eggs to build up thestomach, is all the chap needs. Min's with him now and I'm going tosleep in my blanket outside the door to-night, so if she needs anybodyI'll be within call."
It had been rather an exciting experience for the girls and theyremained in their rooms for the rest of the day. The hotel proprietoroffered to take them around at night and "show them the sights"; but asthat meant visiting the two saloons and gambling halls, Miss Cullamrefused for the party, rather tartly.
"No offence meant, Ma'am," said the hotel man, Mr. Bennett. "But most ofthe tenderfeet that come here hanker to 'go slumming,' as they call it.They want to see these here miners at their amusements, as well as attheir daily occupations."
"I'd rather see them at church," Miss Cullam told him frankly. "I thinkthey need it."
"Good glory, Ma'am!" exclaimed the man. "We git that, too--once a month.What more kin you expect?"
"I suppose," Miss Cullam said to her girls, "that a perfectlystraight-laced New England old maid could not be set down in a moreinappropriate place than a mining camp."
The speech gave Ruth a suggestion for a scene in the picture play of"The Forty-Niners," and she would have been delighted to have theArdmore teacher play a part in that scene.
"However," she said to Helen, whispering it over in bed that night, "itwill be funny. I know Mr. Hammond will bring plenty of costumes of theperiod of forty-nine, for he wants women in the show. And there will besome character actress who can take the part of an unsophisticated bluestocking from the Hub, who arrives at the camp in the midst of theminer's revelry."
"Oh, my!" gasped Helen. "Miss Cullam will think you are making fun ofher."
"No she won't----the dear thing! She has too much good sense. But she_has_ given me what Tom would call a dandy idea."
"Isn't it nice to have Tom--or somebody--to lay our use of slang to?" saidRuth's chum demurely.
The party did not leave Handy Gulch the next day, nor the day following.There were several excuses given for this delay and they were all good.
One of the ponies had developed lameness; and a burro wandered away andPedro had to spend half a day searching for him. Perhaps the Mexican ladwould have been quicker about this had Min been on hand to hurry him.But having been close beside her father all night she lay down forneeded sleep while Tom Cameron and the doctor took her place.
The report from the sickroom was favorable. In a few hours the man whohad come so near to bringing about a tragedy in Handy Gulch would be fitto travel. Ruth declared that she would wait for him, and he should goalong with the party to Freezeout.
"But you are our guide and general factotum, Min. We depend on you," shetold the sick man's daughter.
"I dunno what that thing is you called me; but I guess it ain't a badname," said Min Peters. "If you'll jest let pop trail along so's I kinwatch him he'll be as good as pie, I know."
Then, there was Miss Cullam's reason for not wishing to start. She saidshe was "saddle sick."
"I have been seasick, and trainsick; but I think saddlesick must be theworst, for it lasts longer. I can lie in bed now," said the poor woman,"and feel myself wabbling just as I do in that hateful saddle.
"Oh, dear, me, Ruthie Fielding! I wish I had never agreed to comewithout demanding a comfortable carriage."
"They tell me that there are places on the trail before we get toFreezeout so narrow that a carriage can't be used. The wagons are goingmiles and miles around so as to escape the rough places of thestraighter trail."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Miss Cullam in disgust. "Is it necessary to get toFreezeout Camp in such a short time? I tell you right now: I am going torest in bed for two days."
And she did. The girls were not worried, however. They found plenty tosee and to do about the mining town. As for Ruth, she set to work on herscenario, and kept Rebecca Frayne busy with the typewriter, too. Shesketched out the scene she had mentioned to Helen, and it was so funnythat Rebecca giggled all the time she was typewriting it.
"Goodness!" murmured Ruth. "I hope the audiences will think it is asfunny as you do. The only trouble is, unless a good deal of theconversation is thrown on the screen, they will miss some of the bestpoints. Dear me! Such is fate. I was born to be a humorist--a realhumorist--in a day and age when 'custard-pie comedians' have theright-of-way."
The third day the party started bright and early on the Freezeout trail.Flapjack Peters was well enough to ride; and he was woefully sorry forwhat he had done. But he was still too much "twisted" in his mind to beable to tell Ruth just how he came to start away from Yucca with EdithPhelps and Ann Hicks, instead of waiting for the entire party to arrive.
Ann had told all she knew about it at her meeting with Ruth. It remaineda mystery why Edith had come to Yucca; why she had kept Ann and herfriends apart; and why at Handy Gulch she had abandoned both Ann andFlapjack Peters.
"She met a man here, that's all I know," said Ann, with disgust.
"Maybe it was the man who wrote her from Yucca," said Helen to Ruth.
"'Box twenty-four, R. F. D., Yucca, Arizona,'" murmured Ruth. "We shouldhave made inquiries in Yucca about the person who has his mail come tothat postbox."
"These hindsights that should have been foresights are the limit!"groaned Helen. "We must admit that Edie Phelps has put one over on us.But what it i
s she has done _I_ do not comprehend."
"That is what bothers me," Ruth said, shaking her head.
They set off on this day from the Gulch in a spirit of cheerfulness, andready for any adventure. However, none of the party--not a soul ofit--really expected what did happen before the end of the day.
As usual the pony cavalcade got ahead of the burros in the forenoon. Thelittle animals would go only so fast no matter what was done to them.
"You could put a stick of dynamite under one o' them critters," Minsaid, "and he'd rise slow-like. 'Hurry up' ain't knowed to the burros'language--believe me!"
The pony cavalcade was halted most surprisingly about noon, and in a waywhich bid fair to delay the party until the burros caught up, if notlonger. They had got well into the hills. The cliffs rose on either handto towering heights. Thick and scrubby woods masked the sides of thegorge through which they rode.
"It is as wild as one could imagine," said Miss Cullam, riding with Tomin the lead. "What do you suppose is the matter with my pony, Mr.Cameron?"
Tom had begun to be puzzled about his own mount--a wise old, flea-bittengray. The ponies had pricked their ears forward and were snuffing theair as though there was some unpleasant odor assailing their nostrils.
"I don't know just what is the matter," Tom confessed. "But thesecreatures can see and smell a lot that _we_ can't, Miss Cullam. Perhapswe had better halt and----"
He got no further. They were just rounding an elbow in the trail. Therebefore them, rising up on their haunches in the path, were three grayand black bears!
"Ow-yow!" shrieked Jennie Stone. "Do you girls see the same things _I_do?"
To those ahead, however, it seemed no matter for laughter. Thebears--evidently a female with two cubs--were too close for fun-making.