CHAPTER XVII--THE MAN IN THE CABIN
Why, of course they could not keep it to themselves! At least, the threegirls could not. They simply had to tell Miss Cullam and Tom, and theother Ardmore freshmen and Ann of their discovery.
So every day after that the visitors from the East "went prospecting."They searched up and down the creek for several miles, turning overevery bit of "sparkling" rock they saw and bringing back to the campinnumerable specimens of quartz and mica, until Mr. Hammond declaredthey were all "gold mad."
"Why, this place has been petered out for years and years," he said. "Doyou suppose I want my actors leaving me to stake out claims alongFreezeout Creek, and spoiling my picture? Stop it!"
The idea of gold hunting had got into the girls, however, as well asinto Flapjack Peters and his daughter. The other Western men laughed atthem. Gold this side of the Hualapai Range had "petered out." Theylooked upon the old-timer as a little cracked on the subject. And, ofcourse, these "tenderfoots" did not know anything about "color" anyway.
Even Miss Cullam searched along the creek banks and up into the lowhills that surrounded the valley.
"Who knows," said the teacher of mathematics, "but that I may find afortune, and so be able to eschew the teaching of the young for the restof my life? Gorgeous!"
"But pity the 'young'," begged Jennie Stone. "Think, Miss Cullam, how wewould miss you."
"I can hardly imagine that you would suffer," declared the mathematicsteacher. "Really!"
"We might not miss the mathematics," said Rebecca, wickedly. "But youare the very best chaperon who ever 'beaued' a party of girls into thewilds. Isn't that the truth, Ardmores?"
"It is!" they cried. "Hurrah for Miss Cullam!"
Ruth, however, despite the discovery of the possibly gold-bearingquartz, was not to be coaxed from her work. Each morning she shutherself into the "sanctum sanctorum" and worked faithfully at thescenario. Likewise, Rebecca stuck to the typewriter, for she had work todo for Mr. Hammond now, as well as for Ruth.
Some part of each afternoon Ruth took for exercise in the open. Andusually she took this exercise on ponyback.
Riding alone out of the shallow gorge one day, she struck into whatseemed to her a bridlepath which led into "dips" and valleys in thehills which she had never before seen. Nothing more had been observed ofeither the lone horseman or the supposed squaw for so many days thattheir presence about Freezeout Camp had quite slipped Ruth Fielding'smind.
Besides, there were so many men at the camp now that to have fear ofstrangers was never in the girl's thoughts. She urged her hardy ponyinto a gallop and sped down hill and up in a most invigorating dash.
Such a ride cleared the cobwebs out of her head and revivified mind andbody alike. At the end of this dash, when she halted the pony in anarroyo to breathe, she was cheerful and happy and ready to laugh atanything.
She laughed first at her own nose! It really was ridiculous to thinkthat she smelled wood smoke.
But the pungent odor of burning wood grew more and more distinct. Shegazed swiftly all around her, seeing no campfire, of course, in thisshallow gulch. But suddenly she gathered up the bridle reins tightly andstared, wide-eyed, off to the left. A faint column of blue smoke roseinto the air--she could not be mistaken.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" thought Ruth. "Another camping party?Who can be living so near Freezeout without giving us a call? The lonehorseman? The Indian squaw? Or both?"
She half turned her pony to ride back. It might be some ill-disposedperson camping here in secret. Flapjack and Min had intimated there wereoccasionally ne'er-do-wells found in the range--outlaws, or ill-disposedIndians.
Still, it was cowardly to run from the unknown. Ruth had tasted realperil on more than one occasion. She touched the spur to her ponyinstead of pulling him around, and rode on.
There was a curve in the arroyo and when she came into the hidden partof the basin the mystery was instantly explained. A fairly substantialcabin--recently built it was evident--stood near a thicket of mesquite.The door was hung on leather hinges and was wide open. Yet there must besome occupant, for the smoke rose through the hole in the roof. Itstruck Ruth, for several reasons, that the cabin had been built by anamateur.
She held in her pony again and might, after all, have wheeled him andridden away without going closer, if the little beast had not betrayedher presence by a shrill whinny. Immediately the pony's challenge wasanswered from the mesquite where the unknown's horse was picketed.
Ruth was startled again. No sound came from the cabin, nor could shediscover anybody watching her from the jungle. She rode nearer to thecabin door.
It was then that the unshod hoofs of her pony announced her presence towhoever was within. A voice shouted suddenly:
"Hullo!"
The tone in which the word was uttered drove all the fear out of RuthFielding's mind. She knew that the owner of such a voice must be agentleman.
She rode her pony up to the open door and peered into the dimly lightedinterior. There was no window in the cabin walls.
"Hullo yourself!" she rejoined. "Are you all alone?"
"Sure I am. I'm a hermit--the Hermit Prospector. And I bet you are one ofthose moving picture girls."
A laugh accompanied the words. Ruth then saw the man, extended at fulllength in a rude bunk. One foot was bare and it and the ankle wasswathed in bandages.
"Sorry I can't get up to do the honors. Doctor's ordered me to stay inbed till this ankle recovers."
"Oh! Is it broken?" cried Ruth, slipping out of her saddle and throwingthe reins on the ground before the pony so that he would stand.
"Wrenched. But a bad one. I'm likely to stay here a while."
"And all alone?" breathed Ruth.
"Quite so. Not a soul to swear at, nor a cat to kick. My horse is outthere in the mesquite and I suppose he's tangled up----"
"I'll fix that in a moment," cried Ruth. "He'd better be tethered hereon the hillside before your door. The grazing is good."
"Well--yes. I suppose so."
Ruth was off into the mesquite in a flash. She found the whinnying pony.And she discovered another thing. The animal's lariat had been untangledand his grazing place changed several times.
"You've hobbled around a good bit since your ankle was hurt," she saidaccusingly, when she returned to the cabin door. "And see all thefirewood you've got!"
"I expect I did too much after I strained the ankle," the man admittedgravely. "That's why it is so bad now. But when a man's alone----"
"Yes. When he _is_ alone," repeated Ruth, eyeing him thoughtfully.
He was a young man and as roughly dressed as any of the teamsters atFreezeout Camp. There was, too, several days' growth of beard upon hisface. But he was a good looking chap, with rather a humorous cast ofcountenance. And Ruth was quite sure that he was educated and at presentin a strange environment.
"Have you plenty of water?" she asked suddenly, for she had seen thespring several rods away.
"Lots," declared "the hermit." "See! I've a drip."
He pointed with pride to the arrangement of a rude shelf beside the headof his bunk with a twenty-quart galvanized pail upon it. A pin-hole hadbeen punched in this pail near the bottom, and the water dripped fromthe aperture steadily into a pint cup on the floor.
"Would you believe it," he said, with a smile, "the water, after fallingso far through the air, is quite cooled."
"What do you do when the pail is empty?" the girl asked quickly.
"Oh! I shall be able to hobble to the spring by that time. If the cupgets full and I don't need the water, I pour it back."
Ruth stood on tiptoe and looked into the pail. Then she brought waterfrom the spring in her own canteen, making several trips, and filled thepail to the brim.
"Now, what do you eat, and how do you get it?" she asked him.
"My dear young lady!" he cried, "you must not worry about me. I shall beall right. I was just going to cook some bacon when you rode up. That iswhy
I made up a fresh fire. I shall be all right, I assure you."
Ruth insisted upon rumaging through his stores and cooking the hermit ahearty meal. She marked the fact that certain delicacies were here thatthe ordinary prospector would not have packed into the wilds. Likewise,there was vastly more tea and sugar than one person could use in a longtime.
Ruth was quite sure "the hermit" was not a native of the West. She wasexceedingly puzzled as she went about her kindly duties. Then, of asudden, she was actually startled as well as puzzled. In a corner of thecabin she found hanging on a nail a rubber bathcap on which wasstenciled "Ardmore." It was one of the gymnasium caps from her college.