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

CHAPTER XX – THE MAD STALLION

Somehow Ruth Fielding could not find herself subscribing to this opinion of “the hermit” so flatly stated by Min Peters. She begged the prospector’s daughter to hush.

“Let us not say anything to each other that we will later be sorry for. Of course, we all understand – and must admit – that the finding of this gold-bearing ledge is a matter that cannot be long kept from the general public.”

“Sure! There’ll be a rush,” growled Flapjack.

“And when this feller’s men git here they’ll hog it all,” declared Min.

“They won’t hog our claims – not unless I’m dead,” said her father violently.

“Oh, hush! hush!” cried Ruth again. “This is no way to talk. We can stake out our claims and the other girls can stake out theirs. You understand we honestly found this ore just the same as you and your partner did?” she added to the lame young man.

“I found it first,” he said, gloomily. “I found it months ago – ”

“Great cats!” broke in Flapjack. “Why didn’t you file on it, then, and git started?”

“Yes, Mr. Royal,” said Ruth, puzzled. “Why the delay?”

“Well, you see, I hadn’t any money. I had to write to – to my partner. Ahem! I had to get money through my partner. I was afraid to file on the claim for fear the news would spread and the whole ridge be overrun with prospectors before I could be sure of mine.”

“And what you considered yours was the cream of it all,” repeated Min, quickly.

“Well! I found it, didn’t I?” he demanded.

“We were going to do the same thing ourselves,” Ruth said. “Let us be fair, Min.”

“But this feller means to git it all,” snapped the prospector’s daughter, nodding at “the hermit.”

“It means a lot to me – this business,” the young man muttered. “More than I can tell you. It means everything to me.”

He spoke so earnestly that the trio felt uncomfortable. Even Min did not seem able to ask another personal question. Her father drawled:

“Seems to me I seen you ’round Yucca, didn’t I, Mister?”

“Yes. I stayed there for a while. With a man named Braun.”

“Yep. Out on the trail to Kaster.”

“Yes,” said “the hermit.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Ruth, suddenly. “Was his rural delivery box number twenty-four?”

“What?” asked “the hermit.” “Yes, it was.”

Ruth opened her lips again; then she shut them tightly. She would not speak further of this subject before Flapjack and Min.

“Well,” the latter said irritably. “No use standin’ here all day. We’re goin’ to stake out them claims and put up notices. And we don’t want ’em teched, neither.”

“If mine are not touched you may be sure I shall not interfere with yours,” said the young man stiffly, turning his back on them and hobbling to his waiting pony.

Ruth wanted to say something else to him; then she hesitated. Then the young man rode away, the crutches dangling over his shoulder by a cord.

She left Peters and Min to stake out the claims, having written the notices for her own, and for Helen’s and Jennie’s and Rebecca Frayne’s claims as well. It was agreed that nothing was to be said at the camp about the find. As soon as she arrived she took Helen and Jennie aside and warned them.

“As Min says, we’ll ‘button up our lips,’” Jennie said. “Oh, I can keep a secret! But who will go to Kingman to file on the claims?”

That was what was puzzling Ruth. Flapjack, who knew all about such things – and knew the shortest trail, of course – was not to be trusted. He had money in his pocket and as Min said, a little money drove the man to drink.

“And Min can’t go. She is needed in several further scenes of the picture,” groaned Ruth.

“I tell you what,” Helen said eagerly, “we have just got to take one other person into our confidence.”

“You are right,” agreed Ruth. “I know whom you mean, Nell. Tom, of course.”

“Yes, Tom is perfectly safe,” said Helen. “He won’t even go up there and stake out a claim for himself if I tell him not to. But he will rush to Kingman and file on our claims.”

“And take these specimens of ore to the assayer,” put in Ruth.

It was so agreed, and when Min and her father reappeared at the camp the suggestion was made to them. Evidently the Western girl had been much puzzled about this very thing and she hailed the suggestion with acclaim.

“Seems to me I ought to be the one to file on them claims,” Flapjack said slowly. “And takin’ one more into this thing means spreadin’ it out thinner.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to go to Kingman with money in your pocket,” declared his daughter frankly. “You know, Pop, you said long ago that if ever you did strike it rich you was goin’ to be a gentleman and cut out all the rough stuff.”

“That’s right,” admitted Mr. Peters. “Me for a plug hat and a white vest with a gold watchchain across it, and a good seegar in my mouth. Yes, sir! That’s me. And a feller can’t afford to git ’toxicated and roll ’round the streets with them sort of duds on – no sir! If this is my lucky strike I’ve sure got to live up to it.”

Ruth wondered if clothes were going to make such a vast difference to both Min and her father. Yet lesser things than clothes have been elements of regeneration in human lives.

However, it was agreed that Tom must be taken into the gold hunters’ confidence. He was certainly surprised and wanted to rush right over to look at the ridge. But they showed him the gold-bearing ore instead and he had to be satisfied with that.

For time was pressing. “The hermit’s” partner might return with a crowd of hired workers and trouble might ensue. Without doubt Royal and his mate had intended to open the entire length of the ledge and gain possession of it. The mining law made it imperative that the claims should be of a certain area and each claim must be worked within so many months. But there are ways of circumventing the law in Arizona as well as in other places.

“I wonder who that partner of the lame fellow is?” Ruth murmured, as they were talking it over while Tom Cameron was making his preparations for departure.

“Same name as R’yal,” said Min, briefly. “Must be brothers.”

This statement rather puzzled Ruth. It certainly dissipated certain suspicions she had gained from her visits to the cabin in the distant arroyo, where “the hermit” lived.

Tom left the camp before night, carrying a good map of the trails to the north as far as Kingman. He was supposed to be going on some private errand for himself, and as he had no connection at all with the moving picture activities his departure was scarcely noted.

Besides, Mr. Grimes and the actors were just then preparing for one of the biggest scenes to be incorporated in the film of “The Forty-Niners.” This was the hold-up of the wagon train by Indians and it was staged on the old trail leading south out of Freezeout.

The wagons that had carted the paraphernalia over from Yucca had tops just like the old emigrant wagons in ‘49. There were only a few real Indians in Mr. Grimes’ company; but some of the cowboys dressed in Indian war-dress. For picture purposes there seemed a crowd of them when the action took place.

Everybody went out to see the film taken, and the fight and massacre of the gold hunters seemed very realistic. Indeed, one part of it came near to being altogether too realistic.

One of the punchers working with the company had announced before that there was either a bunch of wild horses in the vicinity, or a lone stallion strayed from some ranch. The horse in question had been sighted several times, and its hoofprints were often seen within half a mile of Freezeout.

The girls, while riding in a party through the hills, had spied the black and white creature, standing on a pinnacle and gazing, snorting, down upon the bridled ponies. The lone horse seemed to be attracted by those of his breed, yet feared to approach them while under the saddle. And, of course, the horses of the outfit were all picketed near the camp.

In the midst of the rehearsal of the Indian hold-up, when the emigrant’s ponies were stampeded by the redskins, the lone horse appeared and, snorting and squealing, tried to join the herd of tame horses and lead them away.

“It’s an ‘old rogue’ stallion, that’s what it is,” Ben Lester, one of the real Indians remarked. He had been to Harvard and had come back to his family in Arizona to straighten out business affairs, and was waiting for the Government to untangle much red tape before getting his share of the Southern Ute grant.

“He acts like he was locoed to me,” declared Felix Burns, the horse wrangler, who, much to his disgust, had to “act in them fool pitchers” as well as handle the stock for the outfit. “Looky there! If he comes for you, beat him off with your quirts. A bite from him might send man or beast jest as crazy as a mad dog.”

“Do you mean that the stallion is really mad?” asked Ruth, who was riding near the Indians, but, of course, out of the focus of the camera.

“Just as mad as a dog with hydrophobia – and just as dangerous,” declared Ben. “You ladies keep back. We may have to beat the brute off. He’s a pretty bird, but if he’s locoed, he’d better be dead than afoot – poor creature.”

The strangely acting stallion did not come near enough, however, for the boys to use their quirts. Nor did he bite any of the loose horses. He seemed to have an idea of leading the pack astray, that was all; and when the ponies were rounded up the stallion disappeared again, whistling shrilly, over the nearest ridge.

CHAPTER XXI – A PERIL OF THE SADDLE

Helen and Jennie, as they had promised, kept away from the ridge where the gold-bearing rock had been found. But the next afternoon when Ruth went for a gallop over the hills she chose a direction that would bring her around to the rear of the ledge.

She left her pony and climbed the hill on foot. For some distance along the length of the ledge and toward what was believed to be the richer end, Flapjack and Min had staked out the claims. They followed the two staked by the lame young man and his partner, and “R. Fielding” was on the notice stuck up on the one next to the claims of the mysterious young man and his partner.

“Well, nobody’s disturbed them, that is sure. Tom is pounding away just as fast as he can go for Kingman. Dates and time mean much in establishing mining claims, I believe. But if Tom gets to the county office and files on these claims before this other party can get on the site to jump them – if that is what they really mean to do – in the end we ought to be able to get judgment in the courts.”

Yet, somehow, she could not believe that “the hermit” was the sort of man who would do anything crooked. Satisfied that none of the stakes had been disturbed she returned to her pony and started him into the east again.

In a few moments she found herself following that half-defined path that she had ridden on the day she had first seen the secret cabin and the lame man in it. She had never mentioned this adventure to any of the girls. Ruth was, by nature, cautious without being really secretive. And when a second person was a party to any secret she was not the girl to chatter.

She hesitated, if the pony did not, in following this route. Half a dozen times she might have pulled out and taken a side turn, or ridden into another arroyo and so escaped seeing that hidden cabin again.

It must be confessed, however, that Ruth Fielding was curious. Very curious indeed. And she had reason to be. The gymnasium cap she had seen in “the hermit’s” cabin pointed to a most astounding possibility. She had not believed in the first place that “the hermit” was entirely alone in this wild and lonely spot. Now he had admitted the existence of a partner. Who was it?

She was deep in thought as her pony carried her at an easy canter down into the arroyo at the far end of which the cabin stood. Suddenly her mount lifted his head and challenged.

“Whoa! what’s the matter with you? What are you squealing at?” demanded Ruth, tightening her grasp on the reins.

She glanced around and saw nothing at first. Then the pony squealed again, and as it did so there came an answering equine hail from the mesquite. There was a crash in the bushes; then out upon the open ground charged the lone stallion that had the day before troubled the picture making company.

There was good blood in the handsome brute. He was several hands higher than the cow pony, and his legs were as slender and shapely as a Morgan’s. His muzzle was as glossy as satin; his nostrils a deep red and he blew through them and expanded them with ears pricked forward and yellow teeth bared – making altogether a striking picture, but one that Ruth Fielding would much rather have seen on the screen than here in reality.

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.