Part 32 (1/2)
They answered Kit's hail and raced their horses up the grade.
By the time they reached the summit, Bet and Kit were almost hysterical from laughing. Bet put the gun down gingerly. ”I wonder what I would have done, if they had called my bluff!” she exclaimed.
”Oh, boys, if you could only have heard her,” shrieked Kit, at last getting her breath. ”You'd have thought she had just stepped out of a western two-gun story, the way she threatened those men, it's a wonder they didn't see through her. And she hardly knows how to hold the gun.
It was a scream!”
”I don't believe I'd enjoy that sort of thing for regular work,”
laughed Bet. ”I guess I don't like to give orders that much.”
But the two ruffians, hastening toward the railroad station thirty miles away, never dreamed that the girl who menaced them so daringly, had never pulled a trigger.
”We're lucky to be out of it,” they agreed. ”Girls have a way of always making trouble and getting their own way!”
CHAPTER XVII
_INDIAN TRADING_
Much to the disgust of Tommy Sharpe, Kie Wicks was a guest at the Judge's table that day. Kie was beaming with self-satisfaction. He felt that he had put over a good deal and could afford to be genial.
Kie's plan was to let the ruffians hold the claim until he could make arrangements to put men to work and dig out the treasure in the tunnel.
Kie did not doubt for a moment that the treasure was there. And tonight he intended to investigate and see how much needed to be done.
If he could handle it alone, so much the better.
Kit and Bet arrived when the meal was half finished and pretended to be hurt at the teasing that they encountered. They decided to wait until the family was alone before saying anything about the capture of the tunnel. Kie might get ugly and actually harm the old man.
”Saw your playmate, Young Mary, coming up the canyon today,” said Kie, glad of some new excitement for the girls, to take their minds off the professor for a while.
”Oh, is Mary home?” cried Kit happily. ”I do want to see her!”
”Yes, Young Mary is here with a dozen other Indians of all sizes and shapes,” grinned Kie. ”They sure are a funny looking crowd.”
Kit herself might have made the same remark, but coming from Kie, she resented it.
”Where are they?” exclaimed Bet. ”I'll pay them a visit. Do you think they will make some baskets for me?”
”You can never tell a thing about them. If they need money, they will, but like as not they'll refuse. This is their vacation, they come up every year to pick mesquite beans and pinon nuts,” Kit informed them.
”Let's go down right after lunch and see them,” proposed the girls, but Kit hesitated.
”We might frighten them away if we are too anxious,” she said.
”Indians are very shy.”
”I'll say they are,” smiled Tommy. ”And about as friendly as a block of ice.”
”Why Tommy Sharpe, how can you say such a thing? There's Old Mary and Indian Joe, they are the most friendly people in the world. There isn't anything they wouldn't do for Mum and Dad and me. And they think you're a great man!” Kit defended them.