Part 26 (1/2)
”That's my business. I am going,” returned The Fox, shortly.
”Why, you can't do any such thing,” began Jane Ann; but Mary turned to Ike and proffered her request:
”Isn't there room for me in the car, Mr. Stedman?”
”Why, I reckon so, Miss,” agreed Ike, slowly.
”And won't there be a pony for me to ride from the river to Tintacker?”
”I reckon we can find one.”
”Then I'm going,” declared Mary, getting promptly into the tonneau with the doctor and Sally. ”I've just as good a reason for being over there-maybe a better reason for going-than Ruth Fielding.”
None of her girl friends made any comment upon this statement in Mary's hearing; but Madge declared, as the car chugged away from the ranch-house:
”I'll never again go anywhere with that girl unless she has a change of heart! She is just as mean as she can be.”
”She's the limit!” said Heavy, despondently. ”And I used to think she wasn't a bad sort.”
”And once upon a time,” said Helen Cameron, gravely, ”I followed her leaders.h.i.+p to the neglect of Ruth. I really thought The Fox was the very smartest girl I had ever met.”
”But she couldn't hold the Up and Doing Club together,” quoth the stout girl.
”Ruth's Sweetbriars finished both the Upedes and the Fussy Curls,”
laughed Madge, referring to the two social clubs at Briarwood Hall, which had been quite put-out of countenance by the Sweetbriar a.s.sociation which had been inaugurated by the girl from the Red Mill.
”And The Fox has never forgiven Ruth,” declared Heavy.
”What she means by forcing herself on this party at Tintacker, gets my time!” exclaimed Jane Ann.
”Sally will make her walk a chalk line if she goes over there with her,”
laughed Helen. ”Think of her and Ike getting married without a word to anybody!”
Jane Ann laughed, too, at that. ”Sally whispered to me that she never would have taken Ike so quick if it hadn't been for what we did at the party the other night. She was afraid some of the other girls around here would see what a good fellow Ike was and want to marry him. She's always intended to take him some time, she said; but it was Ruth that settled the affair at that time.”
”I declare! Ruth _does_ influence a whole lot of folk, doesn't she?”
murmured Heavy. ”I never saw such a girl.”
And that last was the comment Dr. Burgess made regarding the girl of the Red Mill after the party arrived at Tintacker. They reached the mine just at daybreak the next morning. Mary c.o.x had kept them back some, for she was not a good rider. But she had cried and taken on so when Sally and Ike did not want her to go farther than the river, that they were really forced to allow her to continue the entire journey.
Dr. Burgess examined the sick man and p.r.o.nounced him to be in a very critical condition. But he surely had improved since the hour that Ruth and Jib Pottoway had found him. Old Bill Hicks had helped care for the patient during the night; but Ruth had actually gone ahead with everything and-without much doubt, the doctor added-the stranger could thank her for his life if he _did_ recover.
”That girl is all right!” declared the physician, preparing to return the long miles he had come by relays of horses to the ranch-house, and from thence to Bullhide in the automobile. ”She has done just the right thing.”
”She's a mighty cute young lady,” admitted Bill Hicks. ”And this chap-John c.o.x, or whatever his name is-ought to feel that she's squared things up with him over that bear business--”
”Then you have learned his name?” queried Tom Cameron, who was present.
”I got the coat away from him when he was asleep in the night,” said Mr.