CHAPTER XXI
CRAB MAKES HIS DEMAND
Bill Hicks beckoned the girl from the Red Mill forward. “You come right here, Miss,” he said, “and let’s hear all about it. I’m a-honin’ for my Jane Ann somethin’ awful–ye don’t know what a loss she is to me. And Silver Ranch don’t seem the same no more since she went away.”
“Tell me,” said Ruth, curiously, as she came forward, “was what the paper said about it all true?”
“Why, Ruth, what paper is this? What do you know about this matter that I don’t know?” cried Miss Kate.
“I’m sorry, Miss Kate,” said the girl; “but it wasn’t my secret and I didn’t feel I could tell you––”
“I know what you mean, little Miss,” Hicks interrupted. “That New York newspaper–with the picter of Jane Ann on a pony what looked like one o’ these horsecar horses? Most ev’rythin’ they said in that paper was true about her–and the ranch.”
“And she has had to live out there without any decent woman, and no girls to play with, and all that?”
“Wal!” exclaimed Mr. Hicks. “That ain’t sech a great crime; is it?”
“I don’t wonder so much she ran away,” Ruth said, softly. “But I am sorry she did not stay here until you came, sir.”
“But where is she?” chorused both the ranchman and Miss Kate, and the latter added: “Tell what you know about her departure, Ruth.”