CHAPTER XXII
THIMBLE ISLAND
Miss Kate said of course he could use the buckboard and ponies, and it was the ranchman’s own choice that the young folks went, too. There was another wagon, and they could all crowd aboard one or the other vehicle–even Mercy Curtis went.
“I don’t believe that Crab man will show up at the light,” Ruth said to Tom and Helen. “He’s plainly made up his mind that he won’t meet Nita’s friends personally. And to think of his getting five hundred dollars so easy!” and she sighed.
For the reward Mr. Hicks had offered for news of his niece, which would lead to her apprehension and return to his guardianship, would have entirely removed from Ruth Fielding’s mind her anxiety about Briarwood. Let the Tintacker Mine, in which Uncle Jabez had invested, remain a deep and abiding mystery, if Ruth could earn that five hundred dollars.
But if Jack Crab had placed Nita in good hands and was merely awaiting an opportunity to exchange her for the reward which the runaway’s uncle had offered, then Ruth need not hope for any portion of the money. And certainly, Crab would make nothing by hiding the girl away and refusing to give her up to Mr. Hicks.
“And if I took money for telling Mr. Hicks where Nita was, why–why it would be almost like taking blood money! Nita liked me, I believe; I think she ought to be with her uncle, and I am sure he is a nice man. But it would be playing the traitor to report her to Mr. Hicks–and that’s a fact!” concluded Ruth, taking herself to task. “I could not think of earning money in such a contemptible way.”
Whether her conclusion was right, or not, it seemed right to Ruth, and she put the thought of the reward out of her mind from that instant. The ranchman had taken a liking to Ruth and when he climbed into the buckboard he beckoned the girl from the Red Mill to a seat beside him. He drove the ponies, but seemed to give those spirited little animals very little attention. Ruth knew that he must be used to handling horses beside which the ponies seemed like tame rabbits.
“Now what do you think of my Jane Ann?” was the cattleman’s question. “Ain’t she pretty cute?”
“I am not quite sure that I know what you mean by that, Mr. Hicks,” Ruth answered, demurely. “But she isn’t as smart as she ought to be, or she wouldn’t have gone off with Jack Crab.”