“Well, that’s about all. Edie brought the money. She has some of her own and the pater gave her five thousand without asking a question. She and I are really partners. We’re going to show him—if we can.”
“I think it is fine of you, Mr. Phelps!” cried Ruth, with enthusiasm. “And—and I think your sister is a sister worth having.”
“Oh, you can bet she is!” he agreed. “Edie is all right. I couldn’t begin to pull this off if it were not for her. I expect the pater will say so in the end. But if I can show some money for what I have done—a bunch of it—it will be all right with him.”
Ruth made no further comment here. She saw plainly that Royal Phelps’ father probably weighed everybody and everything on the same scales upon which precious metals are weighed.
“Now I’ll catch your pony, Mr. Phelps,” she said. “If you want to ride back with me I’ll introduce you to the girls and Miss Cullam.”
“That’s nice of you. Perfectly bully, you know. Or, as they say out here, ‘skookum!’ But I guess I’d better wait till Edie returns. Let her do the honors. Besides, I am not at all sure that we sha’n’t be enemies, Miss Fielding—worse luck.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Phelps,” Ruth said warmly. “Never that!”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled, hobbling on his crutches now while she walked toward the pony that was trailing his picket-rope. “You see, I’m pretty desperate about this gold strike. I’ve a good mind to go up there on the ridge and pull up all your stakes and throw ’em away.”
“I wouldn’t,” she advised, smiling at him. “Mr. Flapjack Peters has what they call a ‘sudden’ temper; and his daughter, we found out coming over from Yucca, is a dead shot.”
“I want a big slice of that ledge,” said the young man, sighing. “Enough to make a showing in the Eastern share market.”