“Huh! What would he want to meet you for?” asked the girl, shaking back her straggly hair.
“Why, it was arranged by Mr. Hammond that Mr. Peters should guide us into the Range. We are going to Freezeout Camp.”
“Wha-at?” drawled Min Peters in evident surprise. “You, too?”
Tom here put in a word. “I am the one who telegraphed to Mr. Peters when we were on the way here. It was understood through Mr. Hammond that Mr. Peters was to hold himself in readiness for our party.”
“Then what about them other girls?” demanded the girl, with sudden vigor. “They done fooled pop, did they?”
“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘those other girls,’” Ruth hastened to say.
“Why, pop’s already started for the hills. I I dunno whether he’s goin’ to Freezeout or not. There ain’t nobody at that old camp, nohow. Dunno what you want to go there for.”
Ruth waived that matter to say, eagerly:
“How many girls are there in this party your father has gone off with?”
“Two. He ‘spected more I reckon, for there’s a bunch of ponies down in Jeb’s corral. But the girl that bossed the thing said you-all had backed out. It looked right funny to me—two girls goin’ off there into the hills. And she was a tenderfoot all right.”