"Is it worth it?" she asked.
"I think I would. You can get a Mexican to do the assessment work, and he'd be glad of the money. You never can tell what may happen," advised Judge Breckenridge.
"I had a sort of hunch that we ought to keep it, but then again in the night I decided that it would be foolish. We can go elsewhere and locate more claims."
"I'll take a trip over there with you this afternoon and have a look at
'Little Orphan Annie.' Tommy Sharpe is threatening to lay in wait for
Kie Wicks with a shotgun."
"Tommy's a fool! He always was!" exclaimed Enid impatiently. "He can't imagine there is any way of getting the better of a person except by shooting him. He even wanted to go after Sol Curtin. I believe he had the notion that he could do it all by himself. He's a funny boy!"
The Judge frowned. Although a year had passed since Enid had been found, the father could not talk, without emotion, of the man who had kidnapped his daughter when she was a child. Sol was in jail and would be there for many years, but still the father was uneasy.
"This Kie Wicks makes me think of Sol," he said bitterly. "And I want you to keep as far away from him as possible. Have a man do the work for you if you keep this claim near his."
That afternoon the Judge rode with the girls down Lost Canyon, through the Iron Gate to the smaller creek and picked their way around the boulders of the river bed.
About a mile from the claim, they met Professor Gillette. He had been far over one of the hills in search of the ruins. Half a dozen arrowheads were his reward. He was preparing a belated dinner in the creek-bed, over a smouldering fire.
The girls were impatient to go on, and dragged the Judge away from his friend.