Kie had given him a small shack in the canyon, that had once been used by some friends of his for a summer vacation, and it was this home that sheltered his wife and eight children, which kept the Mexican faithful to Kie.
Ramon had a bad name in the hills. He had tried his hand at every kind of rascality. Cattle had disappeared, horses rustled and Ramon was suspected of knowing more about them than he should. Yet it was Kie Wicks behind him, threatening and driving him on, that made Ramon the character he was.
And while Ramon refused, at first, to go on with the assessment work on the stolen claims, he knew that he would do it in the end, and that Kie would also give him supplies while he was working on the job.
Ramon did not like to meet the girls and perhaps Judge Breckenridge. The professor, he felt, was harmless, a silly old man who roamed through the hills, but the impressive looking judge was a different matter.
Yet the next morning when the professor arrived with the girls, Ramon was digging away at the farthest claim, and did not even look up.
"Guilty conscience!" whispered Bet to the professor.
"He complicates matters considerably," frowned the old man. "I hardly know how we are going to proceed, if he stays around here."
"With Ramon watching, the only thing to do was to go on with the drilling on the Orphan Annie claim. Bet fumed and fussed, scolding anyone who came near her. She insisted on being the professor's helper, holding the drill in place with the strong wire while he hammered. This gave her an audience and was an outlet for her anger against Kie Wicks and his Mexican hanger-on.
"Take it easy, child. There's lots of time to find that treasure—that is if there is one. We don't need it right away, you know," soothed the professor.
But it took Bet a long time to regain her poise. The other girls had recovered from their disappointment and were trying to make friends with the Mexican before Bet would even smile.