They answered Kit's hail and raced their horses up the grade.
By the time they reached the summit, Bet and Kit were almost hysterical from laughing. Bet put the gun down gingerly. "I wonder what I would have done, if they had called my bluff!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, boys, if you could only have heard her," shrieked Kit, at last getting her breath. "You'd have thought she had just stepped out of a western two-gun story, the way she threatened those men, it's a wonder they didn't see through her. And she hardly knows how to hold the gun. It was a scream!"
"I don't believe I'd enjoy that sort of thing for regular work," laughed Bet. "I guess I don't like to give orders that much."
But the two ruffians, hastening toward the railroad station thirty miles away, never dreamed that the girl who menaced them so daringly, had never pulled a trigger.
"We're lucky to be out of it," they agreed. "Girls have a way of always making trouble and getting their own way!"
CHAPTER XVII
INDIAN TRADING
Much to the disgust of Tommy Sharpe, Kie Wicks was a guest at the Judge's table that day. Kie was beaming with self-satisfaction. He felt that he had put over a good deal and could afford to be genial.
Kie's plan was to let the ruffians hold the claim until he could make arrangements to put men to work and dig out the treasure in the tunnel. Kie did not doubt for a moment that the treasure was there. And tonight he intended to investigate and see how much needed to be done. If he could handle it alone, so much the better.