"See here, Frieda, I might as well tell you, for you would be sure to find out anyhow if I didn't. That fellow isn't one of the new miners. He is Russell, the friend I brought up to the Lodge with me to dinner the other night. You see——"
But Frieda's eyes were widening and in truth the other three women seemed almost equally surprised.
"But I thought Professor Russell had gone away from Rainbow Ranch," Frieda protested, "why he told us good-by the night he left and said that he would have to be off so early the next morning that he could not see any of us again."
Ralph nodded. "I know," he conceded in some embarrassment. "And you're still to think he has gone if you please. Don't any one of you go near enough to Russell to speak to him or he will probably die of confusion before your eyes. I am afraid I forgot he was around and he is under the impression that he is safely disguised. You see the truth of the matter is this. When Russell got me away from the Lodge the other night there is nothing he did not say to me for having taken him unprepared to a place where he had to meet four girls. He declared it nearly killed him and he had every intention of sneaking away from the Ranch house the next morning on foot rather than suffer the chance of meeting any one of you again. He is an awful ass, but just the same he is a tremendously clever fellow and I was awfully anxious to show him the mine and he wanted to see it almost as much. So I persuaded him that he could just stay on at the Ranch house with me for a few days, letting you believe he had disappeared until he saw how things down here looked and worked. I assured him no one of you ever came near the men's quarters, but now he is hanging around the mine waiting for me as I promised to take him down into the pit as soon as we start work. Don't scare him to death beforehand."
Ruth and Jean and Olive laughed, and Olive said sympathetically:
"Poor fellow, I can feel for him. I used to feel so shy that nearly all strangers made me wretched. But I don't see just why he should be so specially severe upon girls?"
"Because he is a goose," Frieda returned so sententiously that every one else laughed. So plainly was she offended at her own failure to charm their strange guest a night or so before.
It was time for Ralph to say good-by. Arrangements at the pit shaft had been made so that the first elevator could be lowered into it. He then waved his hand in farewell to his friends, as he and the new foreman of the mine and the odd-looking figure of Henry Russell climbed on to the elevator.
"I shall go away before they come up again, so that foolish fellow won't even have to look at me," Frieda remarked scornfully, as without any hitch or delay the car slowly disappeared into the bowels of the earth.