CHAPTER XVIII
A DESPERATE CASE
Jane Ann and Tom Cameron had both offered to accompany Ruth; but for a very good—if secret—reason Ruth did not wish any of her young friends to attend her at the meeting which she hoped would occur between her and the strange young man who (if report were true) had been hanging about the Tintacker properties for so long.
She had written Uncle Jabez after her examination with the lawyer of the mining record books at Bullhide: but she had told her uncle only that the claims had been transferred to the name of "John Cox." That was the name, she knew, that the vacuum cleaner agent had given Uncle Jabez when he had interested the miller in the mine. But there was another matter in connecton with the name of "Cox" which Ruth feared would at once become public property if any of her young friends were present at the interview to which she now so eagerly looked forward.
Freckles, now as fresh as a pony could be, carried Ruth rapidly up the valley, and as the two ponies galloped side by side the girl from the Red Mill grew quite confidential with the Indian. She did not like Jib Pottoway as she did the foreman of the Bar Cross Naught ranch; but the Indian was intelligent and companionable, and he quite evidently put himself out to be entertaining.
As he rode, dressed in his typical cowboy costume, Jib looked the full-blooded savage he was; but his conversation smacked of the East and of his experiences at school. What he said showed that Uncle Sam does very well by his red wards at Carlisle.
Jib could tell her, too, much that was interesting regarding the country through which they rode. It was wild enough, and there was no human habitation in sight. Occasionally a jackrabbit crossed their trail, or a flock of birds flew whirring from the path before them. Of other life there was none until they had crossed the first ridge and struck into a beaten path which Jib declared was the old pack-trail to Tintacker.
The life they then saw did not encourage Ruth to believe that this was either a safe or an inhabited country. Freckles suddenly shied as they approached a bowlder which was thrust out of the hillside beside the trail. Ruth was almost unseated, for she had been riding carelessly. And when she raised her eyes and saw the object that had startled the pony, she was instantly frightened herself.
Crouching upon the summit of the rock was a lithe, tawny creature with a big, round, catlike head and flaming green eyes. The huge cat lashed its tail with evident rage and bared a very savage outfit of teeth.
"Oh! what's that?" gasped Ruth, as Freckles settled back upon his haunches and showed very plainly that he had no intention of passing the bowlder.
"Puma," returned the Indian, laconically.
His mount, too, was circling around the rock with mincing steps, quite as unfavorably disposed toward the beast as was Freckles.
"Can it leap this far, Jib?" cried Ruth.
"It'll leap a whole lot farther in just a minute," returned the Indian, taking the rope off his saddle bow. "Now, look out, Miss!'
Freckles began to run backward. The puma emitted a sudden, almost human shriek, and the muscles upon its foreshoulders swelled. It was about to leap.
Jib's rope circled in the air. Even as the puma left the rock, its four paws all "spraddled out" in midair, the noose dropped over the savage cat. The lariat caught the puma around its neck and one foreleg, and before it struck the ground Jib had whirled his horse and was spurring off across the valley, his captive flying in huge (but involuntary) leaps behind him. He rode back in ten minutes with a beaten-out mass of fur and blood trailing at the end of his rope, and that was the end of Mr. Puma!
"There isn't any critter a puncher hates worse than a puma," Jib said, gruffly. "We've killed a host of 'em this season."
"And do you always rope them?' queried Ruth.
"They ain't worth powder and shot. Now, a bear is a gentleman 'side of a lion—and even a little old kiote ain't so bad. The lion's so blamed crafty and sly. Ha! it always does me good to rope one of them."
They rode steadily on the trail to the mines after that. It was scarcely more than fifteen miles to the claims which had been the site, some years before, of a thriving mining camp, but was now a deserted town of tumble-down shanties, corrugated iron shacks, and the rustled skeletons of machinery at the mouths of certain shafts. Money had been spent freely by individuals and corporations in seeking to develop the various "leads" believed by the first prospectors to be hidden under the surface of the earth at Tintacker. But if the silver was there it was so well hidden that most of the miners had finally "gone broke" attempting to uncover the riches of silver ore of which the first specimens discovered had given promise.
"The Tintacker Lode" it had been originally called, in the enthusiasm of its discoverers. But unless this strange prospector, who had hung about the abandoned claims for so many months, had struck into a new vein, the silver horde had quite "petered out." Of this fact Ruth was pretty positive from all the lawyer and Old Bill Hicks had told her. Uncle Jabez had gone into the scheme of re-opening the Tintacker on the strength of the vacuum-cleaner agent's personality and some specimens of silver ore that might have been dug a thousand miles from the site of the Tintacker claims.
"Don't look like there was anybody to home," grunted Jib Pottoway, as they rode up the last rise to the abandoned camp.
"Why! it's a wreck," gasped Ruth.
"You bet! There's hundreds of these little fly-by-night mining camps in this here Western country. And many a man's hopes are buried under the litter of those caved-in roofs. Hullo!"
"What's the matter?" asked Ruth, startled as she saw Jib draw his gun suddenly.
"What's that kiote doing diggin' under that door?" muttered the Indian.
The skulking beast quickly disappeared and Jib did not fire. He rode his pony directly to the shack—one of the best of the group—and hammered on the door (which was closed) with the butt of his pistol.
"Hullo, in there!" he growled.
Ruth was not a little startled. "Why was the coyote trying to get in?" she asked.
"You wait out here, Miss," said Jib. "Don't come too close. Kiotes don't usually try to dig into a camp when the owner's at home."
"But you spoke as though you thought he might be there!" whispered the girl.
"I—don't—know," grunted Jib, climbing out of his saddle.
He tried the latch. The door swung open slowly. Whatever it was he expected to see in the shack, he was disappointed. When he had peered in for half a minute, he stuck the pistol back into its holster and strode over the threshhold.
"Oh! what is it?" breathed Ruth again.
He waved her back, but went into the hut. There was some movement there; then a thin, babbling voice said something that startled Ruth more than had the puma's yell.
"Gee!" gasped Jib, appearing in the doorway, his face actually pale under its deep tan. "It's the 'bug'."
"The man I want to see?" cried Ruth.
"But you can't see him. Keep away," advised Jib, stepping softly out and closing the door of the shack.
"What is the matter, Jib?" cried Ruth. "He—he isn't dead?"
"Not yet," replied the Indian.
"What is it, then?"
"Mountain fever—or worse. It's catching—just as bad as typhoid. You mustn't go in there, Miss."
"But—but—he'll die!" cried the girl, all her sympathy aroused. "Nobody to help him"
"He's far gone. It's a desperate case, I tell you," growled Jib. "Ugh! I don't know what we'd better do. No wonder that kiote was trying to dig under the door. He knew—the hungry beast!"