CHAPTER XXIV
COALS OF FIRE
Once Bashful Ike had taken the bit in his teeth, his nickname never fitted him again. He believed in striking while the iron was hot, Ike did. And before the touring car ran them down into Bullhide, he had talked so hard and talked so fast that he had really swept Miss Sally Dickson away on the tide of his eloquence, and she had agreed to Ike's getting the marriage license and their being wedded on the spot!
But the foreman of Silver Ranch found Dr. Burgess first and made the physician promise to accompany him to Tintacker. The doctor said he would be ready in an hour.
"Gives us just about time enough, Sally," declared the suddenly awakened Ike. "I'll have that license and we'll catch Parson Brownlow on the fly. Come on!"
"For pity's sake, Ike!" gasped the young lady. "You take my breath away."
"We ain't got no time to fool," declared Ike. And within the hour he was a Benedict and Sally Dickson had become Mrs. Ike Stedman.
"And I'm going over to Tintacker with you, Ike," she declared as they awaited before the doctor's office in the big automobile. "That poor fellow over there will need somebody more'n Ruth Fielding to nurse him. It takes skill to bring folks out of a fever spell. I nursed Dad through a bad case of it two year ago, and I know what to do."
"That's all right, Sally," agreed Ike. "I'll make Old Bill give me muh time, if need be, and we'll spend our honeymoon at Tintacker. I kin fix up one of the old shacks to suit us to camp in. I don't wish that poor feller over there any harm," he added, smiling broadly at the pretty girl beside him, "but if it hadn't been that he got this fever, you an' I wouldn't be married now, honey."
"You can thank Ruth Fielding—if you want to be thankful to anybody," returned Sally, in her brisk way. "But maybe you won't be so thankful a year or two from now, Ike."
Dr. Burgess came with his black bag and they were off. The automobile—as Sally said herself—behaved "like an angel," and they reached Silver Ranch (after halting for a brief time at the Crossing for Sally to pack her bag and acquaint Old Lem Dickson of the sudden and unexpected change in her condition) late at night. Old Bill Hicks was off for Tintacker and the party remained only long enough to eat and for Bob Steele to go over the mechanism of the badly-shaken motor-car.
"I'll drive you on to the river myself, Ike," he said. "You are all going on from there on horseback, I understand, and I'll bring the machine back here."
But when the newly-married couple and the physician had eaten what Maria could hastily put before them, and were ready to re-enter the car, Mary Cox came out upon the verandah, ready to go likewise.
"For pity's sake, Mary!" gasped Heavy. "You don't want to ride over to the river with them."
"I'm going to those mines," said The Fox, defiantly.
"What for?" asked Jane Ann, who had arrived at the ranch herself only a short time before.
"That's my business. I am going," returned The Fox, shortly.
"Why, you can't do any such thing," began Jane Ann; but Mary turned to Ike and preferred her request:
"Isn't there room for me in the car, Mr. Stedman?"
"Why, I reckon so, Miss," agreed Ike, slowly.
"And won't there be a pony for me to ride from the river to Tintacker?"
"I reckon we can find one."
"Then I'm going," declared Mary, getting promptly into the tonneau with the doctor and Sally. "I've just as good a reason for being over there—maybe a better reason for going—than Ruth Fielding."
None of her girl friends made any comment upon this statement in Mary's hearing; but Madge declared, as the car chugged away from the ranchhouse:
"I'll never again go anywhere with that girl unless she has a change of heart! She is just as mean as she can be."
"She's the limit!" said Heavy, despondently. "And I used to think she wasn't a bad sort."
"And once upon a time," said Helen Cameron, gravely, "I followed her leadership to the neglect of Ruth. I really thought The Fox was the very smartest girl I had ever met."
"But she couldn't hold the Up and Doing Club together," quoth the stout girl.
"Ruth's Sweetbriars finished both the Upedes and the Fussy Curls," laughed Madge, referring to the two social clubs at Briarwood Hall, which had been quite put out of countenance by the Sweetbriar Association which had been inaugurated by the girl from the Red Mill.
"And The Fox has never forgiven Ruth," declared Heavy.
"What she means by forcing herself on this party at Tintacker, gets my time!" exclaimed Jane Ann.
"Sally will make her walk a chalk line if she goes over there with her," laughed Helen. "Think of her and Ike getting married without a word to anybody!"
Jane Ann laughed, too, at that. "Sally whispered to me that she never would have taken Ike so quick if it hadn't been for what we did at the party the other night. She was afraid some of the other girls around here would see what a good fellow Ike was and want to marry him. She's always intended to take him some time, she said; but it was Ruth that settled the affair at that time."
"I declare! Ruth does influence a whole lot of folk, doesn't she?" murmured Heavy. "I never saw such a girl."
And that last was the comment Dr. Burgess made regarding the girl of the Red Mill after the party arrived at Tintacker. They reached the mine just at daybreak the next morning. Mary Cox had kept them back some, for she was not a good rider. But she had cried and taken on so when Sally and Ike did not want her to go farther than the river, that they were really forced to allow her to continue the entire journey.
Dr. Burgess examined the sick man and pronounced him to be in a very critical condition. But he surely had improved since the hour that Ruth and Jib Pottoway had found him. Old Bill Hicks had helped care for the patient during the night; but Ruth had actually gone ahead with everything and—without much doubt, the doctor added—the stranger could thank her for his life if he did recover.
"That girl is all right!" declared the physician, preparing to return the long miles he had come by relays of horses to the ranchhouse, and from thence to Bullhide in the automobile. "She has done just the right thing."
"She's a mighty cute young lady," admitted Bill Hicks. "And this chap—John Cox, or whatever his name is—ought to feel that she's squared things up with him over that bear business"
"Then you have learned his name?' queried Tom Cameron, who was present.
"I got the coat away from him when he was asleep in the night," said Mr. Hicks. "He had letters and papers and a wad of banknotes in it. Ruth's got 'em all. She says he is the man with whom her Uncle Jabez went into partnership over the old Tintacker claims. Mebbe the feller's struck a good thing after all. He seems to have an assayer's report among his papers that promises big returns on some specimens he had assayed. If he dug 'em out of the Tintacker Claim mebbe the old hole in the ground will take on a new lease of life."
At that moment Mary Cox pushed forward, with Sally holding her by the arm.
"I've got to know!' cried The Fox. "You must tell me. Does the—the poor fellow say his name is Cox?"
"Jest the same as yourn, Miss," remarked Old Bill, watching her closely. "Letters and deeds all to 'John Cox.'"
"I know it! I feared it all along!" cried The Fox, wringing her hands. "I saw him in the canon when he shot the bear and he looked so much like John"
"He's related to you, then, Miss?" asked the doctor.
"He's my brother—I know he is!" cried Mary, and burst into tears.