A "HINT" FROM DORIS

A short cut from Number Two claim led them straight over a low ridge to camp. Not only did this trail shorten the distance considerably; it also avoided altogether the gulch and Parowan Number One—with its secret.

Al Freeman was seen pottering around the camp by the junipers. Evidently the truce still held, for Tommy had finished his blacksmithing and was setting the camp to rights, mumbling unintelligibly over his work.

Bill's plans had taken definite form, which means that he had half-unconsciously conceded every point brought forth by Doris, who was accustomed to having her say about things on the ranch. In one particular only had Bill stood firm. He would not take the experts into his confidence until he had talked with Don Hunter. To this Doris readily assented, feeling fairly certain that her dad would advise whatever Doris herself wanted. Bill reluctantly left the girl's side and joined Tommy over by the forge.

"I'll have to make a trip over to the Hunter ranch," he announced. "I guess our mining will have to wait until I get back—unless our neighbors should happen to move on. But I've about decided that we're going to need a dugout to store our grub in. Right here in this bank is a good place to dig. While I'm gone you can be making the dugout, Tommy—and you can keep an eye on the camp while you're doing it. Right now, while Miss Hunter is in camp, I'll take you up and show you the claims. I've got a pretty rich vein and I don't want any one monkeying around there while I'm gone. I'll leave it to you and Hez."

They went off together over the ridge, and Al Freeman stopped his work and openly watched their departure. When they were quite out of sight, he came shambling over to Bill's tent and pulled open the flap.

"Well?" Doris looked up from spreading jam between cold biscuits for their lunch on the trail. She might have been speaking to one of her father's ranch hands, for all the emotion she showed.

Al grinned slyly and placatingly.

"Excuse me," he said in his flat voice that grated unpleasantly on the ear. "I left my terbaccer in here somewhere this morning. If it ain't botherin' ye none, I just thought I'd come over an' git it."

"It took you a long time to miss it," Doris observed coldly. "Why didn't you ask Bill for it?"

"I didn't think of it then," Al grinned, edging into the tent.

"Well, I can't let you go pawing around in here while he's gone." Doris continued to spread other split biscuits with jam. "Go on out, and wait till Mr. Dale comes."

"He ain't likely to be back very soon," Al argued insinuatingly. "I just about got to have a smoke, Miss Hunter—no two ways about it. Won't take me but a minute to look where I laid my terbaccer."

Doris straightened and stood eyeing him attentively, a butcher knife in her left hand.

"Whereabouts did you lay it, then?" she demanded.

"Right on a sack in this corner. I was gittin' up to go to breakfast, an' I laid my terbaccer down on a sack in this corner. I mind now that Mr. Emmett kinda joggled things 'round, pullin' out a box to set on. I never thought no more about it till I went to make a smoke." He turned to the corner and stooped, laying hold upon a half-filled sack of something. "It musta fell over behind," he mumbled.

"You get out of that corner and out of this tent," Doris commanded sternly, laying down the knife.

Al lifted his lip in a smile that was half a snarl. "Aw, you wouldn't make a man go without his terbaccer," he whined, lifting the sack and finding it unexpectedly heavy. "Must be gold bricks in this sack," he tittered. "I guess that sample he showed at breakfast ain't all he's got!"

"Will you get out of here?" Doris took a step forward, her eyes, her whole face, hardening with anger.

"Now, now, no use gittin' excited," Al protested, leering at her. "I can't go off without my terbaccer—mebby it fell into this sack. I'll just take a look."

His hand was fumbling inside the sack when Doris fired. Hunkered down on his heels, Al gave a grotesque leap straight into the air, as the bullet spatted into the earthen floor and kicked dirt over his toes. He came down sidewise, sprawled awkwardly and clawing to get up.

"That's just a hint," Doris announced dispassionately through the drifting little smoke cloud. "In about one minute——"

Al went out on hands and knees and picked himself up and ran. Doris followed him out, saw him duck into his own tent and laughed a little.

Al, too, was laughing silently, showing his broken, tobacco-stained teeth. He was staring gloatingly down at the piece of ore he had dragged from the sack, hidden in the palm of his big hand.

Doris returned to the tent and stood looking reflectively down at the tilted sack. She stooped, reached inside it and brought out a lump of ore. She frowned over it, her under lip between her teeth.

"Bill certainly needs a guardian," she said to herself. "Leaving half a sack of this stuff right where the first sneak thief could help himself! That fellow must have suspected it was here, too. I'll bet he never lost any tobacco in here—but it's easy enough to find out."

She made a thorough search of the corner and convinced herself that Al had been lying to her and that his sole purpose was to get his hands on that ore. She tilted the sack again, spilling the contents out on the ground. She had no fear that Al would return. With her lifelong knowledge of the desert had come the understanding of desert types of men, and she needed no explanation of Al Freeman. She knew him for what he was: a coward at heart, mean and treacherous and capable of crime that might be hidden. She did not know that he had carried off a piece of the ore, but she knew that he suspected its richness. Only a tenderfoot will cumber his tent with valueless samples of mineral,—and Bill Dale was no tenderfoot.

"He thought he could fool me," she analyzed the incident contemptuously. "Or maybe he thought I'd be scared to say anything to him." She sorted the pieces of ore, choosing those that showed the largest specks and splotches of gold. She fondled them, turned them to the light, feasted her eyes upon them.

"Rich! Bill's rich, this minute. A millionaire, for all we know," she mused. "And maybe it's like this on my claim, too. Dear old Bill—he surely deserves a fortune. How he's worked to find it—and he's loved me all the time and wanted to strike it so we—I'm going to make him leave the working of the mine to some one else. He can afford to take life easy now—we'll live in Los Angeles, or maybe we'll travel——"

She was sitting cross-legged, with her lap full of rich pieces of quartz, when Bill looked in upon her. She scrambled up, her two hands clutching the prettiest specimens. Bill was laughing at her, his eyes adoring. Doris pulled her fine eyebrows together and shook her head at him.

"Good thing you've got some one to look after you, old boy," she scolded, half in earnest. "You'd have been robbed of all this, and maybe cleaned out of everything else, if I hadn't scared him off. He had his hand in the sack, mind you, when I shot at his feet. That put him on the run. Bill, you'd better tell Tommy to pack a gun while you're gone. That fellow, Al, needs a whole lot of watching. What in the world made you keep all this stuff here in the tent? He must have known it was here, or at least he suspected it——"

"I'll mighty quick settle with him," Bill said grimly, and turned away.

Doris stopped him. "Better let it pass, Bill. You see, I couldn't prove he wasn't after his tobacco, just as he claimed. He may have lost it here. I don't believe it, but he had his excuse for coming. And he didn't steal anything. I scared him off before he had a chance. Perhaps I should have waited and got the goods on him.

"No, just gather up everything but that sample you had out in sight this morning, and we'll carry it over and show it to daddy. And have Tommy watch out. There really isn't anything Al can do, is there?"

"Not unless he bats Tommy on the head; and from all accounts, Tommy's good at that game. So you took a shot at him, did you?"

"And scared the life out of him, almost. We'll have to hurry, Bill. If you can pack my outfit on one of the burros, you could ride old Rambler. I wish you would. And can't we take Luella along?"

Bill said that they could, but he would not ride Rambler. On the desert a horse seldom travels faster than a walk on a long journey, especially with a pack animal along. Bill was accustomed to depending on his own legs, and a twenty-mile hike was his regular day's travel when on the trail. He therefore packed an emergency camp outfit on Wise One and set out quite happily, walking beside Doris, sometimes touching her hand caressingly, his soul still hushed and trembling lest all this would prove itself a dream.

In violet shadows they approached the house in its square of cottonwoods and saw a tall, rangy figure step leisurely down from the porch and come to meet them, holding a big-bowled, briar pipe from which lazy incense floated upward.

Leaning both arms upon the top board of the yard fence, Don Hunter waited placidly until they came up, Rambler shuffling into a trot as he remembered his stall. Occasionally Don placed the pipestem between his teeth and took comfort from the slow inhalation of smoke. Content emanated from his personality as perfume of a flower gives a soothing quality to the air about it. He was a strong man, meant to dominate those lesser souls with whom he came in contact, and some with souls as great as his, but humble in their greatness. He was not an aggressive man, but most men feared to incur his ill will or his contempt, and his opinion was rated above that of his neighbors; and although he was slow to give advice, scarcely a day passed but he was asked for it. Bill did not know a man whom he liked better or respected more, and his attitude was not greatly influenced by the fact that Don was the father of Doris. Indeed, he had known Don Hunter long before he first met the girl. And if his prospecting were frowned upon by the older man, Bill knew that Don would be the first to throw up his hat over Bill's success, and never think of his own possible benefit from the strike.

"Hello, Bill," Don called as the two came up, Bill walking briskly behind his burro. Doris had professed a reluctance to let daddy and mother know that night about the tentative engagement, and they had traveled apart for the last mile across the flat.

"Howdy, Don. Well, we're here, all right."

Don reached out a long arm and swung open the gate. Then he and Bill shook hands, looking into each other's eyes with frank pleasure in the meeting.

"Glad to see yuh, Bill. Just slip the bridles off—there's hay in the corral—and come on in. Supper's been waiting on yuh."

"We're half-starved, Daddy, and that's the truth," Doris declared, leaning from the saddle to kiss the top of his head as she rode past. "Bill's about all in, I reckon. We got a late start and hustled right along."

"Just keep that pace up till you hit the supper table," Don suggested, and fastened the gate behind them before he returned to the porch. "They're here, Momma," he called within, and stood in the dusk of the doorway, waiting.

Bill had stridden ahead and opened the corral gate, and Wise One nipped through the opening and made for the manger along one side where fresh hay was piled. Rambler crowded past Bill hurriedly and went trotting after the burro. Doris rode through, kicked her right foot free of the stirrup and swung down, landing unexpectedly in Bill's arms.

"Oh, Bill—daddy'll see us!" she protested weakly as Bill lifted her face with a palm under her chin.

"Just one more kiss—and say you love me," Bill pleaded softly. "I can't believe it—it seems it like a dream. Kiss me, little Doris." In the last few hours Bill had attained a certain masterful manner, though he still suffered uneasy moments of incredulity that demanded instant proof of the sweet reality.

Curiously, while they actually hurried, and Bill held her no longer than a few seconds in his arms, Don Hunter's voice came bellowing from the porch before they reached the corral gate. He looked at them searchingly too, when they came into the big kitchen where the light was mellow and homelike, and where Mrs. Don was spearing mealy, white potatoes out of an old-fashioned iron kettle.

They were sighing in gastronomic bliss over the thick, quivery custard pie when Doris looked across at Bill in mild dismay.

"Bill! You forgot Luella! I'll bet she's swearing herself black in the face, out there."

Bill pushed back his chair and rose. "She must be hungry—thirsty, too," he said contritely. "Excuse me just four seconds and I'll bring her in."

"First time I ever knew Bill to forget the parrot," Don observed drily. "Where's Sister Mitchell and Hezekiah? Didn't leave them behind, did he?"

"Oh, Bill has a fellow with him in camp. Yes, he only brought Luella. She doesn't seem to like Tommy very well. She wouldn't say a word, hardly. Oh, come on, Luella!" But the smile Doris sent toward the door was too intimate to be wasted on a mere parrot. Don Hunter lifted one eyebrow, then pulled them both together in a puzzled frown.

"Luella hungry? Let me have her, Bill. Here's a lovely wishbone, Luella."

Luella tilted her head sidewise and regarded the proffered dainty suspiciously.

"I can't believe it," she remarked with startling distinctness. "One more kiss—say you love me. Seems like a dream. Kiss me, Doris. Daddy'll see us. I can't believe it. We're rich, Bill, dear. I can't believe it. Do you love me?"

Then, and then only, Luella accepted the wishbone and began daintily picking off tiny shreds of chicken meat.