The boy’s first feeling of joy was immediately succeeded by a deep chagrin. Probably his father had come on to complete the legal process for securing a clear title to the claims, and had brought Dr. Grant with him, and Ross must confront them with news of failure rather than victory. He winced when he thought of the expression of disappointment which he felt sure would sweep over his father’s face, especially when his father learned that the way to failure had lain in part through the boy’s exercise of his medical knowledge.

"There’s my snow-shoes," he heard Brown saying, and the words brought him out of his reverie back to the present at once. "To-morrer ye better hoof it down t’ Camp and meet up with yer relation."

"That’s right, Ross," urged Leslie. "I’ll stay here until you can bring more shoes back. In that case," cheerfully, "you see I’ll get the better bargain because you’ll have to take the brunt––" he paused abruptly.

"Yes, the brunt of the ridicule," added Ross grimly. "We may as well look the thing squarely in the face. I’m pretty hot inside, and I shall probably boil over at sight of the McKenzies, but–they’ve made us ridiculous instead of laying themselves open to prosecution."

"Except Weston," Leslie burst out significantly. "Wait till I get hold of father!"

According to the plans laid, Ross set out the following morning on the snow-shoes. Following Brown’s directions, to keep to the side of the mountain, he threaded the windings of the caÑon on reluctant feet, past the cliff whose dark face mocked him, over the treacherous rotting ice and packed snow, and finally emerged into the broader portion of the caÑon which contained Miners’ Camp.

The cabins, deserted the previous December, were inhabited again. The sound of the woodchopper was in the air; and, as Ross came into Camp, a dull reverberating boom from the heart of Dundee told that the Mountain Company’s mining operations were resumed.

But so intent was he on the thought of meeting his father and uncle that these sights and sounds did not fill him with the joy he had imagined they would give. He even failed to notice a man standing in the doorway of a shack, scanning Crosby, on whose steep face the snow still hung in loosening masses.

Toward the shack came Bill Travers, the stage-driver between Meeteetse and Miners’ Camp.

"Wall, beat me," cried the man in the doorway, "if here ain’t Doc!"

Ross flashed around and faced Sandy McKenzie.

Sandy’s hands were rammed into his pockets; but his sun-burned face was smiling an unruffled welcome, and his voice rang pleasantly.

"How," Sandy inquired, "did ye get over here from Medder Creek?"

Ross instantly "boiled over" as he had feared he should, and said the very thing he had not intended to say. "You know how I got here! You know where I came from!"

The stage-driver, joined by a second man, came nearer and paused. Sandy pushed his hands yet deeper into his pockets, and looked amazingly innocent.

"Me!" he drawled. "What d’ye mean?"

At the insolent tone Ross’s blood boiled. It hummed through his ears, deafening him to the sound of his own voice. What he said he never could recall beyond the general knowledge that he accused Sandy of the theft of the dynamite and of his own and Leslie’s abduction across the mountains.And, when he paused to catch his breath and steady his voice, Sandy was looking him over with an amused grin which maddened him.

"Now, ain’t that a likely story?" he inquired. "Kept ye a prisoner fer six months not five miles from Camp on a trail that can be follered at any time in the year! Ha, ha!"

Bill Travers grinned faintly. The other man turned away with the corners of his mouth twitching, while Sandy went on:

"And as fer Weston, he went to Missoury the day after we left Medder Creek, and there he is now fer all I’ve heard." Again Sandy’s laugh rang out as he added: "That story won’t hold water. Why didn’t ye make up a––"

Here Waymart appeared in the doorway of the shack. He scowled at Ross, but his peremptory words were aimed at Sandy:

"See here! If we’re goin’ t’ send that bundle down by Grasshopper we’ve got t’ make lively tracks in here, and ye ought t’ know it!"

"Keep yer hair on tight, Mart," laughed Sandy.

He turned, nevertheless, toward the door. As he did so, he mechanically withdrew his hands from his pockets and Ross saw something which at once arrested his attention. The middle finger of Sandy’s right hand was gone! In a flash, memory showed Ross the four blood streaks on the trunk of the spruce with the second streak the deepest in color.

With his anger still burning he snatched off his glove and held up his right hand triumphantly, the middle finger projecting. "Well, anyway," he cried, "Leslie ain’t a bad shot. We may never prove that you put us in that hole, but you’ve paid for it, nevertheless!"

Sandy involuntarily doubled his right hand into a fist. He caught his under lip between his teeth and sent Ross a black look as, wordlessly, he entered the shack and slammed the door behind him, leaving Ross to tell the story of Leslie’s shot to two interested and excited men.

"That accounts fer it," confirmed Bill Travers. "Sandy and Waymart they come up from Cody along in February and when they clumb int’ th’ stage goin’ back, Sandy’s hand was tied up. Next thing I knowed when they come up with me t’ other day, that finger was off clean to the hand, but Sandy hain’t never spoken of it."

Ross, leaving Bill to talk the matter over with his companions, went on rapidly now down the caÑon, his eyes narrowed and his chin protruding doggedly. One disagreeable scene was ended, and he was, perhaps, facing another.

"I ought to be sorry that Sandy lost a finger but–hanged if I am!" he burst out loud. He was anxious to have Leslie know the result of his random shot.

Rounding a shoulder of Gale’s Ridge, he came in sight of Steele’s shack. Steele sat in the doorway. Beside him, leaning against the logs of the shack’s side, was a man in shirt-sleeves and cap, beneath which a rim of woolly gray hair projected.

Facing Steele were two well dressed men, one in a tall silk hat, which appeared incongruous against its background of log shack and pine tree. Ross, with narrowed eyes and compressed lips, plodded on.

"I’ve done my best," he muttered defensively. "It’s all a fellow can do; but, when that best is failure, why, it’s not much consolation."

Then he raised his head, squared his shoulders, and doggedly faced the four in front of Steele’s cabin.

Ross Grant, Senior, had not come West to look after his claims, but after his son, with whom he felt he had but just begun an acquaintance. He had no difficulty in getting Dr. Grant to accompany him, reËnforced as he was by an anxious Aunt Anne. It was true that both Ross and Steele had written that all communications with the former would be shut off for months. But, when the hot days of June came and brought no letter from the boy, as Aunt Anne said, "something must be done."

That something was represented in the persons of the Grant brothers in Miners’ Camp.

After the first greetings, tinged with amazement on the part of the four, Ross backed up against a spruce, and, facing the others, proceeded to answer the questions with which they bombarded him.

In half an hour they were in possession of the main facts in his life during the last six months.

"The McKenzies all through," commented Steele finally; "but–prove it!"

"I’ve got to prove it!" declared Ross violently; "I shall!"

"Ross,"–Dr. Grant’s comment carried with it the pride and honor of his profession,–"if you’re called upon to attend the sick, you must go. That’s the duty of a physician, even before he receives his diploma. You did right."

"I felt that way myself, uncle," returned Ross quietly. "As soon as Weimer opened the way, I never thought of not going, so long as there was no regular doctor within reach."

Ross Grant, Senior, looked his son over. There was no expression of disapproval on his face as he took the measure of this full-blooded, broad-shouldered, erect young man whose muscles had been hardened by wind and sun and work in the open.Having completed his survey, Ross, Senior, smiled. "Well, my boy," he remarked characteristically, "it took three good sized men to down you two boys, didn’t it? And it must have cost them a heap of thinking into the bargain. Shake, Ross; I’m proud of you!"

And Ross, bewildered, shook hands with his father, his cheeks reddening with pleasure.

"I–I never thought of it in that way before," he stammered. "But–that doesn’t save the claims, and the fifth year is up next week, and Uncle Jake––"

"Don’t you worry about Uncle Jake," interrupted his father meaningly. "We may lose the claims, but Uncle Jake will be provided for."

"The first thing to do," interpolated Steele, "is to root him out of Meadow Creek Valley. I’ve never known the snow to hang so late to the side of Crosby."

That very night it ceased to "hang." At midnight every one in the shack was awakened. There was a cracking of trees, a long steady rush, and then a mighty and prolonged roar as the snow, under the influence of a swift warm wind, swept down the side of old Crosby, and took the thousand-feet plunge into the ravine at the foot of the falls. The roar echoed against the sides of Dundee and Spar and Sniffle, starting other though lesser slides until the caÑon was filled with the confusion of sound.

The following morning, Steele, after investigation, found the trail around the shoulder of Crosby swept clean, and at once proposed that they follow it to Meadow Creek. Ross objected to starting until Leslie reached them. Steele had sent Society Bill up the caÑon the previous evening with snow-shoes for the boy. But neither Society Bill nor Leslie had appeared. Ross’s objections were, therefore, overruled by the older men.

"Leave word in the upper camp for him to follow us when he comes," Steele suggested, "and we’ll start right away. We shall have to foot it, too, for no horse can make it yet."

The sheep-herder, who had shared Steele’s hospitality over night, shouldered his blankets, observing that he was going over with them to see his friend Weimer, and find out what was "doin’ on the Creek."

There were others of the same mind also, as the party from Steele’s shack found when they reached the foot of Crosby. Just ahead of them, so engrossed in their climbing that they did not look back, were Sandy and Waymart.

Slowly, to accommodate the older Grants, the party moved up the trail, slippery with mud and snow, their way obstructed by rocks and tree trunks.

Sandy and Waymart, ahead, were obliged to move slowly also; for to their lot fell the removal of any obstacles too large to surmount, and the snow and landslide of the previous night had left many such. Around the shoulder, however, the trail was intact, the mountain being so steep at this point that the slide had leaped clear of the trail and projected itself headlong into the gorge below.

An hour later Ross called back to his father and uncle, who were puffing along, breathless and tired and dizzy: "We’ll be in sight of the dump in ten minutes. It’s just around the spur of the mountain there."

Then, unable to restrain his impatience and anxiety longer, he ran on ahead of Steele, keeping a short distance between himself and the McKenzies. The McKenzies, however, seemed no more anxious to enjoy his society than he did to enjoy theirs. Sandy, for once, omitted his usual pleasantries, an omission easy to account for whenever Ross thought of the missing middle finger of his right hand.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Ross glanced around. Steele had left the others, and was following on a run. The McKenzies pushed on without looking back, and neither Steele nor Ross spoke.

In silence, then, the four approached the spur. But before they reached the dump that silence was most unexpectedly broken. Out of the open mouth of the tunnel rolled a volume of sound, then another and another.

Ross in his surprise, his head thrown back as he scanned the dump, nearly fell over a mass of newly mined ore which blocked the main trail.

Then he caught a glimpse of Weimer shielding his eyes from the sun with both hands, waiting for the effects of the explosions in the tunnel to subside. And, leaning against the tool house, his hands in his pockets, his head bent forward, was another man, the sight of whom caused a great illumination in Ross’s mind.

"Weston!" he shouted. "Weston!"

The two men on the dump came to the edge, and looked over. The McKenzies on the trail ahead halted. The Grants with the sheep-herder drew nearer.

Weimer, squinting, recognized Ross. He took off his cap, and waved it as wildly as a boy.

"The vork," he yelled, "ist done! It ist done dese two veeks. Me und Miller here, ve ist vorkin’ now joost for de fun!"

Weston gave one glance at Sandy and Waymart, and without speaking went back to the tunnel.

Ross was after him with a bound, scrambling up over the dump, followed by the others, who were infected by his excitement. He ran to Weston with both hands outstretched.

"Weston," he shouted, "you did this!"

"Veston!" exclaimed Uncle Jake. "Dot ist Miller. He has been mit me all der spring."

"I told him," muttered Weston, extending his hand to Ross, but turning away shamefacedly, "that you two boys had taken my place with my sick pard, while I was to stay by him."

Ross pumped the big hand up and down.

"Father," he cried excitedly, "he has saved our claims."

Weston tried to liberate his hand. He stole a glance at Sandy and Waymart, who had stopped just beyond the dump.

"Doc here"–he spoke to the group who surrounded him–"saved me first. I had that little business to pay for, but"–his tone sank to a mutter–"I thought I could pay it and git away to Missoury before Sandy found out what I was up to here––"

He was interrupted by Sandy’s voice from the trail, and the voice was harsh and vengeful. "Better come over to our shack, Lon. I want a little talk with ye about old man Quinn. He’s wantin’ t’ see ye powerful bad."

At the name the sheep-herder, who had been standing stupidly staring at Weston, woke up.

"Old man Quinn," he began. "A feller in Cody told me––" but no one was paying any attention to him.

Sandy and Waymart moved on slowly toward their cabin, talking and gesticulating excitedly, evidently in disagreement.

For the present no one undeceived Weimer in regard to Miller.

"He come pack in all dot storm," Weimer exulted, "und mit me vas."

Weston looked away, but Steele cried, "Good work, man," clapping him warmly on the shoulder. Then he added boyishly: "I’m hungry as a bear! Got any grub left?"

"Yes," answered Weston quietly, "plenty. Come on down all of you, and I’ll rustle some flapjacks and coffee."

They started down the trail, Weston and Ross in advance. At the mention of "old man Quinn" Ross’s elation had subsided. He looked at Weston out of the corner of his eye. The other’s eyes were downcast and his face pale beneath its sunburn. His hair was of a peculiar color, light at the roots and dark at the ends. He had evidently forgotten to bring his hair dye to Meadow Creek.

The older man spoke first. His voice was low and his words halting. "I had to take you across the mountain and leave you there," he explained briefly. "Sandy was behind the cabin when we got there. I couldn’t fool ’im about you, but I did about myself; and, if you all had put off comin’ over a day longer, I could have got away out of Sandy’s reach."

As he spoke, Weston’s hand involuntarily crept up to his breast pocket. It fell again, however, as he added in a mutter as though to himself: "And Less–I had to take ’im over too–for my own good. But it’s all up now and I’ve got to face it out."

Just behind them came the sheep-herder, his thoughts reverting to a subject on which he had tried once to speak. Now he saw an opportunity.

"Ye must ’a’ known of old man Quinn then," he called to Weston. "Didn’t ye?"

Weston stumbled. He caught himself, but the movement saved him from the necessity of an answer.

"Wall," the sheep-herder went on, almost running in order to keep up with the pace Weston had set, "I met Happy in Cody t’ other day, and Happy said old man Quinn had pinched the fourth puncher that druv his sheep––""What?" shouted Weston. He swung around so suddenly that the sheep-herder ran full tilt against him.

"What?" Weston shouted again. He seized the amazed and terrified Sheepy, and held him by the arms in a vise that made the man wince. "Say that again."

"S-say what?" faltered Sheepy.

"What about the fourth? Tell me!"

With every word Weston, his eyes ablaze, his lips drawn back over strong white teeth, gave the old sheep-herder a convulsive shake.

"W-why," the old man quavered, "Happy, he said that a feller down in Oklahomy, name of Burns, went and give himself up to old man Quinn. He said he was the feller the old man was after–that he was the fourth who done the business with the sheep. But because he owned up the jedge give ’im only six months––"

Weston suddenly pushed the sheep-herder from him, his face working convulsively. "Then I wasn’t in it!" he cried. "Sandy said I was, but I wasn’t!"

Offering no further explanation to his astonished hearers, he turned toward the McKenzie shack on a run; and for a couple of hours they saw no more of him.

It was a busy time for Ross, who promptly took Weston’s place "rustling grub." But, as he worked, his thoughts wonderingly circled around Weston’s strange actions. The fourth man was found and it was not Weston–yet Weston, it would appear, had believed himself to be the guilty party! It was too deep a puzzle for Ross. As the boy worked he kept a watchful eye on the trail for Leslie. Surely the latter would come down to Camp that morning and receive the word Ross had left him at the post-office.

Steele, who had stayed behind long enough to examine the tunnel, confirmed Weimer’s statement that more than enough work had been done to cover the requirements of the law. Weimer, jubilant, sat and talked to his old-time "pard," whose voice answered him, but whose satisfied gaze followed Ross.

But it was to the man who had stood in the place of a father to him that Ross’s eyes turned most frequently. Dr. Grant sat, appropriately, on the emergency chest, looking affectionately at his energetic nephew.

Suddenly Ross picked up a tin cup full of water from the table, and held it out at arm’s length toward his uncle.

Dr. Grant smiled. "All right, Ross," he said quietly.

Ross, Senior, looked from one to the other inquiringly. Ross, Junior, answered; but he turned his back on his father, and spoke hesitatingly. "I was showing uncle, father, that my hand is still steady enough to be the hand of a first class–surgeon."

Promptly and heartily came the unexpected response from the elder Grant. "I’m glad of that, Ross, for I shall look to see you as successful in your profession as you have been in my business," and he turned at once to Weimer, and went on speaking.

"Suppose," he was saying, "as long as you want to stay here, you get your friend"–he indicated the sheep-herder–"to come and live with you. I’m going to buy out Ross’s interest in the shares, and I’ll look to you to keep ’em in good shape–you and your friend–until we get a chance to sell well. Of course," he added carelessly, "I’ll grub-stake you and more, both of you."

Sheepy’s eyes lighted, and Weimer grinned and slapped his knee. They were the only signs necessary to complete the bargain.

After dinner, as Ross arose from the table, he saw Leslie hurrying down the trail. Ross went to meet him.

"Hello, Ross!" Leslie called in a voice which he tried to make matter-of-fact, but which bubbled over with jubilation. "I stopped in at the post-office and got your word and a letter from dad. It’s only a month old! He thinks we’re mewed up over here, you know, working your claims. And he says he and Sue want me to come home as soon as I get this letter. He says if I’m willing to work he’ll give me better wages than I can get anywhere else! He doesn’t know yet," here Leslie grinned broadly, "that I want to do now the very thing he has fought all my life to make me do–go to school. That doctor business has sort of sunk in. But say, Ross, here’s a thing that bothers me." Leslie pulled the letter from his pocket and read:

"’A few days ago I got hold of the fourth man that ran my sheep off into the river two years ago. The fellow came and gave himself up to me.’"

The reader looked up tentatively. "Ross, if it was Weston dad would have said––"

Ross’s hand descended on the other’s shoulder in a mighty whack as he shouted: "It isn’t Weston. Now you listen and give me an inning on the talk!"

For half an hour they stood outside the shack while Ross got his inning–Sandy’s hand, the work, Weston’s strange actions were all reviewed hurriedly and listened to excitedly. Then, seeing Weston approaching, the boys went inside.

Weston crossed the valley slowly, looking down at something which he held in the palm of his hand, something in a small gilt frame that he slipped into his breast pocket when he entered the shack.

Completely absorbed in his own thoughts–cheerful thoughts too, apparently–he went directly to his bunk, and began gathering his few possessions together not noticing that the group had been augmented by Leslie.

"I guess," he explained abstractedly, "that I’ll go on at once–I’m going to Oklahoma and not Missouri." Then he looked over his shoulder at the sheep-herder, adding abstractedly: "Waymart says I ain’t the fourth, and never was. He’s been makin’ up his mind to tell me this good while."

The blank expression on the sheep-herder’s face brought Weston back to a sense of his surroundings.

"I forgot," he muttered turning to Ross, who stood beside the bunk, "that you may not know about this Quinn business."

Leslie stepped forward quickly, but paused as he saw Weston was oblivious of his presence.

"I know a good deal about it," exclaimed Ross impulsively, "and I wish I knew the rest–your part of it."

Weston leaned against the bunk, his back toward the silent room, his eyes downcast. He made the explanation with visible reluctance.

"You see, Doc, I used to drink; and when I had two or three glasses down, I’d go out of my head; and when I had come to myself again I wouldn’t know a blooming thing that had happened while I was drunk. But all the time I could ride straight and talk straight and shoot straight."

He paused to moisten his lips. Leslie came a step nearer.

"Well," Weston continued, "to make a long story short, I was foreman on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma two years ago. Sandy and Mart came around wanting a job, and I gave ’em one on the same ranch. Then came the big round-up at North Fork–and there was trouble between the sheep and cattle men."

Weston hesitated and looked down. He raised his hand to his breast pocket and let it fall at his side.

"The night the round-up ended most of us–got drunk."

He paused, shook himself impatiently, and hurried on: "I didn’t go with the rest intending to drink–but I did, what with treating and all that. And when I come to myself, Sandy told me I was one of the men who had done the job on the Quinn sheep. And, knowing what I am when drunk, I believed him and cleared out with him and Mart over the Texas line, and––" his hand traveled to his hair completing the sentence.

"I see!" exclaimed Ross excitedly; "and since then Sandy has held that over you."

Weston nodded. "I was sick of drink, but I got sick of it too late, you see. I’d put a lasso round my own neck just when I most wanted to be free."

His hand again wandered toward his breast pocket.

"But now," he added, "I am free."

He lifted his head proudly and turning, was aware for the first time of Leslie’s presence. As the hands of the two met Ross strode across the room and began speaking loudly and at random to the others, leaving Sue’s lover and Sue’s brother to talk alone.

Presently, however, unable to restrain the question longer, Ross turned again on Weston.

"Sandy stole our sticks, didn’t he?" he demanded, "and planned the whole thing to get rid of me?"

Weston turned slowly back to his bunk. For a moment he fumbled among the blankets in silence. Then he faced about again resolutely.

"Say, Doc, you have your claims here secure, haven’t you, and Sandy has lost ’em?""Yes, thanks to you."

"And you’ve got outside of enough of those books so you can go to college next year, eh?"

"Yes, again thanks to you!"

"And," here Weston glanced at Leslie, "Sandy has dropped a finger somewhere in the game."

Leslie could not restrain a look of exultation. "Yes."

"Well, then, let this thing drop, will you? Sandy hain’t all to the bad. He’s pulled me out of as many holes as he’s chucked me into; and I–well, I–say, Doc, call it square, will you?"

Ross glanced from his father to his uncle and then at Steele. A glance satisfied him. Stepping forward, he extended his hand.

"It’s square, Weston, and I’ll let everything go except–I can’t forget that you’ve pulled me out of a pretty big hole–the worst one I ever dropped into."

The Books of this Series are:
ROSS GRANT, TENDERFOOT
ROSS GRANT, GOLD HUNTER