CHAPTER XIX

AN EXCITING FISHING PARTY

"That's all right, Oriole. He's mighty nice about it, and treats me fine, I must say. But right down deep in his heart he still suspects I know something I haven't told about that lost chest of silver plate. _That_ is what gets my goat."

"Dear me," sighed Oriole, "I really wish you weren't so slangy, Teddy Ford. It sounds so----"

"Well?" exclaimed Teddy Ford. "Sounds so _what_?"

"So sort of--er--_rough_. And you know you're not rough--not really, Teddy. You're awfully nice."

He grinned at her quizzically. This was the day after he had arrived at the branding camps and had had the adventure with the eagle. Teddy Ford had gone right to work with the Three-bar outfit, and the older boys had welcomed him without any reference to his past trouble at the ranch house. But Teddy felt, as he said, that suspicion still clung to him.

"You are a great little jollier, Oriole," he said. "But I know how Harvey Langdon feels. When once he makes up his mind, it's made up for fair! Don't tell me. I happened to save his kids when they were in trouble. But he's still got it in his mind that I know about his silver dishes and such. Yes, sir!"

"Well then, all the more reason why you should try to find out just who did steal that chest," declared Oriole.

"Easy said. Not so easy done. Those fellers----"

"Those fellows," admonished Oriole.

"Huh! that isn't slangy."

"But it's not good English. And you can talk better if you like."

"Gee! I mean--er--well, anyway, you are particular, Oriole. I can't talk when I have to stop and think about every word--whether it's right or not. Now, look here, those fellows--Ridley, Shaffer and Mudd--are still hanging around. And maybe they didn't steal that silver after all."

"Oh, Teddy! There's something I didn't tell you yet."

"Huh! is that superfine English?" he asked, grinning again.

"Never mind," she returned hastily. "This will interest you. I heard Hank Ridley and his friends talking once. They didn't see me. Listen!"

She told him in detail about her ride on Molly through the scrub and how she had met and listened to the three "bad men" discussing their affairs. Not that she really understood much of what Ridley and his two companions had said; but the mystery of the prospect hole and the Three Sisters had continued to puzzle her since that day.

And it puzzled Teddy as well. He acknowledged it.

"If those chaps stole the silver chest, then they have hidden it somewhere, waiting for a chance to take it out of the country. If Hank and those others are guilty, they have the stuff hidden. If they could have got it turned into money, they would never be here yet, punching cows. That's sure."

"I guess you are right, Teddy," admitted Oriole. "Then they have the chest hidden somewhere up there by those three hills," and from where they chanced to stand she could point them out to the boy.

"Humph! Maybe. I'd like to get over there and look for an old mine shaft. Sure, the hills are pockmarked with 'em. My father used to prospect around there, I don't doubt."

Oriole sighed. "I wish I knew what my father and my mother were doing, Teddy. You know that your poor father is dead----"

"Well, I suppose I do. He would have come back from that last prospecting trip of his if he had lived. I'm sure of that."

"But my mother and father----"

"Shucks! don't worry, Oriole. They will turn up," the boy urged sympathetically. "You might hear about them almost any time."

"But it has been a year now--more than that," and the girl's eyes filled with tears. "If only I _knew_ they were safe."

The uncertainty of the fate of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam often depressed Oriole. Teddy tried his best to counteract her worriment of mind. But he had a good deal to worry about himself. To feel that one is suspected of being a thief is not a pleasant experience--not at all! Naturally the boy was more interested in the possible connection of Ridley, Shaffer and Mudd with the robbery of the Langdon ranch than he was in Oriole's trouble.

"If I ever get a chance, I'm going to ride over there to the Three Sisters and see what the neighborhood looks like," Teddy observed, after a little silence.

"Oh, Teddy, take me with you?" the girl cried eagerly.

"Yep. If they'll let you go. But it can't be done until after this branding business is all cleared up."

The idea of searching for the old prospect hole and possibly finding the depository of the stolen plate charmed both young people. Ted was quite as confident that something could be discovered of moment up there near the Three Sisters as was Oriole. Yet, childlike, they shrank from taking any grown person into their confidence. Young folks shrink from the possibility of ridicule.

"It would just be great," the boy declared, "if we did find what Mr. Langdon had stolen from him. It does seem sometimes, Oriole, as though I can't ever feel right or be content to hang around here if that silver isn't found."

"Oh, Teddy! don't say that," she urged.

Yet she understood just how he felt. Had she not gone all through it when she had been accused of taking Mrs. Joy's casket?

It was another week before the great herds were separated and driven in different directions to fresh pasturage. Before the final day Nurse Brown with the twins and Oriole had gone back to the ranch house. But soon Mr. Langdon and even Teddy Ford appeared at headquarters. The boy, however, was not made to aid Ching Foo again. A "kitchen police" job was not what Teddy had been looking for.

The boy loved horses, and he had "a way with them," as even George Belden and the horse wranglers acknowledged. So Teddy was busy around the corrals, or aided the wranglers in driving fresh riding stock up into the hills where the various herds belonging to the Three-bar grazed.

It was some time before Teddy and Oriole managed to attempt a venture into the hills. And then it was in the nature of a picnic party, of which Nurse Brown, George Belden, and the twins were members.

Sadie Brown did not much approve of the foreman going along. But at the last moment Mr. Langdon himself was called away, and he told George to accompany the children and the woman who considered the big foreman merely a silly person.

"I do wish you children would not be so determined to go fishing over there in Squaw Canyon," Miss Brown stated. "And right this very day. Harvey Langdon could go next week."

"But we do so want to go now, Brownie!" begged Oriole.

"Oh, we do, Brownie!" cried Myron and Marian in chorus.

"Then it means that George Belden will have to go along," groaned the nurse. "And the goodness knows he's too silly to be good company. It's hot, too. I'd rather sit right here and turn on the electric fan and rock while I knit. I never did think much of fishing."

Even the twins paid no more than slight attention to her complaining. They all knew that Miss Sadie Brown did not so much object to picnicking--and over-night at that--in the foothills, as she objected to George Belden being one of the party. Or, did she? Oriole was beginning to wonder if Miss Brown's objections to the lanky trail foreman were not a good deal "put on."

Marian, watching the whizzing fan, at last voiced a question not at all pertinent to Nurse Brown's complaint:

"Where does the wind go when you turn the 'lectric fan off, Nursie?"

But the nurse did not hear, or did not want to hear. She confessed that sometimes "those children's questions were too much" for her. So Marian repeated the query. It was her twin who came to the rescue and furnished the required answer--and who could have done better?

"Why, Marian," he said, "don't you know? It goes where the light goes when you turn the 'lectric light off."

"Oh!" murmured Marian, but plainly she knew no more than she did before, and somehow felt cheated.

But in the bustle of departure for the fishing trip up Squaw Canyon both twins had something besides scientific facts to interest their inquiring minds. Squaw Canyon was in the direction of the Three Sisters. In fact, Teddy confided to Oriole that if they went far enough up the canyon there was a side trail that would lead one directly to the basin surrounded by the trio of rounded hills in which both he and the girl were so much interested.

Although Sadie Brown stated her disapproval of the trip, she did everything she could think of to supply comforts for the venture. And as for Ching Foo, he packed so many eatables in the hampers slung on either side of the gray burro that it did seem he expected a famine was threatening the party.

It was still early when the party started away from the ranch house. Teddy had to prod the burro along, so he rode slowly on what Belden called a flea-bitten gray--a gray roan--pony. Oriole tried to ride beside her boy friend. But there was a lot of "tickle" in Molly's heels, and she really had to cut up and show off at first; so Oriole let her out and scampered away along the trail, far ahead of even Belden.

The latter rode beside the pony phaeton which Sadie Brown drove; but the woman's tongue was so caustic that before long Belden confessed to Oriole that he felt as though he had herded sheep. To a cattle man that occupation is the most despised, so Belden must have felt pretty bad.

However, the young folks had a lot of fun on the journey to Squaw Canyon. For when Molly felt less eager, Oriole rode back and trotted sedately beside Teddy and the pack burro.

They camped for an hour or so at noon--just for a bite. Then they pushed on into the canyon. The shadows in its mouth had looked blue when they were miles away; but once within its walls the shade was not blue at all. And they were all glad to be sheltered from the sun.

A coyote stood on an out-thrust rock and eyed them, then slunk away into the dark. Nothing else of a wild nature save birds was seen by the party that afternoon. The canyon seemed just as safe as the ranch house itself.

They came to the mountain stream at last in which it had been reported that trout were plentiful. This was not more than two hours from sunset--and sunset came early in the canyon. Beside the stream, which came tumbling out of a side gulch to flow more placidly through the canyon to the north, was built a comfortable shack. The woman and children would be sheltered in this structure; but both the trail foreman and Teddy Ford had brought their bed rolls.

Oriole and Teddy were eager to see if there really were fish in that cloudy stream. Oriole had plenty of experience fishing in salt water; but this was something new. She had to learn how to handle the pole and reel with which she was furnished.

"Not much like fishing from Uncle Nat's dory, the _Fishhawk_," she said to Teddy. "And do you really use these funny looking things--_flies_, do you call them? Why, they are not even meat! The trout must be awfully hungry to bite at a little bunch of feathers and hair like that."

"They won't do much biting to-night. It's too near sunset," returned her boy friend. "But maybe we'll get a mess for supper."

This proved to be the case. Oriole was as sharply interested in the catching of the trout as were the twins--although she did not dance up and down at every strike and do what Belden, chuckling, called an "Injun walk-around" when the struggling fish was landed.

The foreman cleaned and prepared the trout for baking and got a fresh fire blazing between two rocks. Sadie Brown cooked the supper, and that brought her into closer contact with the foreman, it seemed, than she liked, for the young folks heard her scolding him unmercifully.

"I don't see," whispered Oriole to Teddy, "why Mr. Belden really wants to marry Brownie. She treats him awfully harsh."

"Does he?"

"So she says. Says he is always talking about marrying, and wanting her to go to the parson with him."

"Gee!" murmured Teddy, "I thought he had more sense than that."

However, marriage and giving in marriage was not the principal topic in the minds of Oriole and her boy friend. She did not have much luck fishing that evening; but she was deeply interested in Teddy's success and in all the new things she saw about the camping place. Very near was the branch gulch, or canyon, from which the mountain torrent poured. And Teddy assured her that by following that side-gulch they might reach the basin guarded by the Three Sisters.

"It looks awfully rough up that path," murmured Oriole.

"Maybe you couldn't make it, but I can," declared Teddy. "And if I can get away to-morrow I am going to try."

"Oh, Teddy Ford! you would not go without me, would you?"

"What you told me about Ridley and those others being interested in a prospector's hole up there by the Three Sisters, makes me want to see the place," complained Teddy. "I've got to go up there--if I can."

Oriole did not like the idea of his going without her. She was just as eager to solve the mystery of the three "bad men" as Teddy was--or, so she said. She neglected her pole and line to stare up the rugged side-gully, in the bed of which the stream foamed and fretted. It was growing dark up there--much darker than in the bottom of the more open canyon. But suddenly Oriole saw something moving--some object half hidden by an outcropping bowlder.

"Oh, Teddy! See there! Is it a man?" she murmured, clutching at his jacket sleeve.

"Shucks! Don't joggle me so!" whispered Teddy. "I almost had a bite then. There! It's nibbling again."

"But look up yonder, Teddy," urged Oriole.

"It's--it's watching us--behind that rock. See!"

"Aw, that's like a girl! Maybe it's a bear--and we can't catch a bear on a fishline," and Teddy suddenly laughed.

"A bear!" gasped Oriole.

"Why not? Didn't you see that George Belden brought his gun along? Might be a bear. Sure thing, it isn't a man up there. I don't see anything, anyway."

Neither did Oriole then. The object that had caused her excitement had disappeared in the shadows. But the idea that a bear might be in the vicinity gave her a feeling of insecurity that she could not forget all during supper.