CHAPTER XX

BRUIN ON THE LINE

Belden dropped a few words at supper time that held the attention of Oriole and Teddy Ford--and they looked covertly at each other, with understanding nods.

"You children want to make the most of this picnic," he said soberly, "because it ain't going to be easy for me, nor mebbe not for Harvey Langdon either, to get away from work to beau you about on such didoes as this--not for a spell. Several of the boys have got through, or will get through, come the end of the month. And hands are hard to get this time of year."

"We ain't going to worry about your not going picnicking with us, George Belden," rejoined Sadie Brown promptly, her nose in the air.

"Who's got through?" asked Teddy Ford, trying to cover the woman's sharpness.

"Them hombres Ridley brought down with him last summer--Shaffer and Mudd--and Hank himself is leaving. They asked for their time. Besides some others."

"Ridley, Shaffer and Mudd?" cried Teddy anxiously.

"Yep. And others. The crews will all be short handed. That is what took Harvey Langdon away to-day. He's gone to town to see if he can pick up any stray help."

Oriole and Teddy whispered about this a good deal after supper. Nurse Brown took the twins into the cabin and put them to bed, while the boy and girl washed the dishes and cleared up the camp. Belden smoked his pipe by the water's edge.

"I bet those fellows will try to get the silver--if they _did_ hide it away somewhere," Teddy said, as he and Oriole wiped the dishes. "They are ready to beat it away from the Three-bar."

"Oh, dear me, can't we stop them somehow?" Oriole said.

"How can we?"

"Let's tell Mr. Langdon."

"And he'd thank us for that, wouldn't he?" scoffed Teddy. "We don't really _know_ that Hank Ridley and those others are the thieves."

"Well----"

"It would be just as bad for him to pounce on them without any evidence as it was for him to jump me that time," complained Teddy. "No, it won't do."

"But we just _can't_ let them get away with Mr. Langdon's silver."

"We've got to be sure first that they stole it," grumbled Teddy. "That's all there is to that."

This did not satisfy Oriole at all. She seemed even more eager to discover the real thieves than Teddy himself. But the boy had less hope of making the discovery in question than Oriole had, that was all. He was by no means of so sanguine a temperament.

They had ridden a long way and were really tired on this evening, and both Oriole and Teddy were willing to retire early. But before Oriole retreated to the shack and her boy friend rolled up in his blanket, feet to the fire (for the air was chill in these upland places), they enjoyed a novel sight which increased Oriole's doubt at least of Sadie Brown's sincerity when she so cruelly criticized George Belden.

The twins being safely disposed of, their nurse had reappeared from the shack. Oriole and Teddy were out of sight at the moment, and feeling that she was unobserved "Brownie," as the woman liked to be called by her friends, deliberately approached the foreman smoking on his lonely bowlder by the stream.

She stood for some moments behind the man, unobserved. Then she deliberately cleared her throat to call his attention to her presence!

"Shucks!" muttered Teddy in Oriole's ear, "I thought she had it in for poor George. And look at her now."

Belden had turned sharply, almost letting his pipe fall in his surprise. He got up awkwardly, but Miss Brown put out a hand and gestured for him to be seated again.

"Lovely evening, George," she observed in a voice so honeyed that there was some doubt if George recognized it as belonging to the nurse.

"Oh--ah--yes, 'tis so," the foreman stammeringly agreed.

"Do sit down, George," said Nurse Brown, edging nearer. "But you might scrouge over a little. That rock's big enough for two to sit on, ain't it?"

"Gee!" gasped Teddy, "did you get that? And there isn't any scarcity of bowlders along that river bank. What do you know about that, Oriole?"

"It's awfully funny, _I_ think," giggled the girl.

"Either she hasn't meant this talk she's been giving him right along or for some reason she's had a sudden change of heart," grimly said the boy.

"Maybe it's the moon," whispered Oriole shyly. "Did you ever see such a beautiful moon, Teddy?"

"Shucks! what's a moon? Just the same as it always is this time of year," observed the quite unsentimental boy; and _that_ closed Oriole's lips.

The young friends separated, and Oriole was not long in falling asleep in a bunk in the shack, over the twins. She would have slept straight through until daybreak at least, had it not been for a most astonishing thing that happened before midnight--indeed, long before the trail foreman and Sadie Brown were ready to give up their seats on the bowlder and retire for the night.

Oriole, perhaps, heard the pounding of approaching hoofs as soon as Belden and his companion noticed the sound. Horses--at least a pair--were coming furiously up the canyon. The trail was plain, and the horses were galloping as though their riders gave little heed to safety.

Oriole sat up in her bunk and bumped her head. Myron and Marian did not awake, however, so she slipped down to the floor, wrapped a blanket about her, and ran to the door.

She saw Teddy rise by the fire, and heard George Belden shout as he ran for his gun:

"Get down, kid! We don't know who these fellers may be. Stoop!"

Sadie Brown came swiftly to the shade and, finding Oriole at the door, pushed in beside her.

"What is it, Brownie?" asked the girl.

"Got me. Maybe just a couple of punchers looking for strays. But then, you can't always tell."

George Belden's voice rose sonorously on the still night air:

"Hold your horses! Back up! D'you hear me?"

"Ya-hoo!" yelled one of the riders. "Who's there?"

"That ain't you, is it, Shaffer?" demanded a second voice.

"That's Hank Ridley!" cried Teddy Ford. "I know his voice!"

"Is that you, Ridley?" demanded Belden. "What are you and Mudd riding this way for? I come nigh to puncturing you. Come on in."

"I declare if it ain't George!" exclaimed the relieved voice of Hank Ridley. "What you doing up here, George?"

"I'll hand that back to you," said the trail foreman grimly. "What are _you_ doing up this way? I thought you three fellers was for lighting out for the south when you got your time from Harvey Langdon."

"You're right as rain," agreed Ridley, riding into the circle of light cast by the fire on which Teddy had thrown an armful of brush which burned fiercely. "Hullo! The kids, eh? I didn't know you folks had come up this way on your picnic."

"Tell us about it," advised the foreman, still with suspicion.

"It's that darned Shaffer," explained Ridley.

"Ain't seen him, have you, George?"

"Not for a couple of days."

"That's what I told you, Mudd," said Ridley, turning to his companion. "There is something dead wrong with poor Shaffer. Nobody ain't seen him for a couple of days."

"What's the matter with him?" Belden asked.

"He's queer. Always has been. You know that, George. You know how he's acted, off an' on."

"I know he's as lazy a hound as ever rode after the cows on this ranch, if that's what you mean," said the foreman, with disgust.

"Oh, it's more than laziness made him act so funny," Ridley urged. "He has spells."

"Uh-huh!" grunted Belden.

"And now he's rid away alone somewhere, and we're afraid something's happened to him. You ain't seen him up this way, have you?"

"Not a bit of it."

"No sign of any trail--fresh trail--in this canyon?"

"Not any."

"Then it must have been your trail we follered into Squaw Canyon," said Ridley thoughtfully. "He couldn't have come this way, Mudd. No, he couldn't."

"Well," said George Belden, "going to 'light and make a night of it?"

"No. We'll be goin' back. Poor Shaffer! He must have taken another trail."

Hank Ridley pulled his horse around, and Mudd at once did the same. They bade the puzzled party a gay good-night and rode swiftly back down the canyon.

"Now, what do you know about that?" grumbled George Belden.

"Crazy critters," sniffed Miss Brown.

"Don't know about that," rejoined the foreman. "Maybe not so crazy. I just don't get what they are at. That's what!"

Discussing the matter evolved no solution, however, and Nurse Brown tartly suggested they had all better go to bed. But Oriole felt sure the next morning when she came out of the shack that the foreman had not slept at all. The visit of the two doubtful characters had troubled him so much that he had kept watch--she was confident--by the look of his eyes and by his mighty yawns as he set about getting breakfast.

Teddy was already making a cast--and he did it very prettily--into a deep pool near the foaming falls where the stream poured out of the side canyon. When Oriole ran over there to wash her face in the stream he shooed her away.

"Want to frighten every trout in this old stream?" he demanded. "I just saw the biggest one jump that I ever laid eyes on."

"How much would it weigh--a ton?" asked Oriole roguishly.

"Never you mind. Wait till I catch him," rejoined the boy, grinning. "He's a big fellow all right."

But after Oriole had made her toilet in a more distant spot and came herself with pole and reel to try her luck, Teddy had caught only three finger-length trout. The big fellow seemed to be shy.

Oriole grew interested herself directly, for one of the trout in the pool jumped at least eighteen inches above the surface in chase of a wandering fly dancing in the morning sunshine.

"Oh, I must get it!" she cried, and tried to make a cast as she had been taught the evening before.

The line spun out and the reel whirred smartly. But the wind carried the feather-trimmed lure around a big bowlder that hid a pool on the other side of the stream.

"What was that?" cried the girl, in a low voice.

"Didn't hear anything," Teddy replied. "What was it?"

"A kind of a grunt," the girl replied.

Then the fly came floating lightly around the bowlder and danced away on the rather swift water. There was a rush, a flash of fire and silver (so it seemed) and the lure disappeared, while there came a mighty tug on Oriole's line.

"Let it go! Let him have it! You'll break your line!" shouted Teddy, in sharp staccato.

But Oriole, knowing a big trout had struck on, forgot all the cautions and advice she had received the night before, and endeavored to jerk the fish out of the water as though it were no more game than a codfish.

She did get it out of the water, too. It looked to be more than a foot in length--a big fellow indeed!

"See it! My mercy!" yelled Teddy. "You'll lose it, you foolish girl."

Naturally the fish, struggling in the air, swung far across the stream and for a moment was hidden by the out-thrust bowlder before mentioned. This time there was a positive grunt from over there--then a splashing in the stream.

"Oh, dear me! what is it?" shrieked Oriole, but hanging on manfully to the rod.

The hook and fish did not swing back into view. But around the bowlder, along the narrow beach of the stream, marched a great brown bear, walking erect and pawing at his head in a most ridiculous way. As Oriole drew back from the stream, frightened by bruin's appearance, she seemed to drag the bear from his covert!

"Look there! Look there!" yelled Teddy. "That old bear has swallowed that trout--hook, line and sinker! It takes a girl to catch a bear with a trout fly, after all!"