CHAPTER XXVIII

SHALL ORIOLE BE TOLD?

The pretty gold wrist watch that Oriole had lost was of course a more important subject of thought to her than to anybody else around the Three-bar Ranch. Naturally Nurse Brown and the father of the twins considered the loss and recovery of Myron and Marian much more important than the matter of Oriole's watch.

Mr. Langdon did not overlook the part Oriole and Teddy had played in the recovery of the twins. Although they might not have been able alone to have captured Myron and Marian from the desperadoes, the fact remained that the young folks had bravely followed the abductors of the children, thereby showing good sense and great bravery.

"Such a plucky girl I never did see," Nurse Brown remarked, of Oriole.

"We could look for something like that from her," declared the ranchman, with enthusiasm. He knew Oriole of old. "And I want to state as my opinion that that boy Ted Ford deserves commendation."

"I've been telling you that, Harvey Langdon," said the plain-spoken nurse. "He ain't anything like what you used to say he was. Maybe he came here like an outcast; but just because he hadn't any friends didn't make him a thief.'

"Well, I have admitted I might have been mistaken in the first place," rejoined the man. "You needn't keep rubbing it in, Sadie Brown."

"I don't believe he had anything to do with the stealing of your silverware," she declared.

"Neither does Oriole. And from something Ching Foo let drop, I think he thinks Teddy never did it. But whoever it was----"

"Why don't you put these two rascals you have in the pen to the question?" demanded Sadie Brown.

"Who do you mean--Mudd and Shaffer?"

"Yes. Oriole said to me once that she believed Hank Ridley and his chums knew about the silverware. Hank would never tell; but these other two are weaklings."

"Good idea," agreed Harvey Langdon.

That was in the evening of this exciting day. By morning other things occurred that for the time put the matter of the stolen silver plate out of Mr. Langdon's mind. And naturally the loss of Oriole's wrist watch seemed to the ranchman's mind a very small thing indeed.

One of the boys rode in from town and brought the mail bag. Ching Foo brought it into the breakfast room after Oriole and the twins had been excused from the table and had run out to the corral to discuss the adventures of the day previous with Teddy.

The first letter that the ranchman drew from the mail-bag occasioned him more excitement than Sadie Brown had seen him express over a missive for some time. She neglected her egg to watch him open the letter. He scanned it in a moment, then looked at her across the table.

"It was the _Ellerton_!" he exclaimed.

"Yes? So glad to know it. But I don't get you, Harvey Langdon. _What_ was the _Ellerton_--and what _is_ the _Ellerton_?" demanded the brusque nurse.

"That was the name of the ship that collided with the _Helvetia_. The name of the sailing ship they think picked up Oriole's mother."

"Oh! My good land!" ejaculated Nurse Brown.

"Yes. Chapman says here it is positively the three-masted ship _Ellerton_. She is a trading ship and was bound for the South Seas by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. He has traced her as far as Papiette. She was reported from there. And listen! She may now be somewhere between Honolulu and San Francisco."

"Gracious!" murmured the nurse again.

"Of course," said the ranchman, much perturbed, "we don't know that Mrs. Putnam is even aboard that ship. But we have reason to believe that at one time she was on board of the _Ellerton_. Chapman says here----" and he looked at the letter again and read aloud:

"'Owner and commander, Captain Nathan Grimsby. Mrs. Grimsby sailed with him. They are New Jersey people--hail from Barnegat. If Mrs. Putnam was picked up by the _Ellerton_, and none of the other passengers of the _Helvetia_ was saved by the sailing vessel, the Grimsbys might have kept her with them.'"

"That is what Chapman says. It sounds reasonable."

"But shall we tell Oriole?" gasped Nurse Brown, going right at the root of the matter in her usual confident way.

The ranchman looked almost frightened. He shook his head hastily.

"I do not dare," he said in a low tone. "Not I! Would _you_ want to take the chance of raising her hopes about her mother, then, perhaps, have them prove to be unfounded?"

"Now, Harvey Langdon!" cried Sadie Brown, "you are not going to drag me into any such mess. No, sir. I won't decide for you. And I won't say a word to Oriole."

"I guess you've answered your own question," sighed Mr. Langdon. "Just as you shrink from speaking to Oriole about it, so do I. And I go beyond that."

"What's that?" queried the nurse in curiosity.

"I don't know that I want to tell her at all. She is happy here. And the twins love her. I don't know what I should do without her myself now. Don't you see, Sadie, if her mother does appear we are likely to lose our Oriole?"

"The land's sake! I suppose so," agreed the nurse, nodding.

"Well!"

"Well?" returned the woman.

"It isn't well at all!" burst out Mr. Langdon. "At any rate, I won't tell Oriole until we are sure about her mother. The poor woman may not be alive after all. But I will get somebody in 'Frisco to keep in touch with the water-front news, and learn all about the _Ellerton_ and her company the moment she arrives."

"I don't see what else you can do, Harvey," rejoined the woman. "It'll be a wrench, I will say, to have Oriole taken from us. She is the smartest girl I ever saw--and as brave as she can be. See how she went after Ridley yesterday when he carried off Myron and Marian."

"That was foolhardiness," declared the man. "But it shows the sort of heart the child has. No. We'll not tell her now. Not until we are sure. And then----"

He shook his head and returned to the letter from Boston. That he was deeply troubled he plainly showed. But Oriole did not notice this, or Nurse Brown's sharp glances at her, when she returned from the corral. She was eager to know what was going to be done about Hank Ridley, the remaining kidnaper who had not been caught.

"I tell you what, child," said Nurse Brown, "Harvey Langdon can't send half his help--'specially when the ranch is short-handed--after that miserable cur. No, sir. But he will send word across the hills for the sheriff of Pontette to be on the watch for Hank. And of course we will all look out for him down here. He won't dare go back Shoshone Gap way, for they know him there, and Mr. Belden's heard tell that he's wanted there for a hold-up."

"He is the one who stole Mr. Langdon's silver plate--and those other two men helped him," declared the girl positively.

"Mebbe so. But Shaffer and Mudd won't admit it. They are sore on each other a pile--no doubt of that. I suppose Shaffer tried to double-cross Mudd and Ridley in some way."

"He went up there alone trying to get at the silver chest they hid. And he couldn't do it because Ridley had taken and hid the rope they used to lower themselves into the prospect-hole where the silver is."

"For the land's sake!"

"Yes," Oriole said positively. "Teddy Ford and I have figured it all out. I am going to tell Mr. Langdon. I am sure his silver is up there somewhere near the Three Sisters."

But although she and her boy friend were so very sure of this, Oriole could not entirely convince the grown folks of the Langdon ranch that the Ridley gang had been the thieves who, the fall before, had removed the chest of silver from the house. Even Ching Foo, if he suspected the guilt of Hank and his mates, was not willing to state this as a fact and with confidence.

"Guess the truth never will be brought to light, Oriole," sighed Teddy, when they were talking it over. "And Hank Ridley will get clean away--sure. I don't care what Brownie says."

"Well, it is a fact, I suppose," agreed Oriole, "that Mr. Langdon can't give the time necessary to it now, nor let Mr. Belden or Sol Perkins go after that bad man. But you'd think, seeing the silver was worth so much money, he'd show more interest."

"Shucks!" grumbled Teddy, "that's easy to see. If he really believed what you told him about the silver he'd find time to chase Hank Ridley all right. He isn't convinced--that's what is the matter," and the boy seamed quite gloomy about it.

"I really don't think you do Mr. Langdon justice, Teddy," murmured Oriole, shaking her curls.

"Oh, yes, I do!"

"I am quite sure you don't," repeated the girl.

"Huh! I'd like to know why not?"

"You don't consider that he is much more interested in the safety of the twins than in anything else."

"Gee! Er--I mean--well, whatever it _is_ I mean," stammered Teddy finally, grinning. "Anyhow, I see your point, Oriole."

"Well, then?"

"But just the same, if he believed the silver was there somewhere and that I hadn't anything to do with his losing it, he'd stir up things a little faster. Oh, yes, he would!"

Of course, as Oriole very well knew, Teddy was particularly sensitive on this point. But she really wished with all her heart that Mr. Langdon would head a searching party, the object of which was to find the stolen silver plate.