eave a message for us, seein' that he knowed we was here a-waitin' for
him. But, I reckon, we'd better ride on tew th' house with you ladies
an' see them brothers of your'n personal. You see we wants tew make
sart'in 'twas our friend that was robbed and murdered, besides he might
have left sum word for Spike an' me, an' your brothers not have
mentioned it, bein' naturally excited-like over th' robbery an' murder."

"But, you can't see them now!" exclaimed Iola, impulsively. "They left
for the mines this very morning. Why, we parted from them not more than
an hour ago."

Both men started violently at this news, and again the swift suspicious
glances flashed from eyes to eyes, and an ugly threatening look came
into their faces.

"Gone tew th' mines! An' started sudden, this very mornin'!" exclaimed
Spike excitedly. "Did--Did th' old miner say an'thing 'bout whar he
found his gold afore he died?" and his beady black eyes glowed angrily
into the faces of the two girls. "We're his friends, an' have a right
tew know, an' we want tew know, an' we're goin' tew know," and he urged
his horse nearer to the girls.

Both girls were badly frightened by this sudden and unexpected change in
the two men; for there was no mistaking the ugly and dangerous look on
their faces; but neither girl lost her head.

"You will not come a step closer than you now are," and the white hand
of Iola flashed to the pistol in her holster; and Spike, to his evident
horror, suddenly found himself looking straight down into two little
round holes that seemed to his startled eyes as big as the mouths of
cannons.

"And you, too, stay right where you are," and Ruth's pistol suddenly
turned the big man with a broken nose into a wildly staring equestrian
statue. "We two girls are not going to take any chances with you two
men; and--and now that we have given you all the information that we
have for you, you can turn your horses around and ride back the way you
came."

[Illustration: "YOU CAN TURN YOUR HORSES AROUND AND RIDE BACK THE WAY
YOU CAME."]

The faces of both girls had suddenly grown as white as milk; for, almost
at the same moment, each had remembered that the dying miner had
described his two murderers as a big red-headed man with a broken nose
and a small man with a pock-marked face--and they were now looking
straight into the faces of two such men. But the hands that held the
pistols did not tremble; and there was no mistaking the look in t