he
shining eyes back of the little round holes. They would shoot; and, if
they shot, they would not miss; and it did not take the two men two
seconds to discover these facts.

"Oh, come, this ain't no hold up game, is it, ladies?" and the big man
tried to look as if he considered the whole affair a huge joke; but he
was very careful not to make a threatening move; and he kept his eyes
fixed on the two little round holes of Ruth's pistol, in a horrible
staring way that Ruth never forgot.

"No," Ruth answered shortly. "It is not a hold up; and there is going to
be no hold up in this case," she added significantly; "so just turn your
horses around and gallop back the way you came; and be very careful not
to let your hands go near your belts or to look back while doing it,"
she warned.

"Oh, say, now," began the small man. "This ain't hospital-like. We ain't
meanin' you ladies no harm. We--"

"Drop the talk and turn your horses around and get," Iola commanded so
imperatively, so threateningly that both men, in a sudden panic of
fear--like nearly all rascals they were cowards and those two pistols in
those two girlish hands might go off at any instant--whirled their
horses around and galloped off, while a bullet from one of the barrels
of Iola's pistol, whistling between their heads, added to their panic
and speed.

"Do you," and Ruth turned her white face to Iola, the moment the two men
were at a safe distance, "do you really think they were the two men who
murdered the miner?"

"Yes," answered Iola, as she began reloading her pistol, with hands that
trembled now so that she could hardly pour the powder into the barrel.
"I am sure they were. Ugh! But what a dreadful fright they gave me! I
felt certain they were going to murder us, when they started toward us."

"And--and do you suppose they were trying to find out about that skin
map and the Cave of Gold?" and Ruth's face again began whitening.

"Yes, that is it!" and Iola started. "That was what made them so angry
and ugly, when we told them that Thure and Bud had already started for
the mines. They at once suspicioned that the boys had the map and that
they had started out to find the Cave of Gold. Oh, Ruth," and a look of
horror came into Iola's face, "do you suppose they will start on the
trail of Thure and Bud and try to get the map from them? Why, they might
murder them!"

"That is exactly what I am afraid they will do," declared Ruth, her own
face reflect