"Say, Miss!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I'm anxious, I be. When Jane Ann first run away from Silver Ranch, I thought she was just a-playin' off some of her tricks on me. I never supposed she was in earnest 'bout it--no, ma'am!

"I rid into Bullhide arter two days. And instead of findin' her knockin' around there, I finds her pony at the greaser's corral, and learns that she's took the train East. That did beat me. I didn't know she had any money, but she'd bought a ticket to Denver, and it took a right smart of money to do it.

"I went to Colonel Penhampton, I did," went on Hicks, "and told him about it. He heated up the wires some 'twixt Bullhide and Denver; but she'd fell out o' sight there the minute she'd landed. Denver's some city, ma'am. I finds that out when I lit out arter Jane Ann and struck that place myself.

"Wal! 'twould be teejious to you, ma'am, if I told whar I have chased arter that gal these endurin' two months. Had to let the ranch an'

ev'rythin' else go to loose ends while I follered news of her all over.

My gosh, ma'am! how many gals there is runs away from their homes! Ye wouldn't believe the number 'nless ye was huntin' for a pertic'lar one an' got yer rope on so many that warn't her!"

"You have had many disappointments, sir?" said Miss Kate, beginning to feel a great sympathy for this uncouth man.

He nodded his great, bald, shining head. "I hope you ain't going to tell me thar's another in store for me right yere," he said, in a much milder voice.

"I cannot tell you where Nita--if she is your niece--is now," said Miss Kate, firmly.

"She's left you?"

"She went away some time during the night--night before last."

"What for?" he asked, suspiciously.

"I don't know. We none of us knew. We made her welcome and said nothing about sending her away, or looking for her friends. I did not wish to frighten her away, for she is a strangely independent girl----"

"You bet she is!" declared Mr. Hicks, emphatically.

"I hoped she would gradually become confiding, and then we could really do something for her. But when we got up yesterday morning she had stolen out of the house in the night and was gone."

"And ye don't know whar Jane Ann went?" he said, with a sort of groan.

Miss Kate shook her head; but suddenly a voice interrupted them. Ruth Fielding parted the curtains and came into the room.

"I hope you will pardon me, Miss Kate," she said softly. "And this gentleman, too. I believe I can tell him how Nita went away--and perhaps through what I know he may be able to find her again."

CHAPTER XXI

CRAB MAKES HIS DEMAND

Bill Hicks beckoned the girl from the Red Mill forward. "You come right here, Miss," he said, "and let's hear all about it. I'm a-honin' for my Jane Ann somethin' awful--ye don't know what a loss she is to me.

And Silver Ranch don't seem the same no more since she went away."

"Tell me," said Ruth, curiously, as she came forward, "was what the paper said about it all true?"

"Why, Ruth, what paper is this? What do you know about this matter that I don't know?" cried Miss Kate.

"I'm sorry, Miss Kate," said the girl; "but it wasn't my secret and I didn't feel I could tell you----"

"I know what you mean, little Miss," Hicks interrupted. "That New York newspaper--with the picter of Jane Ann on a pony what looked like one o' these horsecar horses? Most ev'rythin' they said in that paper was true about her--and the ranch."

"And she has had to live out there without any decent woman, and no girls to play with, and all that?"

"Wal!" exclaimed Mr. Hicks. "That ain't sech a great crime; is it?"

"I don't wonder so much she ran away," Ruth said, softly. "But I am sorry she did not stay here until you came, sir."

"But where is she?" chorused both the ranchman and Miss Kate, and the latter added: "Tell what you know about her departure, Ruth."

So Ruth repeated all that she had heard and seen on the night Nita disappeared from the Stone bungalow.

"And this man, Crab, can be found down yonder at the lighthouse?"

demanded the ranchman, rising at the end of Ruth's story.

"He is there part of the time, sir," Miss Kate said. "He is a rather notorious character around here--a man of bad temper, I believe. Perhaps you had better go to the authorities first----"

"What authorities?" demanded the Westerner in surprise.

"The Sokennet police."

Bill Hicks snorted. "I don't need police in this case, ma'am," he said. "I know what to do with this here Crab when I find him. And if harm's come to my Jane Ann, so much the worse for him."

"Oh, I hope you will be patient, sir," said Miss Kate.

"Nita was not a bit afraid of him, I am sure," Ruth hastened to add.

"He would not hurt her."

"No. I reckon he wants to make money out of me," grunted Bill Hicks, who did not lack shrewdness. "He sent the letter that told me she was here, and then he decoyed her away somewhere so's to hold her till I came and paid him the reward. Wal! let me git my Jane Ann back, safe and sound, and he's welcome to the five hundred dollars I offered for news of her."

"But first, Mr. Hicks," said Miss Kate, rising briskly, "you'll come to breakfast. You have been traveling all night----"

"That's right, ma'am. No chance for more than a peck at a railroad sandwich--tough critters, them!"

"Ah! here is Tom Cameron," she said, having parted the portieres and found Tom just pa.s.sing through the hall. "Mr. Hicks, Tom. Nita's uncle."

"Er--Mr. Bill Hicks, of the Silver Ranch!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom.

"So you've hearn tell of me, too, have you, younker?" quoth the ranchman, good-naturedly. "Well, my fame's spreadin'."

"And it seems that _I_ am the only person here who did not know all about your niece," said Miss Kate Stone, drily.

"Oh, no, ma'am!" cried Tom. "It was only Ruth and Helen and I who knew anything about it. And we only suspected. You see, we found the newspaper article which told about that bully ranch, and the fun that girl had----"

"Jane Ann didn't think 'twas nice enough for her," grunted the ranchman. "She wanted high-heeled slippers--and shift--shift-on hats--and a pianner! Common things warn't good enough for Jane Ann."

Ruth laughed, for she wasn't at all afraid of the big Westerner. "If chiffon hats and French heeled slippers would have kept Nita--I mean, Jane Ann--at home, wouldn't it have been cheaper for you to have bought 'em?" she asked.