"I don't see why we can't hold our own against any man," sniffed Kit.

"Ramon Salazar is a cross-eyed Mexican with a lame leg, and Kie Wicks is a coward. I guess The Merriweather Girls could beat them with their eyes shut."

"That a girl, Kit! Of course we can," cried Bet indignantly. "And we will!"

The Judge chuckled at their flare of independence, and turned to Joy, the timid one.

"What about you, Joy? Do you want to help the girls fight for the claim?"

"I'm not saying that I want the old mine, if we can hold it, but I'm willing to help fight, if the girls say so. The Merriweather Girls stand together."

"Good for you, Joy Evans! I didn't expect it of you."

"You didn't? What are you trying to insinuate, Bet Baxter? I'm not a traitor!"

"Why, of course not, Joy, but you don't like digging mines and riding horseback and all that sort of thing."

"Maybe not. But you've never known me to back out of anything, especially where the honor of The Merriweather Girls was at stake."

"That's right," responded Bet quickly. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You've always been a sport when it came to doing things, although you've sometimes made a frightful fuss about it."

"That's part of the game," laughed the b.u.t.terfly girl. "Somebody has to be a kicker. And I'm it."

"Please do it with your feet from now on, it's much more graceful!"

teased Enid.

"I may do it with my feet and I may do it with my tongue," returned Joy with a happy laugh, "but you'll find me ready to back up any one of you."

"Well said, fair lady. Now let's have a look at 'Orphan Annie.'" The Judge's eyes were sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt as Bet led him up the gentle slope of the mountain. Suddenly Bet threw herself from the saddle.

"See folks, I found an arrowhead! Oh, boy! Isn't that lucky?"

The girls dismounted and grouped about her, all except Kit, who had picked up arrowheads since babyhood.

"It's a perfect one. I'm the happiest girl in all the world!"

"Doesn't take much to make some people happy," began Joy, then she started to laugh. "Come on, where's our little orphan?"

"This way, follow me," called Shirley Williams. "This is it, isn't it, Bet?"

"Yes, that's our baby. Poor little thing." Bet was trying to be cheerful but there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. There was always a great soul conflict when Bet's well developed plans went amiss and in this case, where it involved double dealing, it was harder than usual to give up.

"Nine chances out of ten," remarked Enid quietly and with little emotion, "those other claims have all the ore and this one has nothing."

"For my part, I don't care if it hasn't any ore in it at all, I like it anyway," and Bet squatted down on a big flat rock within the boundaries of the claim. "It feels good to be on my own property," she added with a sigh of contentment.

But in a moment she had started up with a little cry of surprise.

"What's the matter, Bet? Be careful! If it's a strange bug, it might bite you. There are so many stinging things out here," cautioned Kit.

Bet's head was bent over the rock. She did not hear what was said.

Suddenly she called, "Judge Breckenridge, do come here and look at these strange markings on the rock."

"Markings on a rock," said Joy Evans contemptuously. "I thought it was a tarantula or something."

"Well, you wouldn't have liked to see a tarantula any better than the markings, and these at least are not poisonous," Bet retorted.

Judge Breckenridge was examining the markings with interest, and gave a low whistle of astonishment. "This is the sort of thing one reads about. I'm wondering though if Kie Wicks put them here to fool you."

"It might be markings that tell of a buried treasure. See the arrow!

Look the way the arrow points."

"Yes, look the way the arrow points," mimicked Joy. "Now at last you have your mystery, Bet. I wish you joy of it. Follow the arrow and then you'll come to a tall cactus, and in the cactus you'll find a bullet..."

"Oh, keep quiet, Joy Evans!" flashed Bet angrily.

"We haven't found a mystery and I don't believe there is a treasure here. This is far away from Lost Canyon," said Kit.

"I'm going to believe in the treasure!" cried Bet, fired with enthusiasm at the prospect of finding something unusual. "Why, I could easily believe in a buried treasure. What's more I'll find it."

"I'm going to go and call Professor Gillette," called Enid, already in the saddle. "He can probably tell us what it means and what the Indians looked like who made the markings."

"These lines were not made by Indians," remarked the Judge thoughtfully. "There's a Spanish word there."

But when the professor came a few minutes later, he was all at sea as to the meaning of the tracings on the rock.

"It is very much like the sort of thing people used to draw when they buried treasure. You've seen the map in Tommy Sharpe's room but that doesn't say that if we located the proper spot that there would be any treasure left. Other people can read signs the same as we can, and many people have been over this ground since that sign was carved,"

Judge Breckenridge explained to the girls.

"Why be so sensible, Judge?" laughed Bet wistfully. "Why not let us think that there is a treasure hidden in the ground somewhere? I'm thrilled all to pieces just thinking about it."

"And that's right, too, Bet. Don't let an old fellow like me spoil your dreams by my common sense." The Judge acted as if he wanted to believe it himself and only needed a little urging.

"And there is just as much chance that no one has pa.s.sed over this rock since the early days and that we may find a fortune hidden." The professor smiled around at the group with a happy, child-like stare as if he were one of the characters of a fairy story.

"Now that's the way to talk, Professor Gillette. You never can be sure unless you look around." Bet nodded at him approvingly.

The Judge suddenly looked at his watch. "I move we get home to dinner.

Tang will be waiting and he hates that."

Bet very carefully spread some tiny twigs and sand over the rock so that no one else would see the markings on the stone.

"Come along up with us to dinner, Professor," suggested the Judge cordially. "We'll have a meeting tonight and talk things over and see what is best to do. I have a feeling that the shrubs and rocks have ears around these claims of Ramon's."

"That's what I say. Otherwise how did Ramon and Kie Wicks find out about the claims in the first place?" asked Bet.

"There's no mystery in that, Bet. Kie saw us coming here and followed.

He spied on us, saw us building the monuments and then came and jumped the claims," explained Kit.

"All but one!" cried Bet as she clapped her hands. "And on that one little neglected claim, we find the tracings that will perhaps lead us to the buried treasure. That's luck!"