Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/161

Rh ried Ruth rapidly up the valley, and as the two ponies galloped side by side the girl from the Red Mill grew quite confidential with the Indian. She did not like Jib Pottoway as she did the foreman of the Bar Cross Naught ranch; but the Indian was intelligent and companionable, and he quite evidently put himself out to be entertaining.

As he rode, dressed in his typical cowboy costume, Jib looked the full-blooded savage he was; but his conversation smacked of the East and of his experiences at school. What he said showed that Uncle Sam does very well by his red wards at Carlisle.

Jib could tell her, too, much that was interesting regarding the country through which they rode. It was wild enough, and there was no human habitation in sight. Occasionally a jackrabbit crossed their trail, or a flock of birds flew whirring from the path before them. Of other life there was none until they had crossed the first ridge and struck into a beaten path which Jib declared was the old pack-trail to Tintacker.

The life they then saw did not encourage Ruth to believe that this was either a safe or an inhabited country. Freckles suddenly shied as they approached a bowlder which was thrust out of the hillside beside the trail. Ruth was almost unseated, for she had been riding carelessly. And when she raised her eyes and saw the object that