Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/163

Rh the valley, his captive flying in huge (but involuntary) leaps behind him. He rode back in ten minutes with a beaten-out mass of fur and blood trailing at the end of his rope, and that was the end of Mr. Puma!

"There isn't any critter a puncher hates worse than a puma," Jib said, gruffly. "We've killed a host of 'em this season."

"And do you always rope them?' queried Ruth.

"They ain't worth powder and shot. Now, a bear is a gentleman 'side of a lion—and even a little old kiote ain't so bad. The lion's so blamed crafty and sly. Ha! it always does me good to rope one of them."

They rode steadily on the trail to the mines after that. It was scarcely more than fifteen miles to the claims which had been the site, some years before, of a thriving mining camp, but was now a deserted town of tumble-down shanties, corrugated iron shacks, and the rustled skeletons of machinery at the mouths of certain shafts. Money had been spent freely by individuals and corporations in seeking to develop the various "leads" believed by the first prospectors to be hidden under the surface of the earth at Tintacker. But if the silver was there it was so well hidden that most of the miners had finally "gone broke" attempting to uncover the riches of sil-