"Gone tew th' mines! An' started sudden, this very mornin'!" exclaimed Spike excitedly. "Did--Did th' old miner say an'thing 'bout whar he found his gold afore he died?" and his beady black eyes glowed angrily into the faces of the two girls. "We're his friends, an' have a right tew know, an' we want tew know, an' we're goin' tew know," and he urged his horse nearer to the girls. Both girls were badly frightened by this sudden and unexpected change in the two men; for there was no mistaking the ugly and dangerous look on their faces; but neither girl lost her head. "You will not come a step closer than you now are," and the white hand of Iola flashed to the pistol in her holster; and Spike, to his evident horror, suddenly found himself looking straight down into two little round holes that seemed to his startled eyes as big as the mouths of cannons. "And you, too, stay right where you are," and Ruth's pistol suddenly turned the big man with a broken nose into a wildly staring equestrian statue. "We two girls are not going to take any chances with you two men; and--and now that we have given you all the information that we have for you, you can turn your horses around and ride back the way you came." [Illustration: "YOU CAN TURN YOUR HORSES AROUND AND RIDE BACK THE WAY YOU CAME."] The faces of both girls had suddenly grown as white as milk; for, almost at the same moment, each had remembered that the dying miner had described his two murderers as a big red-headed man with a broken nose and a small man with a pock-marked face--and they were now looking straight into the faces of two such men. But the hands that held the pistols did not tremble; and there was no mistaking the look in the 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--"