The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle | Page 8

told her their unwelcome visitor had left. A minute later her mother
herself opened the door of Betty's room, looking so troubled and
unsettled that Betty jumped to her feet in quick alarm.
"Mother, did that man say anything to make you feel bad?" she cried.
"Because, if he did----"
"No, no, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, sinking into a chair, while her eyes
sought the window thoughtfully. "I am worried, that's all."
Betty drew a low chair over beside her mother, and, sitting down, took
Mrs. Nelson's hand in both her own.
"Tell me, dear," she urged.
Mrs. Nelson drew her troubled gaze away from the window and looked
at the Little Captain intently.
"Betty," she said, "there is something strange about this Gold Run
Ranch of ours. This man----"
"Yes?" prompted Betty, as her mother paused.
"This man who called this morning wanted to buy the ranch for a
western client of his. It seems this client is willing to pay me my own
price--within reasonable limits of course. He seemed so strangely eager
to make a deal with me----"
"Yes?" prompted Betty again, beginning to look worried herself.

"Well," continued Mrs. Nelson, "I decided then and there that I
wouldn't sell to anybody."
"Oh, Mother!" Betty was all eagerness now, "do you really mean it?"
"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Nelson, determination replacing uncertainty.
"There must be something unusual about Gold Run or John Josephs
and this man, too, wouldn't be so anxious to get it away from me. I am
certainly not going to let them drive me into selling, until I see my
property at least."
"Good for you, Mother!" cried Betty enthusiastically. "I've been
fearfully worried for fear you wouldn't see it that way. Did you tell the
man in the check suit that?"
"No, I didn't," said Mrs. Nelson, smiling as she pressed Betty's hand.
"Now you will see what a schemer your mother is, my dear. I told him I
hadn't definitely decided yet on any course, that I had already had a
very good offer for my ranch, and that he would have to see Allen
Washburn, our attorney. I wanted Allen to have a chance to size this
man up and see if he has the same impression of him that I had."
"Mother," breathed Betty admiringly, "I think you are wonderful."
Then after a little pause, she added shyly: "You really think a great deal
of--of Allen's ability, don't you, Mother?"
"I do, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, stroking the brown head gently. Then
she added with a hint of mischief in her voice: "Your father and I have
come to feel toward him almost as if he were our son."
"Oh--" murmured Betty, very faintly.
Two days went by--anxious ones for the girls. In the Nelson home, this
time in the pretty living room, Allen Washburn was now a guest.
"Well," Mrs. Nelson said, with more than a hint of eagerness in her
voice, "what did you think of our loudly-dressed friend, Allen?"

"Was he as bad as Mrs. Nelson's description makes him out to be?"
asked Mr. Nelson, smiling genially through a cloud of cigar smoke.
Betty, in a corner of the lounge, was trying her best to be calm while
she waited eagerly for Allen's reply.
"I don't know just how Mrs. Nelson described this fellow to you, I'm
sure," he answered, with a smiling glance toward Betty's mother. "But
I'm quite sure that she didn't say anything bad enough."
"Then you didn't like him either?" asked Mrs. Nelson quickly.
"I neither liked him nor trusted him," Allen replied decidedly, adding
with a wry smile: "He calls himself Peter Levine, but I'm willing to
wager about anything I have that that isn't his real name."
"You think he's a sharper then?" Mr. Nelson interjected.
"Yes, sir," responded Allen, his young face earnestly intent. "He looks
to me like one of these confidence men who abound in the western
boom towns--men who can talk the other fellow into putting his last
cent into some 'sure thing.' 'Sure thing,'" he repeated disgustedly. "The
only sure thing about most of those schemes is the certainty of 'going
bust' and losing every penny you have in the world."
"And yet," Mr. Nelson commented, "these sharpers, 'confidence men,'
as you call them, often manage to keep just within the law."
"Oh yes," said Allen, "they manage to keep the letter of the
law--sometimes. But that is just a caution to save their own necks. It's
the spirit of the law that they violate. But we are getting away from the
point," he added, pulling himself up short with an apologetic smile
toward Mrs. Nelson. "We were speaking of this Peter Levine. My
summing up of him is that he is entirely untrustworthy."
Mrs. Nelson shot