or him as she had just done for the other.
"What is it you would like me to do?"

Then suddenly the great idea popped full grown into Betty's head.

"I have it!" she cried. "Why not write to Paul Loup's manager in New
York and ask him for particulars?"

"Capital!" replied Allen approvingly, while the girls looked at their
Little Captain admiringly. "If anybody ought to be able to give us
information, he surely is the one."

"And, Allen," begged Betty, reining her horse close to Allen and laying
a timid hand on his arm, "you won't even whisper a word of what we've
told you--not for your foolish old law, or anything else?"

"Of course not," said Allen, smiling at her. "We have to give the poor
fellow his chance."

CHAPTER XXIII

GREAT DAYS

That very afternoon Allen composed a letter to Paul Loup's concert
manager--advised and censored by the girls, of course--and they all rode
off to town to mail it in time to catch the four o'clock outgoing mail.

"Now," said Mollie, as, this duty well performed, they started back to
the ranch, "I feel better. We've started something, anyway."

"Let's hope that we can finish it," added Grace, dubiously.

They did not expect an answer to this epistle within ten days, and in
the meantime they found plenty to keep them busy around the ranch.

Progress at the mines was swift, and almost any minute now they might
expect to hear the glorious tidings that some one had "struck it rich."

Nothing had been seen of Peter Levine since that memorable night when
the map had been taken from him, and it was rumored that the rascally
lawyer had left town.

"And the longer he keeps away the healthier it will be for him, I
reckon," Allen said, adding with a laugh: "Gee, but it makes me happy
every time I think of how sore that chap may be."

Betty had dimpled sympathetically.

"You have an awfully mean disposition, Allen," she chided him.

Meggy and Dan Higgins were working furiously at their mine, but after a
few days Betty was quick to see that they were not progressing as well
as some of the others. After all Meggy, though unusually strong and
robust for her age, was only a girl and her father was an old man who
had just about worn out his energies in a fruitless search for fortune.

Betty had besought her father to send help to these good friends of
hers, and Mr. Nelson had immediately complied.

There had been some trouble with Dan at first--with Meggy too, for that
mat