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Updated: June 23, 2025
Just as they passed through the Iron Gate, the narrow pass that led to Lost Canyon, they met Kie Wicks. "Nice weather for a picnic!" he called to them gaily with a wave of his dusty sombrero. "That's an interesting canyon!" "Yes," the judge replied with his most courteous air. "We find it very interesting. The girls located a claim up that way, and have started work on it." "You don't say so!
Kie flattered himself that he was being very clever in keeping the searchers away from the old man. The girls waited impatiently for Kit. "I do wish she would hurry," fussed Bet. "What's keeping her?" "Maybe she found Young Mary there, as she hoped, and as it's been such a long time since they've seen each other, they'll need to do a lot of talking to make up for lost time."
"How far away is it?" asked the professor. "The boys are camping over there with me, so I'd better go back and tell them where I'm going. "It won't take you ten minutes, my friend," Kie answered. "You'll be back before they have breakfast ready." Kie descended the steep mountain and leading his horse, he urged the professor on with a description of the marvelous ruins that he had discovered.
"Kie Wicks might get wise to it, and come in at the end of two months and snap up this claim too, if we haven't done our work. That has to be done within two months." "Then he'd get the stone with the markings?" "Yes, that's it. And he might find the treasure, if we don't watch out," added Kit. "Then let's get to work at once!" cried Joy, digging her spur into Dolly's side.
But not for long. Without a master over him, the man grew lazy and before the morning was far advanced he had disappeared in the canyon. "I thought he'd get tired of it," smiled Kit. "A Mexican miner has to have someone to keep him on the job. And I don't believe that Kie Wicks will spend much time over here."
Professor Gillette could not imagine why he should be treated like this. Why should he be robbed? He had nothing. And where was Kie Wicks? Had the men kidnapped him as well? It took the kindly mind of the professor a long time to grasp the idea that Kie Wicks might have something to do with the affair. The old man did not struggle as he had an impulse to do. He knew it would be useless.
Kit wanted to laugh, for Bet was repeating word for word what she had read only a few days before in a western story. But Bet's next question was her own. "How much is Kie Wicks paying you for this job?" she asked. One man started to take a step forward, but Bet's gun menaced him. "Stand right where you are! Not a step nearer! Answer my question!" "Five dollars apiece!" growled the second man.
"Take a look around, folks," said Kie Wicks as he himself opened a door and looked into a bed room, littered with mattresses and soiled blankets. "He ain't here," said Kie. "I didn't more than half think he was. But you never can be sure unless you take a look." Bet caught a quick glance of understanding between the two men, but in the next second decided that it was a glance of approval.
Kit herself might have made the same remark, but coming from Kie, she resented it. "Where are they?" exclaimed Bet. "I'll pay them a visit. Do you think they will make some baskets for me?" "You can never tell a thing about them. If they need money, they will, but like as not they'll refuse. This is their vacation, they come up every year to pick mesquite beans and piñon nuts," Kit informed them.
"We'd be scared stiff to sleep alone there, even with the professor." "Which are you scared of?" laughed Tommy Sharpe. "Kie Wicks or the ghost of the Indian Chief's daughter?" "Both," returned Seedy pretending to shake with fright. "But I'm mostly scared of that there ghost that walks." The boys were hilarious as they unpacked their stuff at the Orphan Annie claim.
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