Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
But the old man was not discouraged. These signs of Indians merely gave him the necessary urge to investigate. Before he had finished lunch the girls arrived. "Where's your bosom friend today?" they asked mockingly. "You and Kie Wicks are almost inseparable. It's quite touching to see such devotion," laughed Bet, who knew of the old man's impatience.
The man had the face of a hawk, a long beak that seemed as if it were prying into the most private affairs of his audience. His loose-jointed body sprawled as he stood, leaning against a post. He was very different from the compact little woman beside him, who held her plump body stiffly erect. "My name's Kie Wicks," the man explained. "And this is the missus!"
Kie had given him a small shack in the canyon, that had once been used by some friends of his for a summer vacation, and it was this home that sheltered his wife and eight children, which kept the Mexican faithful to Kie. Ramon had a bad name in the hills. He had tried his hand at every kind of rascality.
And while Ramon refused, at first, to go on with the assessment work on the stolen claims, he knew that he would do it in the end, and that Kie would also give him supplies while he was working on the job. Ramon did not like to meet the girls and perhaps Judge Breckenridge.
"I was hauling grain for the distillery. One morning I came down to the barn, and Kie was too drunk to take his team out. I gave him a good going over about wasting his money that way instead of saving it for a decent funeral. This is one of the best ways to appeal to a darkey because if there is any thing they like it is a big funeral.
I couldn't have found a better wife anywhere than you." So Kie did not appear the next morning. But it was not until noon that the professor knew that he had been deserted. His patience was at an end so he had risen before dawn and left the tent, striking off over the hills where Mrs. Patten had indicated. He returned at noon with arrowheads and a stone axe but there was no sign of ruins.
He had been a tool for this unscrupulous rogue for more than ten years. Just why, he could not have told, for Kie Wicks was not a generous master and the Mexican got little enough for his work. Rarely ever did he get any cash out of the storekeeper, and the supplies that Kie doled out were given grudgingly. Yet the man always returned, after promising himself many times that he was through.
I have a feeling that the shrubs and rocks have ears around these claims of Ramon's." "That's what I say. Otherwise how did Ramon and Kie Wicks find out about the claims in the first place?" asked Bet. "There's no mystery in that, Bet. Kie saw us coming here and followed. He spied on us, saw us building the monuments and then came and jumped the claims," explained Kit.
However, when the cowboys heard how much it meant to the girls to have the tunnel guarded against Kie Wicks, they entered into the spirit of it, and even though they laughed and joked, they carried out the Judge's instructions. They moved all the professor's belongings over the mountain, and took another tent and cots for themselves. "There just naturally has to be two of us," insisted Seedy.
Let him alone," counselled Maude. "The more down he seems, the better schemes he can think up. And this one will be a dandy. He ain't eat a bite and he won't talk." Maude seemed quite elated. It was not until some hours later that Kie came to life once more and demanded his supper. On his face was a determined scowl, as if he were ready to challenge the whole world.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking