There was a sound very like a cough, and Patty glanced sharply at the cowpuncher, but his back was toward her, and he was busy with his cinch. "Tough luck," he remarked, as he adjusted the latigo strap.

"An', you say, yer dad told you all about this partnership business?"

"No, he didn't."

"Who did?"

"Mr. Bethune."

"Oh."

Something in the tone made the girl feel extremely foolish. Holland was deliberately strapping the brown leather jug to his saddle horn, and gathering up her reins, she mounted. "At least, Mr. Bethune is a gentleman," she emphasized the word nastily.

"An' they can't hang him for that, anyway," he flung back, and swung lightly into the saddle, "I must be goin'."

"And you don't even deny cutting the pack?"

He looked her squarely in the eyes and shook his head. "No. You kind of half believe Monk about the partnership. But you don't believe I cut that pack, so what's the use denying it?"

"I do----"

"If you should happen to get lost, don't try to outguess your compa.s.s.

Always pack a little grub an' some matches, an' if you need help, three shots, an' then three more, will bring anyone that's in hearin'

distance."

"I hope I shall never have to summon you for help."

"It is quite a bother," admitted the other. "An' if you'll remember what I've told you, you prob'ly won't have to. So long."

The cowboy settled the Stetson firmly upon his head, and with never a glance behind him, headed his horse down the little creek.

The girl watched him for a moment with angry eyes, and then, urging her horse forward, crossed the plateau at a gallop, and headed up the valley. "Of all the--the _boors_! He certainly is the limit. And the worst of it is I don't know whether he deliberately tries to insult me, or whether it's just ignorance. Anyway, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could see him. And I do believe he cut daddy's pack sack, so there!" The heavy revolver dangling at her side attracted her attention, and she pulled up her horse and changed it to the opposite side. "I suppose I did look like a fool," she admitted, "but he needn't have told me so. And I bet I know as much about a compa.s.s as he does, anyway. And I'll tie my horse up with a rope if I want to."

Beyond the plateau, the valley narrowed rapidly, and innumerable ravines and coulees led steeply upward to lose themselves among the timbered slopes of the mountain sides. Crossing a low divide at the head of the valley, she reined in her horse and gazed with thumping heart into the new valley that lay before her. There, scarcely a mile away, stretched a rock ledge--and, yes, there were scraggly trees fringing its rim, and the valley was strewn with rock fragments! Her valley! The valley of the photographs! She laughed aloud, and urged her horse down the steep descent, heedless of the fact that upon the precarious, loose rock footing of the slope, a misstep would mean almost certain destruction.

Directly opposite the face of the rock wall she pulled her horse to a stand. "Surely, this must be the place, but--where is the crack? It should be about there." Her eyes searched the face of the cliff for the zigzag crevice. "Maybe I'm too close to it," she muttered. "The picture was taken from a hillside across the valley. That must be the hill--the one with the bare patch half way up. That's right where he must have stood when he took the photograph." The hillside rose abruptly, and abandoning her horse, the girl climbed the steep ascent, pausing at frequent intervals for breath. At last, she stood upon the bare shoulder of the hill and gazed out across the valley, and as she gazed, her heart sank. "It isn't the place," she muttered. "There is no big tree, and the rock cliff isn't a bit like the one in the picture--and I thought I had found it sure! I wonder how many of those rock walls there are in the hills? And will I ever find the right one?"

Once more in the saddle, she crossed another divide and scanned another rock wall, and farther down, another. "I believe every single valley in these hills has its own rock ledge, and some of them three or four!" she cried disgustedly, as she seated herself beside a tiny spring that trickled from beneath a huge rock, and proceeded to devour her lunch. "I had no idea how hungry I could get," she stared ruefully at the paper that had held her two sandwiches. "Next time I'll bring about six."

Producing her compa.s.s, she leveled a place among the stones. "Let's see if I can point to the north without its help." She glanced at the sun and carefully scanned the tumultuous skyline. "It is there," she indicated a gap between two peaks, and glanced at the compa.s.s. "I knew I wouldn't get turned around," she said, proudly. "I didn't miss it but just a mite--anyway it's near enough for all practical purposes.

If that's north," she speculated, "then I must have started east and then turned south, and then west, and then south again, and my cabin must be almost due north of me now." She returned the compa.s.s to her pocket. "I'll explore a little farther and then work toward home."

Mounting, she turned northward, and emerging abruptly from a clump of trees, caught a glimpse of swift motion a quarter of a mile away, where her trail had dipped into the valley, as a horse and rider disappeared like a flash into the timber. "He's following me!" she cried angrily, "sneaking along my trail like a coyote! I'll tell him just what I think of him and his cowardly spying." Urging her horse into a run, she reached the spot to find it deserted, although it seemed incredible that anyone could have negotiated the divide unnoticed in that brief s.p.a.ce of time. "I saw him plain as day," she murmured, as she turned her horse toward the opposite side of the valley. "I couldn't tell for sure that it was he--I didn't even see the color of the horse--but who else could it be? He knew I started out this way, and he knew that I carried the map and photos, and was hunting daddy's claim. I know, now who was watching the other night."

She shuddered. "And I've got to stay here 'til I find that claim, knowing all the time that I am being watched! There's no place I can go that he will not follow. Even in my own cabin, I'll always feel that eyes are watching me. And when I do find the mine, he'll know it as soon as I do, and it will be a race to file." Drawing up sharply, she gritted her teeth, "And he knows the short cuts through the hills, and I don't. But I will know them!" she cried, "and when I do find the mine, Mr. Vil Holland is going to have the race of his life!"

Another parallel valley, and another, she explored before turning her horse's head toward the high divide that she had reasoned separated her from Monte's Creek at a point well above her cabin. Comparatively low ridges divided these valleys, and as she topped each ridge, the girl swerved sharply into the timber and, concealing herself, intently watched the back trail--a maneuver that caused the solitary horseman who watched from a safe distance, to chuckle audibly as he carefully wiped the lenses of his binoculars.

The sunlight played only upon the higher peaks when at last, weary and dispirited, she negotiated the steep descent to Monte's Creek at a point a mile above the sheep camp. "If he'd only photographed something besides a rock wall," she muttered, petulantly, "I'd stand some show of finding it." At the door of the cabin she slipped from her saddle, and pausing with her hand on the coiled rope, dropped her eyes to the rubbed place below her horse's fetlock. A moment later she knelt and fastened a pair of hobbles about the horse's ankles, and, removing the saddle, watched the animal roll clumsily in the gra.s.s, and shuffle awkwardly to the creek where he sucked greedily at the cold water. Entering the cabin, she lighted the lamp and stared about her. Her glance traveled one by one over the objects of the little room. Everything was apparently as she had left it--yet--an uncomfortable, creepy sensation stole over her. She knew that the room had been searched.

CHAPTER IX

PATTY TAKES PRECAUTIONS

During the next few days Patty Sinclair paid scant attention to rock ledges. Each morning she saddled her cayuse and rode into the hills to the southward, crossing divides and following creeks and valleys from their sources down their winding, twisting lengths. After the first two or three trips she left her gun at home. It was heavy and c.u.mbersome, and she realized, in her unskilled hand, useless. Always she felt that she was being followed, but, try as she would, never could catch so much as a fleeting glimpse of the rider who lurked on her trail. Nevertheless, during these long rides which she made for the sole purpose of familiarizing herself with all the short cuts through the hills, she derived satisfaction from the fact that, while the trips were of immense value to her, Vil Holland was having his trouble for his pains.

Ascertaining at length that, after crossing the high divide at the head of Monte's Creek, any valley leading southward would prove a direct outlet onto the bench and thereby furnish a short cut to town, she returned once more to her prospecting--to the exploration of little valleys, and the examination of innumerable rock ledges.

Accepting as part of the game the fact that her cabin was searched almost daily during her absence she derived grim enjoyment in contemplation of the searcher's repeated disappointment. Several attempts to surprise the marauder at his work proved futile, and she was forced to admit that in the matter of shrewdness and persistence, his ability exceeded her own. "The real test will come when I locate the mine," she told herself one evening, as she sat alone in her little cabin. "Then the prize will go to the fastest horse." She drew a small folding check-book from her pocket and frowningly regarded its latest stub. "A thousand dollars isn't very much, and--it's half gone."

Next day she rode out of the hills and, following the trail for town, dismounted at Thompson's ranch which nestled in its coulee well out upon the bench, and waited for the rancher, who drove up beside a huge stack with a load of alfalfa, to unhitch his team.

"Have you a good saddle horse for sale?" she asked, abruptly.

Thompson released the tug chains, and hung the bridles upon the hames, whereupon the horses of their own accord started toward the stable, followed by a ranch hand who slid from the top of the stack. Without answering, he called to the man: "Take the lady's horse along an' give him a feed."

"It's noon," he explained, turning to the girl. "You'll stay fer dinner." He pointed toward the house. "You'll find Miz T. in the kitchen. If you want to wash up, she'll show you."

The ranch hand was leading her horse toward the barn. "But," objected Patty, "I didn't mean to run in like this just at meal time. Mrs.

Thompson won't be expecting a guest, and I brought a lunch with me."

Thompson laughed: "You must be a pilgrim in these parts," he said.

"Most folks would ride half a day to git here 'round feedin' time. We always count on two or three extry, so I guess they'll be a-plenty."

The man's laugh was infectious, and Patty found herself smiling. She liked him from the first. There was a ponderous heartiness about him, and she liked the way his little brown eyes sparkled from out their network of sun-browned wrinkles. "You trot along in, now, an' tell Miz T. she can begin dishin' up whenever she likes. We'll be 'long d'rectly. They'll be plenty time to talk horse after we've et. My work teams earns a good hour of noonin', an' I don't begrudge 'em an hour an' a half, hot days."

Patty found Mrs. Thompson slight and quiet as her husband was big and hearty. But her smile was as engaging as his, and an indefinable something about her made the girl feel at home the moment she crossed the threshold. "I came to see Mr. Thompson about a horse, and he insisted that I stay to dinner," she apologized.

"Why, of course you'll stay to dinner. But you must be hot an' tired.

The wash dish is there beside the door. You better use it before Thompson an' the hands comes, they always slosh everything all up--they don't wash, they waller."

"Mr. Thompson said to tell you you could begin to dish up whenever you're ready."

The woman smiled. "Yes, an' have everythin' set an' git cold, while they feed the horses an' then like's not, stand 'round a spell an'

size up the hay stack, er mebbe mend a piece of harness or somethin'.

I guess you ain't married, er you wouldn't expect a man to meals 'til you see him comin'. Seems like no matter how hungry they be, if they's some little odd job they can find to do just when you get the grub set on, they pick that time to do it. 'Specially if it's somethin' that don't 'mount to anythin', an' like's not's b'en layin' 'round in plain sight a week."

Patty laughingly admitted she was not married. "But, I'd teach 'em a lesson," she said. "I'd put the things on and let them get cold."

The older woman smiled, and at the sound of voices, peered out the door: "Here they come now," she said, and proceeded to carry heaping vegetable dishes and a steaming platter of savory boiled meat from the stove to the table. There was a prodigious splashing outside the door and a moment later Thompson appeared, followed by his two ranch hands, hair wet and shining, plastered tightly to their scalps, and faces aglow from vigorous scrubbing. "You mind Mr. Sinclair, that used to prospect in the hills," introduced Mrs. Thompson; "this is his daughter."

Her husband bowed awkwardly: "Glad to know you. We know'd yer paw--used to stop now an' again on his way to town. He was a smart man. Liked to talk to him. He'd be'n all over." The man turned his attention to his plate and the meal proceeded in solemn silence to its conclusion. The two ranch hands arose and disappeared through the door, and tilting back in his chair Thompson produced a match from his pocket, and proceeded to whittle it into a toothpick. "I heard in town how you was out in the hills," he began. "They said yer paw went back East--" he paused as if uncertain how to proceed.

Patty nodded: "Yes, he went back home, and this spring he died. He told me he had made a strike and I came out here to locate it."

The kindly brown eyes regarded her intently: "Ever do any prospectin'?"