"About that there doc--d'you s'pect he savvys his business?"

"Of course he does! He's considered one of the best doctors in the State. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's this way. When he was goin' back to town yesterday I laid for him. You see, the Old Man--er, I mean--you know, ma'am, the Big Boss, he's a pretty sick man--an' it looks to us boys like things had ort to break pretty quick, one way er another. So, I says, 'Doc, how's he gittin' on?' an' the doc he says, jest like you done, 'good as could be expected.' When you come right down to cases, that don't tell you nothin'. So I says, 'that's 'cordin' to who's doin' the expectin'.

What we want to know,' I says, 'is he goin' to git well, er is he goin' to die?' 'I confidently hope we're going to pull him through,'

he comes back. 'Meanin', he's goin' to git well?' I says. 'Yes,' he says. 'Fer how much?' I asks him. I didn't have but thirty-five dollars on me, but I shook that in under his nose. You see, I wanted to find out if the fellow would back his own self up with his money.

'What do you mean?' he says. 'I mean,' I informs him, 'that money talks. Here's the Missus payin' you good wages fer to cure up the Old Man. You goin' to do it, an' earn them wages, or ain't you? Here's thirty-five dollars that says you can't cure him.'"

The corners of the old lady's mouth were twitching behind the handkerchief she held to her lips: "What did the doctor say?" she asked.

"Tried to laugh it off," declared the cowboy in disgust. "But I reminds him that this here ain't no laughin' matter. 'D'you s'pose,' I says, 'if the Old Man told me: "Bill, there's a bad colt to bust," or "Bill, go over onto Monte's Crick, an' bring back them two-year-olds,"

do you s'pose I wouldn't bet I could do it? They's plenty of us here to do all the "confidently hopin'" that's needed. What you got to do is to git busy with them pills an' make him well,' I says, 'or quit an' let someone take holt that kin.'" The man paused and regarded the woman seriously. "What I'm gittin' at is this: If this here doc ain't got confidence enough in his own dope to back it with a bet, it's time we got holt of one that will. Now, ma'am, you better let me send one of Jack Pierce's kids to town to see Len Christie an' tell him to git the best doc out here they is. I'll write a note to Len on the side an' tell him to tell the doc he kin about double his wages, 'cause the rest of the boys feels just like I do, an' we'll all bet agin him so't it'll be worth his while to make a good job of it." He paused, awaiting permission to carry out his plan.

The little woman explained gravely: "Doctors never bet on their cases, Bill. It isn't that they won't back their judgment. But because it isn't considered proper. Doctor Mallory is doing all any mortal man can do. He's a wonderfully good doctor, and it was Len Christie, himself, that recommended him."

The cowboy's eyes lighted: "It was? Well, then, mebbe he's all right.

I never had no time fer preachers 'til I know'd Len. But, what he says goes with me--he's square. I don't go much on no doctor, though.

They're all right fer women, mebbe, an' kids. I believe all the Old Man needs right now to fix him up good as ever is a big stiff jolt of whisky an' bitters." The cowboy rode away, muttering and shaking his head, but not until he was well out of sight round the corner of the house did the little woman with the gray hair smile.

"I hope Doctor Mallory will understand," she said, a trifle anxiously, "I have some rather trying experiences with my boys, and if Bill has gone and insulted the doctor I'll have to get Jack Pierce to go to town and explain."

"This Bill seems to just adore Mr. Samuelson," ventured Patty. "Why his voice was almost--almost reverent when he said 'the Old Man.'"

The little lady nodded: "Yes, Bill thinks there's no one like him. You see, Bill shot a man, one day when--he was not quite himself. Over in the Blackfoot country, it was, and Vil Holland knew the facts in the case, and he rode over and told Mr. Samuelson all about it, and they both went and talked it over with the prosecuting attorney, and with old Judge Nevers, with the result that they agreed to give the boy a chance. So Mr. Samuelson brought him here. That was five years ago.

Bill is foreman of this outfit now, and our other three riders are boys that were headed the same way Bill was. Vil Holland brought one of them over, and Bill and Mr. Samuelson picked up the other two--and, if I do say it myself," she declared, proudly, "there isn't an outfit in Montana that can boast a more capable or loyal, or a straighter quartet of riders than this one."

As Patty listened she understood something of what was behind the words of Thompson and Len Christie, when they had spoken that day of "Old Man" Samuelson. But, there was something she did not understand.

And that something was--Vil Holland. Everybody liked him, everybody spoke well of him, and apparently everybody but herself trusted him implicitly. And yet, to her own certain knowledge, he did carry a jug, he did follow her about the hills, and he did tell her to her face that when she found her father's claim she would have a race on her hands, and that if she were beaten she would have to be satisfied with what she would get.

But Vil Holland, his comings and his goings were soon forgotten in the absorbing interest with which Patty listened as her little gray-haired hostess recounted incidents and horrors of the Indian uprising, the first sporadic depredations, the coming of the troops, and finally the forcing of the belligerent tribes onto their reservations.

It had been Patty's intention to ride back to her cabin in the evening, but Mrs. Samuelson would not hear of it. And, indeed the girl did not insist, for despite the fact that she had become thoroughly accustomed to her surroundings, the antic.i.p.ation of a dinner prepared and served by the highly efficient Wong Yie, in the tastefully appointed dining room, with its real silver and china, proved sufficiently attractive to overcome even her impatience to begin the working out of her father's map. And the realization fully justified the antic.i.p.ation. When the meal was finished the two women had talked the long evening away before the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, and when at last she was shown to her room, the girl retired to luxuriate in a real bed of linen sheets and a box mattress.

CHAPTER XV

THE HORSE RAID

Patty did not know how long she had slept when she awoke, tense and listening, sitting bolt upright in bed. Moonlight flooded the room through the windows thrown wide to admit the chill night air. Beyond the valley floor, green with the luxuriant second crop of alfalfa, she could see the mountains looming dim and mysterious in the half-light.

The whole world seemed silent as the grave--and yet, something must have awakened her. She shuddered, partly at the chill that struck at her thinly clad shoulders, and partly at the recollection of some of the scenes those selfsame mountains had witnessed, during the uprisings, and which her hostess had so vividly recounted. The girl smiled, and gazing toward the mountains, pictured long lines of naked hors.e.m.e.n stealing silently into the valley. She started violently.

Through the open window came sounds, the m.u.f.fled thud of hoofs upon the soft ground, the low rattle of bit-chains and spur-rowels, and the creak of saddle leather. There _were_ hors.e.m.e.n in the valley, and the hors.e.m.e.n were pa.s.sing almost beneath her windows--and they were moving stealthily.

For a moment her heart raced madly--the fancy of those conjured hors.e.m.e.n, and then the mysterious sounds from the night that were not fancy, combined in just the right proportion to overcome her with a momentary terror. She realized that the sounds were pa.s.sing--growing fainter, and leaping from the bed, rushed to the window and peered out. Only silence--profound, unbroken silence, and the moonlight. In vain she strained her ears to catch a repet.i.tion of the faint sounds, and in vain she peered into the dark shadows cast by the bunk house and the pole horse-corral. Her windows commanded the eastern wall of the valley, and its upper reaches. Had there actually been hors.e.m.e.n, or were the sounds part of her vivid vision of the long ago? "No," she muttered, "those sounds were real," and she leaned far out of the window in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of the trail that led down the creek toward Pierce's.

For some time she remained at the window and then, shivering, crept back to bed, where she lay speculating upon the ident.i.ty of these hors.e.m.e.n who pa.s.sed in the night. She knew that a horse raid had been expected. Could these raiders have had the audacity to pa.s.s through the very dooryard of the ranch, knowing as they must have known, that four armed and determined cowboys occupied the bunk house?

And who were these raiders? At Thompson's she had heard Monk Bethune's name mentioned in connection with possible horse-thieving. Bethune had spoken of hurried trips, "to the northward." She remembered that upon the occasion of their first meeting, she had heard him d.i.c.kering with Watts for the rent of his horse pasture, and she recollected the incident of the changed name. Then, again, only a few days before, she had parted with him when he struck off the trail to the eastward with the excuse that he was going over onto the east slope on a matter having to do with some horses. Bill had mentioned, in talking to Mrs.

Samuelson, that he had been riding through the horses on the east slope. Could it be possible that the suave Bethune was a horse-thief?

On the other hand, Bethune had openly hinted that Vil Holland was a horse-thief--and yet, these other people all believed that he was persistently on the trail of the horse-thieves.

For a long time she lay thinking, guessing, trying to recall little sc.r.a.ps of evidence that would bear upon the case. Again, a slight sound brought her to a sitting posture. This time it was the opening of a door across the hall from her room. The sound was followed by the soft padding of slippered feet in the hall, the low tapping, evidently at another door, a few low-voiced words, and a return of the padding steps. A few moments later other steps hurried along the hall past her door and rapidly descended the stairs. Patty heard the opening of an outside door, and once more stealing to the window she saw the Chinaman hurry across the moonlit yard to the bunk house and throw open the door. He entered to emerge a moment later and rush to the horse-corral, where he peered between the poles for a moment and then made his way swiftly back to the house.

Without lighting the lamp Patty dressed hurriedly. Was the Samuelson ranch a place of mystery? What was the meaning of the light sounds--the soft tramp of horses, and the padding of feet upon the stairs? The footsteps paused at the door across the hall. There followed a whispered colloquy and the steps retreated rapidly to the lower regions. Patty opened her door to see Mrs. Samuelson, her face expressing the deepest agitation, and one thin hand catching together the folds of a lavender kimono.

"What is the matter?" asked the girl. "What has happened?"

The old lady closed the door from beyond which came sounds of heavy breathing. "I am afraid he is worse," she whispered. "Wong Yie went to the bunk house to send the boys for the doctor and for Mrs. Pierce, and he says they are gone! Their horses are not in the corral. I don't understand it," she cried. "I told them not to go away. They know, that with my husband sick, we are in momentary danger from the horse-thieves, and they know that their place is right here."

"You told Bill to stay until he heard from Vil Holland," reminded Patty. "Maybe they heard from him, and left without disturbing you."

"That's it, of course!" cried the woman. "I ought to have known I could trust them. But, for a moment it seemed that--" She stopped abruptly and glanced anxiously into the girl's face, "But what in the world will we do? Wong Yie can't ride a step, and if he could, I need him here----"

"I'll ride to Pierce's!" exclaimed Patty. "And get Mr. Pierce to go for the doctor, and bring Mrs. Pierce back with me. My horse is in the corral, and I can get down there in no time."

"Oh, can you? Will you? And you are not afraid--alone at night in the hills? Under any other circ.u.mstances I wouldn't think of letting you do it, child--especially with the horse-thieves about. But, it seems the only way----"

"Of course it's the only way! And I'm not a bit afraid."

Hurrying to the corral, Patty saddled her horse, and a few moments later swung into the trail that led down the creek. She glanced at her watch; it was one o'clock. The moon floated high in the heavens and the valley was almost as light as day. Urging her horse into a run, she found a wild exhilaration in riding through the night, splashing across shallows and shooting across short level stretches to plunge through the water again.

After what seemed an interminable wait, Pierce himself appeared at the door in answer to her persistent pounding. Patty thought he eyed her curiously as he stood aside and motioned her into the kitchen. Very deliberately he lighted the lamp and listened in silence until she had finished. Then, coolly, he eyed her from top to toe: "'Pears to me I've saw you before," he announced. "Over on the trail, a while back.

An' you was a-ridin' with--Monk Bethune."

"Well?" asked the girl, angered by the man's tone.

"Well," mocked Pierce. "So to-night's the night yer figgerin' on pullin' the raid, is it?"

"I'm figuring on pulling the raid! What do you mean?"

"I mean you, an' Bethune, an' yer gang. You be'n up a-spottin' the lay, so's to tip 'em off, an' now you come down here an' tell me the Old Man's worst so's I'll take out to town fer the doc--an' one less posse-man in the hills. Yer a pretty slick article, Miss, but it hain't a-goin' to work."

Patty listened, speechless with rage. When the man finished she found her tongue. "You--you accuse me of being a--a horse-thief?" she choked.

"Yup," answered the man. "That's it--an' not so fur off, neither.

Don't you s'pose I know that if the Old Man was worst one of his own boys would of be'n a foggin' it fer town hisself? I'd ort to take an'

lock you up in the root cellar an' turn you over to Vil Holland, but I guess if we get all the he ones out of yer gang we kin leave you loose. 'Tain't likely you could run off no horses single-handed."

A woman whose appearance showed an evident hasty toilet had stepped from an inner room, and stood listening to the man. Patty was about to appeal to her when, from the outside came a thunder of hoofs, and suddenly a man burst into the room. Patty recognized him as Bill, of the Samuelson ranch. "Come on, Jack, quick! Git yer gun, while I slam the kak on yer cayuse. The raid's on, they've cut out a bunch of them three an' four-year-olds offen the east slope an' they're a-foggin'

'em off."

"Bill! Oh, Bill!" cried the girl, in desperation. But the man had plunged toward the corral, followed by Pierce, buckling on his cartridge belt as he ran. A moment later both men were in the saddle, and the sound of pounding hoofs grew far away.

In tears, Patty turned to the woman. "Oh, why couldn't he have believed me?" she cried. "He thinks I'm one of that detestable gang of thieves! But, you--surely you don't think I'm a horse-thief?" In broken sentences she related the facts to the woman, and finished by begging her to go up to the Samuelson ranch. "I'll ride on to town for the doctor myself!" she exclaimed. "And surely you can do that much for your neighbor."