Samuelson, an hour later when the girl had finished recounting her part in the night's adventure, "there'll be you and Mr. Christie, and Doctor Mallory, and the boys from the bunk house, and Vil Holland, and it will be in honor of Mr. Samuelson's turn for the better, and your escape, and the successful routing of the horse-thieves."

"Too late to count Vil Holland in," smiled the doctor, who had returned to the veranda in time to hear the arrangement, "said he had important business in town, and pulled out as soon as I'd got his arm rigged up." And, in the doorway, the Reverend Len Christie smiled behind a screen of cigarette smoke as he noted the toss of the head, and the decided tightening of the lips with which Patty greeted the announcement.

"But, he's wounded!" protested Mrs. Samuelson. "In his condition, ought he attempt a ride like that?"

The doctor laughed: "You can't hurt these clean-blooded young bucks with a flesh wound. As far as fitness is concerned, he can ride to Jericho if he wants to. Too bad he won't quit prospecting and settle down. He'd make some girl a mighty fine husband."

Christie laughed. "I don't think Vil is the marrying kind. In the first place he's been bitten too deep with the prospecting bug. And, again, women don't appeal to him. He's wedded to his prospecting. He only stops when driven to it by necessity, then he only works long enough to save up a grub-stake and he's off for the hills again. I can't imagine that high priest of the pack horse and the frying pan living in a house!"

And so the talk went, everyone partic.i.p.ating except Patty, who sat and listened with an elaborate indifference that caused the Reverend Len to smile again to himself behind the gray cloud of his cigarette smoke.

"You haven't forgotten about my school?" asked Patty next morning, as Christie and the doctor were preparing to leave for town.

"Indeed, I haven't!" laughed the Bishop of All Outdoors. "School opens the first of September, and that's not very far away. But badly as we need you, somehow I feel that we are not going to get you."

"Why?" asked the girl in surprise.

"A whole lot may happen in ten days--and I've got a hunch that before that time you will have made your strike."

"I hope so!" she exclaimed fervidly. "I know I shall just hate to teach school--and I'd never do it, either, if I didn't need a grub-stake."

As she watched him ride away, Patty was joined by Mrs. Samuelson who stepped from the house and thrust her arm through hers. "My husband wants to meet you, my dear. He's so very much better this morning--quite himself. And I must warn you that that means he's rough as an old bear, apparently, although in reality he's got the tenderest heart in the world. He always puts his worst foot foremost with strangers--he may even swear."

Patty laughed: "I'm not afraid. You seem to have survived a good many years of him. He really can't be so terrible!"

"Oh, he's not terrible at all. Only, I know how much depends upon first impressions--and I do want you to like us."

Patty drew the old lady's arm about her waist and together they ascended the stairs: "I love you already, and although I have never met him I am going to love Mr. Samuelson, too--you see, I have heard a good deal about him here in the hills."

Entering the room, they advanced to the bed where a big-framed man with a white mustache and a stubble of gray beard lay propped up on pillows. Sickness had not paled the rich mahogany of the weather-seamed face, and the eyes that met Patty's from beneath their bushy brows were bright as a boy's. "Good morning! Good morning! So, you're Rod Sinclair's daughter, are you? An' a chip of the old block, by what mama's been tellin' me. I knew Rod well. He was a real prospector. Knew his business, an' went at it business fashion. Wasn't like most of 'em--makin' their rock-peckin' an excuse to get out of workin'. They tell me you ain't afraid to live alone in the hills, an'

ain't afraid to make a midnight ride to fetch the doc for an old long-horn like me. That's stuff! Didn't know they bred it east of the Mizoo. The ones mama an' I've seen around the theaters an' restaurants on our trips East would turn a man's stomach. Why, d.a.m.n it, young woman, if I ever caught a daughter of mine painted up like a Piute an' stripped to the waist smokin' cigarettes an' drinkin' c.o.c.ktails in a public restaurant, I'd peel the rest of her duds off an' turn her over my knee an' take a quirt to her, if she was forty!"

"Why, _papa_!"

"I would too--an' so would you!" Patty saw the old eyes twinkling with mischief, and she laughed merrily:

"And so would I," she agreed. "So there's no chance for any argument, is there?"

"We must go, now," reminded Mrs. Samuelson. "The doctor said you could not see any visitors yet. He made a special exception of Miss Sinclair, for just a few minutes."

"I wish you would call me Patty," smiled the girl. "Miss Sinclair sounds so--so formal----"

"Me, too!" exclaimed the invalid. "I'll go you one better, an' call you Pat----"

"If you do, I'll call you Pap--" laughed the girl.

"That's a trade! An' say, they tell me you live over in Watts's sheep camp. If you should happen to run across that reprobate of a Vil Holland, you tell him to come over here. I want to see him about----"

"There, now, papa--remember the doctor said----"

"I don't care what the doctor said! He's finished his job an' gone, ain't he? It's bad enough to have to do what he says when you're sick--but, I'm all right now, an' the quicker he finds out I didn't hire him for a guardian, the better it'll be all round. As I was goin'

to say, you tell Vil that Old Man Samuelson wants to see him _p.r.o.nto_.

Fall's comin' on, an' I'll have my hands full this winter with the horses. He's the only cowman in the hills I'd trust them white faces with, an' he's got to winter 'em for me. He's a natural born cowman an' there's big money in it after he gets a start. I'll give him his start. It's time he woke up, an' left off his d.a.m.ned rock-peckin', an'

settled down. If he keeps on long enough he'll have these hills whittled down as flat as North Dakota, an' the wind'll blow us all over into the sheep country. Now, Pat, can you remember all that?"

The girl turned in the doorway, and smiled into the bright old eyes: "Oh, yes, Pap, I'll tell him if I see him. Good-by!"

"Good-by, an' good luck to you! Come to see us often. We old folks get pretty lonesome sometimes--especially mama. You see, I've got all the best of it--I've got her, an' she's only got me!"

As Patty threaded the hills toward her cabin her thoughts followed the events of the past few days; the visit of Len Christie in the early morning, when he had inadvertently showed her how to read her father's map, the staking of the false claim, the visit to the Samuelson ranch, the horse raid, the finding of Vil Holland's glove and the bitter disappointment that followed, then the finding of the notice that disclosed the ident.i.ty of the real thief, and her genuine joy in the discovery, her visit to Holland's camp, and their long ride together.

"I tried to show him that all my distrust of him was gone, but he hardly seemed to notice--unless--I wonder what he _did_ mean about having a hunch that he would build that cabin before snow flies?"

For some time she rode in silence, then she burst out vehemently: "I don't care! I could love him--so there! I could just adore him! And I don't wonder everybody likes him. He seems always so--so capable--so confident. You just can't help liking him. If it weren't for that old jug! He had to drag that in, even up there when he stood on the spot where we first met--and then at the Samuelsons' he wouldn't even wait for dinner he was so crazy to get his old whisky jug filled. It never seems to hurt him any," she continued. "But n.o.body can drink as much as he does and not be hurt by it. I just know he meant that the cabin was going to be for me--or, did he know that Mr. Samuelson was going to ask him to winter the cattle? He's a regular cave man--I don't know whether I've been proposed to, or not!"

She crossed the trail for town and struck into a valley that should bring her out somewhere along the Watts fences. So engrossed was she in her thoughts that she failed to notice the horseman who slipped noiselessly into the scrub a quarter of a mile ahead. Slowly she rode up the valley: "If he comes to teach me how to shoot, I'll tell him that Mr. Samuelson wants to see him, and if he says any more about the cabin, or--or anything--I'll tell him he can choose between me and his jug. And, if he chooses the jug, and I don't find daddy's mine--it isn't long 'til school opens. I don't mind--he has to work to get his grub-stake, and so will I."

Her horse snorted and shied violently, and when Patty recovered her seat it was to find her way blocked by a horseman who stood not ten feet in front of her and leered into her eyes. The horseman was Monk Bethune--a malignant, terrifying Bethune, as he sat regarding her with his sneering smile. The girl's first impulse was to turn and fly, but as if divining her thoughts, the man pushed nearer, and she saw that his eyes gleamed horribly between lids drawn to slits. Had he discovered that she had tricked him with a false claim? If not why the glare of hate and the sneering smile that told plainer than words that he had her completely in his power, and knew it.

"So, my fine lady--we meet again! We have much to talk about--you and I. But, first, about the claim. You thought you were very wise with your lying about not having a map. You thought to save the whole loaf for yourself--you thought I was fool enough to believe you. If you had let me in, you would have had half--now you have nothing. The claim is all staked and filed, and the adjoining claims for a mile are staked with the stakes of my friends--and you have nothing! You were the fool! You couldn't have won against me. Failing in my story of partnership with your father, I had intended to marry you, and failing in that, I should have taken the map by force--for I knew you carried it with you. But I dislike violence when the end may be gained by other means, so I waited until, at last, happened the thing I knew would happen--you became careless. You left your precious map and photograph in plain sight upon your little table--and now you have nothing." So he had not discovered the deception, but, through accident or design, had seized this opportunity to gloat over her, and taunt her with her loss. His carefully a.s.sumed mask of suave courtliness had disappeared, and Patty realized that at last she was face to face with the real Bethune, a creature so degenerate that he boasted openly of having stolen her secret, as though the fact redounded greatly to his credit.

A sudden rage seized her. She touched her horse with the spur: "Let me pa.s.s!" she demanded, her lips white.

The man's answer was a sneering laugh, as he blocked her way: "Ho! not so fast, my pretty! How about the Samuelson horse raid--your part in it? Three of my best men are in h.e.l.l because you tipped off that raid to Vil Holland! How you found it out I do not know--but women, of a certain kind, can find out anything from men. No doubt Clen, in some sweet secret meeting place, poured the story into your ear, although he denies it on his life."

"What do you mean?"

"Ha! Ha! Injured innocence!" He leered knowingly into her flashing eyes: "It seems that everyone else knew what I did not. But, I am of a forgiving nature. I will not see you starve. Leave the others and come to me----"

"_You cur!_" The words cut like a swish of a lash, and again the man laughed:

"Oh, not so fast, you hussy! I must admit it rather piqued me to be bested in the matter of a woman--and by a soul-puncher. I was on hand early that morning, to spy upon your movements, as was my custom. I speak of the morning following the night that the very Reverend Christie spent with you in your cabin. I should not have believed it had I not seen his horse running unsaddled with your own. Also later, I saw you come out of the cabin together. Then I d.a.m.ned myself for not having reached out before and taken what was there for me to take."

With a low cry of fury, the girl drove her spurs into her horse's sides. The animal leaped against Bethune's horse, forcing him aside.

The quarter-breed reached swiftly for her bridle reins, and as he leaned forward with his arm outstretched, Patty summoned all her strength and, whirling her heavy braided rawhide quirt high above her head, brought it down with the full sweep of her muscular arm. The feel of the blow was good as it landed squarely upon the inflamed brutish face, and the shrill scream of pain that followed, sent a wild thrill of joy to the very heart of the girl. Again, the lash swung high, this time to descend upon the flank of her horse, and before Bethune could recover himself, the frenzied animal shot up the valley, running with every ounce there was in him.

The valley floor was fairly level, and a hundred yards away the girl shot a swift glance over her shoulder. Bethune's horse was getting under way in frantic leaps that told of cruel spurring, and with her eyes to the front, she bent forward over the horn and slapped her horse's neck with her gloved hand. She remembered with a quick gasp of relief that Bethune prided himself upon the fact that he never carried a gun. She had once taunted Vil Holland with the fact, and he had replied that "greasers and breeds were generally sneaking enough to be knife men." Again, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled grimly as she noted that the distance between the two flying horses had increased by half. "Good old boy," she whispered. "You can beat him--can 'run rings around him,' as Vil would say. It would be a long knife that could harm me now," she thought, as she pulled her Stetson tight against the sweep of the rushing wind. The ground was becoming more and more uneven. Loose rock fragments were strewn about in increasing numbers, and the valley was narrowing to an extent that necessitated frequent fording of the shallow creek. "He can't make any better time than I can," muttered the girl, as she noted the slackening of her horse's speed. She was riding on a loose rein, giving her horse his head, for she realized that to force him might mean a misstep and a fall. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the thoughts of a fall. A thousand times better had she fallen and been pounded to a pulp by the flying hoofs of the horse herd, than to fall now--and survive it. The ascent became steeper. Her horse was still running, but very slowly. His neck and shoulders were reeking with sweat, and she could hear the labored breath pumping through his distended nostrils.

A sudden fear shot through her. Nine valleys in every ten, she knew, ended in surmountable divides; and she knew, also, that one valley in every ten did not. Suppose this one that she had chosen at random terminated in a cul-de-sac? The way became steeper. Running was out of the question, and her horse was forging upward in a curious scrambling walk. A noise of clattering rocks sounded behind her, and Patty glanced backward straight into the face of Bethune. Reckless of a fall, in the blind fury of his pa.s.sion, the quarter-breed had forced his horse to his utmost, and rapidly closed up the gap until scarcely ten yards separated him from the fleeing girl.

In a frenzy of terror she lashed her laboring horse's flanks as the animal dug and clawed like a cat at the loose rock footing of the steep ascent. White to the lips she searched the foreground for a ravine or a coulee that would afford a means of escape. But before her loomed only the ever steepening wall, its surface half concealed by the scattering scrub. Once more she looked backward. The breath was whistling through the blood-red flaring nostrils of Bethune's horse, and her glance flew to the face of the man. Never in her wildest nightmares had she imagined the soul-curdling horror of that face. The lips writhed back in a hideous grin of hate. A long blue-red welt bisected the features obliquely--a welt from which red blood flowed freely at the corner of a swollen eye. White foam gathered upon the distorted lips and drooled down onto the chin where it mingled with the blood in a pink meringue that dripped in fluffy chunks upon his shirt front. The uninjured eye was a narrow gleam of venom, and the breath swished through the man's nostrils as from the strain of great physical labor.

"Oh, for my gun!" thought the girl. "I'd--I'd _kill_ him!" With a wild scramble her horse went down. "Vil! Vil!" she shrieked, in a frenzy of despair, and freeing herself from the floundering animal, she struggled to her feet and faced her pursuer with a sharp rock fragment upraised in her two hands.

Monk Bethune laughed--as the fiends must laugh in h.e.l.l. A laugh that struck a chill to the very heart of the girl. Her muscles went limp at the sound of it and she felt the strength ebbing from her body like sand from an upturned gla.s.s. The rock fragment became an insupportable weight. It crashed to the ground, and rolled clattering to Bethune's feet. He, too, had dismounted, and stood beside his horse, his fists slowly clenching and unclenching in gloating antic.i.p.ation. Patty turned to run, but her limbs felt numb and heavy, and she pitched forward upon her knees. With a slow movement of his hand, Bethune wiped the pink foam from his chin, examined it, snapped it from his fingers, cleansed them upon the sleeve of his shirt--and again, deliberately, he laughed, and started to climb slowly forward.

A rock slipped close beside the girl, and the next instant a voice sounded in her ear: "I don't reckon he's 'round yere, Miss. I hain't saw Vil this mo'nin'." Rifle in hand, Watts stepped from behind a scrub pine, and as his eyes fell upon Bethune, he stood fumbling his beard with uncertain fingers.

"He--he'll kill me!" gasped the girl.