Bethune turned to the girl. "You have examined his effects. Was there evidence of their having been tampered with?"

"I'm sure I don't know. If he left any papers or maps or things like that in there it most certainly has been tampered with, for they are not there now."

The man smiled. "I think we are safe in a.s.suming that there were no maps or papers of value in the outfit. Your father was far too shrewd to have left anything of the sort to the tender mercies of Vil Holland. By cutting the pack Vil merely gave evidence of his unscrupulous methods without in any way profiting by it. And, as for the map and photographs in your possession, I should advise you to find some good hiding place for them and not trust to carrying them about upon your person." Swiftly Patty glanced at the speaker. That last injunction, somehow, did not ring quite true. But he had turned to the door, and a moment later when he faced her to bid her adieu, the boyish smile was again curling his lips, and he mounted and rode away.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE CABIN

For a long time after the departure of her visitors, Patty Sinclair sat thinking. Was it true, all this man had told her? She remembered vividly the beautiful tribute he had paid her father and the emotion that had gripped him as he finished. Surely his words rang true. They were true, or else the man was a consummate actor as well as an unscrupulous knave. She recalled the boyish smile, the story of Lord Clendenning's terrible journey, and the impatience with which he had silenced the Englishman's self-criticism. What would be more natural than that two men thrown together in the middle of the hill country, as her father and Bethune had been thrown together, should have pooled their interests, especially if each possessed an essential that the other did not. There had been somehow a sincerity about the man that carried conviction. She liked his ready admission that her father's knowledge of mining greatly exceeded his own. And the a.s.sertion that he had advanced sums of money for the carrying on of the work sounded plausible enough, for the girl knew that her father's income had been small--pitiably small, but enough, he had always insisted, for his meager needs. Unquestionably, up to that point the man's words had carried the ring of truth. Then came the false notes; the open accusation of Vil Holland, and the warning as to the concealment of the map and photos which she had twice purposely refused to admit that she possessed. This was the second time he had gone out of his way to warn her against Vil Holland. On occasion of their previous meeting, he had hinted that Holland might pose as a friend of her father--a pose Bethune, himself, boldly a.s.sumed. Perhaps Vil Holland had been a friend of her father. In the matter of the pack sack, to whom would a man intrust his belongings, if not to a friend? Surely not to an enemy, nor to one he had reason to suspect. And now Bethune openly accused him of cutting the pack sack, and intimated that he would not hesitate to rob her of her secret.

For a long time she sat with her elbow on the table and her chin resting in her palm, staring out at the overshadowing hills. "If there was only somebody," she muttered. "Somebody I could--" Suddenly she leaped to her feet. "No, I'm glad there isn't! I'll play the game alone! I came out here to do it, and I'll do it, in spite of forty Vil Hollands, and Bethunes, and Lord Clendennings! I'll find the mine myself--and I'll call it a mine, too, if I want to! And then, after I find it, if Mr. Monk Bethune can show me that he is ent.i.tled to a share in it, I'll give it to him--and not before. I'll stay right here till I find it, or till my money gives out, and when it does, I'll earn some more and come back again till that's gone!" Crossing the room, she stamped determinedly out the door, threw the saddle onto her cayuse, and rode rapidly down the creek. Horseback riding always exhilarated her, even back home where she had been obliged to keep to roads, or the well-worn courses of the hunt club. But here in the hills where the very air was a tonic that sent the blood coursing through her veins, and where tier after tier, the mighty mountains rolled away into the distance, as if flaunting a challenge to come and explore their secrets, and unscarred valleys gave glimpses of alluring vistas, the exhilaration amounted almost to intoxication. As her horse's feet thudded the ground, and splashed in and out of the shallows of the creek, she laughed aloud for the very joy of living.

She pulled her horse to a walk as she skirted the fence of Watts's upper pasture, and her eyes rested with approval upon the straightened posts and taut wire. "At last Mr. Watts has bestirred himself. I hope he will keep on, now, that he's got the habit, and fix up the rest of the ranch. I wonder why that Vil Holland disapproved when he mentioned that he had leased his pasture. It seems as though nothing can happen in this country unless Vil Holland is mixed up in it someway. And, now I'm down this far, I'll just find out whether Vil Holland did take that pack down here for daddy. And if he did I'll let him know mighty quick, the next time I see him, that I know all about it's being cut open."

With her tubs on a bench, and the baby propped and tied securely in an old wooden rocker, Ma Watts was up to her elbows in her "week's worsh." Watts sat in his accustomed place, his chair tilted against the shady side of the house. "Laws sakes, ef hit hain't Mr. Sinclair's darter!" cried the woman, shaking the suds from her bare arms, "How be yo', honey? An' how's the sheep camp? Microby Dandeline tellen us how yo'-all scrubbed, an' sc.r.a.ped, an' cleaned 'til hit shined like a n.i.g.g.e.r's heel. Hit's nice to be clean, that-a-way ef yo' got time, but with five er six young-uns to take keer of, an' a pa.s.sel of chickens a-runnin' in under foot all day, seems like a body cain't keep clean nohow. Microby says how yo' got a rale curtin' in yo' winder, an' all kinds of pert doin' an' fixin's. That's. .h.i.t, git right down off yer horse. Land! I wus so busy hearin' 'bout yo' fixin' up the sheep camp, thet I plumb fergot my manners. Watts, get a cheer! An' 'pears like yo' could say 'Howdy' when anyone comes a visitin'."

"I aimed to," mumbled Watts apologetically, as he dragged a chair from the kitchen, "I wus jest a-aidgin' 'round fer a chanct."

"I can't stay but a minute, see, the shadows are already half way across the valley. I just thought I'd take a little ride before supper."

"Law, yes, some folks likes to ride hossback, but fer me, I'd a heap ruther go in a jolt wagon. Beats all the dif'fence in folks. Seems like the folks out yere jist take to hit nachel. Yo' be'n huntin' yo'

pa's location yet?"

"No, I've been getting things in shape around the cabin. I'm going to start prospecting to-morrow." She glanced back along the valley, "I suppose my father came along this way when he left his pack on his way East," she said.

"No, mom," Watts rubbed his chin, reflectively. "Hit wus Vil Holland brung in his pack. Seems like yo' pa wus in a right smart of a hurry when he left, so Vil taken his pack down yere an' me an' the boys put hit in the barn fer to keep hit saft. Then Vil he rud on down the crick, h.e.l.l bent fer 'lection----"

"Watts! Hain't yo' shamed a-cussin'?" cried his scandalized spouse.

"Why was he in such a hurry?" asked the girl.

"I dunno. He jes' turned the mewl loost an' says to keep the pack till yo' pa come back, an' larruped off."

Patty rose from the chair and gathered up her bridle reins. "I must be going, really. You see, I've got my ch.o.r.es to do, and supper to get, and I want to go to bed early so I'll be fresh in the morning." She mounted, and turned to Ma Watts: "Can't you come up some day and bring the children? I'd love to have you. Let's arrange the day now, so I will be sure to be home."

"Lawzie, I'd give a purty! Listen at thet, now, Watts. Cain't we fix to go?"

Watts fumbled his beard: "Why, yas, I reckon, some day, mebbe."

"What day can you come?" asked Patty.

"Well, le's see, this yere's about a Tuesday." He paused, glanced up at the sky, and gave careful scrutiny to the horizon. "How'd Sunday a week suit yo'--ef hit don't rain?"

"Fine," agreed the girl, smiling. "And, by the way, I came down past the upper pasture. The fence looks grand. It didn't take long to fix it, did it?"

"Well, hit tuk quite a spell--all day yeste'day, an' up 'til noon to-day. We only got one side an' halft another done, an' they's two sides an' a halft yet. But Mr. Bethune came by this noon, him an'

Lord, an' 'lowed he worn't in no gret hurry fer hit, causen he heerd from Schultz thet the hoss business 'ud haf to wait over a spell----"

"An' Lord, he come down an' boughten a lot of aigs offen me. Him an'

Mr. Bethune is both got manners."

"Women folks likes 'em better'n what men does, seems like," opined Watts, reflectively.

"Why don't men like them?" asked the girl eagerly.

"I dunno. Seems like they jes' nach.e.l.ly mistrust 'em someways."

"Did my father like him--Mr. Bethune?"

"'Cordin' to Mr. Bethune they wus gret buddies, but when I'd run acrost yo' pa in the hills, 'pears like he wus allus alone er elsen Vil Holland was along. But, Mr. Bethune claims he set a heap by yo'

pa, like the time he come an' 'lowed to take away his pack. I wouldn't let hit go, 'cause thet hain't the way Vil said, an' Mr. Bethune, he started in to git mad, but then he laffed, an' said hit didn't make no diff'ence, 'cause all he wanted wus to be sh.o.r.e hit wus saft kep."

"An' Pa mos' hed to shoot him, though, 'fore he laffed. I done tol' Pa he hadn't ort to. Lessen yo' runnin' a still, yo' hain't no call to shoot folks comin' 'round."

"Shoot him!" exclaimed Patty, staring in surprise at the easy-going Watts.

"Yas, he aimed to take thet pack anyways. So I went in an' got down the ol' rifle-gun an' pintedly tole him I'd shoot him dead ef he laid holt o' thet pack, an' then he laffed an' rud off."

"But, would you have shot him, really?"

"Yas," answered the mountaineer, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I'd of hed to."

Patty rode home slowly and in silence--thinking. And that evening, by the light of her coal-oil lamp she puzzled over the roughly sketched map with its cryptic signs and notations. There were a half-dozen samples, too--chips of rough, heavy rock that didn't look a bit like gold. "High grade," her daddy had called them as he babbled incessantly upon his death-bed. But they looked dull and unpromising to the girl as they lay upon the table. She returned to the sketch.

With the exception of a single small dot, placed beside what was evidently the princ.i.p.al creek of the locality, the map consisted only of lines and shadings which evidently indicated creeks and mountains--no cross, no letter, no number--nothing to indicate landmark or location, only a confusing network of creeks and feeders branching out like the limbs of a tree. Along the bottom of the paper the girl read the following line:

"SC 1 S1 1/2 E 1 S [up arrow] to [union symbol] 2 W to a. to b. stake L.C.

[zigzag symbol] centre."

"I suppose that was all clear as daylight to daddy, and maybe it would be to anyone who is used to maps, but as for doing me any good, he might as well have copied a line from the Chinese dictionary."

She stared hopelessly at the unintelligible line, and then at the two photographs. One, taken evidently from a point well up the side of a hill, showed a narrow valley, flanked upon the opposite side by a high rock wall. Toward the upper end of the wall an irregular crack or cleft split it from top to bottom. The other was a "close up" taken at the very base of the cleft, and showed only the narrow aperture in the rock, and the ground at its base. For a long time she sat studying the photographs, memorizing every feature and line of them; the conformation of the valley, the contour of the rock wall, the position and shapes of the trees and rock fragments. "That must be the mine,"

she concluded, at length, "right there at the bottom of that crack."

She closed her eyes and conjured a mental picture of the little valley, of the rock wall, and of the cleft that would mark the location. "I'd know it if I should see it," she muttered, "let's see: big broken rocks strewn along the floor of the valley, and a tiny creek, and then the rock cliff, it must be about as high as--about twice as tall as the trees that grow along the foot of it, and it's highest at the upper end, then there's a big tree standing alone almost in the middle of the valley, and the gnarled, scraggly trees that grow along the top of the rocks, and the valley must be as wide as from here to that clump of trees beyond my wood-pile--about a block, I guess. And there's the big crack in the cliff that starts straight," she traced the course of the crack with her finger upon the table top, "and then zigzags to the ground." Her glance returned to the map, and she frowned. "I don't think that's a bit of good to me.

But I don't care as long as I have the photographs. I'll just ride, and ride, and ride through these hills till I find that valley, and then--" The little clock on the shelf beside the mirror ticked loudly.

Her thoughts strayed far beyond the confines of the little cabin on Monte's Creek, as she planned how she would spend the golden stream that was to flow from the foot of the rock ledge.

Gradually her vision became confused, the incessant ticking of the little clock sounded farther, and farther away, her head settled to rest upon her folded arms, and she was in the midst of a struggle of some kind, in which a belted cowboy and a suave, sloe-eyed quarter-breed were fighting to gain possession of her mine--or, were they trying to help her locate it? And what was it daddy was trying to tell her? She couldn't quite hear. She wished he would talk louder--but it was something about the mine, and the men who were struggling.... She awoke with a start, and glanced swiftly about the cabin. The roots of her hair along the back of her neck tingled uncomfortably. She felt she was not alone--that somewhere eyes were watching her. The chintz curtain that screened the open window swayed lightly in the night breeze and she jumped nervously. "I'm a perfect fool!" she exclaimed, aloud: "As if any 'Jack the Peeper' would be prowling around these mountains! It's just nerves, that's all it is."

Slipping the map and the photographs beneath a plate, she crossed to the door and made sure the bar was in place, took the white b.u.t.ted revolver from its holster, and with a determined tightening of the lips, stepped to the window, drew the curtain aside, and stood peering out into the dark. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock, and the purling of the water as it rushed among the stones of the shallow ford. Overhead the stars winked brightly, in sharp contrast to the velvet blackness of the pines. The sound of the water soothed her, and she laughed--a forced little laugh, but it made her feel better.

Crossing to the table she blew out the lamp and, placing her revolver at the head of her bunk, undressed in the darkness. She raised the plate, took the map and the two precious photographs, placed them in their envelope, and slipped the chain about her neck.

For a long time she lay between her blankets, wide awake, conscious that she was straining her ears to catch some faint sound. A half dozen times she caught herself listening with nerves on edge and muscles taut, and each time forced herself to relax. But always she came back to that horrible, tense listening. She charged herself with cowardice, and pooh-poohed her fears, but it was no use, and she wound up by covering her head with her blanket. "I don't care, there _was_ somebody watching, but if he thinks he's going to find out where I keep these," her hand clutched the little oiled packet, "he'll have to come again, that's all."

It was nearly an hour later that Monk Bethune quitted his post close against the cabin wall, at the point where the c.h.i.n.king had fallen away from the logs, and slipped silently into the timber.