"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 pronto. 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 damned 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 identity 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 nobody 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.