"Spec' I'd ort to killed him," regretted the mountaineer, as he lowered the rifle, and gazed off down the valley, "but I hain't got no appetite fer diggin'."
CHAPTER XVIII
PATTY MAKES HER STRIKE
It was noon, one week from the day she had returned from the Samuelson ranch, and Patty Sinclair stood upon the high shoulder of a butte and looked down into a rock-rimmed valley. Her eyes roved slowly up and down the depression where the dark green of the scrub contrasted sharply with the crinkly buffalo grass, yellowed to spun gold beneath the rays of the summer sun.
She reached up and stroked the neck of her horse. "Just think, old partner, three days from now I may be teaching school in that horrid little town with its ratty hotel, and its picture shows, and its saloons, and you may be turned out in a pasture with nothing to do but eat and grow fat! If we don't find our claim to-day, or to-morrow, it's good-by hill country 'til next summer."
The day following her encounter with Bethune, Vil Holland had appeared, true to his promise, and instructed her in the use of her father's six-gun. At the end of an hour's practice, she had been able to kick up the dirt in close proximity to a tomato can at fifteen steps, and twice she had actually hit it. "That's good enough for any use you're apt to have for it," her instructor had approved. "The main thing is that you ain't afraid of it. An' remember," he added, "a gun ain't made to bluff with. Don't pull it on anyone unless you go through with it. Only short-horns an' pilgrims ever pull a gun that don't need wipin' before it's put back—I could show you the graves of several of 'em. I'm leavin' you some extry shells that you can shoot up the scenery with. Always pick out somethin' little to shoot at—start in with tin cans and work down to match-sticks. When you can break six match-sticks with six shots at ten steps in ten seconds folks will call you handy with a gun." He had made no mention of his trip to town, of his filing a homestead, or of their conversation upon the top of Lost Creek divide. When the lesson was finished, he had refused Patty's invitation to supper, mounted his horse, and disappeared up the ravine that led to the notch in the hills. Although neither had mentioned it, Patty somehow felt that he had heard from Watts of her encounter with Bethune. And now a week had passed and she had seen neither Vil Holland nor the quarter-breed. It had been a week of anxiety and hard work for the girl who had devoted almost every hour of daylight to the unraveling of her father's map. Simple as the directions seemed, her inability to estimate distances had proven a serious handicap. But by dogged perseverance, and much retracing of steps, and correcting of false leads, she finally stood upon the rim of the valley she judged to lie two miles east of the humpbacked butte that she had figured to be the inverted U of her father's map.
"If this isn't the valley, I'm through for this year," she said. "And I've got to-day and to-morrow to explore it." She wondered at her indifference—at her strange lack of excitement at this, the crucial moment of her long quest, even as she had wondered at her absence of fear, believing as she did, that Bethune was still in the hills. The feeling inspired by the outlaw had been a feeling of rage, rather than terror, and had rapidly crystallized in her outraged mind into an abysmal soul-hate. She knew that, should the man accost her again, she would kill him—and not for a single instant did she doubt her ability to kill him. Vaguely, as she stood looking out over the valley, she wondered if he were following her—if at that moment he were lying concealed, somewhere among the surrounding rocks or patches of scrub? Yet, she was conscious of no feeling of fear. She even attempted no concealment as, standing there upon the bare rock, she drew her father's map and photographs from her pocket and subjected them to a long and minute scrutiny. And then, still holding them in her hand, gazed once more over the valley. "To 'a,' to 'b,'" she repeated. "What is there that daddy would have designed as 'a,' and 'b?'" Suddenly, her glance became fixed upon a point up the valley that lay just within her range of vision. With puckered eyes and hat-brim drawn low upon her forehead, she stared steadily into the distance. She knew that she had never before seen this valley, and yet the place seemed, somehow, strangely familiar. With a low cry she bent over one of the photographs. Her hands trembled violently as her eyes once more flew to the valley. Yes, there it was, spread out before her just the way it was in the photograph—the rock-strewn ground—she could even identify the various rocks with the rocks in the picture. There was the lone tree, and the long rock wall, higher at its upper end, and—yes, she could just discern it—the zigzag crack in the rock ledge! Jamming the papers into her pocket she leaped into the saddle and dashed toward a fringe of scrub that marked the course of a coulee which led downward into the valley. Over its edge, and down its brush-choked course, slipping, sliding, scrambling, she urged her horse, reckless of safety, reckless of anything except that her weary, and at times it had seemed her hopeless, search was about to end. She had stood where her daddy had stood when he took that photograph—had seen with her own eyes—the jagged crack in the rock wall!
In the valley the going was better, and with quirt and spur she urged her horse to his best, her eyes on the lone pine tree. At the rock wall beyond, she pulled up sharply and stared at the jagged crevice that bisected it from top to bottom. It was the crevice of the photograph! Very deliberately she began at the top and traced its course to the bottom. She noted the scraggly, stunted pines that fringed the rim of the wall and that the crack started straight, and then zigzagged to the ground. Producing the "close up" photograph, she compared it with the reality before her—an entirely superfluous and needless act, for each minute detail of the spot at which she stared was indelibly engraved upon her memory. For hours on end, she had studied those photographs, and now—she laughed aloud, and the sound roused her to action. Slipping from the horse, she fumbled at the pack strings of the saddle and loosened the canvas bag. She reached into it, and stood erect holding a light hand-axe. Once more she consulted her map. "Stake l. c.," she read. "That's lode claim—and then that funny wiggly mark, and then the word center." Her brows drew together as she studied the ground. Suddenly her face brightened. "Why, of course!" she exclaimed. "That mark represents the crack, and daddy meant to stake the claim with the crack for the center. Well, here goes!" She vehemently attacked a young sapling, and ten minutes later viewed with pride her four roughly hacked stakes. Picking up one of them and the axe, she paced off her distance, and as she reached the first corner point, stared in surprise at the ground. The claim had already been staked! Eagerly she stooped to examine the bit of wood. It had evidently been in place for some time—how long, the girl could not tell. Long enough, though, for its surface to have become weather-grayed and discolored. "Daddy's stakes," she breathed softly, and as her fingers strayed over the surface two big tears welled into her eyes and trickled unheeded down her cheeks. "If he staked the claim, I wonder why he didn't file," she puzzled over the matter for a moment, and dismissed it. "I don't know why. But, anyway, the thing for me to do is to get in my own stakes—only, I'll file, just as soon as I can get to the register's office."