Patty's answers became shorter as her attention centered upon a horseman who was negotiating the descent of what looked like an impossibly steep ridge.
"That's Buck!" exclaimed Microby Dandeline, as she followed the girl's gaze. The rider completed the descent of the ridge with an abrupt slide that obscured him in a cloud of dust from which he emerged to approach the trail at a swinging trot. Long before he was near enough for Patty to distinguish his features, she recognized him as her lone horseman of the hills. "If it is his intention to presume upon our chance meeting," she thought, "I'll——" The threat was unexpressed even in thought, but her lips tightened and she flushed hotly as she remembered how he had picked her up as though she had been a child and placed her in the saddle.
"Who did you say he is?" she asked, with a glance toward the girl at her side.
"He's Vil Holland, an' his hoss's name is Buck. I like him, only sometimes he chases me home."
"Vil Holland!" she exclaimed aloud, and her lips pressed tighter. So this man was Vil Holland—that Vil Holland, everybody called him. The man who had chased an inoffensive sheep herder from the range, and whose name stood for lawlessness in the hill country! So Aunt Rebecca's allusion to desperate characters had not been so far-fetched, after all. He looked the part. Patty's glance took in the vivid blue scarf with its fastening of polished buffalo horn, the huge revolver that swung in its holster, and the brown leather jug that dangled from the horn of his saddle.
"Good-mornin'!" He drew up beside the trail, and the girl reined in her horses, flushing slightly as she did so—she had meant to drive past without speaking. She acknowledged the greeting with a formal bow. The man ignored the frigidity.
"I see you found Watts's all right."
"Yes, thank you."
"Well, if there ain't Microby Dandeline! An' rigged out for who throw'd the chunk! Goin' to town to take in the picture show, an all the sights, I expect."
"We're goin' to the hotel," explained the girl proudly.