"Hasn't he? Then possibly you can tell me who has?"
"The scoundrel! And when you discover the lode he'll wait 'til you have set your stakes and posted your notice, and have gotten out of sight, and then he'll drive in his own stakes, stick up his own notice beside them and beat you to the register."
Patty laughed: "Race me, you mean. He won't beat me. Remember, I shall have at least a half-hour's start."
"A half-hour!" exclaimed Bethune. "And what is a half-hour in a fifty-mile race against that buckskin. Why, my dear girl, with all due respect for that horse of yours, Vil Holland's horse could give you two hours' start and beat you to the railroad."
"Maybe," smiled the girl. "But he's going to have to do it—that is, if I ever locate the lode."
"Ah, that is the point, exactly. It is that that brings me here. Not that alone," he hastened to add. "For I would ride far any day to spend a few moments with so charming a lady—and indeed, I should not have delayed my visit this long but for some urgent business to the northward. At all events, I'm here, and here I shall stay until, together, we have solved our mystery of the hills."
The girl glanced into the face alight with boyish enthusiasm, and felt irresistibly impelled to take this man into her confidence—to enlist his help in the working out of her unintelligible map, and to admit him to full partnership in her undertaking. There would be enough for both if they succeeded in uncovering the lode. Her father had intended that he should share in his mine. She recalled his eulogy of her father, and his frank admission that there had been no agreement of partnership. If anyone ever had the appearance of perfect sincerity and candor this man had. She remembered her seriously depleted bank account. Bethune had money, and in case the search should prove long—Suddenly the words of Vil Holland flashed into her brain with startling abruptness: "Remember yer dad knew enough to play a lone hand." And again. "Did yer dad tell you about this partnership?" And the significant emphasis he placed upon the "Oh," when she had answered in the negative.
Bethune evidently had taken her silence for assent. He was speaking again: "The first thing to do is to find the starting point on the map and work it out step by step, then when we locate the lode, you and Clen and I will file the first three claims, and we'll file all the Wattses on the adjoining claims. That will give us absolute control of a big block of what is probably a most valuable property."
Again Bethune had referred directly to the map which she had never admitted she possessed. He had not said, "If you have a map." The man's assumption angered her: "You still persist in assuming that I have a map," she answered. "As a matter of fact, I'm depending entirely upon a photograph. I am riding blindly through the hills trying to find the spot that tallies with the picture."
Bethune frowned and shook his head doubtfully: "You might ride the hills for years, and pass the spot a dozen times and never recognize it. If you do not happen to strike the exact view-point you might easily fail to recognize it. Then, too, the landscape changes with the seasons of the year. However," his face brightened and the smile returned to his lips; "we have at least something to go on. We are not absolutely in the dark. Who knows? If the goddess of luck sits upon our shoulders, I myself may know the place well—may recognize it instantly! For years I have ridden these hills and I flatter myself that no one knows their hidden nooks and byways better than I. Even if I should not know the exact spot, it may be that I can tell by the general features its approximate locality, and thus limit our search to a comparatively small area."