Patty knew that her refusal to show the photograph could not fail to place her in an unfavorable position. Either she would appear to distrust this man whom she had no reason to distrust, or her action would be attributed to a selfish intention to keep the secret to herself, even though she knew she could only file one claim. The man's argument had been entirely reasonable—in fact, it seemed the sensible thing to do. Nevertheless, she did refuse, and refuse flatly: "I think, Mr. Bethune, that I would rather play a lone hand. You see, I started in on this thing alone, and I want to see it through—for the present, at least. After a while, if I find that I cannot succeed alone, I shall be glad of your assistance. I suppose you think me a fool, but it's a matter of pride, I guess."
Was it fancy, or did the black eyes flash a gleam of hate—a glitter of rage beneath their long up-curving lashes? And did the swarthy face flush a shade darker beneath its tan? Patty could not be sure, for the next moment he was speaking in a voice under perfect control: "I can well understand your feeling in the matter, Miss Sinclair, and I have nothing of reproach. I do think you are making a mistake. With Vil Holland knowing what he does of your father's operations, time may be a vital factor in the success of your undertaking. Let me caution you again against carrying the photograph upon your person."
"Oh, I keep that safely hidden where no one would ever think of searching for it," smiled the girl, and Bethune noted that her eyes involuntarily swept the cabin with a glance.
The man mounted: "I will no longer keep you from your work," he said. "I have arranged to spend the summer in the hills where I shall carry on some prospecting upon my own account. If I can be of any assistance to you—if you should need any advice, or help of any kind, a word will procure it. I shall stop in occasionally to see how you fare. Good-bye." He waved his hand and rode off down the creek where, in a cottonwood thicket he dismounted and watched the girl ride away in the opposite direction, noted that Lord Clendenning swung stealthily, into the trail behind her, and swinging into his saddle rode swiftly toward the cabin.
In his high notch in the hills, Vil Holland chuckled audibly, and catching up his horse, headed for his camp.
CHAPTER X
THE BISHOP OF ALL OUTDOORS
The days slipped into weeks, as Patty Sinclair, carefully and methodically traced valleys to their sources, and explored innumerable coulees and ravines that twisted and turned their tortuous lengths into the very heart of the hills. Rock ledges without number she scanned, many with deep cracks and fissures, and many without them. But not once did she find a ledge that could by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as the ledge of the photograph. Disheartened, but not discouraged, the girl would return each evening to her solitary cabin, eat her solitary meal, and throw herself upon her bunk to brood over the apparent hopelessness of her enterprise, or to read from the thumbed and tattered magazines of the dispossessed sheep herder. She rode, now, with a sort of dogged persistence. There was none of the wild thrill that, during the first days of her search, she experienced each time she topped a new divide, or entered a new valley.