What was it they had said at Thompson's about Mr. Bethune? Despite herself she had approved the outlandishly dressed preacher with the smiling blue eyes. He was so big, and so wholesome! "The Bishop of All Outdoors," Thompson had called him. She liked that—and somehow the name seemed to fit. Looking into those eyes no one could doubt his sincerity—his every word, his every motion spoke unbounded enthusiasm for his work. What was it he had said? "Do you know, Tom, I believe there's a bad Injun." And Thompson had referred to Bethune as "a pretty slick article." Surely, Thompson, whole-souled, generous Thompson, would not malign a man. Here were two men whom the girl knew instinctively she could trust, who stood four-square with the world, and whose opinions must carry weight. And both had spoken with suspicion of Bethune and both had spoken of Vil Holland as one of themselves. "I don't understand it," she muttered. "Everybody seems to be against Mr. Bethune, and everybody seems to like Vil Holland, in spite of his jug, and his gun, and his boorishness. Maybe it's because Mr. Bethune's a—a breed," she speculated. "Why, they even hinted that he's a—a horse-thief. It isn't fair to despise him for his Indian blood. Why should he be made to suffer because his grandmother was an Indian—the daughter of a Cree chief? It sounds interesting and romantic. The people of some of our very best families point with pride to the fact that they are descendants of Pocahontas! Poor fellow, everybody seems down on him—everybody that is, but Ma Watts and Microby. And, as a matter of fact, he appears to better advantage than any of them, not excepting the very militant and unorthodox 'Bishop of All Outdoors.'"
The result of the girl's cogitations left her exactly where she started. She was no nearer the solution of her problem of the hills. And her lurking doubt of Bethune still remained despite the excuses she invented to account for his unpopularity, nor had her opinion of Vil Holland been altered in the least.
Upon arriving at her cabin she was not at all surprised to find that it had been thoroughly searched, albeit with less care than the searcher had been in the habit of bestowing upon the readjustment of the various objects of the room exactly as she had left them. Canned goods and dishes were disarranged upon their shelves, and the loose section of floor board beneath her bunk that had evidently served as the secret cache of the sheep herder, had been fitted clumsily into its place. The evident boldness, or carelessness of this latest outrage angered her as no previous search had done. Heretofore each object had been returned to its place with painstaking accuracy so that it had been only through the use of fine-spun cobwebs and carefully arranged bits of dust that she had been able to verify her suspicion that the room had really been searched—and there had been times when even the dust and the cobwebs had been replaced. Whoever had been searching the cabin had proven himself a master of detail, and had at least, paid her the compliment of possessing imagination, and a shrewdness equaling his own. Was it possible that the searcher, emboldened by her repeated failure to spy upon him at his work, had ceased to care whether or not she knew of his visits? The girl recalled the three weary days she had spent watching from the hillside. And how she had decided to buy a lock for her door, until the futility of it had been brought home to her by the discovery that her trunks were being searched along with her other belongings, and their locks left in perfect condition. So far, he might well scorn her puny attempts at discovery. Or, had a new factor entered the game? Had someone of cruder mold undertaken to discover her secret? The thought gave her a decided uneasiness. Tired out by her trip, she did not light the fire, and after disposing of the cold lunch Mrs. Thompson had put up for her, affixed the bar, and went to bed, with her six-gun within reach of her hand.
For a long time she lay in the darkness, thinking. "The way it was before, I haven't been in any physical danger. Mr. Vil Holland knows that if what he is searching for is not here I must carry it on my person. The obvious way to get it would be to take it away from me. Of course the only way he could do that without my seeing him would be to kill me. He hesitates at murder. Either there are depths of moral turpitude into which he will not descend—or, he fears the consequences. He has imagination. He assumes that sometime I'll leave that packet at home—either through carelessness, or because I have learned its contents by heart and don't need it. In the meantime, in addition to his patient searching of the cabin, he is taking no chances, and while he waits for the inevitable to happen he is following me so if I do succeed in locating the claim, he can beat me to the register. It's a pretty game—no violence—only patience and brains. But this other," she shuddered, "there is something positively brutal in the crude awkwardness of his work. If he thinks I carry what he wants with me, would he hesitate at murder? I guess I'll have to carry that gun again—and I better practice with it, too. If I can only get rid of this last one, I believe I've got a scheme for catching the other!" She sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh, if I only could! If I could only beat him at his own game—and I believe I can!" For several minutes she sat thinking rapidly, and as she lay back upon her pillow, she smiled.
CHAPTER XI
LORD CLENDENNING GETS A DUCKING
Patty awoke at dawn and dressed hurriedly. Shivering in the chill air, she lighted a match and pushed back a lid of the little cast iron cook stove. Instead of the "cold fire" of neatly arranged wood and kindlings that she had built before leaving for town a pile of gray ashes and blackened ends of charcoal greeted her.
"Whoever it was knew he had plenty of time at his disposal so he helped himself to a meal," she muttered angrily. "He might, at least, have cut me some kindlings. I'm surprised that he had the good grace to wash up his dirty dishes." A few moments later, as the fire crackled merrily in the stove, she picked up the water pail and stepping through the door, threw back her head and breathed deeply of the crisp mountain air. "Oh, it's wonderful just to be alive!" she whispered. "Even if everybody is against you. It's just like a great big game and, oh, I want to win! I've got to win!" she added, grimly, as her thoughts flew to her depleted bank account.