At the spring she paused in the act of filling her pail and stared at a mark in the mud at the edge of the tiny rill formed by the overflow from the catch basin. She leaned over and examined the mark more closely. It was the track of a bare foot. Then, for the first time in many days, the girl threw back her head and laughed. "Microby Dandeline!" she cried. "And I was picturing some skulking murderer lying in wait to pounce on me at the first opportunity. And here it was only poor little Microby who happened along, and with her natural curiosity pawed over everything in the cabin, and then decided it would be a grand stunt to cook herself a meal and eat it at my table—and I haven't the least doubt that she arrayed herself in one of my dresses when she did it." Patty hummed a light tune as, water pail in hand, she made her way up the path to the cabin. "Whee! but it's a relief to feel that I won't have to ride these hills peering behind every tree and rock for a lurking assassin. And I won't have to carry that horrid heavy old gun, either."
After breakfast she saddled her horse and headed up the ravine that she had followed upon the morning of her first ride. At the top of the divide she pulled up her horse and gazed downward at the little cabin. As before she was impressed by the startling distinctness with which each object was visible. "Anyway, I'm glad my window is not on this side," she muttered, as her eyes strayed to the ground at her horse's feet. For yards around, the buffalo grass had been trampled and pawed until scarcely a spear remained. "Here's where he watches me start out each morning, then he follows me until he's sure I'm well away from the valley, then he slips back and searches the cabin, and then takes up my trail again. The miserable sneak!" she cried, angrily. "If Mr. Thompson, and Watts, and that cowboy preacher knew what I knew about him, they wouldn't seem so impressed with him. Anyway," she added, defiantly, "Mr. Bethune and Lord Clendenning know him for what he is-and so do I."
It was in a very wrathful mood that she turned her horse's head and struck into the timber, being careful to avoid Vil Holland's camp by a wide margin. Crossing the timbered plateau, she topped a low divide and found herself at the head of a deep, rocky valley, whose course she could trace for miles as it wound in and out among the far hills. Giving her horse his head, she began the descent of the valley, scanning its sides carefully as the animal picked his way slowly among the rock fragments and patches of scrub timber that littered its floor. She had proceeded for perhaps an hour when, in passing the mouth of a ravine that slanted sharply into the hills, she was startled by a rattling of loose stones, and a horse and rider emerged almost directly into her path. The next moment Vil Holland raised the Stetson from his head and addressed her gravely: "Good mornin' Miss Sinclair, I sure didn't mean to come out on you sudden, that way, but Buck slipped on the rocks an' we come mighty near pilin' up."
"It is about the first slip you've made, isn't it?" Patty answered, acidly. "Possibly if you'd left your jug at home you wouldn't have made that."
"Oh no. We've slipped before. Fact is, we've been into about every kind of a jack-pot the hills can deal. We rolled half way down a mountain once, an' barrin' a little skinnin' up, we come out of it all to the good. But it ain't the jug. Buck don't drink. It's surprisin' what a good habited horse he is. He's a heap better'n most folks." The man spoke gravely, with no hint of sarcasm in his tone, and Patty sniffed. He appeared not to notice. "How you comin' on with the prospectin'? Found yer dad's claim yet?"
"You ought to know whether I have or not," she retorted, hotly.
"That's so. If you had, you wouldn't still be huntin' it, would you?"
"No. And if I had, I'd have had a nice little race on my hands to file it, wouldn't I?"
"Well, I expect maybe you would. But that horse of yours is pretty handy on his feet. Used to belong to Bob Smith—that's his brand—that KN on the left shoulder."
"Yes," answered the girl, meaningly. "I understand there is only one horse in the hills that could outrun him."