The horseman came suddenly into view a few yards distant, and the girl looked up into the black eyes of Monk Bethune.
"Well, well, my dear Miss Sinclair!" The quarter-breed's tone was one of glad surprise, as he dismounted and advanced, hat in hand. "This is indeed an unexpected pleasure. La, la, la, the luck of it! Shall we say, the romance? Hot and saddle-weary from a long ride, to come suddenly upon the fairest of ladies, at luncheon alone in the most charming of little valleys. It is a situation to be dreamed of. And, am I not to be asked to share your repast?"
Patty laughed. The light whimsicality of the man's mood amused her: "Yes, you may consider yourself invited."
"And be assured that I accept, that is, upon condition that I be allowed to contribute my just share toward the feast." As he talked, Bethune fumbled at his pack-strings, and brought forth a small canvas bag, from which he drew sandwiches of fried trout and bacon thrust between two slabs of doubtful looking baking-powder bread. "No dainty lunch prepared by woman's hand," he apologized, "but we of the hills, no matter how exotic or æsthetic our tastes may be, must of stern necessity descend to the common level of cowboys and offscourings in the matter of our eating. See, beside your own palatable food, this rough fare of mine presents an appearance unappetizing almost to repugnance."
"At least, it looks eminently satisfying," said Patty, eyeing the thick sandwiches.
"Satisfying, I grant you. Satisfying to the beast that is in man, in that it stays the pangs of hunger. So is the blood-dripping carcass of the fresh-killed calf satisfying to the wolf, and carrion satisfying to the buzzard. But, not at all satisfying to the unbestial ego—to the thing that makes man, man."
"You should have been a poet," smiled the girl. "But come, even poets must eat."
"God help the man who has no poetry in his soul—no imagination!" exclaimed Bethune, a trifle sententiously, thought the girl, as she resumed the chipping of her egg. "Imagination," the word hovered elusively in her brain—she had applied that word only recently to someone—oh, yes, the man whose habit it was to search her cabin. She smiled ever so slightly as she glanced sidewise at Bethune who was nibbling at one of his own sandwiches.
"Please try one of mine," she urged, "and there are some pickles, and an olive or two. I have loads of them at home, and really I believe I should like that other sandwich of yours. I haven't tasted fish for ages."
"Take it and welcome," smiled the man. "But do not deny yourself the pleasure of eating all the fish you want. Why, with a bent pin, a bit of thread, and housefly, you can catch yourself a mess of trout any morning without venturing a hundred yards from your own door. Monte's Creek is alive with them, and taken fresh from the water and fried to a crisp in butter, they make a breakfast fit for a king, or in the present instance, I should have said, a queen."