lled 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