shells that you can shoot
up the scenery with. Always pick out somethin' little to shoot
at--start in with tin cans and work down to match-sticks. When you can
break six match-sticks with six shots at ten steps in ten seconds
folks will call you handy with a gun." He had made no mention of his
trip to town, of his filing a homestead, or of their conversation upon
the top of Lost Creek divide. When the lesson was finished, he had
refused Patty's invitation to supper, mounted his horse, and
disappeared up the ravine that led to the notch in the hills. Although
neither had mentioned it, Patty somehow felt that he had heard from
Watts of her encounter with Bethune. And now a week had passed and she
had seen neither Vil Holland nor the quarter-breed. It had been a week
of anxiety and hard work for the girl who had devoted almost every
hour of daylight to the unraveling of her father's map. Simple as the
directions seemed, her inability to estimate distances had proven a
serious handicap. But by dogged perseverance, and much retracing of
steps, and correcting of false leads, she finally stood upon the rim
of the valley she judged to lie two miles east of the humpbacked butte
that she had figured to be the inverted U of her father's map.

"If this isn't the valley, I'm through for this year," she said. "And
I've got to-day and to-morrow to explore it." She wondered at her
indifference--at her strange lack of excitement at this, the crucial
moment of her long quest, even as she had wondered at her absence of
fear, believing as she did, that Bethune was still in the hills. The
feeling inspired by the outlaw had been a feeling of rage, rather than
terror, and had rapidly crystallized in her outraged mind into an
abysmal soul-hate. She knew that, should the man accost her again, she
would kill him--and not for a single instant did she doubt her ability
to kill him. Vaguely, as she stood looking out over the valley, she
wondered if he were following her--if at that moment he were lying
concealed, somewhere among the surrounding rocks or patches of scrub?
Yet, she was conscious of no feeling of fear. She even attempted no
concealment as, standing there upon the bare rock, she drew her
father's map and photographs from her pocket and subjected them to a
long and minute scrutiny. And then, still holding them in her hand,
gazed once more over the valley. "To 'a,' to 'b,'" she repeated. "What
is there that daddy would have designed as