olks wear 'em in town?"

"Why, because it is nicer, and--and people couldn't very well go
around barefooted."

"I kin. I like to 'cept fer the prickly pears. Is they prickly pears
in town?" Without waiting far a reply the girl chattered on, as she
placed the offending stockings within her shoes and tossed them back
upon the hay with which the wagon-box was filled. "I like to ride,
don't you? We've got to ride all day an' then we'll git to town. We
goin' to sleep in under the wagon?"

"Certainly not! We will go to the hotel."

"The hotel," breathed the girl, rapturously. "An' kin we eat there
too?"

"Yes, we will eat there, too."

"An' kin I go to the store with yo'?"

"Yes."

Patty's answers became shorter as her attention centered upon a
horseman who was negotiating the descent of what looked like an
impossibly steep ridge.

"That's Buck!" exclaimed Microby Dandeline, as she followed the girl's
gaze. The rider completed the descent of the ridge with an abrupt
slide that obscured him in a cloud of dust from which he emerged to
approach the trail at a swinging trot. Long before he was near enough
for Patty to distinguish his features, she recognized him as her lone
horseman of the hills. "If it is his intention to presume upon our
chance meeting," she thought, "I'll----" The threat was unexpressed
even in thought, but her lips tightened and she flushed hotly as she
remembered how he had picked her up as though she had been a child and
placed her in the saddle.

"Who did you say he is?" she asked, with a glance toward the girl at
her side.

"He's Vil Holland, an' his hoss's name is Buck. I like him, only
sometimes he chases me home."

"Vil Holland!" she exclaimed aloud, and her lips pressed tighter. So
this man was Vil Holland--_that_ Vil Holland, everybody called him.
The man who had chased an inoffensive sheep herder from the range, and
whose name stood for lawlessness in the hill country! So Aunt
Rebecca's allusion to desperate characters had not been so
far-fetched, after all. He looked the part. Patty's glance took in the
vivid blue scarf with its fastening of polished buffalo horn, the huge
revolver that swung in its holster, and the brown leather jug that
dangled from the horn of his saddle.

"Good-mornin'!" He drew up beside the trail, and the girl reined in
her horses, flushing slightly as she did so--she had meant to drive
past without speaking. She acknowledged the greeting with a formal
bow