Part 9 (1/2)
Bethune turned to the girl. ”You have examined his effects. Was there evidence of their having been tampered with?”
”I'm sure I don't know. If he left any papers or maps or things like that in there it most certainly has been tampered with, for they are not there now.”
The man smiled. ”I think we are safe in a.s.suming that there were no maps or papers of value in the outfit. Your father was far too shrewd to have left anything of the sort to the tender mercies of Vil Holland. By cutting the pack Vil merely gave evidence of his unscrupulous methods without in any way profiting by it. And, as for the map and photographs in your possession, I should advise you to find some good hiding place for them and not trust to carrying them about upon your person.” Swiftly Patty glanced at the speaker. That last injunction, somehow, did not ring quite true. But he had turned to the door, and a moment later when he faced her to bid her adieu, the boyish smile was again curling his lips, and he mounted and rode away.
CHAPTER VII
IN THE CABIN
For a long time after the departure of her visitors, Patty Sinclair sat thinking. Was it true, all this man had told her? She remembered vividly the beautiful tribute he had paid her father and the emotion that had gripped him as he finished. Surely his words rang true. They were true, or else the man was a consummate actor as well as an unscrupulous knave. She recalled the boyish smile, the story of Lord Clendenning's terrible journey, and the impatience with which he had silenced the Englishman's self-criticism. What would be more natural than that two men thrown together in the middle of the hill country, as her father and Bethune had been thrown together, should have pooled their interests, especially if each possessed an essential that the other did not. There had been somehow a sincerity about the man that carried conviction. She liked his ready admission that her father's knowledge of mining greatly exceeded his own. And the a.s.sertion that he had advanced sums of money for the carrying on of the work sounded plausible enough, for the girl knew that her father's income had been small--pitiably small, but enough, he had always insisted, for his meager needs. Unquestionably, up to that point the man's words had carried the ring of truth. Then came the false notes; the open accusation of Vil Holland, and the warning as to the concealment of the map and photos which she had twice purposely refused to admit that she possessed. This was the second time he had gone out of his way to warn her against Vil Holland. On occasion of their previous meeting, he had hinted that Holland might pose as a friend of her father--a pose Bethune, himself, boldly a.s.sumed. Perhaps Vil Holland had been a friend of her father. In the matter of the pack sack, to whom would a man intrust his belongings, if not to a friend? Surely not to an enemy, nor to one he had reason to suspect. And now Bethune openly accused him of cutting the pack sack, and intimated that he would not hesitate to rob her of her secret.
For a long time she sat with her elbow on the table and her chin resting in her palm, staring out at the overshadowing hills. ”If there was only somebody,” she muttered. ”Somebody I could--” Suddenly she leaped to her feet. ”No, I'm glad there isn't! I'll play the game alone! I came out here to do it, and I'll do it, in spite of forty Vil Hollands, and Bethunes, and Lord Clendennings! I'll find the mine myself--and I'll call it a mine, too, if I want to! And then, after I find it, if Mr. Monk Bethune can show me that he is ent.i.tled to a share in it, I'll give it to him--and not before. I'll stay right here till I find it, or till my money gives out, and when it does, I'll earn some more and come back again till that's gone!” Crossing the room, she stamped determinedly out the door, threw the saddle onto her cayuse, and rode rapidly down the creek. Horseback riding always exhilarated her, even back home where she had been obliged to keep to roads, or the well-worn courses of the hunt club. But here in the hills where the very air was a tonic that sent the blood coursing through her veins, and where tier after tier, the mighty mountains rolled away into the distance, as if flaunting a challenge to come and explore their secrets, and unscarred valleys gave glimpses of alluring vistas, the exhilaration amounted almost to intoxication. As her horse's feet thudded the ground, and splashed in and out of the shallows of the creek, she laughed aloud for the very joy of living.
She pulled her horse to a walk as she skirted the fence of Watts's upper pasture, and her eyes rested with approval upon the straightened posts and taut wire. ”At last Mr. Watts has bestirred himself. I hope he will keep on, now, that he's got the habit, and fix up the rest of the ranch. I wonder why that Vil Holland disapproved when he mentioned that he had leased his pasture. It seems as though nothing can happen in this country unless Vil Holland is mixed up in it someway. And, now I'm down this far, I'll just find out whether Vil Holland did take that pack down here for daddy. And if he did I'll let him know mighty quick, the next time I see him, that I know all about it's being cut open.”
With her tubs on a bench, and the baby propped and tied securely in an old wooden rocker, Ma Watts was up to her elbows in her ”week's worsh.” Watts sat in his accustomed place, his chair tilted against the shady side of the house. ”Laws sakes, ef hit hain't Mr. Sinclair's darter!” cried the woman, shaking the suds from her bare arms, ”How be yo', honey? An' how's the sheep camp? Microby Dandeline tellen us how yo'-all scrubbed, an' sc.r.a.ped, an' cleaned 'til hit s.h.i.+ned like a n.i.g.g.e.r's heel. Hit's nice to be clean, that-a-way ef yo' got time, but with five er six young-uns to take keer of, an' a pa.s.sel of chickens a-runnin' in under foot all day, seems like a body cain't keep clean nohow. Microby says how yo' got a rale curtin' in yo' winder, an' all kinds of pert doin' an' fixin's. That's. .h.i.t, git right down off yer horse. Land! I wus so busy hearin' 'bout yo' fixin' up the sheep camp, thet I plumb fergot my manners. Watts, get a cheer! An' 'pears like yo' could say 'Howdy' when anyone comes a visitin'.”
”I aimed to,” mumbled Watts apologetically, as he dragged a chair from the kitchen, ”I wus jest a-aidgin' 'round fer a chanct.”
”I can't stay but a minute, see, the shadows are already half way across the valley. I just thought I'd take a little ride before supper.”
”Law, yes, some folks likes to ride hossback, but fer me, I'd a heap ruther go in a jolt wagon. Beats all the dif'fence in folks. Seems like the folks out yere jist take to hit nachel. Yo' be'n huntin' yo'
pa's location yet?”
”No, I've been getting things in shape around the cabin. I'm going to start prospecting to-morrow.” She glanced back along the valley, ”I suppose my father came along this way when he left his pack on his way East,” she said.
”No, mom,” Watts rubbed his chin, reflectively. ”Hit wus Vil Holland brung in his pack. Seems like yo' pa wus in a right smart of a hurry when he left, so Vil taken his pack down yere an' me an' the boys put hit in the barn fer to keep hit saft. Then Vil he rud on down the crick, h.e.l.l bent fer 'lection----”
”Watts! Hain't yo' shamed a-cussin'?” cried his scandalized spouse.
”Why was he in such a hurry?” asked the girl.
”I dunno. He jes' turned the mewl loost an' says to keep the pack till yo' pa come back, an' larruped off.”
Patty rose from the chair and gathered up her bridle reins. ”I must be going, really. You see, I've got my ch.o.r.es to do, and supper to get, and I want to go to bed early so I'll be fresh in the morning.” She mounted, and turned to Ma Watts: ”Can't you come up some day and bring the children? I'd love to have you. Let's arrange the day now, so I will be sure to be home.”
”Lawzie, I'd give a purty! Listen at thet, now, Watts. Cain't we fix to go?”
Watts fumbled his beard: ”Why, yas, I reckon, some day, mebbe.”
”What day can you come?” asked Patty.
”Well, le's see, this yere's about a Tuesday.” He paused, glanced up at the sky, and gave careful scrutiny to the horizon. ”How'd Sunday a week suit yo'--ef hit don't rain?”
”Fine,” agreed the girl, smiling. ”And, by the way, I came down past the upper pasture. The fence looks grand. It didn't take long to fix it, did it?”
”Well, hit tuk quite a spell--all day yeste'day, an' up 'til noon to-day. We only got one side an' halft another done, an' they's two sides an' a halft yet. But Mr. Bethune came by this noon, him an'
Lord, an' 'lowed he worn't in no gret hurry fer hit, causen he heerd from Schultz thet the hoss business 'ud haf to wait over a spell----”
”An' Lord, he come down an' boughten a lot of aigs offen me. Him an'
Mr. Bethune is both got manners.”