Part 23 (1/2)

”This ain't a doctor's job,” protested the man. ”My arm feels fine.”

”It's so stiff you can hardly use it. It must feel fine. But it doesn't make a particle of difference how fine it feels. It needs attention. And, surely you won't refuse to do this for me, after I bandaged it all up? Because, if anything should go wrong it would be my fault.”

Without a word the man picked up his bridle and walking to the buckskin, slipped it over his head and led him in. He saddled the horse with one hand, and as he turned toward the girl she held out the glove.

”Isn't this yours? I found it last evening--out in the hills.”

Holland thrust his hand into it: ”Yes, it's mine. I'm sure obliged to you. I lost it a couple of days ago. I hate to break in new gloves.

These have got a feel to 'em.”

”Do you know where I found it?”

”No. Couldn't guess within twenty miles or so.”

Patty looked him squarely in the eyes: ”I found it over where Monk Bethune has just staked a claim. And he staked that particular claim because it was the spot I had indicated on a map that I prepared especially for the benefit of the man who has been searching my cabin all summer.”

Holland nodded gravely, without showing the slightest trace of surprise. ”Oh, that's where I dropped it, eh? I figured Monk thought he'd found somethin', the way he come out of your cabin the last time he searched it, so I followed him to the place you'd salted for him.”

He paused, and for the first time since she had known him, Patty thought she detected a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. ”He didn't waste much time there--just clawed around a few minutes where you'd pecked up the dirt, an' then sunk his stakes, an' wrote out his notice, an' high-tailed for the register's office. That was a pretty smart trick of yours but it wouldn't have fooled anyone that knows rock. Bethune's no prospector. He's a Canada crook--whisky runner, an'

cattle rustler, an' gambler. Somehow, he'd got a suspicion that your father made a strike he'd never filed, an' he's been tryin' to get holt of it ever since. I looked your plant over after he'd hit for town to file, an' when I tumbled to the game, I let him go ahead.”

”But, suppose the rock had been right? Suppose, it had really been daddy's claim?”

”Buck can run rings around that cayuse of his any old day. I expect, if the rock had be'n right, Monk Bethune would of met up with an adventure of some sort a long ways before he hit town.”

”You knew he was searching my cabin all the time?”

”Yes, I knew that. But, I saw you was a match for 'em--him an' the fake Lord, too.”

”Is that the reason you threw Lord Clendenning into the creek, that day?”

”Yes, that was the reason. I come along an' caught him at it. Comical, wasn't it? I 'most laughed. I saw you slip back into the brush, but I'd got so far along with it I couldn't help finis.h.i.+n'. You thought the wrong man got throw'd in.”

”You knew I thought that of you--and you didn't hate me?”

”Yes, I knew what you thought. You thought it was me that was searchin' your cabin, too. An' of course I didn't hate you because you couldn't hardly help figurin' that way after you'd run onto the place in the rim-rocks where I watched from. If it wasn't for the trees I could have strung along in a different place each time, but that's the only spot that your cabin shows up from.”

”And you knew that they always followed me through the hills?”

”Yes, an' they wasn't the only ones that followed. Clendenning ain't as bad as Bethune, for all he's throw'd in with him. The days Bethune followed you, I followed Bethune. An' when Clendenning followed you, I prospected, mostly.”

”You thought Bethune might have--have attacked me?”

”I wasn't takin' any chances--not with him, I wasn't. One day, I thought for a minute he was goin' to try it. It was the day you an'

him et lunch together--when he pretended to be so surprised at runnin'

onto you. I laid behind a rock with a bead draw'd on him. He stopped just exactly one step this side of h.e.l.l, that day.”

Patty regarded the cowboy thoughtfully: ”And Bethune told me he had to go over onto the east slope to see about some horses. It was after we had met Pierce, and Bethune asked about Mr. Samuelson and Pierce snubbed him. I believe Bethune planned that raid. And seeing us together that day, Pierce jumped to the conclusion that I was in with him.”

”Yes, it was Monk's raid, all right, an' him an' Clendenning got away.