he sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh, if I only
could! If I could only beat him at his own game--and I believe I can!"
For several minutes she sat thinking rapidly, and as she lay back upon
her pillow, she smiled.

CHAPTER XI

LORD CLENDENNING GETS A DUCKING

Patty awoke at dawn and dressed hurriedly. Shivering in the chill air,
she lighted a match and pushed back a lid of the little cast iron cook
stove. Instead of the "cold fire" of neatly arranged wood and
kindlings that she had built before leaving for town a pile of gray
ashes and blackened ends of charcoal greeted her.

"Whoever it was knew he had plenty of time at his disposal so he
helped himself to a meal," she muttered angrily. "He might, at least,
have cut me some kindlings. I'm surprised that he had the good grace
to wash up his dirty dishes." A few moments later, as the fire
crackled merrily in the stove, she picked up the water pail and
stepping through the door, threw back her head and breathed deeply of
the crisp mountain air. "Oh, it's wonderful just to be alive!" she
whispered. "Even if everybody is against you. It's just like a great
big game and, oh, I want to win! I've got to win!" she added, grimly,
as her thoughts flew to her depleted bank account.

At the spring she paused in the act of filling her pail and stared at
a mark in the mud at the edge of the tiny rill formed by the overflow
from the catch basin. She leaned over and examined the mark more
closely. It was the track of a bare foot. Then, for the first time in
many days, the girl threw back her head and laughed. "Microby
Dandeline!" she cried. "And I was picturing some skulking murderer
lying in wait to pounce on me at the first opportunity. And here it
was only poor little Microby who happened along, and with her natural
curiosity pawed over everything in the cabin, and then decided it
would be a grand stunt to cook herself a meal and eat it at my
table--and I haven't the least doubt that she arrayed herself in one
of my dresses when she did it." Patty hummed a light tune as, water
pail in hand, she made her way up the path to the cabin. "Whee! but
it's a relief to feel that I won't have to ride these hills peering
behind every tree and rock for a lurking assassin. And I won't have to
carry that horrid heavy old gun, either."

After breakfast she saddled her horse and headed up the ravine that
she had followed upon the morning of her first ride. At the top of the
divide she pu