long time she stared at the green and red horseshoe. So it was
Vil Holland, after all, and not Monk Bethune, who had systematically
searched her cabin. Vil Holland, who had watched continually from his
notch in the hills. She had been right in the first place, and the
others had been wrong. Everybody disliked Bethune, and disliking him,
had attributed to him all the crookedness of the hill country, and all
the time, under their very noses, Vil Holland was the real
plotter--and they liked him! She could see it all, now--how, with
Bethune for the scapegoat, he was enabled, unsuspected, to plan and
carry out his various schemes, and with no possible chance of
detection--for he himself was the confidential employee of the
ranchmen--the man whose business it was to put an end to the
lawlessness of the hill country.

Patty was surprised that she was not angry. Indeed, she was not
conscious of any emotion. She realized, as she stood there holding the
gaily embroidered glove in her hand, that the rapture, the gladness
of mere existence had left her, and that where only a few minutes
before, her heart had throbbed with the very joy of living, it now
seemed like a thing of weight, whose heaviness oppressed her. She felt
strangely alone and helpless. She glanced about her. The sun still
shone on the green pines and the sparkling waters of the creek, and
above the high-tossed crags the eagle still circled, but the thrill of
joy in these things was gone. Slowly she turned and, still holding the
glove, mounted, and headed for the cabin on Monte's Creek.

At the door she unsaddled her horse, hobbled him, and turned him
loose. She realized that she was very tired, and threw herself down
upon the bunk. When she awoke the cabin was in darkness. The door
stood wide open as she had left it. For a moment she lay trying to
collect her bewildered senses. Through the open door, dimly
silhouetted against the starry sky, she made out the notch in the
valley rim. Her sense rallied with a rush, and she started nervously
as a pack rat scurried across the floor and paused upon the door sill
to peer inquisitively at her with his beady eyes. Crossing the room,
she closed and barred the door, and lighted the lamp. It was twelve
o'clock. She peered at herself in the glass and with an exclamation of
anger, dampened her wash-cloth and scrubbed furiously at her cheek
where, in deep tracery appeared the perfect shape of a horseshoe.

She was very hungry,