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t stands. I'm a-goin' to give yo' a chanct--an' a warnin', too. Next time I see yo' I'm a-going' to kill yo'--whenever, or wherever hit's at. I'll do hit, jest as shore as my name is John Watts. Yo' kin go now--back the way yo' come, pervidin' yo' go fast. I'm a-goin' to count up to wher' I know how to--I hain't never be'n to school none, but I counted up to nineteen, onct--an' whin I git to wher' I cain't rec'lec' the nex' figger, I'm a-goin' to shoot, an' shoot straight. An' I hain't a-goin' to study long about them figgers, neither. Le's see, one comes fust--yere goes, then: One ... Two...." For a single instant, Bethune gazed into the man's eyes and the next, he sprang into the saddle, and dashing wildly down the steep slope, disappeared into the scrub. "Spec' I'd ort to killed him," regretted the mountaineer, as he lowered the rifle, and gazed off down the valley, "but I hain't got no appetite fer diggin'." CHAPTER XVIII PATTY MAKES HER STRIKE It was noon, one week from the day she had returned from the Samuelson ranch, and Patty Sinclair stood upon the high shoulder of a butte and looked down into a rock-rimmed valley. Her eyes roved slowly up and down the depression where the dark green of the scrub contrasted sharply with the crinkly buffalo grass, yellowed to spun gold beneath the rays of the summer sun. She reached up and stroked the neck of her horse. "Just think, old partner, three days from now I may be teaching school in that horrid little town with its ratty hotel, and its picture shows, and its saloons, and you may be turned out in a pasture with nothing to do but eat and grow fat! If we don't find our claim to-day, or to-morrow, it's good-by hill country 'til next summer." The day following her encounter with Bethune, Vil Holland had appeared, true to his promise, and instructed her in the use of her father's six-gun. At the end of an hour's practice, she had been able to kick up the dirt in close proximity to a tomato can at fifteen steps, and twice she had actually hit it. "That's good enough for any use you're apt to have for it," her instructor had approved. "The main thing is that you ain't afraid of it. An' remember," he added, "a gun ain't made to bluff with. Don't pull it on anyone unless you go through with it. Only short-horns an' pilgrims ever pull a gun that don't need wipin' before it's put back--I could show you the graves of several of 'em. I'm leavin' you some extry
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