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