e'--that lure, that
mocking chimera that saps men's lives! And now, he is--gone, and I am
chasing the chimera." Salt tears stung her eyes and blurred the
timbered slopes. "They said he was a--a ne'er-do-well. He became
almost a joke--" the words ended in a dry sob, as the bright blade of
the ax crashed viciously into the rotting panel. A few moments later
she picked up an armful of wood, and retracing her steps, piled it
neatly behind the stove. She lighted the fire, fetched a pail of water
from the spring, and moved the picketed cayuse to a spot beside the
creek where the grass was green and lush. She had intended after
supper to study her map and familiarize herself with the two small
photographs that were pinned to it. But, when the meal was over and
the dishes washed and put away she was too sleepy to do anything but
drop the huge wooden bar that the sheep herder had contrived to insure
himself against a possible night attack from his enemies into its
place and crawl into her bunk. How good it felt, she thought,
sleepily--the yielding air mattress, and the soft, clean blankets,
after the straw tick on the floor, and the course sour blankets in the
Wattses' stuffy room.

Somewhere, way off in the hills, a wolf howled and almost before the
sound had died away the girl was asleep.

CHAPTER VI

BETHUNE PAYS A CALL

It was past noon when Patty sank into the chair beside her table and
glanced about her with a sigh of satisfaction. Warm June sunlight
streamed through the open door and lay in a bright oblique patch upon
the scrubbed floor. The girl's glance strayed past the door and rested
with approval upon the little flat across the creek where a neat pile
of panels replaced the broken sheep corral. She had spent hours in
untwisting the baling wire with which they had been fastened to the
posts and dragging them to the pile, and other hours in chopping a
supply of firewood, and picking up the cans and broken bottles and
pitching them into the deep ravine of a side coulee. Also she had
built a little reservoir of rocks about her spring, and had found time
to add a few touches to the interior of the cabin. "It's just as homey
and cozy as it can be," she murmured, as her eyes strayed from the
little window where the colored chintz curtain stirred lightly in the
breeze, to the neatly arranged "dressing table" that she had contrived
with the aid of four light packing boxes and a bit of figured
cretonne. Another p