She wondered, as she rode through the timber how it was she had been so quick to doubt this grave, unsmiling hillman upon such a mere triviality as the finding of a glove. And then she wondered at her changed attitude toward him. She had feared him at first, then despised him. And now--she recalled with a thrill, the lean ruggedness of him, the unwavering eyes and the unsmiling lips--now, at least, she respected him, and she no longer wondered why the people of the hills and the people of the town held him in regard. She knew that he had never sought to curry her favor--had never deviated a hair's breadth from the even tenor of his way in order to win her regard and, in their chance conversations, he had been blunt even to rudeness. And, yet, against her will, her opinion of him had changed. And this change had nothing whatever to do with her timely rescue from the horse herd--it had been gradual, so gradual that it had been an accomplished fact even before she suspected that any change was taking place. The huge rock behind which nestled the little tent loomed before her, and hastily removing the glove from its hiding place, she came suddenly upon his camp. A blackened coffee pot was nestled close against a tiny fire upon which a pair of trout and some strips of bacon sizzled in a frying pan. She glanced toward the creek, at the same moment that Vil Holland turned at the sound of her horse's footsteps, and for several seconds they faced each other in silence. The man was the first to speak: "Good mornin'. If you'll step back around that rock for a minute, I'll slip into my shirt." And suddenly Patty realized that he was stripped to the waist, but her eyes never left the point high on his upper arm, almost against the shoulder, where a blood-stained bandage dangled untidily. "You're hurt!" she cried, swinging from the saddle and running toward him. "Nothin' but a scratch. I got nicked a little, night before last, an' I just now got time to do it up again. It don't amount to anything--don't even hurt, to speak of. I can let that go, if you'll just----" "Well, I won't just go away--or just anything else, except just attend to that wound--so there!" She was at his side, examining the clumsy bandage. "Sit right down beside the creek, and I'll look at it. The first thing is to find out how badly you're hurt." "It ain't bad. Looks a lot worse than it is. It was an unhandy place to tie up, left-handed." Scooping up water in her hand Patty applied it to the bandage, and after repeating the process several times, began very gently to remove the cloth. "Why it's clear through!" she cried, as the bandage came away and exposed the wound. "Just through the meat--it missed the bone. That cold water feels good. It was gettin' kind of stiff." "What did you put on it?" "Nothin'. Didn't have anything along, an' wouldn't have had time to fool with it if I'd been packin' a whole drug-store." "Where's your whisky?" "I ain't got any."