"We'll have a jolly little dinner party this evening," beamed Mrs. Samuelson, an hour later when the girl had finished recounting her part in the night's adventure, "there'll be you and Mr. Christie, and Doctor Mallory, and the boys from the bunk house, and Vil Holland, and it will be in honor of Mr. Samuelson's turn for the better, and your escape, and the successful routing of the horse-thieves." "Too late to count Vil Holland in," smiled the doctor, who had returned to the veranda in time to hear the arrangement, "said he had important business in town, and pulled out as soon as I'd got his arm rigged up." And, in the doorway, the Reverend Len Christie smiled behind a screen of cigarette smoke as he noted the toss of the head, and the decided tightening of the lips with which Patty greeted the announcement. "But, he's wounded!" protested Mrs. Samuelson. "In his condition, ought he attempt a ride like that?" The doctor laughed: "You can't hurt these clean-blooded young bucks with a flesh wound. As far as fitness is concerned, he can ride to Jericho if he wants to. Too bad he won't quit prospecting and settle down. He'd make some girl a mighty fine husband." Christie laughed. "I don't think Vil is the marrying kind. In the first place he's been bitten too deep with the prospecting bug. And, again, women don't appeal to him. He's wedded to his prospecting. He only stops when driven to it by necessity, then he only works long enough to save up a grub-stake and he's off for the hills again. I can't imagine that high priest of the pack horse and the frying pan living in a house!" And so the talk went, everyone participating except Patty, who sat and listened with an elaborate indifference that caused the Reverend Len to smile again to himself behind the gray cloud of his cigarette smoke. "You haven't forgotten about my school?" asked Patty next morning, as Christie and the doctor were preparing to leave for town. "Indeed, I haven't!" laughed the Bishop of All Outdoors. "School opens the first of September, and that's not very far away. But badly as we need you, somehow I feel that we are not going to get you." "Why?" asked the girl in surprise. "A whole lot may happen in ten days--and I've got a hunch that before that time you will have made your strike." "I hope so!" she exclaimed fervidly. "I know I shall just hate to teach school--and I'd never do it, either, if I didn't need a grub-stake." As she watched him ride away, Patty was joined by Mrs. Samuelson who stepped from the house and thrust her arm through hers. "My husband wants to meet you, my dear. He's so very much better this morning--quite himself. And I must warn you that that means he's rough as an old bear, apparently, although in reality he's got the tenderest heart in the world. He always puts his worst foot foremost with strangers--he may even swear." Patty laughed: "I'm not afraid. You seem to have survived a good many years of him. He really can't be so terrible!"