"Oh, he's not terrible at all. Only, I know how much depends upon first impressions--and I do want you to like us." Patty drew the old lady's arm about her waist and together they ascended the stairs: "I love you already, and although I have never met him I am going to love Mr. Samuelson, too--you see, I have heard a good deal about him here in the hills." Entering the room, they advanced to the bed where a big-framed man with a white mustache and a stubble of gray beard lay propped up on pillows. Sickness had not paled the rich mahogany of the weather-seamed face, and the eyes that met Patty's from beneath their bushy brows were bright as a boy's. "Good morning! Good morning! So, you're Rod Sinclair's daughter, are you? An' a chip of the old block, by what mama's been tellin' me. I knew Rod well. He was a real prospector. Knew his business, an' went at it business fashion. Wasn't like most of 'em--makin' their rock-peckin' an excuse to get out of workin'. They tell me you ain't afraid to live alone in the hills, an' ain't afraid to make a midnight ride to fetch the doc for an old long-horn like me. That's stuff! Didn't know they bred it east of the Mizoo. The ones mama an' I've seen around the theaters an' restaurants on our trips East would turn a man's stomach. Why, damn it, young woman, if I ever caught a daughter of mine painted up like a Piute an' stripped to the waist smokin' cigarettes an' drinkin' cocktails in a public restaurant, I'd peel the rest of her duds off an' turn her over my knee an' take a quirt to her, if she was forty!" "Why, _papa_!" "I would too--an' so would you!" Patty saw the old eyes twinkling with mischief, and she laughed merrily: "And so would I," she agreed. "So there's no chance for any argument, is there?" "We must go, now," reminded Mrs. Samuelson. "The doctor said you could not see any visitors yet. He made a special exception of Miss Sinclair, for just a few minutes." "I wish you would call me Patty," smiled the girl. "Miss Sinclair sounds so--so formal----" "Me, too!" exclaimed the invalid. "I'll go you one better, an' call you Pat----" "If you do, I'll call you Pap--" laughed the girl. "That's a trade! An' say, they tell me you live over in Watts's sheep camp. If you should happen to run across that reprobate of a Vil Holland, you tell him to come over here. I want to see him about----" "There, now, papa--remember the doctor said----"