"Bethune," Watts drawled the name, even more than was his wont, and the quarter-breed noticed that the usually roving eyes had set into a hard stare behind which lurked a dangerous glitter, "yo're a ornery, low-down cur-dog what hain't fitten to be run with by man, beast, or devil. I'd ort to shoot yo' daid right wher' yo' at--an' mebbe I will. But comin' to squint yo' over, that there damage looks mo' like a quirt-lick than a limb. Thet ort to hurt like fire fer a couple a days, an' when it lets up yo' face hain't a-goin' to be so purty as what hit wus. Ef she'd jest of drug the quirt along a little when hit landed she c'd of cut plumb into the bone--but hit's middlin' fair, as hit 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."