go back to the cabin, and you can rest up, and to-morrow we'll start at daylight." "Mr. Christie was right," she smiled, as she took the back trail for Monte's Creek. "I don't have to teach school. But, I wonder how he could have gotten that 'hunch,' as he called it? When I've been searching for the claim for months?" In a little valley that ran parallel to Monte's Creek, Patty encountered Microby Dandeline. The girl was lying stretched at full length upon the ground and did not notice her approach until she was almost on her, then she leaped to her feet, regarded her for a moment, and, with a frightened cry, sprang into the bush and scrambled out of sight along the steep side of a ravine. In vain Patty called, but her only answer was the diminishing sounds of the girl's scrambling flight. "What in the world has got into her of late," she wondered, as she proceeded on her way. Certain it was that the girl avoided her, not only at the Watts ranch, but whenever they had chanced to meet in the hills. At first she had attributed it to anger or resentment over her own treatment of her when she had tried to get possession of the map. But, surely, even the dull-witted Microby must know that the incident had been forgotten. "No," she decided, "there is something else." Somehow, the girl no longer seemed the simple child-like creature of the wild. There was a furtiveness about her, and she had developed a certain crafty side glance, as though constantly seeking a means of escape from something. Her mother had noticed the change, and had confided to Patty that she was "gittin' mo' triflin' every day, a-rammin' 'round the hills a-huntin' her a mine." "There's something worrying her," muttered the girl. "Something that she don't dare tell anyone, and it's sapping what little wit she has." It was late that evening when Patty ate her solitary supper. The sun had long set, and the dusk of the late twilight had settled upon the valley of Monte's Creek as she wiped the last dish and set it upon the shelf of her tiny cupboard. Suddenly she looked up. A form darkened the doorway, and quick as a flash, her eyes sought the six-gun that lay in its holster upon the bunk. "You won't need that." The voice was reassuring. It was Vil Holland's voice; she had recognized him a second before he spoke and greeted him with a smile, even as she wondered what had brought him there. Only three times before had he come to her cabin, once to ascertain who was moving into the sheep camp, once when he had pitched Lord Clendenning into the creek, and again, only a few days before, when he had come to teach her to shoot. The girl noted that he seemed graver than usual, if that were possible. Certain it was that he appeared to be holding himself under restraint. She wondered if he had come to warn her of the proximity of Bethune.