Watts and the boys were just finishing the unloading of her supplies when Patty slipped from her horse and surveyed the little cabin with its dark background of pines. "Hit hain't so big as some," apologized the man, as he climbed into the wagon and gathered up the reins. "But the chinkin's tol'ble, an' the roof's middlin' tight 'cept a couple places wher' it leaks." The girl's glance strayed from the little log building to the untidy litter of rusty tin cans and broken bottles that ornamented its dooryard, and the warped and broken panels of the abandoned corral that showed upon the weed-choked flat across the creek. Stepping to the door, she peered into the interior where Microby was industriously sweeping the musty hay from the bunk with the brand-new broom. Thumbed and torn magazines littered the floor, a few discarded garments hung dejectedly from nails driven into the wall, while from the sagging door of the rough board cupboard bulged a miscellaneous collection of rubbish. A sense of depression obsessed her; _this_ was to be her home! She sneezed and drew back hastily from the cloud of dust raised by Microby's broom. As she dabbed at her eyes and nose with a small and ridiculously inadequate handkerchief, she was conscious of an uncomfortable lump in her throat, and the moisture that dampened the handkerchief could not all be accredited to the sneeze tears. "What if I have trouble locating the mine and have to stay here all summer?" she was thinking, and instantly recalling the Watts ranch with its air of shiftless decay, the smelly Watts blankets in the overcrowded sleeping room, the soggy meals, the tapping of chickens' bills upon the floor, and the never ending voice of Ma Watts, she smiled. It was a weak, forced little smile, at first, but it gradually widened into a real smile as her eyes swept the little valley with its long vista of pine-clad hills that reached upward to the sky, their mighty sides and shoulders gored by innumerable rock-rimmed coulees and ravines. Somewhere amid the silence of those mighty slopes and high-flung peaks her father had found Eldorado--had wrested nature's secret from the guardianship of the everlasting hills. Her heart swelled with the pride of him. She was ashamed of that sudden welling of tears. The feeling of depression vanished and her heart throbbed to the lure of the land of gold. The two small Wattses had scrambled into the wagon-box. "Yo' goin' to like hit," announced Watts, noticing the smile. "I 'lowed, fust-off yo'----" "I'm going to _love_ it!" interrupted the girl vehemently. "My father loved these hills, and I shall love them. And, as for the cabin! When Microby and I get through with it, it's going to be the dearest little place imaginable."