The creek sheered sharply around an out-cropping shoulder of rock, and the next instant Patty pulled up short, and sat staring at a little white tent that nestled close against the side of the huge monolith which stood at the edge of a broad, grassed opening in the woods. The flaps were thrown wide and the walls caught up to allow free passage of air. Blankets that had evidently covered a pile of boughs in one corner, were thrown over the ridgepole from which hung a black leather binocular case, and several canvas bags formed an orderly row along one side. A kettle hung suspended over a small fire in front of the tent, and a row of blackened cooking utensils hung from a wooden bar suspended between two crotched stakes. Out in the clearing, a man was bridling a tall buckskin horse. The man was Vil Holland. Curbing a desire to retreat unobserved into the timber, the girl advanced boldly across the creek and pulled up beside the fire. At the sound the man whirled, and Patty noticed that a lean, brown hand dropped swiftly to the butt of the revolver. "Don't shoot!" she called, in a tone that was meant to be sarcastic, "I won't hurt you." Somehow, the sarcasm fell flat. The man buckled the throat-latch of his bridle and picking up the reins, advanced hat in hand, leading the horse. "I beg your pardon," he said, gravely, "I didn't know who it was, when your horse splashed through the creek." "You have enemies in the hills? Those you would shoot, or who would shoot you?" He dropped the bridle reins, allowing them to trail on the ground. "If some kinds of folks wasn't a man's enemy he wouldn't be fit to have any friends," he said, simply. "And here in the hills it's just as well to be forehanded with your gun. Won't you climb down? I suppose you've had breakfast?" Patty swung from the saddle and stood holding the bridle reins. "Yes, I've had breakfast, thank you. Don't let me keep you from yours." "Had mine, too. If you don't mind I'll wash up these dishes, though. Just drop your reins--like mine. Your cayuse will stand as long as the reins are hangin'. It's the way they're broke--'tyin' 'em to the ground,' we call it." He glanced at her horse's feet, and pointed to a place beneath the fetlock from which the hair had been rubbed: "Rope burnt," he opined. "You oughtn't to put him out on a picket rope. Use hobbles. There's a couple of pair in your dad's war-bag." "War-bag?" "Yeh, it's down in Watts's barn, if he ain't hauled it up for you." "What are hobbles?" The man stepped to the tent and returned a moment later with two heavy straps fastened together by a bit of chain and a swivel. "These are hobbles, they work like this." He stooped and fastened the straps about the forelegs of the horse just above the fetlock. "He can get around all right, but he can't get far, and there is no rope to snag him." Patty nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I'll try it. But how do you know there are hobbles in dad's pack?"