It was in a very wrathful mood that she turned her horse's head and struck into the timber, being careful to avoid Vil Holland's camp by a wide margin. Crossing the timbered plateau, she topped a low divide and found herself at the head of a deep, rocky valley, whose course she could trace for miles as it wound in and out among the far hills. Giving her horse his head, she began the descent of the valley, scanning its sides carefully as the animal picked his way slowly among the rock fragments and patches of scrub timber that littered its floor. She had proceeded for perhaps an hour when, in passing the mouth of a ravine that slanted sharply into the hills, she was startled by a rattling of loose stones, and a horse and rider emerged almost directly into her path. The next moment Vil Holland raised the Stetson from his head and addressed her gravely: "Good mornin' Miss Sinclair, I sure didn't mean to come out on you sudden, that way, but Buck slipped on the rocks an' we come mighty near pilin' up." "It is about the first slip you've made, isn't it?" Patty answered, acidly. "Possibly if you'd left your jug at home you wouldn't have made that." "Oh no. We've slipped before. Fact is, we've been into about every kind of a jack-pot the hills can deal. We rolled half way down a mountain once, an' barrin' a little skinnin' up, we come out of it all to the good. But it ain't the jug. Buck don't drink. It's surprisin' what a good habited horse he is. He's a heap better'n most folks." The man spoke gravely, with no hint of sarcasm in his tone, and Patty sniffed. He appeared not to notice. "How you comin' on with the prospectin'? Found yer dad's claim yet?" "You ought to know whether I have or not," she retorted, hotly. "That's so. If you had, you wouldn't still be huntin' it, would you?" "No. And if I had, I'd have had a nice little race on my hands to file it, wouldn't I?" "Well, I expect maybe you would. But that horse of yours is pretty handy on his feet. Used to belong to Bob Smith--that's his brand--that KN on the left shoulder." "Yes," answered the girl, meaningly. "I understand there is only one horse in the hills that could outrun him." "Buck can. I won ten dollars off Bob one time. We run a mile, an' Buck won, easy. But the best thing about Buck, he's a distance horse. He's got the wind--an' he don't know what it means to quit. He could run all day if he had to, couldn't you, Buck?" The man stroked the buckskin's neck affectionately as he talked. Patty's eyes glinted angrily: "The stakes would have to be pretty high for you to run him, say, fifty miles, wouldn't they?" "Yes. Pretty high," he repeated, and changed the subject abruptly. "Must find it kind of lonesome out here in the hills, after livin' in the East where there's lots of folks around all the time."