"Where's your gun?" The man asked the question abruptly, without removing his eyes from the fore-trail.
"I left it home. I only carried it once or twice. It's heavy, and anyway it was silly to carry it, I don't even know how to fire it, let alone hit anything."
"If it's too heavy on your belt you can carry it on your saddle horn. I'll show you how to use it--an' how to shoot where you hold it, too. Mrs. Samuelson ain't as husky as you are, an' she can wipe a gnat's eye with a six-gun, either handed. Practice is all it takes, an'----"
"But, why should I carry it? Bethune would hardly dare harm me, and anyway, now that he thinks he has stolen my secret, he wouldn't have any object in doing so."
"You're goin' to keep on huntin' your dad's claim, ain't you?"
"An', in the meantime, what if Bethune finds out he's been tricked? These French breeds go crazy when they're mad--an' he'll either lay for you just to get even, or he'll see that he gets the right dope next time--an' maybe you know what that means, an' maybe you don't--but I do."
The girl nodded, and as the horses scrambled up the steep slope of a low divide, her eyes sought the hundred and one hiding places among the loose rocks and scrub that might easily conceal a lurking enemy, and she shuddered. As they topped the divide, both reined in and sat gazing silently down the little valley before them. It was the place of their first meeting, when the girl, tired, and lost and discouraged, had dismounted upon that very spot and watched the unknown horseman with his six-shooter, and his brown leather jug slowly ascend the slope. She glanced at him now, as he sat, rugged and lean, with his eyes on the little valley. He was just the same, grave and unsmiling, as upon the occasion of their first meeting. She noticed that he held his Stetson in his hand, and that the wind rippled his hair. "Just the same," she thought--and yet--. She was aware that her heart was pounding strangely, and that instead of a fear of this man, she was conscious of a wild desire to throw herself into his arms and cry with her face against the bandage that bulged the shirt sleeve just below the shoulder.
"I call this Lost Creek," said Holland, without turning his head. "I come here often--" and added, confusedly, "It's a short cut from my camp to the trail."