Patty watched every move of the pencil, as she listened to the explanation. And when, a few moments later, the big "Bishop of All Outdoors" crossed the ford and rode out of sight up the coulee that led to the trampled notch in the hills, she threw herself down at the table and with eyes big with excitement, drew her father's map from its silk envelope and spread it out beside Christie's roughly sketched one. "What a fool I am not to have guessed that those letters must stand for the points of the compass!" she cried. "It ought to be plain as day, now." Carefully, she read the cabalistic line at the bottom of the map. "SC 1 S 1 1/2 E 1 S [up arrow] to [union symbol] 2 W to a. to b. Stake L. C. [zigzag symbol] center." Her brow drew into a puzzled frown "SC," she repeated. "S stands for south, but what does SC mean? SW or SE would be southwest, or southeast, but SC--?" She glanced at the other map. "Let's see, Mr. Christie's first letter is R--that stands for Watts' Ranch. SC must represent daddy's starting point, of course! But, SC? Let's see, South Corner--south corner of _what?_ I wish he'd put his letters right on the map like this one, instead of all in a row at the bottom, then I might figure out what he was driving at. SC, SC, SC, SC," she repeated over and over again, until the letters became a mere jumble of meaningless sounds. "S must stand for South," she insisted, "and C could stand for creek, or cave, only there are no caves around here that I've seen, or camp--South Camp--that don't do me any good, I don't know where any of his camps were. And he'd hardly say Creek, that would be too indefinite. Let's see, C--cottonwood--south cottonwood--short cottonwood, scarred cottonwood, well if I have to hunt these hills over for a short cottonwood or a scarred cottonwood, when there are millions of both, I might better keep on hunting for the crack in the rock wall."
For a long time she sat staring at the paper. "If I could only get the starting point figured out, the rest would be easy. It says one mile south, one and one half miles east, one mile south, then the arrowhead pointing up, must mean up a creek or a mountain to something that looks like an inverted horseshoe, then, two miles west to a. to b. whatever a. and b. are. There are no letters on the map, then it says to stake L. C.--L. C., is lode claim, at least, I know that much, and it can be 1500 feet long along the vein, and 300 feet each way from the center. But what does he mean by the wiggly looking mark before the word center? I guess it isn't going to be quite as easy as it looks," she concluded, "even when I know that the letters stand for the points of the compass. If I could only figure out where to start from I could find my way at least to the a. b. part--and that would be something.