For a long time she lay in the darkness, thinking. "The way it was before, I haven't been in any physical danger. Mr. Vil Holland knows that if what he is searching for is not here I must carry it on my person. The obvious way to get it would be to take it away from me. Of course the only way he could do that without my seeing him would be to kill me. He hesitates at murder. Either there are depths of moral turpitude into which he will not descend--or, he fears the consequences. He has imagination. He assumes that sometime I'll leave that packet at home--either through carelessness, or because I have learned its contents by heart and don't need it. In the meantime, in addition to his patient searching of the cabin, he is taking no chances, and while he waits for the inevitable to happen he is following me so if I do succeed in locating the claim, he can beat me to the register. It's a pretty game--no violence--only patience and brains. But this other," she shuddered, "there is something positively brutal in the crude awkwardness of his work. If he thinks I carry what he wants with me, would he hesitate at murder? I guess I'll have to carry that gun again--and I better practice with it, too. If I can only get rid of this last one, I believe I've got a scheme for catching the other!" She sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh, if I only could! If I could only beat him at his own game--and I believe I can!" For several minutes she sat thinking rapidly, and as she lay back upon her pillow, she smiled.
Patty awoke at dawn and dressed hurriedly. Shivering in the chill air, she lighted a match and pushed back a lid of the little cast iron cook stove. Instead of the "cold fire" of neatly arranged wood and kindlings that she had built before leaving for town a pile of gray ashes and blackened ends of charcoal greeted her.
"Whoever it was knew he had plenty of time at his disposal so he helped himself to a meal," she muttered angrily. "He might, at least, have cut me some kindlings. I'm surprised that he had the good grace to wash up his dirty dishes." A few moments later, as the fire crackled merrily in the stove, she picked up the water pail and stepping through the door, threw back her head and breathed deeply of the crisp mountain air. "Oh, it's wonderful just to be alive!" she whispered. "Even if everybody is against you. It's just like a great big game and, oh, I want to win! I've got to win!" she added, grimly, as her thoughts flew to her depleted bank account.