One by one, she returned the belongings, handling them tenderly, now, and examining them lovingly, and many an article was returned to the sack, wet with its splash of hot tears. "Here's his coffee pot, and his plate, and frying pan, and his old pipe--" the pipe she did not replace, but put it with the other things in her trunk. "And here--why, it's a revolver and a belt of cartridges--like Vil Holland's! And a hat like his, too! And I thought he was a desperado because he wore them!" She jumped to her feet and, hurrying to the mirror, tried on the hat, pinching the crown into a peak, tilting it this way and that, and arranging and rearranging the soft roll brim. "It fits!" she cried, delighted as a child, and then with eyes sparkling, picked up the belt with its row of yellow cartridges and its ivory handled six gun dangling in the holster. Buckling the belt about her waist, she laughed aloud as the buckle tongue came to rest a full six inches beyond the last hole. "I'll look just as desperate as he does, now--except for his old jug. Daddy didn't have any jug, and I'm glad--that's where the difference is--it's the jug. But, I wish he had had one of those black horn effects for his scarf." She knotted the brilliant red scarf with its zigzag border of yellow, about her neck, and snatching a small pair of scissors from the dressing table, removed the heavy belt, and proceeded to bore a tongue hole at the point she had marked with her finger nail. So engrossed she became in the work, that she failed to hear the approach of horses' feet, and started violently at the sound of a voice from the doorway. "Permit me." The six shooter thudded to the floor, and sweeping the hat from his head, Monk Bethune crossed the room, and replaced it upon the table. He smiled as he noticed the scar left upon the thick leather by the scissor points; and repeated. "Permit me, please." He drew a penknife from his pocket, and picked up the belt. "A knife is so much better."
Ashamed of having been startled, Patty smiled. "Yes, please do. I had no idea it was so tough, or that scissors could be so dull."
Deftly twirling the penknife, Bethune bored a neat hole in the leather. "There should be several holes," he smiled, "for there are occasions in the hill country when one fails to connect with the commissary, and then it is that the tightening of the belt answers the purpose of a meal." Drilling as he talked, he soon finished the task and held up the belt for inspection. "Rod Sinclair's gun," he commented, sorrowfully. "And Rod's scarf, and hat, too. Ah, there was a man, Miss Sinclair! I doubt if even you yourself knew him as I knew him. You must ride and work with a man, in fair weather and foul; you must share his hardships, and his disappointments, yes and his joys, too, to really know him." A look of genuine affection shone from the man's eyes as he stood drawing his fingers gently along the rims of the shiny cartridges. He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to the girl. His manner, the look in his eyes, the very tone of his voice, were so intrinsically honest in their expression of unbounded sympathy with his subject, and his mood fitted so thoroughly with her own, that the girl's heart suddenly warmed toward this man who spoke so feelingly of her father. She flushed slightly as she remembered that upon the occasion of their previous meeting, his words had engendered a feeling of distrust.