Unmasked

: The Gold Girl

At the Samuelson's ranch they found not only the doctor but Len

Christie. Mr. Samuelson's condition had taken a sudden turn for the

better and it was a jubilant little group that welcomed Patty as she

rode up to the veranda. Vil Holland had muttered an excuse and gone

directly to the bunk house where the doctor sought him out a few

minutes later and attended to his wound. From the top of "Lost Creek"

divide, the ride h d been made almost in silence. The cowboy's

reference to his jug had angered the girl into a moody reserve which

he made no effort to dispel.



The news of Patty's rescue from the horse herd had preceded her,

having been recounted by the Samuelson riders upon their return to the

ranch, and Mrs. Samuelson blamed herself unmercifully for having

allowed the girl to venture down the valley alone. Which

self-accusation was promptly silenced by Patty, who gently forced the

old lady into an arm chair, and called her Mother Samuelson, and

seated herself upon the step at her feet, and assured her that she

wouldn't have missed the adventure for the world.



"We'll have a jolly little dinner party this evening," beamed Mrs.

Samuelson, an hour later when the girl had finished recounting her

part in the night's adventure, "there'll be you and Mr. Christie, and

Doctor Mallory, and the boys from the bunk house, and Vil Holland, and

it will be in honor of Mr. Samuelson's turn for the better, and your

escape, and the successful routing of the horse-thieves."



"Too late to count Vil Holland in," smiled the doctor, who had

returned to the veranda in time to hear the arrangement, "said he had

important business in town, and pulled out as soon as I'd got his arm

rigged up." And, in the doorway, the Reverend Len Christie smiled

behind a screen of cigarette smoke as he noted the toss of the head,

and the decided tightening of the lips with which Patty greeted the

announcement.



"But, he's wounded!" protested Mrs. Samuelson. "In his condition,

ought he attempt a ride like that?"



The doctor laughed: "You can't hurt these clean-blooded young bucks

with a flesh wound. As far as fitness is concerned, he can ride to

Jericho if he wants to. Too bad he won't quit prospecting and settle

down. He'd make some girl a mighty fine husband."



Christie laughed. "I don't think Vil is the marrying kind. In the

first place he's been bitten too deep with the prospecting bug. And,

again, women don't appeal to him. He's wedded to his prospecting. He

only stops when driven to it by necessity, then he only works long

enough to save up a grub-stake and he's off for the hills again. I

can't imagine that high priest of the pack horse and the frying pan

living in a house!"



And so the talk went, everyone participating except Patty, who sat and

listened with an elaborate indifference that caused the Reverend Len

to smile again to himself behind the gray cloud of his cigarette

smoke.



"You haven't forgotten about my school?" asked Patty next morning, as

Christie and the doctor were preparing to leave for town.



"Indeed, I haven't!" laughed the Bishop of All Outdoors. "School opens

the first of September, and that's not very far away. But badly as we

need you, somehow I feel that we are not going to get you."



"Why?" asked the girl in surprise.



"A whole lot may happen in ten days--and I've got a hunch that before

that time you will have made your strike."



"I hope so!" she exclaimed fervidly. "I know I shall just hate to

teach school--and I'd never do it, either, if I didn't need a

grub-stake."



As she watched him ride away, Patty was joined by Mrs. Samuelson who

stepped from the house and thrust her arm through hers. "My husband

wants to meet you, my dear. He's so very much better this

morning--quite himself. And I must warn you that that means he's rough

as an old bear, apparently, although in reality he's got the tenderest

heart in the world. He always puts his worst foot foremost with

strangers--he may even swear."



Patty laughed: "I'm not afraid. You seem to have survived a good many

years of him. He really can't be so terrible!"



"Oh, he's not terrible at all. Only, I know how much depends upon

first impressions--and I do want you to like us."



Patty drew the old lady's arm about her waist and together they

ascended the stairs: "I love you already, and although I have never

met him I am going to love Mr. Samuelson, too--you see, I have heard a

good deal about him here in the hills."



Entering the room, they advanced to the bed where a big-framed man

with a white mustache and a stubble of gray beard lay propped up on

pillows. Sickness had not paled the rich mahogany of the

weather-seamed face, and the eyes that met Patty's from beneath their

bushy brows were bright as a boy's. "Good morning! Good morning! So,

you're Rod Sinclair's daughter, are you? An' a chip of the old block,

by what mama's been tellin' me. I knew Rod well. He was a real

prospector. Knew his business, an' went at it business fashion. Wasn't

like most of 'em--makin' their rock-peckin' an excuse to get out of

workin'. They tell me you ain't afraid to live alone in the hills, an'

ain't afraid to make a midnight ride to fetch the doc for an old

long-horn like me. That's stuff! Didn't know they bred it east of the

Mizoo. The ones mama an' I've seen around the theaters an' restaurants

on our trips East would turn a man's stomach. Why, damn it, young

woman, if I ever caught a daughter of mine painted up like a Piute

an' stripped to the waist smokin' cigarettes an' drinkin' cocktails in

a public restaurant, I'd peel the rest of her duds off an' turn her

over my knee an' take a quirt to her, if she was forty!"



"Why, papa!"



"I would too--an' so would you!" Patty saw the old eyes twinkling with

mischief, and she laughed merrily:



"And so would I," she agreed. "So there's no chance for any argument,

is there?"



"We must go, now," reminded Mrs. Samuelson. "The doctor said you could

not see any visitors yet. He made a special exception of Miss

Sinclair, for just a few minutes."



"I wish you would call me Patty," smiled the girl. "Miss Sinclair

sounds so--so formal----"



"Me, too!" exclaimed the invalid. "I'll go you one better, an' call

you Pat----"



"If you do, I'll call you Pap--" laughed the girl.



"That's a trade! An' say, they tell me you live over in Watts's sheep

camp. If you should happen to run across that reprobate of a Vil

Holland, you tell him to come over here. I want to see him about----"



"There, now, papa--remember the doctor said----"



"I don't care what the doctor said! He's finished his job an' gone,

ain't he? It's bad enough to have to do what he says when you're

sick--but, I'm all right now, an' the quicker he finds out I didn't

hire him for a guardian, the better it'll be all round. As I was goin'

to say, you tell Vil that Old Man Samuelson wants to see him pronto.

Fall's comin' on, an' I'll have my hands full this winter with the

horses. He's the only cowman in the hills I'd trust them white faces

with, an' he's got to winter 'em for me. He's a natural born cowman

an' there's big money in it after he gets a start. I'll give him his

start. It's time he woke up, an' left off his damned rock-peckin', an'

settled down. If he keeps on long enough he'll have these hills

whittled down as flat as North Dakota, an' the wind'll blow us all

over into the sheep country. Now, Pat, can you remember all that?"



The girl turned in the doorway, and smiled into the bright old eyes:

"Oh, yes, Pap, I'll tell him if I see him. Good-by!"



"Good-by, an' good luck to you! Come to see us often. We old folks get

pretty lonesome sometimes--especially mama. You see, I've got all the

best of it--I've got her, an' she's only got me!"



As Patty threaded the hills toward her cabin her thoughts followed the

events of the past few days; the visit of Len Christie in the early

morning, when he had inadvertently showed her how to read her father's

map, the staking of the false claim, the visit to the Samuelson ranch,

the horse raid, the finding of Vil Holland's glove and the bitter

disappointment that followed, then the finding of the notice that

disclosed the identity of the real thief, and her genuine joy in the

discovery, her visit to Holland's camp, and their long ride together.

"I tried to show him that all my distrust of him was gone, but he

hardly seemed to notice--unless--I wonder what he did mean about

having a hunch that he would build that cabin before snow flies?"



For some time she rode in silence, then she burst out vehemently: "I

don't care! I could love him--so there! I could just adore him! And I

don't wonder everybody likes him. He seems always so--so capable--so

confident. You just can't help liking him. If it weren't for that old

jug! He had to drag that in, even up there when he stood on the spot

where we first met--and then at the Samuelsons' he wouldn't even wait

for dinner he was so crazy to get his old whisky jug filled. It never

seems to hurt him any," she continued. "But nobody can drink as much

as he does and not be hurt by it. I just know he meant that the cabin

was going to be for me--or, did he know that Mr. Samuelson was going

to ask him to winter the cattle? He's a regular cave man--I don't know

whether I've been proposed to, or not!"



She crossed the trail for town and struck into a valley that should

bring her out somewhere along the Watts fences. So engrossed was she

in her thoughts that she failed to notice the horseman who slipped

noiselessly into the scrub a quarter of a mile ahead. Slowly she rode

up the valley: "If he comes to teach me how to shoot, I'll tell him

that Mr. Samuelson wants to see him, and if he says any more about the

cabin, or--or anything--I'll tell him he can choose between me and his

jug. And, if he chooses the jug, and I don't find daddy's mine--it

isn't long 'til school opens. I don't mind--he has to work to get his

grub-stake, and so will I."



Her horse snorted and shied violently, and when Patty recovered her

seat it was to find her way blocked by a horseman who stood not ten

feet in front of her and leered into her eyes. The horseman was Monk

Bethune--a malignant, terrifying Bethune, as he sat regarding her with

his sneering smile. The girl's first impulse was to turn and fly, but

as if divining her thoughts, the man pushed nearer, and she saw that

his eyes gleamed horribly between lids drawn to slits. Had he

discovered that she had tricked him with a false claim? If not why the

glare of hate and the sneering smile that told plainer than words that

he had her completely in his power, and knew it.



"So, my fine lady--we meet again! We have much to talk about--you and

I. But, first, about the claim. You thought you were very wise with

your lying about not having a map. You thought to save the whole loaf

for yourself--you thought I was fool enough to believe you. If you had

let me in, you would have had half--now you have nothing. The claim is

all staked and filed, and the adjoining claims for a mile are staked

with the stakes of my friends--and you have nothing! You were the

fool! You couldn't have won against me. Failing in my story of

partnership with your father, I had intended to marry you, and failing

in that, I should have taken the map by force--for I knew you carried

it with you. But I dislike violence when the end may be gained by

other means, so I waited until, at last, happened the thing I knew

would happen--you became careless. You left your precious map and

photograph in plain sight upon your little table--and now you have

nothing." So he had not discovered the deception, but, through

accident or design, had seized this opportunity to gloat over her, and

taunt her with her loss. His carefully assumed mask of suave

courtliness had disappeared, and Patty realized that at last she was

face to face with the real Bethune, a creature so degenerate that he

boasted openly of having stolen her secret, as though the fact

redounded greatly to his credit.



A sudden rage seized her. She touched her horse with the spur: "Let me

pass!" she demanded, her lips white.



The man's answer was a sneering laugh, as he blocked her way: "Ho! not

so fast, my pretty! How about the Samuelson horse raid--your part in

it? Three of my best men are in hell because you tipped off that raid

to Vil Holland! How you found it out I do not know--but women, of a

certain kind, can find out anything from men. No doubt Clen, in some

sweet secret meeting place, poured the story into your ear, although

he denies it on his life."



"What do you mean?"



"Ha! Ha! Injured innocence!" He leered knowingly into her flashing

eyes: "It seems that everyone else knew what I did not. But, I am of a

forgiving nature. I will not see you starve. Leave the others and come

to me----"



"You cur!" The words cut like a swish of a lash, and again the man

laughed:



"Oh, not so fast, you hussy! I must admit it rather piqued me to be

bested in the matter of a woman--and by a soul-puncher. I was on hand

early that morning, to spy upon your movements, as was my custom. I

speak of the morning following the night that the very Reverend

Christie spent with you in your cabin. I should not have believed it

had I not seen his horse running unsaddled with your own. Also later,

I saw you come out of the cabin together. Then I damned myself for not

having reached out before and taken what was there for me to take."



With a low cry of fury, the girl drove her spurs into her horse's

sides. The animal leaped against Bethune's horse, forcing him aside.

The quarter-breed reached swiftly for her bridle reins, and as he

leaned forward with his arm outstretched, Patty summoned all her

strength and, whirling her heavy braided rawhide quirt high above her

head, brought it down with the full sweep of her muscular arm. The

feel of the blow was good as it landed squarely upon the inflamed

brutish face, and the shrill scream of pain that followed, sent a wild

thrill of joy to the very heart of the girl. Again, the lash swung

high, this time to descend upon the flank of her horse, and before

Bethune could recover himself, the frenzied animal shot up the valley,

running with every ounce there was in him.



The valley floor was fairly level, and a hundred yards away the girl

shot a swift glance over her shoulder. Bethune's horse was getting

under way in frantic leaps that told of cruel spurring, and with her

eyes to the front, she bent forward over the horn and slapped her

horse's neck with her gloved hand. She remembered with a quick gasp of

relief that Bethune prided himself upon the fact that he never carried

a gun. She had once taunted Vil Holland with the fact, and he had

replied that "greasers and breeds were generally sneaking enough to be

knife men." Again, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled grimly as

she noted that the distance between the two flying horses had

increased by half. "Good old boy," she whispered. "You can beat

him--can 'run rings around him,' as Vil would say. It would be a long

knife that could harm me now," she thought, as she pulled her Stetson

tight against the sweep of the rushing wind. The ground was becoming

more and more uneven. Loose rock fragments were strewn about in

increasing numbers, and the valley was narrowing to an extent that

necessitated frequent fording of the shallow creek. "He can't make any

better time than I can," muttered the girl, as she noted the

slackening of her horse's speed. She was riding on a loose rein,

giving her horse his head, for she realized that to force him might

mean a misstep and a fall. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the

thoughts of a fall. A thousand times better had she fallen and been

pounded to a pulp by the flying hoofs of the horse herd, than to fall

now--and survive it. The ascent became steeper. Her horse was still

running, but very slowly. His neck and shoulders were reeking with

sweat, and she could hear the labored breath pumping through his

distended nostrils.



A sudden fear shot through her. Nine valleys in every ten, she knew,

ended in surmountable divides; and she knew, also, that one valley in

every ten did not. Suppose this one that she had chosen at random

terminated in a cul-de-sac? The way became steeper. Running was out of

the question, and her horse was forging upward in a curious

scrambling walk. A noise of clattering rocks sounded behind her, and

Patty glanced backward straight into the face of Bethune. Reckless of

a fall, in the blind fury of his passion, the quarter-breed had forced

his horse to his utmost, and rapidly closed up the gap until scarcely

ten yards separated him from the fleeing girl.



In a frenzy of terror she lashed her laboring horse's flanks as the

animal dug and clawed like a cat at the loose rock footing of the

steep ascent. White to the lips she searched the foreground for a

ravine or a coulee that would afford a means of escape. But before her

loomed only the ever steepening wall, its surface half concealed by

the scattering scrub. Once more she looked backward. The breath was

whistling through the blood-red flaring nostrils of Bethune's horse,

and her glance flew to the face of the man. Never in her wildest

nightmares had she imagined the soul-curdling horror of that face. The

lips writhed back in a hideous grin of hate. A long blue-red welt

bisected the features obliquely--a welt from which red blood flowed

freely at the corner of a swollen eye. White foam gathered upon the

distorted lips and drooled down onto the chin where it mingled with

the blood in a pink meringue that dripped in fluffy chunks upon his

shirt front. The uninjured eye was a narrow gleam of venom, and the

breath swished through the man's nostrils as from the strain of great

physical labor.



"Oh, for my gun!" thought the girl. "I'd--I'd kill him!" With a wild

scramble her horse went down. "Vil! Vil!" she shrieked, in a frenzy of

despair, and freeing herself from the floundering animal, she

struggled to her feet and faced her pursuer with a sharp rock fragment

upraised in her two hands.



Monk Bethune laughed--as the fiends must laugh in hell. A laugh that

struck a chill to the very heart of the girl. Her muscles went limp at

the sound of it and she felt the strength ebbing from her body like

sand from an upturned glass. The rock fragment became an insupportable

weight. It crashed to the ground, and rolled clattering to Bethune's

feet. He, too, had dismounted, and stood beside his horse, his fists

slowly clenching and unclenching in gloating anticipation. Patty

turned to run, but her limbs felt numb and heavy, and she pitched

forward upon her knees. With a slow movement of his hand, Bethune

wiped the pink foam from his chin, examined it, snapped it from his

fingers, cleansed them upon the sleeve of his shirt--and again,

deliberately, he laughed, and started to climb slowly forward.



A rock slipped close beside the girl, and the next instant a voice

sounded in her ear: "I don't reckon he's 'round yere, Miss. I hain't

saw Vil this mo'nin'." Rifle in hand, Watts stepped from behind a

scrub pine, and as his eyes fell upon Bethune, he stood fumbling his

beard with uncertain fingers.



"He--he'll kill me!" gasped the girl.



"Sho', now, Miss--he won't hurt yo' none, will yo', Mr. Bethune?

Gineral Jackson! Mr. Bethune, look at yo' face! Yo' must of rode

again' a limb!"



"Shut up, and get out of here!" screamed the quarter-breed. "And, if

you know what's good for you, you'll forget that you've seen anyone

this morning."



"B'en layin' up yere in the gap fer to git me a deer. I heerd yo'-all

comin', like, so's I waited."



"Get out, I tell you, before I kill you!" cried Bethune, beside

himself with rage. "Go!" The man's hand plunged beneath his shirt and

came out with a glitter of steel.



The mountaineer eyed the blade indifferently, and turned to the girl.

"Ef yo' goin' my ways, ma'am, jest yo' lead yo' hoss on ahaid. They's

a game trail runs slaunchways up th'ough the gap yender. I'll kind o'

foller 'long behind."



"You fool!" shrilled Bethune, as he made a grab for the girl's reins,

and the next instant found himself looking straight into the muzzle of

Watts's rifle.



"Drap them lines," drawled the mountaineer, "thet hain't yo' hoss. An'

what's over an' above, yo' better put up yo' whittle, an' tu'n 'round

an' go back wher' yo' com' from."



"Lower that gun!" commanded Bethune. "It's cocked!"



"Yes, hit's cocked, Mr. Bethune, an' hit's sot mighty light on the

trigger. Ef I'd git a little scairt, er a little riled, er my foot 'ud

slip, yo'd have to be drug down to wher' the diggin's easy, an'

buried."



Bethune deliberately slipped the knife back into his shirt, and

laughed: "Oh, come, now, Watts, a joke's a joke. I played a joke on

Miss Sinclair to frighten her----"



"Yo' done hit, all right," interrupted Watts. "An' thet's the end

on't."



The rifle muzzle still covered Bethune's chest in the precise region

of his heart, and once more he changed his tactics: "Don't be a fool,

Watts," he said, in an undertone, "I'm rich--richer than you, or

anyone else knows. I've located Rod Sinclair's strike and filed it. If

you just slip quietly off about your business, and forget that you

ever saw anyone here this morning--and see to it that you never

remember it again, you'll never regret it. I'll make it right with

you--I'll file you next to discovery."



"Yo' mean," asked Watts, slowly, "thet you've stoled the mine offen

Sinclair's darter, an' filed hit yo'self, an' thet ef I go 'way an'

let yo' finish the job by murderin' the gal, yo'll give me some of the

mine--is thet what yo' tryin' to git at?"



"Put it anyway you want to, damn you! Words don't matter, but for

God's sake, get out! If she once gets through the gap----"



"Bethune," Watts drawled the name, even more than was his wont, and

the quarter-breed noticed that the usually roving eyes had set into a

hard stare behind which lurked a dangerous glitter, "yo're a ornery,

low-down cur-dog what hain't fitten to be run with by man, beast, or

devil. I'd ort to shoot yo' daid right wher' yo' at--an' mebbe I will.

But comin' to squint yo' over, that there damage looks mo' like a

quirt-lick than a limb. Thet ort to hurt like fire fer a couple a

days, an' when it lets up yo' face hain't a-goin' to be so purty as

what hit wus. Ef she'd jest of drug the quirt along a little when hit

landed she c'd of cut plumb into the bone--but hit's middlin' fair, as

hit stands. I'm a-goin' to give yo' a chanct--an' a warnin', too. Next

time I see yo' I'm a-going' to kill yo'--whenever, or wherever hit's

at. I'll do hit, jest as shore as my name is John Watts. Yo' kin go

now--back the way yo' come, pervidin' yo' go fast. I'm a-goin' to

count up to wher' I know how to--I hain't never be'n to school none,

but I counted up to nineteen, onct--an' whin I git to wher' I cain't

rec'lec' the nex' figger, I'm a-goin' to shoot, an' shoot straight.

An' I hain't a-goin' to study long about them figgers, neither. Le's

see, one comes fust--yere goes, then: One ... Two...." For a single

instant, Bethune gazed into the man's eyes and the next, he sprang

into the saddle, and dashing wildly down the steep slope, disappeared

into the scrub.



"Spec' I'd ort to killed him," regretted the mountaineer, as he

lowered the rifle, and gazed off down the valley, "but I hain't got no

appetite fer diggin'."