"It is about the first slip you've made, isn't it?" Patty answered, acidly. "Possibly if you'd left your jug at home you wouldn't have made that."
"Oh no. We've slipped before. Fact is, we've been into about every kind of a jack-pot the hills can deal. We rolled half way down a mountain once, an' barrin' a little skinnin' up, we come out of it all to the good. But it ain't the jug. Buck don't drink. It's surprisin' what a good habited horse he is. He's a heap better'n most folks." The man spoke gravely, with no hint of sarcasm in his tone, and Patty sniffed. He appeared not to notice. "How you comin' on with the prospectin'? Found yer dad's claim yet?"
"You ought to know whether I have or not," she retorted, hotly.
"That's so. If you had, you wouldn't still be huntin' it, would you?"
"No. And if I had, I'd have had a nice little race on my hands to file it, wouldn't I?"
"Well, I expect maybe you would. But that horse of yours is pretty handy on his feet. Used to belong to Bob Smith--that's his brand--that KN on the left shoulder."
"Yes," answered the girl, meaningly. "I understand there is only one horse in the hills that could outrun him."
"Buck can. I won ten dollars off Bob one time. We run a mile, an' Buck won, easy. But the best thing about Buck, he's a distance horse. He's got the wind--an' he don't know what it means to quit. He could run all day if he had to, couldn't you, Buck?" The man stroked the buckskin's neck affectionately as he talked.
Patty's eyes glinted angrily: "The stakes would have to be pretty high for you to run him, say, fifty miles, wouldn't they?"
"Yes. Pretty high," he repeated, and changed the subject abruptly. "Must find it kind of lonesome out here in the hills, after livin' in the East where there's lots of folks around all the time."
"Oh, not at all," answered the girl, quickly. "Some of my neighbors are good enough to call on me once in a while--_when I am at home_. And there is at least _one_ that calls very regularly when I am not at home. He is a genius for detail--that one. Sharp eyes, and a light touch. He's something of an expert in the matter of duplicate keys, too. In any large city he should make a grand success--as a burglar. It is really too bad that he's wasting his talents, here in the hills."