Ma Watts called loudly from the doorway and numerous small Wattses appeared as if by magic from the direction of the creek and the cottonwood thicket. Dinner consisted of flabby salt pork, swimming in its own grease, into which were dipped by means of fingers or forks, huge misshapen slices of sour white bread. There was also an abundance of corn pone, black molasses, and a vile concoction that Ma Watts called coffee. Flies swarmed above the table and settled upon the food from which they arose in clouds at each repetition of the dipping process.

How she got through the meal Patty did not know, but to her surprise and disgust, realized that she had actually consumed a considerable portion of the unappetizing mess. Watts arose, stretched prodigiously, and sauntered to his chair which, true to calculation was already just within the shadow of the east side of the house.

Baby on hip, Ma Watts, assisted by Microby Dandeline and Lillian Russell, attacked the dishes. All offers of help from Patty were declined.

“Yo’ welcome to stay yere jest as long as yo’ want to, honey, an’ yo’ hain’t got to work none neither. They’s a old piece o’ stack-cover somewheres around an’ them young-uns kin rig ’em up a tent an’ sleep in hit all summer, an’ yo’ kin hev their shake-down like yo’ done las’ night. I s’pose yo’re yere about yo’ pa’s claim?”

“Yes,” answered the girl, “and I certainly appreciate your hospitality. I hope I can repay you some day, but I cannot think of settling myself upon you this way. My work will take me out into the hills and -”

“Jest like yo’ pa usta say. He wus that fond o’ rale home cookin’ thet he’d come ’long every onct in a month ‘er so, an’ git him a squr meal, an’ then away he’d go out to his camp.”

“Where was his camp?” asked the girl eagerly.

“Lawzie, his camp wus a tent, an’ he moved hit around so they couldn’t no one tell from one day to ’nother where he’d be at. But, he never wus no great ways from here, gen’ally within ten mile, one way er ‘nother. Hits out yonder in the barn-his tent an’ outfit-pick an’ pan an’ shovel an’ dishes, all ready to throw onto his pack hoss which hits a mewl an’ runnin’ in the hills with them hosses of ourn. If hit wusn’t fer the fences they’d be in the pasture. Watts aims to fix ’em when he gits time.”

“I don’t know much about tents, but I guess I’ll have to use it, that is, if there isn’t another ranch, or a-a house, or something, where I can rent a room all to myself.”

“Great sakes, child! They hain’t another ranch within twenty-five mile, an’ thet’s towards town.” As if suddenly smitten with an idea, she paused with her hand full of dishes and called loudly to her spouse:

“Watts! Watts!”

The chair was eased to its four legs, and the lank form appeared in the doorway. “Yeh?”

“How about the sheep camp?”

The man’s fingers fumbled at his beard and he appeared plunged into deep thought. “What yo’ mean, how ’bout hit?”

“Why not we-all leave Mr. Sinclair’s darter live up there?”

Again the thoughtful silence. At length the man spoke: “Why, shore, she kin stay there long as she likes, an’ welcome.”

“Hit’s a cabin four mile up the crick,” explained Ma Watts, “what we built on our upper desert fer a man thet wanted to run a band o’ sheep. He wus rentin’ the range offen us, till they druv him off-the cattlemen claimed they wouldn’t ’low no sheep in the hill country. They warned him an’ pestered him a spell, an’ then they jest up an’ druv him off-thet Vil Holland wus into hit, an’ some more.”

“Who is this Vil Holland you speak of, and why did he want to drive off the sheep?”

“Oh, he’s a cowpuncher-they say they hain’t a better cowpuncher in Montany, when he’ll work. But he won’t work only when he takes a notion-’druther hang around the hills an’ prospeck. He hain’t never made no strike, but he allus aims to, like all the rest. Ef he’d settle down, he could draw his forty dollars a month the year ’round, ‘stead of which, he works on the round-up, an’ gits him a stake, an’ then quits an’ strikes out fer the hills.”

“I couldn’t think of occupying your cabin without paying for it. How much will you rent it to me for?”

“‘Tain’t wuth nothin’ at all,” said Watts. “‘Tain’t doin’ no good settin’ wher’ it’s at, an’ yo’ won’t hurt hit none a-livin’ in hit. Jest move in, an’ welcome.”

“No, indeed! Now, you tell me, is ten dollars a month enough rent?”

“Ten dollars a month!” exclaimed Watts. “Why, we-all only got fifteen fo’ a herder an’ a dog an’ a band o’ sheep! No, ef yo’ bound to pay, I’ll take two dollars a month. We-all might be po’ but we hain’t no robbers.”

“I’ll take it,” said Patty. “And now I’ll have to have a lot of things from town-food and blankets, and furniture, and -”

“Hit’s all furnished,” broke in Ma Watts. “They’s a bunk, an’ a table, an’ a stove, an a couple o’ wooden chairs.”

“Oh, that’s fine!” cried the girl, becoming really enthusiastic over the prospect of having a cabin all her very own. “But, about the other things: Mr. Watts can you haul them from town?”

Watts tugged at his beard and stared out across the hills. “Yes, mom, I reckon I kin. Le’s see, the work’s a-pilin’ up on me right smart.” He cast his eye skyward, where the sun shone hot from the cloudless blue. “Hit mought rain to-morrow, an’ hit moughtn’t. The front ex on the wagon needs fixin’-le’s see, this here’s a Wednesday. How’d next Sunday, a week do?”

The girl stared at him in dismay. Ten days of Ma Watts’s “home cooking” loomed before her.

“Oh, couldn’t you possibly go before that?” she pleaded.

“Well, there’s them fences. I’d orter hev’ time to study ’bout how many steeples hit’s a-goin’ to tak’ to fix ’em. An’ besides, Ferd Rowe ‘lowed he wus comin’ ‘long some day to trade hosses an’ I’d hate to miss him.”

“Why can’t I go to town. I know the way. Will you rent me your horses and wagon? I can drive and I can bring out your tools and things, too.” As she awaited Watts’s reply her eyes met the wistful gaze of Microby Dandeline. She turned to Ma Watts. “And maybe you would let Microby Dandeline go with me. It would be loads of fun.”

“Lawzie, honey, yo’ wouldn’t want to be pestered with her.”

“Yes, I would really. Please let her go with me, that is, if Mr. Watts will let me have the team.”

“Why, shore, yo’ welcome to ’em. They hain’t sich a good span o’ hosses, but they’ll git yo’ there, an’ back, give ’em time.”

“And can we start in the morning?”

“My! Yo’ in a sight o’ hurry. They’s thet front ex -”

“Is it anything very serious? Maybe I could help fix it. Do let me try.”

Watts rubbed his beard reflectively. “Well, no, I reckon it’s mebbe the wheels needs greasin’. ‘Twouldn’t take no sight o’ time to do, if a body could only git at hit. Reckon I mought grease ’em all ’round, onct I git started. The young-uns kin help, yo’ jest stay here with Ma. Ef yo’ so plumb sot on goin’ we’ll see’t yo’ git off.”

“I kin go, cain’t I, Ma?” Microby Dandeline’s eyes were big with excitement, as she wrung out her dish towel and hung it to dry in the sun.

“Why, yas, I reckon yo’ mought’s well-but seem’s like yo’ allus a-wantin’ to gad. Yo’ be’n to town twict a’ready.”

“Twice!” cried Patty. “In how long?”

“She’s goin’ on eighteen. Four years, come July she wus to town. They wus a circust.”

“I know Mr. Christie. He lives to town.”

“He’s the preacher. He’s a ‘piscopalium preacher, an’ one time that Vil Holland an’ him come ridin’ ‘long, an’ they stopped in fer dinner, an’ that Vil Holland, he’s allus up to some kind o’ devilment er ’nother, he says: ‘Ma Watts, why don’t yo’ hev the kids all babitized?’ I hadn’t never thought much ’bout hit, but thar wus the preacher, an’ he seemed to think mighty proud of hit, an’ hit didn’t cost nothin’, so I tol’ him to go ahead. He started in on Microby Dandeline-we jest called her Dandeline furst, bein’ thet yallar with janders when she wus a baby, but when she got about two year, I wus a readin’ a piece in a paper a man left, ’bout these yere little microbys thet gits into everywheres they shouldn’t ort to, jest like she done, so I says to Watts how she’d ort to had two names anyways, only I couldn’t think of none but common ones when we give her hern. I says, we’ll name her Microby Dandeline Watts an’ Watts, he didn’t care one way er t’other.” Ma Watts shifted the baby to the other hip. “Babitizin’ is nice, but hit works both ways, too. Take the baby, yere. When we’d got down to the bottom of the batch it come her turn, an’, lawzie, I wus that flustered, comin’ so sudden, thet way, I couldn’t think of no name fer her ’cept Chattenoogy Tennessee, where I come from near, an’ the very nex’ day I wus readin’ in the almanac an’ I found one I liked better. Watts, he hain’t no help to a body, he hain’t no aggucation to speak of, an’ don’t never read none, an’ would as soon I’d name his children John, like his ma done him. As I was sayin’ there hit wus in the almanac the name ’twould of fitten the baby to a T. Vernal Esquimaux, hit said, March 21, 5:26 A.M. The baby was borned March the 21st, ‘tween five an’ six in the mornin’. Nex’ time I wus to town I hunted up preacher Christie, but he said he couldn’t onbabitize her, an’ he reckoned Chatenoogy Tennessee wus as good as Vernal Esquimaux, anyhow, an’ we could save Vernal Esquimaux fer the next one-jest’s ef yo’ could hev ’em like a time table!”

The afternoon was assiduously devoted to overhauling the contents of a huge tin trunk in an effort to find a frock suitable for the momentous occasion of Microby Dandeline’s journey. The one that had served for the previous visit, a tight little affair of pink gingham, proved entirely inadequate in its important dimensions, and automatically became the property of the younger and smaller Lillian Russell. Patty’s suggestion of a simple white lawn that reposed upon the very bottom of the trunk was overruled in favor of a betucked and beflounced creation of red calico in which Ma Watts had beamed upon the gay panoply of the long remembered “circust.” An hour’s work with scissors and needle reduced the dress to approximately the required size. When the task was completed Watts appeared with the information that he reckoned the wagon would run, and that the “young-uns” were out in the hills hunting the “hosses.”

At early dawn the following morning Patty was awakened by a timid hand upon her shoulder.

“Hit’s daylight, an’ Pa’s hitchin’ up the hosses.” Arrayed in the red dress, her eyes round with excitement and anticipation, Microby Dandeline was bending over her whispering excitedly, “An’ breakfus’s ready, an’ me an’ Ma’s got the lunch putten up, an’ hit’s a pow’ful long ways to town, an’ we better git a-goin’.”

“Stay right clost an’ don’t go gittin’ lost,” admonished Ma watts, as she stood in the doorway and surveyed her daughter with approval born of motherly pride. The pink gingham sunbonnet that matched the tight little dress had required only a slight “letting out” to make it “do,” and taken in conjunction with the flaming red dress, made a study in color that would have delighted the heart of a Gros Ventre squaw. Thick, home-knit stockings, and a pair of stiff cow-hide shoes completed the costume, and made Microby Dandeline the center of an admiring semi-circle of Wattses.

“Yo’ shore look right pert an’ briggity, darter,” admitted Watts. “Don’t yo’ give the lady no trouble, keep offen the railroad car tracks, an’ don’t go talkin’ to strangers yo’ don’t know, an’ ef yo’ see preacher Christie tell him howdy, an’ how’s he gittin’ ‘long, an’ we’re doin’ the same, an’ stop in nex’ time he’s out in the hills.” He handed Patty the reins. “An’ mom, yo’ won’t fergit them steeples, an’ a ax, an’ a spade?”

“I won’t forget,” Patty assured him, and as Microby Dandeline was saying good-by to the small brothers and sisters, the man leaned closer. “Ef they’s any change left over I wisht yo’d give her about ten cents to spend jest as she pleases.”

The girl nodded, and as Microby Dandeline scrambled up over the wheel and settled herself beside her upon the board that served as a seat, she called a cheery good-by, and clucked to the horses.

The trail down Monte’s Creek was a fearsome road that sidled dangerously along narrow rock ledges, and plunged by steep pitches into the creek bed and out again. Partly by sheer luck, partly by bits of really skillful driving, but mostly because the horses, themselves knew every foot of the tortuous trail, the descent of the creek was made without serious mishap. It was with a sigh of relief that Patty turned into the smoother trail that lead down through the canyon toward town. In comparison with the bumping and jolting of the springless lumber wagon, she realized that the saddle that had racked and tortured her upon her outward trip had been a thing of ease and comfort. Released from her post at the brake-rope, Microby Dandeline immediately proceeded to remove her shoes and stockings. Patty ventured remonstrance.

“Hit’s hot an’ them stockin’s scratches. ’Tain’t no good to wear ’em in the summer, nohow, ‘cept in town, an’ I kin put ’em on when we git there. Why does folks wear ’em in town?”

“Why, because it is nicer, and-and people couldn’t very well go around barefooted.”

“I kin. I like to ’cept fer the prickly pears. Is they prickly pears in town?” Without waiting far a reply the girl chattered on, as she placed the offending stockings within her shoes and tossed them back upon the hay with which the wagon-box was filled. “I like to ride, don’t you? We’ve got to ride all day an’ then we’ll git to town. We goin’ to sleep in under the wagon?”

“Certainly not! We will go to the hotel.”

“The hotel,” breathed the girl, rapturously. “An’ kin we eat there too?”

“Yes, we will eat there, too.”

“An’ kin I go to the store with yo’?”

“Yes.”

Patty’s answers became shorter as her attention centered upon a horseman who was negotiating the descent of what looked like an impossibly steep ridge.

“That’s Buck!” exclaimed Microby Dandeline, as she followed the girl’s gaze. The rider completed the descent of the ridge with an abrupt slide that obscured him in a cloud of dust from which he emerged to approach the trail at a swinging trot. Long before he was near enough for Patty to distinguish his features, she recognized him as her lone horseman of the hills. “If it is his intention to presume upon our chance meeting,” she thought, “I’ll -” The threat was unexpressed even in thought, but her lips tightened and she flushed hotly as she remembered how he had picked her up as though she had been a child and placed her in the saddle.

“Who did you say he is?” she asked, with a glance toward the girl at her side.

“He’s Vil Holland, an’ his hoss’s name is Buck. I like him, only sometimes he chases me home.”

“Vil Holland!” she exclaimed aloud, and her lips pressed tighter. So this man was Vil Holland-that Vil Holland, everybody called him. The man who had chased an inoffensive sheep herder from the range, and whose name stood for lawlessness in the hill country! So Aunt Rebecca’s allusion to desperate characters had not been so far-fetched, after all. He looked the part. Patty’s glance took in the vivid blue scarf with its fastening of polished buffalo horn, the huge revolver that swung in its holster, and the brown leather jug that dangled from the horn of his saddle.

“Good-mornin’!” He drew up beside the trail, and the girl reined in her horses, flushing slightly as she did so-she had meant to drive past without speaking. She acknowledged the greeting with a formal bow. The man ignored the frigidity.

“I see you found Watts’s all right.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Well, if there ain’t Microby Dandeline! An’ rigged out for who throw’d the chunk! Goin’ to town to take in the picture show, an all the sights, I expect.”

“We’re goin’ to the hotel,” explained the girl proudly.

“My ain’t that fine!”

“I got a red dress.”

“Why so you have. Seein’ you mentioned it, I can notice a shade of red to it. An’ that bonnet just sets it off right. That’ll make folks set up an’ take notice, I’ll bet.”

“I’m a-goin’ to the store, too.”

“What do you think of that!” the man drew a half-dollar from his pockets. “Here, get you some candy an’ take some home to the kids.”

Microby reached for the coin, but Patty drew back her arm.

“Don’t touch that!” she commanded sharply, then, with a withering look that encompassed both the man and his jug, she struck the horses with her whip and started down the trail.

“I could of boughten some candies,” complained Microby Dandeline.

“I will buy you all the candy you want, but you must promise me never to take any money from men-and especially from that man.”

Microby glanced back wistfully, and as the wagon rumbled on her eyes closed and her head began to nod.

“Why, child, you are sleepy!” exclaimed Patty, in surprise.

“Yes, mom. I reckon I laid awake all night a-thinkin’ about goin’ to town.”

“If I were you I would lie down on the hay and take a nap.”

The girl eyed the hay longingly and shook her head. “I like to ride,” she objected, sleepily.

“You will be riding just the same.”

“Yes but we might see somethin’. Onct we seen a nortymobile without no hosses an’ hit squarked louder’n a settin’ hen an’ went faster’n what a hoss kin run.”

“You go to sleep and if there is anything to see I’ll wake you up. If you don’t sleep now you’ll have to sleep when you get to town and I’m sure you don’t want to do that.”

“No, mom. Mebbe ef I hurry up an’ sleep fast they won’t no nortymobiles come, but if they does, you wake me.”

“I will,” promised Patty, and thus assured the girl curled up in the hay and in a moment was fast asleep.

Hour after hour as the horses plodded along the interminable trail, Patty Sinclair sat upon the hard wooden seat, while her thoughts ranged from plans for locating her father’s lost claim, to the arrangement of her cabin; and from Vil Holland to the welfare of the girl, a pathetic figure as she lay sprawled upon the hay, with her bare legs, and the gray dust settling thickly upon her red dress and vivid pink sunbonnet.