The Gold Girl   By: James B. Hendryx (1880-1963)

The Gold Girl

By

James B. Hendryx

Author of "The Promise," "The Gun Brand," "The Texan," etc.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press

1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920

BY

JAMES B. HENDRYX

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A HORSEMAN OF THE HILLS 1

II. AT THE WATTS RANCH 10

III. PATTY GOES TO TOWN 30

IV. MONK BETHUNE 47

V. SHEEP CAMP 65

VI. BETHUNE PAYS A CALL 81

VII. IN THE CABIN 98

VIII. PROSPECTING 111

IX. PATTY TAKES PRECAUTIONS 129

X. THE BISHOP OF ALL OUTDOORS 146

XI. LORD CLENDENNING GETS A DUCKING 162

XII. BETHUNE TRIES AGAIN 180

XIII. PATTY DRAWS A MAP 198

XIV. THE SAMUELSONS 219

XV. THE HORSE RAID 239

XVI. PATTY FINDS A GLOVE 263

XVII. UNMASKED 288

XVIII. PATTY MAKES HER STRIKE 308

XIX. THE RACE FOR THE REGISTER 327

The Gold Girl

CHAPTER I

A HORSEMAN OF THE HILLS

Patty Sinclair reined in her horse at the top of a low divide and gazed helplessly around her. The trail that had grown fainter and fainter with its ascent of the creek bed disappeared entirely at the slope of loose rock and bunch grass that slanted steeply to the divide. In vain she scanned the deeply gored valley that lay before her and the timbered slopes of the mountains for sign of human habitation. Her horse lowered his head and snipped at the bunch grass. Stiffly the girl dismounted. She had been in the saddle since early noon with only two short intervals of rest when she had stopped to drink and to bathe her fare in the deliciously cold waters of mountain streams and now the trail had melted into the hills, and the broad shadows of mountains were lengthening. Every muscle of her body ached at the unaccustomed strain, and she was very hungry. She envied her horse his enjoyment of the bunch grass which he munched with much tongueing of the bit and impatient shaking of the head. With bridle reins gripped tightly she leaned wearily against the saddle.

"I'm lost," she murmured. "Just plain lost . Surely I must have come fifty miles, and I followed their directions exactly, and now I'm tired, and stiff, and sore, and hungry, and lost." A grim little smile tightened the corners of her mouth. "But I'm glad I came. If Aunt Rebecca could see me now! Wouldn't she just gloat? 'I told you so, my dear, just as I often told your poor father, to have nothing whatever to do with that horrible country of wild Indians, and ferocious beasts, and desperate characters.'" Hot tears blurred her eyes at the thought of her father. "This is the country he loved, with its mountains and its woods and its deep mysterious valleys and I want to love it, too. And I will love it! I'll find his mine if it takes me all the rest of my life. And I'll show the people back home that he was right, that he did know that the gold was here, and that he wasn't just a visionary and a ne'er do well!"