Many times when the three were together, and Kitty had led the talk far from the life with which the cowboy was familiar, the young woman was forced, against the wish of her heart, to make comparisons. Kitty did not understand that Phil—unaccustomed to speaking of things outside his work and the life interests of his associates, and timid always in expressing his own thoughts—found it very hard to reveal the real wealth of his mind to her when she assumed so readily that he knew nothing beyond his horses and cattle. But Patches, to whom Phil had learned to speak with little reserve, understood. And, knowing that the wall which the girl felt separated her from the cowboy was built almost wholly of her own assumptions, Patches never lost an opportunity to help the young woman to a fuller acquaintance with the man whom she thought she had known since childhood.

During the long winter months, many an evening at the Cross-Triangle, at the Reid home, or, perhaps, at some neighborhood party or dance, afforded Kitty opportunities for a fuller understanding of Phil, but resulted only in establishing a closer friendship with Patches.

Then came the spring.

The snow melted; the rains fell; the washes and creek channels were filled with roaring floods; hill and ridge and mountain slope and mesa awoke to the new life that was swelling in every branch and leaf and blade; the beauties of the valley meadow appeared again in fresh and fragrant loveliness; while from fence-post and bush and grassy bank and new-leaved tree the larks and mocking birds and doves voiced their glad return.

And, with the spring, came a guest to the Cross-Triangle Ranch—another stranger.

Patches had been riding the drift fence, and, as he made his way toward the home ranch, in the late afternoon, he looked a very different man from the Patches who, several months before, had been rescued by Kitty from a humiliating experience with that same fence.

The fact that he was now riding Stranger, the big bay with the blazed face, more than anything else, perhaps, marked the change that had come to the man whom the horse had so viciously tested, on that day when they began together their education and work on the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

No one meeting the cowboy, who handled his powerful and wild spirited mount with such easy confidence and skill, would have identified him with the white-faced, well-tailored gentleman whom Phil had met on the Divide. The months of active outdoor life had given his tall body a lithe and supple strength that was revealed in his every movement, while wind and sun had stained his skin that deep tan which marks those who must face the elements every waking hour. Prom tinkling bridle chain and jingling spur, to the coiled riata, his equipment showed the unmistakable marks of use. His fringed chaps, shaped, by many a day in the saddle, to his long legs, expressed experience, while his broad hat, soiled by sweat and dust, had acquired individuality, and his very jumper—once blue but now faded and patched—disclaimed the tenderfoot.

Riding for a little way along the top of the ridge that forms the western edge of the valley, Patches looked down upon the red roofs of the buildings of the home ranch, and smiled as he thought of the welcome that awaited him there at the close of his day's work. The Dean and Stella, with Little Billy, and Phil, and the others of the home circle, had grown very dear to this strong man of whom they still knew nothing; and great as was the change in his outward appearance and manner, the man himself knew that there were other changes as great. Honorable Patches had not only acquired a name and a profession, but in acquiring them he had gained something of much greater worth to himself. And so he was grateful to those who, taking him on trust, had helped him more than they knew.

He had left the ridge, and was half way across the flat toward the corrals, when Little Billy, spurring old Sheep in desperate energy, rode wildly out to meet him.

As the lad approached, he greeted his big friend with shrill, boyish shouts, and Patches answered with a cowboy yell which did credit to his training, while Stranger, with a wild, preliminary bound into the air, proceeded, with many weird contortions, to give an exhibition which fairly expressed his sentiments.

Little Billy grinned with delight. "Yip! Yip! Yee-e-e!" he shrilled, for Stranger's benefit. And then, as the big horse continued his manifestations, the lad added the cowboy's encouraging admonition to the rider. "Stay with him, Patches! Stay with him!"

Patches laughingly stayed with him. "What you aimin' to do, pardner"—he asked good-naturedly, when Stranger at last consented to keep two feet on the ground at the same time—"tryin' to get me piled?"

"Shucks!" retorted the youngster admiringly. "I don't reckon anything could pile you, now. I come out to tell you that we got company," he added, as, side by side, they rode on toward the corrals.

Patches was properly surprised. "Company!" he exclaimed.

Little Billy grinned proudly. "Yep. He's a man—from way back East somewhere. Uncle Will brought him out from town. They got here just after dinner. I don't guess he's ever seen a ranch before. Gee! but won't we have fun with him!"

Patches face was grave as he listened. "How do you know he is from the East, Billy?" he asked, concealing his anxious interest with a smile at his little comrade.

"Heard Uncle Will tell Phil and Kitty."

"Oh, Kitty is at the house, too, is she?"

Billy giggled. "She an' Phil's been off somewheres ridin' together most all day; they just got back a while ago. They was talkin' with the company when I left. Phil saw you when you was back there on the ridge, an' I come on out to tell you."

Phil and Kitty were walking toward their horses, which were standing near the corral fence, as Patches and Little Billy came through the gate.

The boy dropped from his saddle, and ran on into the house to tell his Aunt Stella that Patches had come, leaving Sheep to be looked after by whoever volunteered for the service. It was one of Little Billy's humiliations that he was not yet tall enough to saddle or bridle his own horse, and the men tactfully saw to it that his mount was always ready in the morning, and properly released at night, without any embarrassing comments on the subject.

Patches checked his horse, and without dismounting greeted his friends. "You're not going?" he said to Kitty, with a note of protest in his voice. "I haven't seen you for a week. It's not fair for Phil to take advantage of his position and send me off somewhere alone while he spends his time riding over the country with you."

They laughed up at him as he sat there on the big bay, hat in hand, looking down into their upturned faces with the intimate, friendly interest of an older brother.

Patches noticed that Kitty's eyes were bright with excitement, and that Phil's were twinkling with suppressed merriment.

"I must go, Patches," said the young woman. "I ought to have gone two hours ago; but I was so interested that the time slipped away before I realized."

"We have company," explained Phil, looking at Patches and deliberately closing one eye—the one that Kitty could not see. "A distinguished guest, if you please. I'll loan you a clean shirt for supper; that is, if mother lets you eat at the same table with him."

"Phil, how can you!" protested Kitty.

The two men laughed, but Phil fancied that there was a hint of anxiety in Patches' face, as the man on the horse said, "Little Billy broke the news to me. Who is he?"

"A friend of Judge Morris in Prescott," answered Phil. "The Judge asked Uncle Will to take him on the ranch for a while. He and the Judge were—"

Kitty interrupted with enthusiasm. "It is Professor Parkhill, Patches, the famous professor of aesthetics, you know: Everard Charles Parkhill. And he's going to spend the summer in Williamson Valley! Isn't it wonderful!"

Phil saw a look of relief in his friend's face as Patches answered Kitty with sympathetic interest. "It certainly will be a great pleasure, Miss Reid, especially for you, to have one so distinguished for his scholarship in the neighborhood. Is Professor Parkhill visiting Arizona for his health?"

Something in Patches' voice caused Phil to turn hastily aside.

But Kitty, who was thinking how perfectly Patches understood her, noticed nothing in his grave tones save his usual courteous deference.

"Partly because of his health," she answered, "but he is going to prepare a series of lectures, I understand. He says that in the crude and uncultivated mentalities of our—"

"Here he is now," interrupted Phil, as the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle appeared, coming slowly toward them.

Professor Everard Charles Parkhill looked the part to which, from his birth, he had been assigned by his over-cultured parents. His slender body, with its narrow shoulders and sunken chest, frail as it was, seemed almost too heavy for his feeble legs. His thin face, bloodless and sallow, with a sparse, daintily trimmed beard and weak watery eyes, was characterized by a solemn and portentous gravity, as though, realizing fully the profound importance of his mission in life, he could permit no trivial thought to enter his bald, domelike head. One knew instinctively that in all the forty-five or fifty years of his little life no happiness or joy that had not been scientifically sterilized and certified had ever been permitted to stain his super-aesthetic soul.

As he came forward, he gazed at the long-limbed man on the big bay horse with a curious eagerness, as though he were considering a strange and interesting creature that could scarcely be held to belong to the human race.

"Professor Parkhill," said Phil coolly, "you were saying that you had never seen a genuine cowboy in his native haunt. Permit me to introduce a typical specimen, Mr. Honorable Patches. Patches, this is Professor Parkhill."

"Phil," murmured Kitty, "how can you?"

The Professor was gazing at Patches as though fascinated. And Patches, his weather-beaten face as grave as the face of a wooden Indian, stared back at the Professor with a blank, open-mouthed and wild-eyed expression of rustic wonder that convulsed Phil and made Kitty turn away to hide a smile.

"Howdy! Proud to meet up with you, mister," drawled the typical specimen of the genus cowboy. And then, as though suddenly remembering his manners, he leaped to the ground and strode awkwardly forward, one hand outstretched in greeting, the other holding fast to Stranger's bridle rein, while the horse danced and plunged about with reckless indifference to the polite intentions of his master.

The Professor backed fearfully away from the dangerous looking horse and the equally formidable-appearing cowboy. Whereat Patches addressed Stranger with a roar of savage wrath.

"Whoa! You consarned, square-headed, stiff-legged, squint-eyed, lop-eared, four-flusher, you. Whoa, I tell you! Cain't you see I'm a-wantin' to shake hands with this here man what the boss has interduced me to?"

Phil nearly choked. Kitty was looking unutterable things. They did not know that Patches was suffering from a reaction caused by the discovery that he had never before met Professor Parkhill.

"You see, mister," he explained gravely, advancing again with Stranger following nervously, "this here fool horse ain't used to strangers, no how, 'specially them as don't look, as you might say, just natural like." He finished with a sheepish grin, as he grasped the visitor's soft little hand and pumped it up and down with virile energy. Then, staring with bucolic wonder at the distinguished representative of the highest culture, he asked, "Be you an honest-to-God professor? I've heard about such, but I ain't never seen one before."

The little man replied hurriedly, but with timid pride, "Certainly, sir; yes, certainly."

"You be!" exclaimed the cowboy, as though overcome by his nearness to such dignity. "Excuse me askin', but if you don't mind, now—what be you professor of?"

The other answered with more courage, as though his soul found strength in the very word: "Aesthetics."

The cowboy's jaw dropped, his mouth opened in gaping awe, and he looked from the professor to Phil and Kitty, as if silently appealing to them to verify this startling thing which he had heard. "You don't say!" he murmured at last in innocent admiration. "Well, now, to think of a little feller like you a-bein' all that! But jest what be them there esteticks what you're professor of—if you don't mind my askin'?"

The distinguished scholar answered promptly, in his best platform voice, "The science or doctrine of the nature of beauty and of judgments of tastes."

At this, Stranger, with a snort of fear, stood straight up on his hind legs, and Professor Parkhill scuttled to a position of safety behind Phil.

"Excuse me, folks," said Patches. "I'm just naturally obliged to 'tend to this here thing what thinks he's a hoss. Come along, you ornery, pigeon-toed, knock-kneed, sway-backed, wooly-haired excuse, you. You ain't got no more manners 'n a measly coyote."

The famous professor of aesthetics stood with Phil and Kitty watching Patches as that gentleman relieved the dancing bay of the saddle, and led him away through the corrals to the gate leading into the meadow pasture.

"I beg pardon," murmured the visitor in his thin, little voice, "but what did I understand you to say is the fellow's name?"

"Patches; Honorable Patches," answered Phil.

"How strange! how extraordinarily strange! I should be very interested to know something of his ancestry, and, if possible, to trace the origin of such a peculiar name."

Phil replied with exaggerated concern. "For heaven's sake, sir, don't say anything about the man's name in his hearing."

"He—he is dangerous, you mean?"

"He is, if he thinks anyone is making light of his name. You should ask some of the boys who have tried it."

"But I—I assure you, Mr. Acton, I had no thought of ridicule—far from it. Oh, very far from it."

Kitty was obliged to turn away. She arrived at the corral in time to meet Patches, who was returning.

"You ought to be ashamed," she scolded. But in spite of herself her eyes were laughing.

"Yes, ma'am," said Patches meekly, hat in hand.

"How could you do such a thing?" she demanded.

"How could I help doing it?"

"How could you help it?"

"Yes. You saw how he looked at me. Really, Miss Reid, I couldn't bear to disappoint him so cruelly. Honestly, now, wasn't I exactly what he expected me to be? I think you should compliment me. Didn't I do it very well?"

"But, he'll think you're nothing but a cowboy," she protested.

"Fine!" retorted Patches, quickly. "I thank you, Miss Reid; that is really the most satisfactory compliment I have ever received."

"You're mocking me now," said Kitty, puzzled by his manner.

"Indeed, I am not. I am very serious," he returned. "But here he comes again. With your gracious permission, I'll make my exit. Please don't explain to the professor. It would humiliate me, and think how it would shock and disappoint him!"

Lifting his saddle from the ground and starting toward the shed, he said in a louder tone, "Sure, I won't ferget, Miss Kitty; an' you kin tell your paw that there baldfaced steer o' his'n, what give us the slip last rodeo time, is over in our big pasture. I sure seen him thar to-day."

During the days immediately following that first meeting, Kitty passed many hours with Professor Parkhill. Phil and his cowboys were busy preparing for the spring rodeo. Mrs. Baldwin was wholly occupied with ministering to the animal comforts of her earthly household. And the Dean, always courteous and kind to his guest, managed, nevertheless, to think of some pressing business that demanded his immediate and personal attention whenever the visitor sought to engage him in conversation. The professor, quite naturally holding the cattleman to be but a rude, illiterate and wholly materialistic creature, but little superior in intellectual and spiritual powers to his own beasts, sought merely to investigate the Dean's mental works, with as little regard for the Dean's feelings as a biologist would show toward a hug. The Dean confided to Phil and Patches, one day when he had escaped to the blacksmith shop where the men were shoeing their horses, that the professor was harmlessly insane. "Just think," he exploded, "of the poor, little fool livin' in Chicago for three years, an' never once goin' out to the stockyards even!"

It remained, therefore, for Kitty—the only worshiper of the professor's gods in Williamson Valley—to supply that companionship which seems so necessary even to those whose souls are so far removed from material wants. In short, as Little Billy put it, with a boy's irreverence, "Kitty rode herd on the professor." And, strangely enough to them all, Kitty seemed to like the job.

Either because her friendship with Patches—which had some to mean a great deal to Kitty—outweighed her respect and admiration for the distinguished object of his fun, or because she waited for some opportunity to make the revelation a punishment to the offender, the young woman did not betray the real character of the cowboy to the stranger. And the professor, thanks to Phil's warning, not only refrained from investigating the name of Patches, but carefully avoided Patches himself. In the meantime, the "typical specimen" was forced to take a small part in the table talk lest he betray himself. So marked was this that Mrs. Baldwin one day, not understanding, openly chided him for being so "glum." Whereupon the Dean—to whom Phil had thoughtfully explained—teased the deceiver unmercifully, with many laughingly alleged reasons for his "grouch," while Curly and Bob, attributing their comrade's manner to the embarrassing presence of the stranger, grinned sympathetically; and the professor himself—unconsciously agreeing with the cowboys—with kindly condescension tried to make the victim of his august superiority as much at ease as possible; which naturally, for the Dean and Phil, added not a little to the situation.

Then the spring rodeo took the men far from the home ranch, and for several weeks the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle was left almost wholly to the guardianship of the young woman who lived on the other side of the big meadows.

It was the last day of the rodeo, when Phil rode to the home ranch, late in the afternoon, to consult with the Dean about the shipping. Patches and the cowboys who were to help in the long drive to the railroad were at Toohey with the cattle. While the cowboys were finishing their early breakfast the next morning, the foreman returned, and Patches knew, almost before Phil spoke, that something had happened. They shouted their greetings as he approached, but he had no smile for their cheery reception, nor did he answer, even, until he had ridden close to the group about the camp fire. Then, with a short "mornin', boys," he dismounted and stood with the bridle reins in his hand.

At his manner a hush fell over the little company, and they watched him curiously.

"No breakfast, Sam," he said, shortly, to the Chinaman. "Just a cup of coffee." Then to the cowboys, "You fellows saddle up and get that bunch of cattle to moving. We'll load at Skull Valley."

Sam brought his coffee and he drank it as he stood, while the men hurriedly departed for their horses. Patches, the last to go, paused a moment, as though to speak, but Phil prevented him with a gruff order. "Get a move on you, Patches. Those cars will be there long before we are."

And Patches, seeing the man's face dark and drawn with pain, moved away without a word.

"Great snakes," softly ejaculated Curly a few moments later, as Patches stooped to take his saddle from where it lay on the ground beside Curly's. "What do you reckon's eatin' the boss? Him an' the Dean couldn't 'a' mixed it last night, could they? Do you reckon the Dean crawled him about somethin'?"

Patches shook his head with a "Search me, pardner," as he turned to his horse.

"Somethin's happened sure," muttered the other, busy with his saddle blanket. "Sufferin' cats! but I felt like he'd poured a bucket of ice water down my neck!" He drew the cinch tight with a vigorous jerk that brought a grunt of protest from his mount. "That's right," he continued, addressing the horse, "hump yourself, an' swell up and grunt, damn you; you ought to be thankin' God that you ain't nothin' but a hoss, nohow, with no feelin' 'cept what's in your belly." He dropped the heavy stirrup with a vicious slap, and swung to his seat. "If Phil's a-goin' to keep up the way he's startin', we'll sure have a pleasant little ol' ride to Skull Valley. Oh, Lord! but I wisht I was a professor of them there exteticks, or somethin' nice and gentle like, jest for to-day, anyhow."

Patches laughed. "Think you could qualify, Curly?"

The cowboy grinned as they rode off together. "So far as I've noticed the main part of the work, I could. The shade of them walnut trees at the home ranch, or the Pot-Hook-S front porch, an' a nice easy rockin' chair with fat cushions, or mebby the buckboard onct in a while, with Kitty to do the drivin'—Say, this has sure been some little ol' rodeo, ain't it? I ain't got a hoss in my string that can more'n stand up, an' honest to God, Patches, I'm jest corns all over. How's your saddle feel, this mornin'?"

"It's got corns, too," admitted Patches. "But there's Phil; we'd better be riding."

All that day Phil kept to himself, speaking to his companions only when speech could not be avoided, and then with the fewest possible words. That night, he left the company as soon as he had finished his supper, and went off somewhere alone, and Patches heard him finding his bed, long after the other members of the outfit were sound asleep. And the following day, through the trying work of loading the cattle, the young foreman was so little like himself that, had it not been that his men were nearly all old-time, boyhood friends who had known him all his life, there would surely have been a mutiny.

It was late in the afternoon, when the last reluctant steer was prodded and pushed up the timbered runway from the pens, and crowded into the car. Curly and Bob were going with the cattle train. The others would remain at Skull Valley until morning, when they would start for their widely separated homes. Phil announced that he was going to the home ranch that night.

"You can make it home sometime to-morrow, Patches," he finished, when he had said good-by to the little group of men with whom he had lived and worked in closest intimacy through the long weeks of the rodeo. He reined his horse about, even as he spoke, to set out on his long ride.

The Cross-Triangle foreman was beyond hearing of the cowboys when Patches overtook him. "Do you mind if I go back to the Cross-Triangle with you to-night, Phil?" the cowboy asked quietly.

Phil checked his horse and looked at his friend a moment without answering. Then, in a kindlier tone than he had used the past two days, he said, "You better stay here with the boys, and get your night's rest, Patches. You have had a long hard spell of it in this rodeo, and yesterday and to-day have not been exactly easy. Shipping is always hell, even when everybody is in a good humor," he smiled grimly.

"If you do not object, I would really like to go," said Patches simply.

"But your horse is as tired as you ought to be," protested Phil.

"I'm riding Stranger, you know," the other answered.

To which Phil replied tersely, "Let's be riding, then."

The cowboys, who had been watching the two men, looked at each other in amazement as Phil and Patches rode away together.

"Well, what do you make of that?" exclaimed one.

"Looks like Honorable Patches was next," commented another.

"Us old-timers ain't in it when it comes to associatin' with the boss," offered a third.

"You shut up on that line," came sharply from Curly. "Phil ain't turnin' us down for nobody. I reckon if Patches is fool enough to want to ride to the Cross-Triangle to-night Phil ain't got no reason for stoppin' him. If any of you punchers wants to make the ride, the way's open, ain't it?"

"Now, don't you go on the prod, too," soothed the other. "We wasn't meanin' nothin' agin Phil."

"Well, what's the matter with Patches?" demanded the Cross-Triangle man, whose heart was sorely troubled by the mystery of his foreman's mood.

"Ain't nobody said as there was anything the matter. Fact is, don't nobody know that there is."

And for some reason Curly had no answer.

"Don't it jest naturally beat thunder the way he's cottoned up to that yellow dog of a Yavapai Joe?" mused another, encouraged by Curly's silence. "Three or four of the boys told how they'd seen 'em together off an' on, but I didn't think nothin' of it until I seen 'em myself when we was workin' over at Tailholt. It was one evenin' after supper. I went down to the corral to fix up that Pedro horse's back, when I heard voices kind o' low like. I stopped a minute, an' then sort o' eased along in the dark, an' run right onto 'em where they was a-settin' in the door o' the saddle room, cozy as you please. Yavapai sneaked away while I was gettin' the lantern an' lightin' it, but Patches, he jest stayed an' held the light for me while I fixed ol' Pedro, jest as if nothin' had happened."

"Well," said Curly sarcastically, "what had happened?"

"I don't know-nothin'—mebby."

"If Patches was what some o' you boys seem to think, do you reckon he'd be a-ridin' for the Cross-Triangle?" demanded Curly.

"He might, an' he mightn't," retorted two or three at once.

"Nobody can't say nothin' in a case like that until the show-down," added one. "I don't reckon the Dean knows any more than the rest of us."

"Unless Patches is what some of the other boys are guessin'," said another.

"Which means," finished Curly, in a tone of disgust, "that we've got to millin' 'round the same old ring again. Come on, Bob; let's see what they've got for supper. That engine'll happen along directly, an' we'll be startin' hungry."

Phil Acton was not ignorant of the different opinions that were held by the cattlemen regarding Honorable Patches. Nor, as the responsible foreman of the Cross-Triangle, could he remain indifferent to them. During those first months of Patches' life on the ranch, when the cowboy's heart had so often been moved to pity for the stranger who had come to them apparently from some painful crisis in his life, he had laughed at the suspicions of his old friends and associates. But as the months had passed, and Patches had so rapidly developed into a strong, self-reliant man, with a spirit of bold recklessness that was marked even among those hardy riders of the range, Phil forgot, in a measure, those characteristics that the stranger had shown at the beginning of their acquaintance. At the same time, the persistent suspicions of the cattlemen, together with Patches' curious, and, in a way, secret interest in Yavapai Joe, could not but have a decided influence upon the young man who was responsible for the Dean's property.

It was inevitable, under the circumstances, that Phil's attitude toward Patches should change, even as the character of Patches himself had changed. While the foreman's manner of friendship and kindly regard remained, so far, unaltered, and while Phil still, in his heart, believed in his friend, and—as he would have said—"would continue to back his judgment until the show-down," nevertheless that spirit of intimacy which had so marked those first days of their work together had gradually been lost to them. The cowboy no longer talked to his companion, as he had talked that day when they lay in the shade of the walnut tree at Toohey, and during the following days of their range riding. He no longer admitted his friend into his inner life, as he had done that day when he told Patches the story of the wild stallion. And Patches, feeling the change, and unable to understand the reason for it, waited patiently for the time when the cloud that had fallen between them should lift.

So they rode together that night, homeward bound, at the end of the long, hard weeks of the rodeo, in the deepening gloom of the day's passing, in the hushed stillness of the wild land, under the wide sky where the starry sentinel hosts were gathering for their ever-faithful watch. And as they rode, their stirrups often touching, each was alone with his own thoughts. Phil, still in the depth of his somber mood, brooded over his bitter trouble. Patches, sympathetically wondering, silently questioning, wished that he could help.

There are times when a man's very soul forces him to seek companionship. Alone in the night with this man for whom, even at that first moment of their meeting on the Divide, he had felt a strange sense of kinship, Phil found himself drifting far from the questions that had risen to mar the closeness of their intimacy. The work of the rodeo was over; his cowboy associates, with their suggestive talk, were far away. Under the influence of the long, dark miles of that night, and the silent presence of his companion, the young man, for the time being, was no longer the responsible foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. In all that vast and silent world there was, for Phil Acton, only himself, his trouble, and his friend.

And so it came about that, little by little, the young man told Patches the story of his dream, and of how it was now shattered and broken.

Sometimes bitterly, as though he felt injustice; sometimes harshly, as though in contempt for some weakness of his own; with sentences broken by the pain he strove to subdue, with halting words and long silences, Phil told of his plans for rebuilding the home of his boyhood, and of restoring the business that, through the generosity of his father, had been lost; of how, since his childhood almost, he had worked and saved to that end; and of his love for Kitty, which had been the very light of his dream, and without which for him there was no purpose in dreaming. And the man who rode so close beside him listened with a fuller understanding and a deeper sympathy than Phil knew.

"And now," said Phil hopelessly, "it's all over. I've sure come to the end of my string. Reid has put the outfit on the market. He's going to sell out and quit. Uncle Will told me night before last when I went home to see about the shipping."

"Reid is going to sell!" exclaimed Patches; and there was a curious note of exultation in his voice which Phil did not hear. Neither did Phil see that his companion was smiling to himself under cover of the darkness.

"It's that damned Professor Parkhill that's brought it about," continued the cowboy bitterly. "Ever since Kitty came home from the East she has been discontented and dissatisfied with ranch life. I was all right when she went away, but when she came back she discovered that I was nothing but a cow-puncher. She has been fair, though. She has tried to get back where she was before she left and I thought I would win her again in time. I was so sure of it that it never troubled me. You have seen how it was. And you have seen how she was always wanting the life that she had learned to want while she was away—the life that you came from, Patches. I have been mighty glad for your friendship with her, too, because I thought she would learn from you that a man could have all that is worth having in that life, and still be happy and contented here. And she would have learned, I am sure. She couldn't help seeing it. But now that damned fool who knows no more of real manhood than I do of his profession has spoiled it all."

"But Phil, I don't understand. What has Parkhill to do with Reid's selling out?"

"Why, don't you see?" Phil returned savagely. "He's the supreme representative of the highest highbrowed culture, isn't he? He's a lord high admiral, duke, or potentate of some sort, in the world of loftiest thought, isn't he? He lives, moves and has his being in the lofty realms of the purely spiritual, doesn't he? He's cultured, and cultivated, and spiritualized, until he vibrates nothing but pure soul—whatever that means—and he's refined himself, and mental-disciplined himself, and soul-dominated himself, until there's not an ounce of red blood left in his carcass. Get him between you and the sun, after what he calls a dinner, and you can see every material mouthful that he, has disgraced himself by swallowing. He's not human, I tell you; he's only a kind of a he-ghost, and ought to be fed on sterilized moonbeams and pasteurized starlight."

"Amen!" said Patches solemnly, when Phil paused for lack of breath. "But, Phil, your eloquent characterization does not explain what the he-ghost has to do with the sale of the Pot-Hook-S outfit."

Phil's voice again dropped into its hopeless key as he answered. "You remember how, from the very first, Kitty—well—sort of worshiped him, don't you?"

"You mean how she worshiped his aesthetic cult, don't you?" corrected Patches quietly.

"I suppose that's it," responded Phil gloomily. "Well, Uncle Will says that they have been together mighty near every day for the past three months, and that about half of the time they have been over at Kitty's home. He has discovered, he says, that Kitty possesses a rare and wonderful capacity for absorbing the higher truths of the more purely intellectual and spiritual planes of life, and that she has a marvelously developed appreciation of those ideals of life which are so far removed from the base and material interests and passions which belong to the mere animal existence of the common herd."

"Oh, hell!" groaned Patches.

"Well, that's what he told Uncle Will," returned Phil stoutly. "And he has harped on that string so long, and yammered so much to Jim and to Kitty's mother about the girl's wonderful intellectuality, and what a record-breaking career she would have if only she had the opportunity, and what a shame, and a loss to the world it is for her to remain buried in these soul-dwarfing surroundings, that they have got to believing it themselves. You see, Kitty herself has in a way been getting them used to the idea that Williamson Valley isn't much of a place, and that the cow business doesn't rank very high among the best people. So Jim is going to sell out, and move away somewhere, where Kitty can have her career, and the boys can grow up to be something better than low-down cow-punchers like you and me. Jim is able to retire anyway."

"Thanks, Phil," said Patches quietly.

"What for?"

"Why, for including me in your class. I consider it a compliment, and"—he added, with a touch of his old self-mocking humor—"I think I know what I am saying—better, perhaps, than the he-ghost knows what he talks about."

"It may be that you do," returned Phil wearily, "but you can see where it all puts me. The professor has sure got me down and hog-tied so tight that I can't even think."

"Perhaps, and again, perhaps not," returned Patches. "Reid hasn't found a buyer for the outfit yet, has he?"

"Not yet, but they'll come along fast enough. The Pot-Hook-S Ranch is too well known for the sale to hang fire long."

The next day Phil seemed to slip back again, in his attitude toward Patches, to the temper of those last weeks of the rodeo. It was as though the young man—with his return to the home ranch and to the Dean and their talks and plans for the work—again put himself, his personal convictions and his peculiar regard for Patches, aside, and became the unprejudiced foreman, careful for his employer's interests.

Patches very quickly, but without offense, found that the door, which his friend had opened in the long dark hours of that lonely night ride, had closed again; and, thinking that he understood, he made no attempt to force his way. But, for some reason, Patches appeared to be in an unusually happy frame of mind, and went singing and whistling about the corrals and buildings as though exceedingly well pleased with himself and with the world.

The following day was Sunday. In the afternoon, Patches was roaming about the premises, keeping at a safe distance from the walnut trees in front of the house, where the professor had cornered the Dean, thus punishing both Patches and his employer by preventing one of their long Sunday talks which they both so much enjoyed. Phil had gone off somewhere to be alone, and Mrs. Baldwin was reading aloud to Little Billy. Honorable Patches was left very much to himself.

From the top of the little hill near the corrals, he looked across the meadow at exactly the right moment to see someone riding away from the neighboring ranch. He watched until he was certain that whoever it was was not coming to the Cross-Triangle—at least, not by way of the meadow lane. Then, smiling to himself, he went to the big barn and saddled a horse—there are always two or three that are not turned out in the pasture—and in a few minutes was riding leisurely away on the Simmons road, along the western edge of the valley. An hour later he met Kitty Reid, who was on her way from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle.

The young woman was sincerely glad to meet him.

"But you were going to Simmons, were you not?" she asked, as he reined his horse about to ride with her.

"To be truthful, I was going to Simmons if I met anyone else, or if I had not met you," he answered. Then, at her puzzled look, he explained, "I saw someone leave your house, and guessed that it was you. I guessed, too, that you would be coming this way."

"And you actually rode out to meet me?"

"Actually," he smiled.

They chatted about the rodeo, and the news of the countryside—for it had been several weeks since they had met—and so reached the point of the last ridge before you come to the ranch. Then Patches asked, "May we ride over there on the ridge, and sit for a while in the shade of that old cedar, for a little talk? It's early yet, and it's been ages since we had a pow-wow."

Reaching the point which Patches had chosen, they left their horses and made themselves comfortable on the brow of the hill, overlooking the wide valley meadow and the ranches.

"And now," said Kitty, looking at him curiously, "what's the talk, Mr. Honorable Patches?"

"Just you," said Patches, gravely.

"Me?"

"Your own charming self," he returned.

"But, please, good sir, what have I done?" she asked. "Or, perhaps, it's what have I not done?"

"Or perhaps," he retorted, "it's what you are going to do."

"Oh!"

"Miss Reid, I am going to ask you a favor—a great favor."

"Yes?"

"You have known me now almost a year."

"Yes."

"And, yet, to be exact, you do not know me at all."

She did not answer, but looked at him steadily.

"And that, in a way," he continued, "makes it easy for me to ask the favor; that is, if you feel that you can trust me ever so little—trust me, I mean, to the extent of believing me sincere."

"I know that you are sincere, Patches," she answered, gravely.

"Thank you," he returned. Then he said gently, "I want you to let me talk to you about what is most emphatically none of my business. I want you to let me ask you impertinent questions. I want you to talk to me about"—he hesitated; then finished with meaning—"about your career."

She felt his earnestness, and was big enough to understand, and be grateful for the spirit that prompted his words.

"Why, Patches," she cried, "after all that your friendship has meant to me, these past months, I could not think any question that you would ask impertinent Surely you know that, don't you?"

"I hoped that you would feel that way. And I know that I would give five years of my life if I knew how to convince you of the truth which I have learned from my own bitter experience, and save you from—from yourself."

She could not mistake his earnestness and in spite of herself the man's intense feeling moved her deeply.

"Save me from myself?" she questioned. "What in the world do you mean, Patches?"

"Is it true," he asked, "that your father is offering the ranch for sale, and that you are going out of the Williamson Valley life?"

"Yes, but it is not such a sudden move as it seems. We have often talked about it at home—father and mother and I."

"But the move is to be made chiefly on your account, is it not?"

She flushed a little at this, but answered stoutly. "Yes. I suppose that is true. You see, being the only one in our family to have the advantages of—well—the advantages that I have had, it was natural that I should—Surely you have seen, Patches, how discontented and dissatisfied I have been with the life here! Why, until you came there was no one to whom I could talk, even—no one, I mean, who could understand."

"But what is it that you want, or expect to find, that you may not have right here?"

Then she told him all that he had expected to hear. Told him earnestly, passionately, of the life she craved, and of the sordid, commonplace narrowness and emptiness—as she saw it—of the life from which she sought to escape. And as she talked the man's good heart was heavy with sadness and pity for her.

"Oh, girl, girl," he cried, when she had finished. "Can't you—won't you—understand? All that you seek is right here—everywhere about you—waiting for you to make it your own, and with it you may have here those greater things without which no life can be abundant and joyous. The culture and the intellectual life that is dependent upon mere environment is a crippled culture and a sickly life. The mind that cannot find its food for thought wherever it may be planed will never hobble very far on crutches of superficial cults and societies. You are leaving the substance, child, for the shadow. You are seeking the fads and fancies of shallow idlers, and turning your back upon eternal facts. You are following after silly fools who are chasing bubbles over the edge of God's good world. Believe me, girl, I know—God! but I do know what that life, stripped of its tinseled and spangled show, means. Take the good grain, child, and let the husks go."

As the man spoke, Kitty watched him as though she were intently interested; but, in truth, her thoughts were more on the speaker than on what he said.

"You are in earnest, aren't you, Patches?" she murmured softly.

"I am," he returned sharply, for he saw that she was not even considering what he had said. "I know how mistaken you are; I know what it will mean to you when you find how much you have lost and how little you have gained."

"And how am I mistaken? Do I not know what I want? Am I not better able than anyone else to say what satisfies me and what does not?"

"No," he retorted, almost harshly, "you are not. You think it is the culture, as you call it, that you want; but if that were really it, you would not go. You would find it here. The greatest minds that the world has ever known you may have right here in your home, on your library table. And you may listen to their thoughts without being disturbed by the magpie chatterings of vain and shallow pretenders. You are attracted by the pretentious forms and manners of that life; you think that because a certain class of people, who have nothing else to do, talk a certain jargon, and profess to follow certain teachers—who, nine times out of ten, are charlatans or fools—that they are the intellectual and spiritual leaders of the race. You are mistaking the very things that prevent intellectual and spiritual development for the things you think you want."

She did not answer his thought, but replied to his words. "And supposing I am mistaken, as you say. Still, I do not see why it should matter so to you."

He made a gesture of hopelessness and sat for a moment in silence. Then he said slowly, "I fear you will not understand, but did you ever hear the story of how 'Wild Horse Phil' earned his title?"

She laughed. "Why, of course. Everybody knows about that. Dear, foolish old Phil—I shall miss him dreadfully." "Yes," he said significantly, "you will miss him. The life you are going to does not produce Phil Actons."

"It produced an Honorable Patches," she retorted slyly.

"Indeed it did not," he answered quickly. "It produced—" He checked himself, as though fearing that he would say too much.

"But what have Phil and his wild horse to do with the question?" she asked.

"Nothing, I fear. Only I feel about your going away as Phil felt when he gave the wild horse its freedom."

"I don't think I understand," she said, genuinely puzzled.

"I said you would not," he retorted bluntly, "and that's why you are leaving all this." His gesture indicated the vast sweep of country with old Granite Mountain in the distance.

Then, with a nod and a look he indicated Professor Parkhill, who was walking toward them along the side of the ridge skirting the scattered cedar timber. "Here comes a product of the sort of culture to which you aspire. Behold the ideal manhood of your higher life! When the intellectual and spiritual life you so desire succeeds in producing racial fruit of that superior quality, it will have justified its existence—and will perish from the earth."

Even as Patches spoke, he saw something just beyond the approaching man that made him start as if to rise to his feet.

It was the unmistakable face of Yavapai Joe, who, from behind an oak bush, was watching the professor.

Patches, glancing at Kitty, saw that she had not noticed.

Before the young woman could reply to her companion's derisive remarks, the object which had prompted his comments arrived within speaking distance.

"I trust I am not intruding," began the professor, in his small, thin voice. Then as Patches, his eyes still on that oak bush, stood up, the little man added, with hasty condescension, "Keep your seat, my man; keep your seat. I assure you it is not my purpose to deprive you of Miss Reid's company."

Patches grinned. By that "my man" he knew that Kitty had not enlightened her teacher as to the "typical cowboy's" real character.

"That's all right, perfessor," he said awkwardly. "I just seen a maverick over yonder a-piece. I reckon I'd better mosey along an' have a closer look at him. Me an' Kitty here warn't talkin' nothin' important, nohow. Just a gassin' like. I reckon she'd ruther go on home with you, anyhow, an' it's all right with me."

"Maverick!" questioned the professor. "And what, may I ask, is a maverick?"

"Hit's a critter what don't belong to nobody," answered Patches, moving toward his horse.

At the same moment Kitty, who had risen, and was looking in the direction from which the professor had come, exclaimed, "Why, there's Yavapai Joe, Patches. What is he doing here?"

She pointed, and the professor, looking, caught a glimpse of Joe's back as the fellow was slinking over the ridge.

"I reckon mebby he wants to see me 'bout somethin' or other," Patches returned, as he mounted his horse. "Anyway, I'm a-goin' over that-a-way an' see. So long!"

Patches rode up to Joe just as the Tailholt Mountain man regained his horse on the other side of the ridge.

"Hello, Joe!" said the Cross-Triangle rider, easily.

The wretched outcast was so shaken and confused that he could scarcely find the stirrup with his foot, and his face was pale and twitching with excitement. He looked at Patches, wildly, but spoke in a sullen tone. "What's he doin' here? What does he want? How did he get to this country, anyhow?"

Patches was amazed, but spoke calmly. "Whom do you mean, Joe?"

"I mean that man back there, Parkhill—Professor Parkhill. What's he a-lookin' for hangin' 'round here? You can tell him it ain't no use—I—" He stopped suddenly, and with a characteristic look of cunning, turned away.

Patches rode beside him for some distance, but nothing that he could say would persuade the wretched creature to explain.

"Yes, I know you're my friend, all right, Patches," he answered. "You sure been mighty friendly ter me, an' I ain't fergettin' it. But I ain't a-tellin' nothin' to nobody, an' it ain't a-goin' to do you no good to go askin' him 'bout me, neither."

"I'm not going to ask Professor Parkhill anything, Joe," said Patches shortly.

"You ain't?"

"Certainly not; if you don't want me to know. I'm not trying to find out about anything that's none of my business."

Joe looked at him with a cunning leer. "Oh, you ain't, ain't you? Nick 'lows that you're sure—" Again he caught himself. "But I ain't a-tellin' nothin' to nobody."

"Well, have I ever asked you to tell me anything?" demanded Patches.

"No, you ain't—that's right—you sure been square with me, Patches, an' I ain't fergettin' it. Be you sure 'nuf my friend, Patches? Honest-to-God, now, be you?"

His question was pitiful, and Patches assured the poor fellow that he had no wish to be anything but his friend, if only Yavapai Joe would accept his help.

"Then," said Joe pleadingly, "if you mean all that you been sayin' about wantin' to help me, you'll do somethin' fer me right now."

"What can I do, Joe?"

"You kin promise me that you won't say nothin' to nobody 'bout me an' him back there."

Patches, to demonstrate his friendliness, answered without thought, "Certainly, I'll promise that, Joe."

"You won't tell nobody?"

"No, I won't say a word."

The poor fellow's face revealed his gratitude. "I'm obliged to you, Patches, I sure am, an' I ain't fergettin' nothin', either. You're my friend, all right, an' I'm your'n. I got to be a-hittin' it up now. Nick'll jest nachally gimme hell for bein' gone so long."

"Good-by, Joe!"

"So long, Patches! An' don't you get to thinkin' that I'm fergettin' how me an' you is friends."

When Patches reviewed the incident, as he rode back to the ranch, he questioned if he had done right in promising Joe. But, after all, he reassured himself, he was under no obligation to interfere with what was clearly none of his business. He could not see that the matter in any possible way touched his employer's interests. And, he reflected, he had already tried the useless experiment of meddling with other people's affairs, and he did not care to repeat the experience.

That evening Patches asked Phil's permission to go to Prescott the next day. It would be the first time that he had been to town since his coming to the ranch and the foreman readily granted his request.

A few minutes later as Phil passed through the kitchen, Mrs. Baldwin remarked, "I wonder what Patches is feeling so gay about. Ever since he got home from the rodeo he's been singin' an' whistlin' an' grinnin' to himself all the time. He went out to the corral just now as merry as a lark."

Phil laughed. "Anybody would be glad to get through with that rodeo, mother; besides, he is going to town to-morrow."

"He is? Well, you mark my words, son, there's somethin' up to make him feel as good as he does."

And then, when Phil had gone on out into the yard, Professor Parkhill found him.

"Mr. Acton," began the guest timidly, "there is a little matter about which I feel I should speak to you."

"Very well, sir," returned the cowboy.

"I feel that it would be better for me to speak to you rather than to Mr. Baldwin, because, well, you are younger, and will, I am sure, understand more readily."

"All right; what is it, Professor?" asked Phil encouragingly, wondering at the man's manner.

"Do you mind—ah—walking a little way down the road?"

As they strolled out toward the gate to the meadow road, the professor continued:

"I think I should tell you about your man Patches."

Phil looked at his companion sharply. "Well, what about him?"

"I trust you will not misunderstand my interest, Mr. Acton, when I say that it also includes Miss Reid."

Phil stopped short. Instantly Mrs. Baldwin's remark about Patches' happiness, his own confession that he had given up all hope of winning Kitty, and the thought of the friendship which he had seen developing during the past months, with the realization that Patches belonged to that world to which Kitty aspired—all swept through his mind. He was looking at the man beside him so intently that the professor said again uneasily:

"I trust, Mr. Acton, that you will understand."

Phil laughed shortly. "I think I do. But just the same you'd better explain. What about Patches and Miss Reid, sir?"

The professor told how he had found them together that afternoon.

"Oh, is that all?" laughed Phil.

"But surely, Mr. Acton, you do not think that a man of that fellow's evident brutal instincts is a fit associate for a young woman of Miss Reid's character and refinement."

"Perhaps not," admitted Phil, still laughing, "but I guess Kitty can take care of herself."

"I do not agree with you, sir," said the other authoritatively. "A young woman of Miss Reid's—ah—spirituality and worldly inexperience must always be, to a certain extent, injured by contact with such illiterate, unrefined, and, I have no doubt, morally deficient characters."

"But, look here, Professor," returned Phil, still grinning, "what do you expect me to do about it? I am not Kitty Reid's guardian. Why don't you talk to her yourself?"

"Really," returned the little man, "I—there are reasons why I do not see my way clear to such a course. I had hoped that you might keep an eye on the fellow, and, if necessary, use your authority over him to prevent any such incidents in the future."

"I'll see what I can do," answered Phil, thinking how the Dean would enjoy the joke. "But, look here; Kitty was with you when you got to the ranch. What became of Patches? Run, did he, when you appeared on the scene?"

"Oh, no; he went away with a—with a maverick."

"Went away with a maverick? What, in heaven's name, do you mean by that?"

"That's what your man Patches said the fellow was. Miss Reid told me his name was Joe—Joe something."

Phil was not laughing now. The fun of the situation had vanished.

"Was it Yavapai Joe?" he demanded.

"Yes, that was it. I am quite sure that was the name. He belongs at Tailend Mountain, I think Miss Reid said; you have such curious names in this country."

"And Patches went away with him, you say?"

"Yes, the fellow seemed to have been hiding in the bushes when we discovered him, and when Miss Reid asked what he was doing there your man said that he had come to see him about something. They went away together, I believe."

As soon as he could escape from the professor, Phil went straight to Patches, who was in his room, reading. The man looked up with a welcoming smile as Phil entered, but as he saw the foreman's face his smile vanished quickly, and he laid aside his book.

"Patches," said Phil abruptly, "what's this talk of the professor's about you and Yavapai Joe?"

"I don't know what the professor is talking," Patches replied coldly, as though he did not exactly like the tone of Phil's question.

"He says that Joe was sneaking about in the brush over on the ridge wanting to see you about something," returned Phil.

"Joe was certainly over there on the ridge, and he may have wanted to see me; at any rate, I saw him."

"Well, I've got to ask you what sort of business you have with that Tailholt Mountain thief that makes it necessary for him to sneak around in the brush for a meeting with you. If he wants to see you, why doesn't he come to the ranch, like a man?"

Honorable Patches looked the Dean's foreman straight in the eyes, as he answered in a tone that he had never used before in speaking to Phil: "And I have to answer, sir, that my business with Yavapai Joe is entirely personal; that it has no relation whatever to your business as the foreman of this ranch. As to why Joe didn't come to the house, you must ask him; I don't know."

"You refuse to explain?" demanded Phil.

"I certainly refuse to discuss Joe Dryden's private affairs—that, so far as I can see, are of no importance to anyone but himself—with you or anyone else. Just as I should refuse to discuss any of your private affairs, with which I happened, by some chance, to be, in a way, familiar. I have made all the explanation necessary when I say that my business with him has nothing to do with your business. You have no right to ask me anything further."

"I have the right to fire you," retorted Phil, angrily.

Patches smiled, as he answered gently, "You have the right, Phil, but you won't use it."

"And why not?"

"Because you are not that kind of a man, Phil Acton," answered Patches slowly. "You know perfectly well that if you discharged me because of my friendship with poor Yavapai Joe, no ranch in this part of the country would give me a job. You are too honest yourself to condemn any man on mere suspicion, and you are too much of a gentleman to damn another simply because he, too, aspires to that distinction."

"Very well, Patches," Phil returned, with less heat, "but I want you to understand one thing; I am responsible for the Cross-Triangle property and there is no friendship in the world strong enough to influence me in the slightest degree when it comes to a question of Uncle Will's interests. Do you get that?"

"I got that months ago, Phil."

Without another word, the Dean's foreman left the room.

Patches sat for some time considering the situation. And now and then his lips curled in that old, self-mocking smile; realizing that he was caught in the trap of circumstance, he found a curious humor in his predicament.



CHAPTER XII.

FRONTIER DAY.

Again it was July. And, with the time of the cattlemen's celebration of the Fourth at hand, riders from every part of the great western cow country assembled in Prescott for their annual contests. From Texas and Montana, from Oklahoma and New Mexico and Wyoming, the cowboys came with their saddles and riatas to meet each other and the men of Arizona in friendly trials of strength and skill. From many a wild pasture, outlaw horses famous for their vicious, unsubdued spirits, and their fierce, untamed strength, were brought to match their wicked, unbroken wills against the cool, determined courage of the riders. From the wide ranges, the steers that were to participate in the roping and bull-dogging contests were gathered and driven in. From many a ranch the fastest and best of the trained cow-horses were sent for the various cowboy races. And the little city, in its rocky, mile-high basin, upon which the higher surrounding mountains look so steadfastly down, again decked itself in gala colors, and opened wide its doors to welcome all who chose to come.

From the Cross-Triangle and the neighboring ranches the cowboys, dressed in the best of their picturesque regalia, rode into the town, to witness and take part in the sports. With them rode Honorable Patches.

And this was not the carefully groomed and immaculately attired gentleman who, in troubled spirit, had walked alone over that long, unfenced way a year before. This was not the timid, hesitating, shamefaced man at whom Phil Acton had laughed on the summit of the Divide. This was a man among men—a cowboy of the cowboys—bronzed, and lean, and rugged; vitally alive in every inch of his long body; with self-reliant courage and daring hardihood written all over him, expressed in every tone of his voice, and ringing in every note of his laughter.

The Dean and Mrs. Baldwin and Little Billy drove in the buckboard, but the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle went with the Reid family in the automobile. The professor was not at all interested in the celebration, but he could not well remain at the ranch alone, and, it may be supposed, the invitation from Kitty helped to make the occasion endurable.

The celebration this year—the posters and circulars declared—was to be the biggest and best that Prescott had ever offered. In proof of the bold assertion, the program promised, in addition to the usual events, an automobile race. Shades of all those mighty heroes of the saddle, whose names may not be erased from the history of the great West, think of it! An automobile race offered as the chief event in a Frontier Day Celebration!

No wonder that Mrs. Manning said to her husband that day, "But Stan, where are the cowboys?"

Stanford Manning answered laughingly, "Oh, they are here, all right, Helen; just wait a little and you will see."

Mr. and Mrs. Manning had arrived from Cleveland, Ohio, the evening before, and Helen was eager and excited with the prospect of meeting the people, and witnessing the scenes of which her husband had told her with so much enthusiasm.

As the Dean had told Patches that day when the cattleman had advanced the money for the stranger's outfit, the young mining engineer had won a place for himself amid the scenes and among the people of that western country. He had first come to the land of this story, fresh from his technical training in the East. His employers, quick to recognize not only his ability in his profession but his character and manhood, as well, had advanced him rapidly and, less than a month before Patches asked for work at the Cross-Triangle, had sent him on an important mission to their mines in the North. They were sending him, now, again to Arizona, this time as the resident manager of their properties in the Prescott district. This new advance in his profession, together with the substantial increase in salary which it brought, meant much to the engineer. Most of all, it meant his marriage to Helen Wakefield. A stop-over of two weeks at Cleveland, on way West, from the main offices of his Company in New York, had changed his return to Prescott from a simple business trip to a wedding journey.

At the home of the Yavapai Club, on top of the hill, a clock above the plaza, a number of Prescott's citizens, with their guests, had gathered to watch the beginning of the automobile race. The course, from the corner in front of the St. Michael hotel, followed the street along one side of the plaza, climbed straight up the hill, passed the clubhouse, and so away into the open country. From the clubhouse veranda, from the lawn and walks in front, or from their seats in convenient automobiles standing near, the company enjoyed, thus, an unobstructed view of the starting point of the race, and could look down as well upon the crowds that pressed against the ropes which were stretched along either side of the street. Prom a friendly automobile, Helen Manning, with her husband's field glasses, was an eager and excited observer of the interesting scene, while Stanford near by was busy greeting old friends, presenting them to his wife and receiving their congratulations. And often, he turned with a fond look and a merry word to the young woman, as though reassuring himself that she was really there. There was no doubt about it, Stamford Manning, strong and steady and forceful, was very much in love with this girl who looked down into his face with such an air of sweet confidence and companionship. And Helen, as she turned from the scene that so interested her, to greet her husband's friends, to ask him some question, or to answer some laughing remark, could not hide the love light in her soft brown eyes. One could not fail to see that her woman heart was glad—glad and proud that this stalwart, broad-shouldered leader of men had chosen her for his mate.

"But, Stan," she said, with a pretty air of disappointment, "I thought it was all going to be so different. Why, except for the mountains, and those poor Indians over there, this might all be in some little town back home. I thought there would be cowboys riding about everywhere, with long hair and big hats, and guns and things."

Stanford and his friends who were standing near laughed.

"I fear, Mrs. Manning," remarked Mr. Richards, one of Prescott's bank presidents, "that Stanford has been telling you wild west stories. The West moves as well as the East, you know. We are becoming civilized."

"Indeed you are, Mr. Richards," Helen returned. "And I don't think I like it a bit. It's not fair to your poor eastern sight-seers, like myself."

"If you are really so anxious to see a sure enough cowboy, look over there," said Stanford, and pointed across the street.

"Where?" demanded Helen eagerly.

"There," smiled Stanford, "the dark-faced chap near that automobile standing by the curb; the machine with the pretty girl at the wheel. See! he is stopping to talk with the girl."

"What! That nice looking man, dressed just like thousands of men that we might see any day on the streets of Cleveland?" cried Helen.

"Exactly," chuckled her husband, while the others laughed at her incredulous surprise. "But, just the same, that's Phil Acton; 'Wild Horse Phil,' if you please. He is the cowboy foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch, and won the championship in the bronco riding last year."

"I don't believe it—you are making fun of me, Stanford Manning."

Then, before he could answer, she cried, with quick excitement, "But, Stan, look! Look at the girl in the automobile! She looks like—it is, Stan, it is!" And to the amazement of her husband and her friends Mrs. Manning sprang to her feet and, waving her handkerchief, called, "Kitty! Oh, Kitty—Kitty Reid!"

As her clear call rang out, many people turned to look, and then to smile at the picture, as she stood there in the bright Arizona day, so animated and wholesomely alive in the grace and charm of her beautiful young womanhood, above the little group of men who were looking up at her with laughing admiration.

On the other side of the street, where she sat with her parents and Professor Parkhill, talking to Phil, Kitty heard the call, and looked. A moment later she was across the street, and the two young women were greeting each other with old-time schoolgirl enthusiasm. Introductions and explanations followed, with frequent feminine exclamations of surprise and delight. Then the men drew a little away, talking, laughing, as men will on such occasions, leaving the two women to themselves.

In that eastern school, which, for those three years, had been Kitty's home, Helen Wakefield and the girl from Arizona had been close and intimate friends. Indeed, Helen, with her strong womanly character and that rare gift of helpful sympathy and understanding, had been to the girl fresh from the cattle ranges more than a friend; she had been counsellor and companion, and, in many ways, a wise guardian and teacher.

"But why in the world didn't you write me about it?" demanded Kitty a little later. "Why didn't you tell me that you had become Mrs. Stanford Manning, and that you were coming to Prescott?"

Helen laughed and blushed happily. "Why, you see, Kitty, it all happened so quickly that there was no time to write. You remember when I wrote you about Stan, I told you how poor he was, and how we didn't expect to be married for several years?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, you see, Stan's company, all unexpectedly to him, called him to New York and gave him this position out here. He had to start at once, and wired me from New York. Just think, I had only a week for the wedding and everything! I knew, of course, that I could find you after I got here."

"And now that you are here," said Kitty decisively, "you and Mr. Manning are coming right out to Williamson Valley to spend your honeymoon on the ranch."

But Helen shook her head. "Stan has it all planned, Kitty, and he won't listen to anything else. There is a place around here somewhere that he calls Granite Basin, and he has it all arranged that we are to camp out there for three weeks. His company has given him that much time, and we are going just as soon as this celebration is over. After that, while Stan gets started with his work, and fixes some place for us to live, I will make you a little visit."

"I suppose there is no use trying to contend against the rights of a brand-new husband," returned Kitty, "but it's a promise, that you will come to me as soon as your camping trip is over?"

"It's a promise," agreed Helen. "You see, that's really part of Stanford's plan; I was so sure you would want me, you know."

"Want you? I should say I do want you," cried Kitty, "and I need you, too."

Something in her voice made Helen look at her questioningly, but Kitty only smiled.

"I'll tell you all about it when there is more time."

"Let me see," said Helen. "There used to be—why, of course, that nice looking man you were talking to when I recognized you—Phil Acton." She looked across the street as she spoke, but Phil had gone.

"Please don't, Helen dear," said Kitty, "that was only my schoolgirl nonsense. When I came back home I found how impossible it all was. But I must run back to the folks now. Won't you come and meet them?"

Before Helen could answer someone shouted, "They're getting ready for the start," and everybody looked down the hill toward the place where the racing machines were sputtering and roaring in their clouds of blue smoke.

Helen caught up the field glasses to look, saying, "We can't go now, Kitty. You stay here with us until after the race is started; then we'll go."

As Helen lowered the glasses Stanford, who had come to stand beside the automobile, reached out his hand. "Let me have a look, Helen. They say my old friend, Judge Morris, is the official starter." He put the field glasses to his eyes. "There he is all right, as big as life; finest man that ever lived. Look, Helen." He returned the glasses to his wife "If you want to see a genuine western lawyer, a scholar and a gentleman, take a look at that six-foot-three or four down there in the gray clothes."

"I see him," said Helen, "but there seems to be some thing the matter; there he goes back to the machines. Now he's laying down the law to the drivers."

"They won't put over anything on Morris," said Stanford admiringly.

Then a deep, kindly voice at his elbow said, "Howdy, Manning! Ain't you got time to speak to your old friends?"

Stanford whirled and, with a glad exclamation, grasped the Dean's outstretched hand. Still holding fast to the cattleman, he again turned to his wife, who was looking down at them with smiling interest. "Helen, this is Mr. Baldwin—the Dean, you know."

"Indeed, I ought to know the Dean," she cried, giving him her hand. "Stanford has told me so much about you that I am in love with you already."

"And I"—retorted the Dean, looking up at her with his blue eyes twinkling approval—"I reckon I've always been in love with you. I'm sure glad to see that this young man has justified his reputation for good judgment. Have they got any more girls like you back East? 'Cause if they have, I'll sure be obliged to take a trip to that part of the world before I get too old."

"You are just as Stan said you were," retorted Helen.

"Uncle Will!" cried Kitty. "I am ashamed of you! I didn't think you would turn down your own home folks like that!"

The Dean lifted his hat and rumpled his grizzly hair as though fairly caught. Then: "Why, Kitty, you know that I couldn't love any girl more than I do you. Why, you belong to me most as much as you belong to your own father and mother. But, you see—honey—well, you see, we've just naturally got to be nice to strangers, you know." When they had laughed at this, Kitty explained to that Dean how Mrs. Manning was the Helen Wakefield with whom she had been such friends at school, and that, after the Mannings' outing in Granite Basin, Helen was to visit Williamson Valley.

"Campin' out in Granite Basin, heh?" said the Dean to Stanford. "I reckon you'll be seein' some o' my boys. They're goin' up into that country after outlaw steers next week."

"I hope so," returned Stanford. "Helen has been complaining that there are no cowboys to be seen. I pointed out Phil Acton, but he didn't seem to fill the bill; she doesn't believe that he is a cowboy at all."

The Dean chuckled. "He's never been anything else. They don't make 'em any better anywhere." Then he added soberly, "Phil's not ridin' in the contest this year, though."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. He's got some sort of a fool notion in his head that he don't want to make an exhibition of himself—that's what he said. I've got another man on the ranch now," he added, as though to change the subject, "that'll be mighty near as good as Phil in another year. His name is Patches. He's a good one, all right."

Kitty, who, had been looking away down the street while the Dean was talking, put her hand on Helen's arm. "Look down there, Helen. I believe that is Patches now—that man sitting on his horse at the cross street, at the foot of the hill, just outside the ropes."

Helen was looking through the field glasses. "I see him," she cried. "Now, that's more like it. He looks like what I expected to see. What a fine, big chap he is, isn't he?" Then, as she studied the distant horseman, a puzzled expression came over her face. "Why, Kitty!" she said in a low tone, so that the men who were talking did not hear. "Do you know, that man somehow reminds me"—she hesitated and lowered the glasses to look at her companion with half-amused, half-embarrassed eyes—"he reminds me of Lawrence Knight."

Kitty's brown, fun-loving eyes glowed with mischief. "Really, Mrs. Manning, I am ashamed of you. Before the honeymoon has waned, your thoughts, with no better excuse than the appearance of a poor cow-puncher, go back to the captivating charms of your old millionaire lover. I—"

"Kitty! Do hush," pleaded Helen.

She lifted her glasses for another look at the cowboy.

"I don't wonder that your conscience reproves you," teased Kitty, in a low tone. "But tell me, poor child, how did it happen that you lost your millionaire?"

"I didn't lose him," retorted Helen, still watching Patches. "He lost me."

Kitty persisted with a playful mockery. "What! the great, the wonderful Knight of so many millions, failed, with all his glittering charms, to captivate the fair but simple Helen! Really, I can't believe it."

"Look at that man right there," flashed Helen proudly, indicating her husband, "and you can believe it."

Kitty laughed so gaily that Stanford turned to look at them with smiling inquiry.

"Never mind, Mr. Manning," said Kitty, "we are just reminiscing, that's all."

"Don't miss the race," he answered; "they're getting ready again to start. It looks like a go this time."

"And to think," murmured Kitty, "that I never so much as saw your Knight's picture! But you used to like Lawrence Knight, didn't you, Helen?" she added, as Helen lifted her field glasses again. And now, Mrs. Manning caught a note of earnest inquiry in her companion's voice. It was as though the girl were seeking confirmation of some purpose or decision of her own.

"Why, yes, Kitty, I liked Larry Knight very much," she answered frankly. "He was a fine fellow in many ways—a dear, good friend. Stanford and I are both very fond of him; they were college mates, you know. But, my dear girl, no one could ever consider poor old Larry seriously—as a man, you know—he is so—so utterly and hopelessly worthless."

"Worthless! With—how many millions is it?"

"Oh, Kitty, you know what I mean. But, really dear, we have talked enough about Mr. Lawrence Knight. I'm going to have another look at the cowboy. He looks like a real man, doesn't he? What is it the Dean called him?"

"Patches."

"Oh, yes; what a funny name—Patches."

"Honorable Patches," said Kitty.

"How odd!" mused Helen. "Oh, Stan, come here a minute. Take the glasses and look at that cowboy down there."

Stanford trained the field glasses as she directed.

"Doesn't he remind you of Larry Knight?"

"Larry Knight!" Stanford looked at her in amazement. "That cow-puncher? Larry Knight? I should say not. Lord! but wouldn't fastidious, cultured and correct old Larry feel complimented to know that you found anything in a common cow-puncher to remind you of him!"

"But, here, take your glasses, quick; they are going to start at last."

Even as Helen looked, Judge Morris gave the signal and the first racing car, with a mighty roar, leaped away from the starting point, and thundered up the street between the lines of the crowding, cheering people. An instant more, and Helen Manning witnessed a scene that thrilled the hearts of every man, woman and child in that great crowd.

As the big racing car, gathering speed at every throb of its powerful motor, swept toward the hill, a small boy, but little more than a toddling baby, escaped from his mother, who, with the excited throng, was crowding against the rope barrier, and before those whose eyes were fixed on the automobile noticed, the child was in the street, fairly in the path of the approaching machine. A sudden hush fell on the shouting multitude. Helen, through the field glasses, could see even the child's face, as, laughing gleefully, he looked back when his mother screamed. Stricken with horror, the young woman could not lower her glasses. Fascinated, she watched. The people seemed, for an instant, paralyzed. Not a soul moved or uttered a sound. Would the driver of the racing car swerve aside from his course in time? If he did, would the baby, in sudden fright, dodge in front of the machine? Then Helen saw the cowboy who had so interested her lean forward in his saddle and strike his spurs deep in the flanks of his already restless horse. With a tremendous bound the animal cleared the rope barrier, and in an instant was leaping toward the child and the approaching car. The people gasped at the daring of the man who had not waited to think. It was over in a second. As Patches swept by the child, he leaned low from the saddle; and, as the next leap of his horse carried him barely clear of the machine, they saw his tall, lithe body straighten, as he swung the baby up into his arms.

Then, indeed, the crowd went wild. Men yelled and cheered; women laughed and cried; and, as the cowboy returned the frightened baby to the distressed mother, a hundred eager hands were stretched forth to greet him. But the excited horse backed away; someone raised the rope barrier, and Patches disappeared down the side street.

Helen's eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "No," she said softly to Kitty and Stanford, "that was not Lawrence Knight. Poor old Larry never could have done that."

It was a little after the noon hour when Kitty, who, with her father, mother and brothers, had been for dinner at the home of one of their Prescott friends, was crossing the plaza on her way to join Mr. and Mrs. Manning, with whom she was to spend the afternoon. In a less frequented corner of the little park, back of the courthouse, she saw Patches. The cowboy, who had changed from his ranch costume to a less picturesque business garb, was seated alone on one of the benches that are placed along the walks, reading a letter. With his attention fixed upon the letter, he did not notice Kitty as she approached. And the girl, when she first caught sight of him, paused for an instant; then she went toward him slowly, studying him with a new interest.

She was quite near when, looking up, he saw her. Instantly he rose to his feet, slipped the letter into his pocket, and stood before her, hat in hand, to greet her with genuine pleasure and with that gentle courtesy which always marked his bearing. And Kitty, as she looked up at him, felt, more convincingly than ever, that this man would be perfectly at ease in the most exacting social company.

"I fear I interrupted you," said the young woman. "I was just passing."

"Not at all," he protested. "Surely you can give me a moment of your busy gala day. I know you have a host of friends, of course, but—well, I am lonely. Curly and Bob and the boys are all having the time of their lives; the Dean and mother are lunching with friends; and I don't know where Phil has hidden himself."

It was like him to mention Phil in almost his first words to her. And Kitty, as Patches spoke Phil's name, instantly, as she had so often done during the past few months, mentally placed the two men side by side.

"I just wanted to tell you"—she hesitated—"Mr. Patches—"

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted smiling.

"Well, Patches then; but you seem so different somehow, dressed like this. I just wanted to tell you that I saw what happened this morning. It was splendid!"

"Why, Miss Reid, you know that was nothing. The driver of the car would probably have dodged the youngster anyway. I acted on the impulse of the moment, without thinking. I'm always doing something unnecessarily foolish, you know."

"The driver of the car would more likely have dodged into the child," she returned warmly. "And it was fortunate that some one in all that stupid crowd could act without taking time to think. Everybody says so. The dear old Dean is as pleased and proud as though you were one of his own sons."

"Really, you make too much of it," he returned, clearly embarrassed by her praise. "Tell me, you are enjoying the celebration? And what's the matter with Phil? Can't you persuade him to ride in the contest? We don't want the championship to go out of Yavapai County, do we?"

Why must he always bring Phil into their talk? Kitty asked herself.

"I am sure that Phil knows how all his friends feel about his riding," she said coolly. "If he does not wish to gratify them, it is really a small matter, is it not?"

Patches saw that he had made a mistake and changed easily to a safer topic.

"You saw the beginning of the automobile race, of course? I suppose you will be on hand this afternoon for the finish?"

"Oh, yes, I'm on my way now to join my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Manning. We are going to see the finish of the race together."

She watched his face closely, as she spoke of her friends, but he gave no sign that he had ever heard the name before.

"It will be worth seeing, I fancy," he returned. "At least everybody seems to feel that way."

"I am sure to have a good time, anyway," she returned, "because, you see, Mrs. Manning is one of my very dearest girl friends, whom I have not seen for a long time."

"Indeed! You will enjoy the afternoon, then."

Was there a shade too much enthusiasm in the tone of his reply? Kitty wondered. Could it be that his plea of loneliness was merely a conventional courtesy and that he was really relieved to find that she was engaged for the afternoon?

"Yes, and I must hurry on to them, or they will think I am not coming," she said. "Have a good time, Patches; you surely have earned it. Good-by!"

He stood for a moment watching her cross the park. Then, with a quick look around, as though he did not wish to be observed, he hurried across the street to the Western Union office. A few moments later he made his way, by little-frequented side streets, to the stable where he had left his horse; and while Kitty and her friends were watching the first of the racing cars cross the line, Patches was several miles away, riding as though pursued by the sheriff, straight for the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

Several times that day, while she was with her eastern friends, Kitty saw Phil near by. But she gave him no signal to join them, and the cowboy, shy always, and hurt by Kitty's indifference, would not approach the little party without her invitation. But that evening, while Kitty was waiting in the hotel lobby for Mr. and Mrs. Manning, Phil, finding her alone, went to her.

"I have been trying to speak to you all day," he said reproachfully. "Haven't you any time for me at all, Kitty?"

"Don't be foolish, Phil," she returned; "you have seen me a dozen times."

"I have seen you, yes," he answered bitterly.

"But, Phil, you could have come to me, if you had wanted to."

"I have no desire to go where I am not wanted," he answered.

"Phil!"

"Well, you gave no sign that you wanted me."

"There was no reason why I should," she retorted. "You are not a child. I was with my friends from the East. You could have joined us if you had cared to. I should be very glad, indeed, to present you to Mr. and Mrs. Manning."

"Thank you, but I don't care to be exhibited as an interesting specimen to people who have no use for me except when I do a few fool stunts to amuse them."

"Very well, Phil," she returned coldly. "If that is your feeling, I do not care to present you to my friends. They are every bit as sincere and genuine as you are; and I certainly shall not trouble them with anyone who cannot appreciate them."

Kitty was angry, as she had good reason for being. But beneath her anger she was sorry for the man whose bitterness, she knew, was born of his love for her. And Phil saw only that Kitty was lost to him—saw in the girl's eastern friends those who, he felt, had robbed him of his dream.

"I suppose," he said, after a moment's painful silence, "that I had better go back to the range where I belong. I'm out of place here."

The girl was touched by the hopelessness in his voice, but she felt that it would be no kindness to offer him the relief of an encouraging word. Her day with her eastern friends, and the memories that her meeting with Mrs. Manning had aroused, convinced her more than ever that her old love for Phil, and the life of which he was a part, were for her impossible.

When she did not speak, the cowboy said bitterly, "I noticed that your fine friends did not take quite all your time. You found an opportunity for a quiet little visit with Honorable Patches."

Kitty was angry now in earnest. "You are forgetting yourself, Phil," she answered with cold dignity. "And I think that as long as you feel as you do toward my friends, and can speak to me like this about Mr. Patches, you are right in saying that you belong on the range. Mr. and Mrs. Manning are here, I see. I am going to dine with them. Good-by!" She turned away, leaving him standing there.

A moment he waited, as though stunned; then he turned to make his way blindly out of the hotel.

It was nearly morning when Patches was awakened by the sound of someone moving about the kitchen. A moment he listened, then, rising, went quickly to the kitchen door, thinking to surprise some chance night visitor.

When Phil saw him standing there the foreman for a moment said nothing, but, with the bread knife in one hand and one of Stella's good loaves in the other, stared at him in blank surprise. Then the look of surprise changed to an expression of questioning suspicion, and he demanded harshly, "What in hell are you doing here?"

Patches saw that the man was laboring under some great trouble. Indeed, Phil's voice and manner were not unlike one under the influence of strong drink. But Patches knew that Phil never drank.

"I was sleeping," he answered calmly. "You woke me, I suppose. I heard you, and came to see who was prowling around the kitchen at this time of the night; that is all."

"Oh, that's all, is it? But what are you here for? Why aren't you in Prescott where you are supposed to be?"

Patches, because he saw Phil's painful state of mind, exercised admirable self-control. "I supposed I had a perfect right to come here if I wished. I did not dream that my presence in this house would be questioned."

"That depends," Phil retorted. "Why did you leave Prescott?"

Patches, still calm, answered gently. "My reasons for not staying in Prescott are entirely personal, Phil; I do not care to explain just now."

"Oh, you don't? Well, it seems to me, sir, that you have a devil of a lot of personal business that you can't explain."

"I am afraid I have," returned Patches, with his old self-mocking smile. "But, look here, Phil, you are disturbed and all wrought up about something, or you wouldn't attack me like this. You don't really think me a suspicious character, and you know you don't. You are not yourself, old man, and I'll be hanged if I'll take anything you say as an insult, until I know that you say it, deliberately, in cold blood. I'm sorry for your trouble, Phil—damned sorry—I would give anything if I could help you. Perhaps I may be able to prove that later, but just now I think the kindest and wisest thing that I can do for us both is to say good-night."

He turned at the last word, without waiting for Phil to speak, and went back to his room.



CHAPTER XIII.

IN GRANITE BASIN.

On the other side of Granite Mountain from where Phil and Patches watched the wild horses that day, there is a rocky hollow, set high in the hills, but surrounded on every side by still higher peaks and ridges. Lying close under the sheer, towering cliffs of the mountain, those fortress-like walls so gray and grim and old seem to overshadow the place with a somber quiet, as though the memories of the many ages that had wrought their countless years into those mighty battlements gave to the very atmosphere a feeling of solemn and sacred seclusion. It was as though nature had thrown about this spot a strong protecting guard, that here, in her very heart, she might keep unprofaned the sweetness and strength and beauty of her primitive and everlasting treasures.

In its wild and rugged setting, Granite Basin has, for the few who have the hardihood to find them, many beautiful glades and shady nooks, where the grass and wild flowers weave their lovely patterns for the earth floor, and tall pines spread their soft carpets of brown, while giant oaks and sycamores lift their cathedral arches to support the ceilings of green, and dark rock fountains set in banks of moss and fern hold water clear and cold. It was to one of these that Stanford Manning brought his bride for their honeymoon. Stanford himself pitched their tent and made their simple camp, for it was not in his plan that the sweet intimacy of these, the first weeks of their mated life, should be marred, even by servants. And Helen, wise in her love, permitted him to realize his dream in the fullness of its every detail.