THE DRIFT FENCE.
The education of Honorable Patches was begun without further delay.
Because Phil's time was so fully occupied with his four-footed pupils,
the Dean himself became the stranger's teacher, and all sorts of odd
jobs about the ranch, from cleaning the pig pen to weeding the garden,
were the text books. The man balked at nothing. Indeed, he seemed to
find a curious, grim satisfaction in accomplishing the most menial and
disagreeable tasks; and when he made mistakes, as he often did, he
laughed at himself with such bitter, mocking humor that the Dean
wondered.
"He's got me beat," the Dean confided to Stella. "There ain't nothin'
that he won't tackle, an' I'm satisfied that the man never did a stroke
of work before in his life. But he seems to be always tryin' experiments
with himself, like he expected himself to play the fool one way or
another, an' wanted to see if he would, an' then when he don't he's as
surprised and tickled as a kid."
The Dean himself was not at all above assisting his new man in those
experiments, and so it happened that day when Patches had been set to
repairing the meadow pasture fence near the lower corrals.
The Dean, riding out that way to see how his pupil was progressing,
noticed a particularly cross-tempered shorthorn bull that had wandered
in from the near-by range to water at the house corral. But Phil and his
helpers were in possession of the premises near the watering trough, and
his shorthorn majesty was therefore even more than usual out of patience
with the whole world. The corrals were between the bull and Patches, so
that the animal had not noticed the man, and the Dean, chuckling to
himself, and without attracting Patches' attention, quietly drove the
ill-tempered beast into the enclosure and shut the gate.
Then, riding around the corral, the Dean called to the young man. When
Patches stood beside his employer, the cattleman said, "Here's a blamed
old bull that don't seem to be feelin' very well. I got him into the
corral all right, but I'm so fat I can't reach him from the saddle. I
wish you'd just halter him with this rope, so I can lead him up to the
house and let Phil and the boys see what's wrong with him."
Patches took the rope and started toward the corral gate. "Shall I put
it around his neck and make a hitch over his nose, like you do a horse?"
he asked, glad for the opportunity to exhibit his newly acquired
knowledge of ropes and horses and things.
"No, just tie it around his horns," the Dean answered. "He'll come, all
right."
The bull, seeing a man on foot at the entrance to his prison, rumbled a
deep-voiced threat, and pawed the earth with angry strength.
For an instant, Patches, with his hand on the latch of the gate, paused
to glance from the dangerous-looking animal, that awaited his coming, to
the Dean who sat on his horse just outside the fence. Then he slipped
inside the corral and closed the gate behind him. The bull gazed at him
a moment as if amazed at the audacity of this mere human, then lowered
his head for the charge.
"Climb that gate, quick," yelled the Dean at the critical moment.
And Patches climbed--not a second too soon.
From his position of safety he smiled cheerfully at the Dean. "He came
all right, didn't he?"
The Dean's full rounded front and thick shoulders shook with laughter,
while SeƱor Bull dared the man on the gate to come down.
"You crazy fool," said the Dean admiringly, when he could speak. "Didn't
you know any better than to go in there on foot?"
"But you said you wanted him," returned the chagrined Patches.
"What I wanted," chuckled the Dean, "was to see if you had nerve enough
to tackle him."
"To tell the truth," returned Patches, with a happy laugh, "that's
exactly what interested me."
But, while the work assigned to Patches during those first days of his
stay on the Cross-Triangle was chiefly those odd jobs which called for
little or no experience, his higher education was by no means neglected.
A wise and gentle old cow-horse was assigned to him, and the Dean taught
him the various parts of his equipment, their proper use, and how to
care for them. And every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes late
in the afternoon, the master found some errand or business that would
necessitate his pupil riding with him. When Phil or Mrs. Baldwin would
inquire about the Dean's kindergarten, as they called it, the Dean would
laugh with them, but always he would say stoutly, "Just you wait. He'll
be as near ready for the rodeo this fall as them pupils in that
kindergarten of Phil's. He takes to ridin' like the good Lord had made
him specially for that particular job. He's just a natural-born
horseman, or I don't know men. He's got the sense, he's got the nerve,
an' he's got the disposition. He's goin' to make a top hand in a few
months, if"--he always added with twinkling eyes--"he don't get himself
killed tryin' some fool experiment on himself."
"I notice just the same that he always has plenty of help in his
experimentin'," Mrs. Baldwin would return dryly, which saying indicted
not only the Dean but Phil and every man on the Cross-Triangle,
including Little Billy.
Then came that day when Patches was given a task that--the Dean assured
him--is one of the duties of even the oldest and best qualified cowboys.
Patches was assigned to the work of fenceriding. But when the Dean rode
out with his pupil early that morning to where the drift fence begins at
the corner of the big pasture, and explained that "riding a fence"
meant, in ranch language, looking for breaks and repairing any such when
found, he did not explain the peculiarities of that particular kind of
fence.
"I told him to be sure and be back by night," he chuckled, as he
explained Patches' absence at dinner to the other members of the
household.
"That was downright mean of you, Will Baldwin," chided Stella, with her
usual motherly interest in the comfort of her boys. "You know the poor
fellow will lose himself, sure, out in that wild Tailholt Mountain
country."
The boys laughed.
"We'll find him in the morning, all right, mother," reassured Phil.
"He can follow the fence back, can't he?" retorted the Dean. "Or, as far
as that goes, old Snip will bring him home."
"If he knows enough to figger it out, or to let Snip have his head,"
said Curly.
"At any rate," the Dean maintained, "he'll learn somethin' about the
country, an' he'll learn somethin' about fences, an' mebby he'll learn
somethin' about horses. An' we'll see whether he can use his own head or
not. There's nothin' like givin' a man a chance to find out things for
himself sometimes. Besides, think what a chance he'll have for some of
his experiments! I'll bet a yearling steer that when we do see him
again, he'll be tickled to death at himself an' wonderin' how he had the
nerve to do it."
"To do what?" asked Mrs. Baldwin.
"I don't know what," chuckled the Dean; "but he's bound to do some fool
thing or other just to see if he can, and it'll be somethin' that nobody
but him would ever think of doin', too."
But Honorable Patches did not get lost that day--that is, not too badly
lost. There was a time, though--but that does not belong just here.
Patches was very well pleased with the task assigned to him that
morning. For the first time he found himself trusted alone with a horse,
on a mission that would keep him the full day in the saddle, and would
take him beyond sight of the ranch house. Very bravely he set out,
equipped with his cowboy regalia--except the riata, which the Dean,
fearing experiments, had, at the last moment, thoughtfully borrowed--and
armed with a fencing tool and staples. He was armed, too, with a
brand-new "six-gun" in a spick and span holster, on a shiny belt of
bright cartridges. The Dean had insisted on this, alleging that the
embryo cowboy might want it to kill a sick cow or something.
Patches wondered if he would know a sick cow if he should meet one, or
how he was to diagnose the case to ascertain if she were sick enough to
kill.
The first thing he did, when the Dean was safely out of sight, was to
dismount and examine his saddle girth. Always your real king of the
cattle range is careful for the foundation of his throne. But there was
no awkwardness, now, when he again swung to his seat. The young man was
in reality a natural athlete. His work had already taken the soreness
and stiffness out of his unaccustomed muscles, and he seemed, as the
Dean had said, a born horseman. And as he rode, he looked about over the
surrounding country with an expression on independence, freedom and
fearlessness very different from the manner of the troubled man who had
faced Phil Acton that night on the Divide. It was as though the spirit
of the land was already working its magic within this man, too. He
patted the holster at his side, felt the handle of the gun, lovingly
fingered the bright cartridges in his shiny belt, leaned sidewise to
look admiringly down at his fringed, leather chaps and spur ornamented
boot heels, and wished for his riata--not forgetting, meanwhile, to scan
the fence for places that might need his attention.
The guardian angel who cares for the "tenderfoot" was good to Patches
that day, and favored him with many sagging wires and leaning or broken
posts, so that he could not ride far. Being painstaking and
conscientious in his work, he had made not more than four miles by the
beginning of the afternoon. Then he found a break that would occupy him
for two hours at least. With rueful eyes he surveyed the long stretch of
dilapidated fence. It was time, he reflected, that the Dean sent someone
to look after his property, and dismounting, he went to work,
forgetting, in his interest in the fencing problem, to insure his
horse's near-by attendance. Now, the best of cow-horses are not above
taking advantage of their opportunities. Perhaps Snip felt that
fenceriding with a tenderfoot was a little beneath the dignity of his
cattle-punching years. Perhaps he reasoned that this man who was always
doing such strange things was purposely dismissing him. Perhaps he was
thinking of the long watering trough and the rich meadow grass at home.
Or, perhaps again, the wise old Snip, feeling the responsibility of his
part in training the Dean's pupil, merely thought to give his
inexperienced master a lesson. However it happened, Patches looked up
from his work some time later to find himself alone. In consternation,
he stood looking about, striving to catch a glimpse of the vanished
Snip. Save a lone buzzard that wheeled in curious circles above his head
there was no living thing in sight.
As fast as his heavy, leather chaps and high-heeled, spur-ornamented
boots would permit, he ran to the top of a knoll a hundred yards or so
away. The wider range of country that came thus within the circle of his
vision was as empty as it was silent. The buzzard wheeled nearer--the
strange looking creature beneath it seemed so helpless that there might
be in the situation something of vital interest to the tribe. Even
buzzards must be about their business.
There are few things more humiliating to professional riders of the
range than to be left afoot; and while Patches was far too much a novice
to have acquired the peculiar and traditional tastes and habits of the
clan of which he had that morning felt himself a member, he was, in
this, the equal of the best of them. He thought of himself walking
shamefaced into the presence of the Dean and reporting the loss of the
horse. The animal might be recovered, he supposed, for he was still,
Patches thought, inside the pasture which that fence enclosed. Still
there was a chance that the runaway would escape through some break and
never be found. In any case the vision of the grinning cowboys was not
an attractive one. But at least, thought the amateur cowboy, he would
finish the work entrusted to him. He might lose a horse for the Dean,
but the Dean's fence should be repaired. So he set to work with a will,
and, finishing that particular break, set out on foot to follow the
fence around the field and so back to the lane that would lead him to
the buildings and corrals of the home ranch.
For an hour he trudged along, making hard work of it in his chaps,
boots, and spurs, stopping now and then to drive a staple or brace a
post. The country was growing wilder and more broken, with cedar timber
on the ridges and here and there a pine. Occasionally he could catch a
glimpse of the black, forbidding walls of Tailholt Mountain. But Patches
did not know that it was Tailholt. He only thought that he knew in which
direction the home ranch lay. It seemed to him that it was a long, long
way to the corner of the field--it must be a big pasture, indeed. The
afternoon was well on when he paused on the summit of another ridge to
rest. It, seemed to him that he had never in all his life been quite so
warm. His legs ached. He was tired and thirsty and hungry. It was so
still that the silence hurt, and that fence corner was nowhere in sight.
He could not, now reach home before dark, even should he turn back;
which, he decided grimly, he would not do. He would ride that fence if
he camped three nights on the journey.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet, waving his hat, hallooing and yelling
like a madman. Two horsemen were riding on the other side of the fence,
along the slope of the next ridge, at the edge of the timber. In vain
Patches strove to attract their attention. If they heard him, they gave
no sign, and presently he saw them turn, ride in among the cedars, and
disappear. In desperation he ran along the fence, down the hill, across
the narrow little valley, and up the ridge over which the riders had
gone. On the top of the ridge he stopped again, to spend the last of his
breath in another series of wild shouts. But there was no answer. Nor
could he be sure, even, which way the horsemen had gone.
Dropping down in the shade of a cedar, exhausted by his strenuous
exertion, and wet with honest perspiration, he struggled for breath and
fanned his hot face with his hat. Perhaps he even used some of the
cowboy words that he had heard Curly and Bob employ when Little Billy
was not around After the noise of his frantic efforts, the silence was
more oppressive than ever. The Cross-Triangle ranch house was,
somewhere, endless miles away.
Then a faint sound in the narrow valley below him caught his ear.
Turning quickly, he looked back the way he had come. Was he dreaming, or
was it all just a part of the magic of that wonderful land? A young
woman was riding toward him--coming at an easy swinging lope--and,
following, at the end of a riata, was the cheerfully wise and
philosophic Snip.
Patches' first thought--when he had sufficiently recovered I from his
amazement to think at all--was that the woman rode as he had never seen
a woman ride before. Dressed in the divided skirt of corduroy, the
loose, soft, gray shirt, gauntleted gloves, mannish felt hat, and boots,
usual to Arizona horsewomen, she seemed as much at ease in the saddle as
any cowboy in the land; and, indeed, she was.
As she came up the slope, the man in the shade of the cedar saw that she
was young. Her lithe, beautifully developed body yielded to the movement
of the spirited horse she rode with the unspoiled grace of health and
youth. Still nearer, and he saw her clear cheeks glowing with the
exercise and excitement, her soft, brown hair under the wide brim of the
gray sombrero, and her dark eyes, shining with the fun of her adventure.
Then she saw him, and smiled; and Patches remembered what the Dean had
said: "If there's a man in Yavapai County who wouldn't ride the hoofs
off the best horse in his outfit to win a smile from Kitty Reid, he
ought to be lynched."
As the man stood, hat in hand, she checked her horse, and, in a voice
that matched the smile so full of fun and the clean joy of living
greeted him.
"You are Mr. Honorable Patches, are you not?"
Patches bowed. "Miss Reid, I believe?"
She frankly looked her surprise. "Why, how did you know me?"
"Your good friend, Mr. Baldwin, described you," he smiled.
She colored and laughed to hide her slight embarrassment. "The dear old
Dean is prejudiced, I fear."
"Prejudiced he may be," Patches admitted, "but his judgement is
unquestionable. And," he added gently, as her face grew grave and her
chin lifted slightly, "his confidence in any man might be considered an
endorsement, don't you think?"
"Indeed, yes," she agreed heartily, her slight coldness vanishing
instantly. "The Dean and Stella told me all about you this afternoon, or
I should not have ventured to introduce myself. I am very pleased to
meet you, Mr. Patches," she finished with a mock formality that was
delightful.
"And I am delighted to meet you, Miss Reid, for so many reasons that I
can't begin to tell you of them," he responded laughing. "And now, may I
ask what good magic brings you like a fairy in the story book to the
rescue of a poor stranger in the hour of his despair? Where did you find
my faithless Snip? How did you know where to find me? Where is the
Cross-Triangle Ranch? How many miles is it to the nearest water? Is it
possible for me to get home in time for supper?" Looking down at him she
laughed as only Kitty Reid could laugh.
"You're making fun of me," he charged; "they all do. And I don't blame
them in the least; I have been laughing at myself all day."
"I'll answer your last question first," she returned. "Yes, you can
easily reach the Cross-Triangle in time for supper, if you start at
once. I will explain the magic as we ride."
"You are going to show me the way?" he cried eagerly, starting toward
his horse.
"I really think it would be best," she said demurely.
"Now I know you are a good fairy, or a guardian angel, or something like
that," he returned, setting his foot in the stirrup to mount. Then
suddenly he paused, with, "Wait a minute, please. I nearly forgot." And
very carefully he examined the saddle girth to see that it was tight.
"If you had remembered to throw your bridle rein over Snip's head when
you left him, you wouldn't have needed a guardian angel this time," she
said.
He looked at her blankly over the patient Snip's back.
"And so that was what made him go away? I knew I had done some silly
thing that I ought not. That's the only thing about myself that I am
always perfectly sure of," he added as he mounted. "You see I can always
depend upon myself to make a fool of myself. It was that bad place in
the fence that did it." He pulled up his horse suddenly as they were
starting. "And that reminds me; there is one thing you positively must
tell me before I can go a foot, even toward supper. How much farther is
it to the corner of this field?"
She looked at him in pretty amazement. "To the corner of this field?"
"Yes, I knew, of course, that if I followed the fence it was bound to
lead me around the field and so back to where I started. That's why I
kept on; I thought I could finish the job and get home, even if Snip did
compel me to ride the fence on foot."
"But don't you know that this is a drift fence?" she asked, her eyes
dancing with fun.
"That's what the Dean called it," he admitted. "But if it's drifting
anywhere, it's going end on. Perhaps that's why I couldn't catch the
corner."
"But there is no corner to a drift fence," she cried.
"No corner?"
She shook her head as if not trusting herself to speak.
"And it doesn't go around anything--there is no field?" Again she shook
her head.
"Just runs away out in the country somewhere and stops?"
She nodded. "It must be eighteen or twenty miles from here to the end."
"Well, of all the silly fences!" he exclaimed, looking away to the
mountain peaks toward which he had been so laboriously making his way.
"Honestly, now, do you think that is any way for a respectable fence to
act? And the Dean told me to be sure and get home before dark!"
Then they laughed together--laughed until their horses must have
wondered.
As they rode on, she explained the purpose of the drift fence, and how
it came to an end so many miles away and so far from water that the
cattle do not usually find their way around it.
"And now the magic!" he said. "You have made a most unreasonable,
unconventional and altogether foolish fence appear reasonable, proper
and perfectly sane. Please explain your coming with Snip to my relief."
"Which was also unreasonable, unconventional and altogether foolish?"
she questioned.
"Which was altogether wonderful, unexpected and delightful," he
retorted.
"It is all perfectly simple," she explained. "Being rather--" She
hesitated. "Well, rather sick of too much of nothing at all, you know, I
went over to the Cross-Triangle right after dinner to visit a little
with Stella--professionally."
"Professionally?" he asked.
She nodded brightly. "For the good of my soul. Stella's a famous soul
doctor. The best ever except one, and she lives far away--away back east
in Cleveland, Ohio."
"Yes, I know her, too," he said gravely.
And while they laughed at the absurdity of his assertion, they did not
know until long afterward how literally true it was.
"Of course, I knew about you," she continued. "Phil told me how you
tried to ride that unbroken horse, the last time he was at our house.
Phil thinks you are quite a wonderful man."
"No doubt," said Patches mockingly. "I must have given a remarkable
exhibition on that occasion." He was wondering just how much Phil had
told her.
"And so, you see," she continued, "I couldn't very well help being
interested in the welfare of the stranger who had come among us.
Besides, our traditional western hospitality demanded it; don't you
think?"
"Oh, certainly, certainly. You could really do nothing less than inquire
about me," he agreed politely.
"And so, you see, Stella quite restored my soul health; or at least
afforded me temporary relief."
He met the quizzing, teasing, laughing look in her eyes blankly. "You
are making fun of me again," he said humbly. "I know I ought to laugh at
myself, but--"
"Why, don't you understand?" she cried. "Dr. Stella administered a
generous dose of talk about the only new thing that has happened in this
neighborhood for months and months and months."
"Meaning me?" he asked.
"Well, are you not?" she retorted.
"I guess I am," he smiled. "Well, and then what?"
"Why, then I came away, feeling much better, of course."
"Yes?"
"I was feeling so much better I decided I would go home a roundabout
way; perhaps to the top of Black Hill; perhaps up Horse Wash, where I
might meet father, who would be on his way home from Fair Oaks where he
went this morning."
"I see."
"Well, so I met Snip, who was on his way to the Cross-Triangle. I knew,
of course, that old Snip would be your horse." She smiled, as though to
rob her words of any implied criticism of his horsemanship.
"Exactly," he agreed understandingly.
"And I was afraid that something might have happened; though I couldn't
see how that could be, either, with Snip. And so I caught him--"
He interrupted eagerly. "How?"
"Why, with my riata," she returned, in a matter-of-fact tone, wondering
at his question.
"You caught my horse with your riata?" he repeated slowly.
"And pray how should I have caught him?" she asked.
"But--but, didn't he _run_?"
She laughed. "Of course he ran. They all do that once they get away from
you. But Snip never could outrun my Midnight," she retorted.
He shook his head slowly, looking at her with frank admiration, as
though, for the first time, he understood what a rare and wonderful
creature she was.
"And you can ride and rope like that?" he said doubtfully.
She flushed hotly, and there was a spark of fire in the brown eyes. "I
suppose you are thinking that I am coarse and mannish and all that," she
said with spirit. "By your standards, Mr. Patches, I should have ridden
back to the house, screaming, ladylike, for help."
"No, no," he protested. "That's not fair. I was thinking how wonderful
you are. Why, I would give--what wouldn't I give to be able to do a
thing like that!"
There was no mistaking his earnestness, and Kitty was all sunshine
again, pardoning him with a smile.
"You see," she explained, "I have always lived here, except my three
years at school. Father taught me to use a riata, as he taught me to
ride and shoot, because--well--because it's all a part of this life, and
very useful sometimes; just as it is useful to know about hotels and
time-tables and taxicabs, in that other part of the world."
"I understand," he said gently. "It was stupid of me to notice it. I beg
your pardon for interrupting the story of my rescue. You had just roped
Snip while he was doing his best to outrun Midnight--simple and easy as
calling a taxi--'Number Two Thousand Euclid Avenue, please'--and there
you are."
"Oh, do you know Cleveland?" she cried.
For an instant he was confused. Then he said easily, "Everybody has
heard of the famous Euclid Avenue. But how did you guess where Snip had
left me?"
"Why, Stella had told me that you were riding the drift fence," she
answered, tactfully ignoring the evasion of her question. "I just
followed the fence. So there was no magic about it at all, you see."
"I'm not so sure about the magic," he returned slowly.
"This is such a wonderful country--to me--that one can never be quite
sure about anything. At least, I can't. But perhaps that's because I am
such a new thing."
"And do you like it?" she asked, frankly curious about him.
"Like being a new thing?" he parried. "Yes and No."
"I mean do you like this wonderful country, as you call it?"
"I admire the people who belong to it tremendously," he returned. "I
never met such men before--or such women," he finished with a smile.
"But, do you like it?" she persisted. "Do you like the life--your
work--would you be satisfied to live here always?"
"Yes and No," he answered again, hesitatingly.
"Oh, well," she said, with, he thought, a little bitterness and
rebellion, "it doesn't really matter to you whether you like it or not,
because _you_ are a man. If you are not satisfied with your environment,
you can leave it--go away somewhere else--make yourself a part of some
other life."
He shook his head, wondering a little at her earnestness. "That does not
always follow. Can a man, just because he is a man, always have or do
just what he likes?"
"If he's strong enough," she insisted. "But a woman must always do what
other people like."
He was sure now that she was speaking rebelliously.
She continued, "Can't you, if you are not satisfied with this life here,
go away?"
"Yes, but not necessarily to any life I might desire. Perhaps some
sheriff wants me. Perhaps I am an escaped convict. Perhaps--oh, a
thousand things."
She laughed aloud in spite of her serious mood. "What nonsense!"
"But, why nonsense? What do you and your friends know of me?"
"We know that you are not that kind of a man," she retorted warmly,
"because"--she hesitated--"well, because you are _not_ that sort of a
man."
"Are you sure you don't mean because I am not man enough to make myself
wanted very badly, even by the sheriff?" he asked, and Kitty could not
mistake the bitterness in his voice.
"Why, Mr. Patches!" she cried. "How could you think I meant such a
thing? Forgive me! I was only wondering foolishly what you, a man of
education and culture, could find in this rough life that would appeal
to you in any way. My curiosity is unpardonable, I suppose, but you must
know that we are all wondering why you are here."
"I do not blame you," he returned, with that self-mocking smile, as
though he were laughing at himself. "I told you I could always be
depended upon to make a fool of myself. You see I am doing it now. I
don't mind telling you this much--that I am here for the same reason
that you went to visit Mrs. Baldwin this afternoon."
"For the good of your soul?" she asked gently.
"Exactly," he returned gravely. "For the good of my soul."
"Well, then, Mr. Honorable Patches, here's to your soul's good health!"
she cried brightly, checking her horse and holding out her hand. "We
part here. You can see the Cross-Triangle buildings yonder. I go this
way."
He looked his pleasure, as he clasped her hand in hearty understanding
of the friendship offered.
"Thank you, Miss Reid. I still maintain that the Dean's judgment is
unquestionable."
She was not at all displeased with his reply.
"By the way," she said, as if to prove her friendship. "I suppose you
know what to expect from Uncle Will and the boys when they learn of your
little adventure?"
"I do," he answered, as if resigned to anything.
"And do you enjoy making fun for them?"
"I assure you, Miss Reid, I am very human."
"Well, then, why don't you turn the laugh on them?"
"But how?"
"They are expecting you to get into some sort of a scrape, don't you
think?"
"They are always expecting that. And," he added, with that droll touch
in his voice, "I must say I rarely disappoint them."
"I suspect," she continued, thoughtfully, "that the Dean purposely did
not explain that drift fence to you."
"He has established precedents that would justify my thinking so, I'll
admit."
"Well, then, why don't you ride cheerfully home and report the progress
of your work as though nothing had happened?"
"You mean that you won't tell?" he cried.
She nodded gaily. "I told them this afternoon that it wasn't fair for
you to have no one but Stella on your side."
"What a good Samaritan you are! You put me under an everlasting
obligation to you."
"All right," she laughed. "I'm glad you feel that way about it. I shall
hold that debt against you until some day when I am in dreadful need,
and then I shall demand payment in full. Good-by!"
And once again Kitty had spoken, in jest, words that held for them both,
had they but known, great significance.
Patches watched until she was out of sight. Then he made his way
happily to the house to receive, with a guilty conscience but with a
light heart, congratulations and compliments upon his safe return.
That evening Phil disappeared somewhere, in the twilight. And a little
later Jim Reid rode into the Cross-Triangle dooryard.
The owner of the Pot-Hook-S was a big man, tall and heavy, outspoken and
somewhat gruff, with a manner that to strangers often seemed near to
overbearing. When Patches was introduced, the big cattleman looked him
over suspiciously, spoke a short word in response to Patches'
commonplace, and abruptly turned his back to converse with the
better-known members of the household.
For an hour, perhaps, they chatted about matters of general interest, as
neighbors will; then the caller arose to go, and the Dean walked with
him to his horse. When the two men were out of hearing of the people on
the porch Reid asked in a low voice, "Noticed any stock that didn't look
right lately, Will?"
"No. You see, we haven't been ridin' scarcely any since the Fourth. Phil
and the boys have been busy with the horses every day, an' this new man
don't count, you know."
"Who is he, anyway?" asked Reid bluntly.
"I don't know any more than that he says his name is Patches."
"Funny name," grunted Jim.
"Yes, but there's a lot of funny names, Jim," the Dean answered quietly.
"I don't know as Patches is any funnier than Skinner or Foote or Hogg,
or a hundred other names, when you come to think about it. We ain't
just never happened to hear it before, that's all."
"Where did you pick him up?"
"He just came along an' wanted work. He's green as they make 'em, but
willin', an' he's got good sense, too."
"I'd go slow 'bout takin' strangers in," said the big man bluntly.
"Shucks!" retorted the Dean. "Some of the best men I ever had was
strangers when I hired 'em. Bein' a stranger ain't nothin' against a
man. You and me would be strangers if we was to go many miles from
Williamson Valley. Patches is a good man, I tell you. I'll stand for
him, all right. Why, he's been out all day, alone, ridin' the drift
fence, just as good any old-timer."
"The drift fence!"
"Yes, it's in pretty bad shape in places."
"Yes, an' I ran onto a calf over in Horse Wash, this afternoon, not four
hundred yards from the fence on the Tailholt side, fresh-branded with
the Tailholt iron, an' I'll bet a thousand dollars it belongs to a
Cross-Triangle cow."
"What makes you think it was mine?" asked the Dean calmly.
"Because it looked mighty like some of your Hereford stock, an' because
I came on through the Horse Wash gate, an' about a half mile on this
side, I found one of your cows that had just lost her calf."
"They know we're busy an' ain't ridin' much, I reckon," mused the Dean.
"If I was you, I'd put some hand that I knew to ridin' that drift
fence," returned Jim significantly, as he mounted his horse to go.
"You're plumb wrong, Jim," returned the Dean earnestly. "Why, the man
don't know a Cross-Triangle from a Five-Bar, or a Pot-Hook-S."
"It's your business, Will; I just thought I'd tell you," growled Reid.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night, Jim! I'm much obliged to you for ridin' over."