As she lay in the hammock which he had hung for her under the canopy of living green, and watched him while he brought wood for their camp fire, and made all ready for the night which was drawing near, she was glad that he had planned it so. But more than that, she was glad that he was the kind of a man who would care to plan it so. Then, when all was finished, he came to sit beside her, and together they watched the light of the setting sun fade from the summit of Old Granite, and saw the flaming cloud-banner that hung above the mountain's castle towers furled by the hand of night. In silence they watched those mighty towering battlements grow cold and grim, until against the sky the shadowy bulk stood mysterious and awful, as though to evidence in its grandeur and strength the omnipotent might and power of the Master Builder of the world and Giver of all life.

And when the soft darkness was fully come, and the low murmuring voices of the night whispered from forest depth and mountain side, while the stars peered through the weaving of leaf and branch, and the ruddy light of their camp fire rose and fell, the man talked of the things that had gone into the making of his life. As though he wished his mate to know him more fully than anyone else could know, he spoke of those personal trials and struggles, those disappointments and failures, those plans and triumphs of which men so rarely speak; of his boyhood and his boyhood home life, of his father and mother, of those hard years of his youth, and his struggle for an education that would equip him for his chosen life work; he told her many things that she had known only in a general way.

But most of all he talked of those days when he had first met her, and of how quickly and surely the acquaintance had grown into friendship, and then into a love which he dared not yet confess. Smilingly he told how he had tried to convince himself that she was not for him. And how, believing that she loved and would wed his friend, Lawrence Knight, he had come to the far West, to his work, and, if he could, to forget.

"But I could not forget, dear girl," he said. "I could not escape the conviction that you belonged to me, as I felt that I belonged to you. I could not banish the feeling that some mysterious higher law—the law that governs the mating of the beautifully free creatures that live in these hills—had mated you and me. And so, as I worked and tried to forget, I went on dreaming just the same. It was that way when I first saw this place. I was crossing the country on my way to examine some prospects for the company, and camped at this very spot. And that evening I planned it all, just as it is to-night. I put the tent there, and built our fire, and stretched your hammock under the tree, and sat with you in the twilight; but even as I dreamed it I laughed at myself for a fool, for I could not believe that the dream would ever come true. And then, when I got back to Prescott, there was a letter from a Cleveland friend, telling me that Larry had gone abroad to be away a year or more, and another letter from the company, calling me East again. And so I stopped at Cleveland and—" He laughed happily. "I know now that dreams do come true."

"You foolish boy," said Helen softly. "To think that I did not know. Why, when you went away, I was so sure that you would come for me again, that I never even thought that it could be any other way. I thought you did not speak because you felt that you were too poor, because you felt that you had so little to offer, and because you wished to prove yourself and your work before asking me to share your life. I did not dream that you could doubt my love for you, or think for a moment that there could ever be anyone else. I felt that you must know; and so, you see, while I waited I had my dreams, too."

"But don't you see, girl," he answered, as though for a moment he found it hard to believe his own happiness, "don't you see? Larry is such a splendid fellow, and you two were such friends, and you always seemed so fond of him, and with his wealth he could give you so much that I knew I never could give—"

"Of course, I am fond of Larry; everyone is. He has absolutely nothing to do in the world but to make himself charming and pleasant and entertaining and amusing. Why, Stan, I don't suppose that in all his life he ever did one single thing that was necessary or useful. He even had a man to help him dress. He is cultured and intellectual, and bright and witty, and clean and good-natured, possessing, in fact, all the qualifications of a desirable lap dog, and you can't help liking him, just as you would like a pretty, useless pet."

Stanford chuckled. She had described Lawrence Knight so accurately.

"Poor old Larry," he said. "What a man he might have been if he had not been so pampered and petted and envied and spoiled, all because of his father's money. His heart is right, and at the bottom he has the right sort of stuff in him. His athletic record at school showed us that. I think that was why we all liked him so in spite of his uselessness."

"I wish you could have known my father, Stan," said Helen thoughtfully, as though she, too, were moved to speak by the wish that her mate might know more of the things that had touched her deeper life.

"I wish so, too," he answered. "I know that he must have been fine."

"He was my ideal," she answered softly. "My other ideal, I mean. From the time I was a slip of a girl he made me his chum. Until he died we were always together. Mother died when I was a baby, you know. Many, many times he would take me with him when he made his professional visits to his patients, leaving me in the buggy to wait at each house—'to be his hitching post'—he used to say. And on those long rides, sometimes out into the country, he talked to me as I suppose not many fathers talk to their daughters. And because he was my father and a physician, and because we were so much alone in our companionship, I believed him the wisest and best man in all the world, and felt that nothing he said or did could be wrong. And so, you see, dear, my ideal man, the man to whom I could give myself, came to be the kind of a man that my father placed in the highest rank among men—a man like you, Stan. And almost the last talk we had before he died father said to me—I remember his very words—'My daughter, it will not be long now until men will seek you, until someone will ask you to share his life. Keep your ideal man safe in your heart of hearts, daughter, and remember that no matter what a suitor may have to offer of wealth or social rank, if he is not your ideal—if you cannot respect and admire him for his character and manhood alone—say no; say no, child, at any cost. But when your ideal man comes—the one who compels your respect and admiration for his strength of character, and for the usefulness of his life, the one whom you cannot help loving for his manhood alone—mate with him—no matter how light his purse or how lowly his rank in the world.' And so you see, as soon as I learned to know you, I realized what you were to me. But I wish—oh, how I wish—that father could have lived to know you, too."

For some time they watched the dancing camp fire flames in silence, as though they had found in their love that true oneness that needs no spoken word.

Then Stanford said, "And to think that we expected to wait two years or more, and now—thanks to a soulless corporation—we are here in a little less than a year!"

"Thanks to no soulless corporation for that, sir," retorted Helen with spirit. "But thanks to the brains and strength and character of my husband."

Two of the three weeks' vacation granted the engineer had passed when Mrs. Manning, one afternoon, informed her husband that as the ordained provider for the household it was imperative that he provide some game for their evening meal.

"And what does Her Majesty, the cook, desire?" he asked. "Venison, perhaps?"

She shook her head with decision. "You will be obliged to go too far, and be gone too long, to get a deer."

"But you're going with me, of course."

Again she shook her head. "I have something else to do. I can't always be tagging around after you while you are providing, you know; and we may as well begin to be civilized again. Just go a little way—not so far that you can't hear me call—and bring me some nice fat quail like those we had day before yesterday."

She watched him disappear in the brush and then busied herself about the camp. Presently she heard the gun, and smiled as she pictured him hunting for their supper, much as though they were two primitive children of nature, instead of the two cultured members of a highly civilized race, that they really were. Then, presently she must go to the spring for water, that he might have a cool drink when he returned.

She was half way to the spring, singing softly to herself, when a sound on the low ridge above the camp attracted her attention. Pausing, she looked and listened. The song died on her lips. It could not be Staford coming so noisily through the brush and from that direction. Even as the thought came, she heard the gun again, a little farther away down the narrow valley below the camp, and, in the same moment, the noise on the ridge grew louder, as though some heavy animal were crashing through the bushes. And then suddenly, as she stood there in frightened indecision, a long-horned, wild-eyed steer broke through the brush on the crest of the ridge and plunged down the steep slope toward the camp.

Weak and helpless with fear, Helen could neither scream nor run, but stood fascinated by the very danger that menaced her—powerless, even, to turn her eyes away from the frightful creature that had so rudely broken the quiet seclusion of the little glade. Behind the steer, even as the frenzied animal leaped from the brow of the hill, she saw a horseman, as wild in his appearance and in his reckless rushing haste as the creature he pursued. Curiously, as in a dream, she saw the horse's neck and shoulders dripping wet with sweat, as with ears flat, nose outstretched, and nostrils wide the animal strained every nerve in an effort to put his rider a few feet closer to the escaping quarry. She even noted the fringed leather chaps, the faded blue jumper, the broad hat of the rider, and that in his rein hand he held the coil of a riata high above the saddle horn, while in his right was the half-opened loop. The bridle reins were loose, as though he gave the horse no thought; and they took the steep, downward plunge from the summit of the ridge without an instant's pause, and apparently with all the ease and confidence that they would have felt on smooth and level ground.

The steer, catching sight of the woman, and seeing in her, perhaps, another enemy, swerved a little in his plunging course, and, with lowered head, charged straight at her.

The loop of that rawhide rope was whirling now above the cowboy's head, and his spurs drew blood from the heaving flanks of the straining horse, as every mad leap of the steer brought death a few feet nearer the helpless woman.

The situation must have broken with frightful suddenness upon the man, but he gave no sign—no startled shout, no excited movement. He even appeared, to Helen, to be as coolly deliberate as though no thought of her danger disturbed him; and she recognized, even in that awful moment, the cowboy whom she had watched through the field glasses, that day of the celebration at Prescott. She could not know that, in the same instant, as his horse plunged down from the summit of the ridge, Patches had recognized her; and that as his hand swung the riata with such cool and deliberate precision, the man was praying—praying as only a man who sees the woman he loves facing a dreadful death, with no hand but his to save her, could pray.

God help him if his training of nerve and hand should fail now! Christ pity him, if that whirling loop should miss its mark, or fall short!

His eye told him that the distance was still too great. He must—he must—lessen it; and again his spurs drew blood. He must be cool—cool and steady and sure—and he must act now—NOW!

Helen saw the racing horse make a desperate leap as the spurs tore his heaving sides; she saw that swiftly whirling loop leave the rider's hand, as the man leaned forward in his saddle. Curiously she watched the loop open with beautiful precision, as the coils were loosed and the long, thin line lengthened through the air. It seemed to move so slowly—those wickedly lowered horns were so near! Then she saw the rider's right hand move with flashlike quickness to the saddle horn, as he threw his weight back, and the horse, with legs braced and hoofs plowing the ground, stopped in half his own length, and set his weight against the weight of the steer. The flexible riata straightened as a rod of iron, the steer's head jerked sideways; his horns buried themselves in the ground; he fell, almost at her feet. And then, as the cowboy leaped from his horse, Helen felt herself sinking into a soft, thick darkness that, try as she might, she could not escape.

Still master of himself, but with a kind of fierce coolness, Patches ran to the fallen steer and securely tied the animal down. But when he turned to the woman who lay unconscious on the ground, a sob burst from his lips, and tears were streaming down his dust-grimed cheeks. And as he knelt beside her he called again and again that name which, a year before, he had whispered as he stood with empty, outstretched arms, alone, on the summit of the Divide.

Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the hammock, and finding water and a towel, wet her brow and face; and all the while, in an agony of fear, he talked to her with words of love.

Overwrought by the unexpected, and, to him, almost miraculous meeting with Helen—weak and shaken by the strain of those moments of her danger, when her life depended so wholly upon his coolness and skill—unnerved by the sight of her lying so still and white, and beside himself with the strength of his passion—the man made no effort to account for her presence in that wild and lonely spot, so far from the scenes amid which he had learned to know and love her. He was conscious only that she was there—that she had been very near to death—that he had held her in his arms—and that he loved her with all the strength of his manhood.

Presently, with a low cry of joy, he saw the blood creep back into her white cheeks. Slowly her eyes opened and she looked wonderingly up into his face.

"Helen!" he breathed. "Helen!"

"Why, Larry!" she murmured, still confused and wondering. "So it was you, after all! But what in the world are you doing here like this? They told me your name was Patches—Honorable Patches."

Then the man spoke—impetuously, almost fiercely, his words came without thought.

"I am here because I would be anything, do anything that a man could be and do to win your love. A year ago, when I told you of my love, and asked you to be my wife, and, like the silly, pampered, petted fool that I was, thought that my wealth and the life that I offered could count for anything with a woman like you, you laughed at me. You told me that if ever you married, you would wed a man, not a fortune nor a social position. You made me see myself as I was—a useless idler, a dummy for the tailors, a superficial chatterer of pretty nothings to vain and shallow women; you told me that I possessed not one manly trait of character that could compel the genuine love of an honest woman. You let me see the truth, that my proposal to you was almost an insult. You made me understand that your very friendship for me was such a friendship as you might have with an amusing and irresponsible boy, or a spoiled child. You could not even consider my love for you seriously, as a woman like you must consider the love of a strong man. And you were right, Helen. But, dear, it was for me a bitter, bitter lesson. I went from you, ashamed to look men in the face. I felt myself guilty—a pitifully weak and cowardly thing, with no right to exist. In my humiliation, I ran from all who knew me—I came out here to escape from the life that had made me what I was—that had robbed me of my manhood. And here, by chance, in the contests at the celebration in Prescott, I saw a man—a cowboy—who possessed everything that I lacked, and for the lack of which you had laughed at me. And then alone one night I faced myself and fought it out. I knew that you were right, Helen, but it was not easy to give up the habits and luxury to which all my life I had been accustomed. It was not easy, I say, but my love for you made it a glorious thing to do; and I hoped and believed that if I proved myself a man, I could go back to you, in the strength of my manhood, and you would listen to me. And so, penniless and a stranger, under an assumed name, I sought useful, necessary work that called for the highest quality of manhood. And I have won, Helen; I know that I have won. To-day Patches, the cowboy, can look any man in the face. He can take his place and hold his own among men of any class anywhere. I have regained that of which the circumstances of birth and inheritance and training robbed me. I have won the right of a man to come to you again. I claim that right now, Helen. I tell you again that I love you. I love you as—"

"Larry! Larry!" she cried, springing to her feet, and drawing away from him, as though suddenly awakened from some strange spell. "Larry, you must not! What do you mean? How can you say such things to me?"

He answered her with reckless passion. "I say such things because I am a man, and because you are the woman I love and want; because—"

She cried out again in protest. "Oh, stop, stop! Please stop! Don't you know?"

"Know what?" he demanded.

"My—my husband!" she gasped. "Stanford Manning—we are here on our honeymoon."

She saw him flinch as though from a heavy blow, and put out his hand to the trunk of a tree near which they stood, to steady himself. He did not speak, but his lips moved as though he repeated her words to himself, over and over again; and he gazed at her with a strange bewildered, doubting look, as though he could not believe his own suffering.

Impulsively Helen went a step toward him. "Larry!" she said. "Larry!"

Her voice seemed to arouse him and he stood erect as though by a conscious effort of will. Then that old self-mocking smile was on his lips. He was laughing at his hurt—making sport of himself and his cruel predicament.

But to Helen there was that in his smile which wrung her woman heart. "Oh, Larry," she said gently. "Forgive me; I am so sorry; I—"

He put out his hand with a gesture of protest, and his voice was calm and courteous. "I beg your pardon, Helen. It was stupid of me not to have understood. I forgot myself for the moment. It was all so unexpected—meeting you like this. I did not think." He looked away toward his waiting horse and to the steer lying on the ground. "So you and Stanford Manning—Good old Stan! I am glad for him. And for you, too, Helen. Why, it was I who introduced him to you; do you remember?"

He smiled again that mirthless, self-mocking smile, as he added without giving her time to speak, "If you will excuse me for a moment, I will rid your camp of the unwelcome presence of that beast yonder." Then he went toward his horse, as though turning for relief to the work that had become so familiar to him.

She watched him while he released the steer, and drove the animal away over the ridge, where he permitted it to escape into the wild haunts where it lived with its outlaw companions.

When he rode back to the little camp Stanford had returned.

For an hour they talked together as old friends. But Helen, while she offered now and then a word or a remark, or asked a question, and laughed or smiled with them, left the talk mostly to the two men. Stanford, when the first shock of learning of Helen's narrow escape was over, was gaily enthusiastic and warm in his admiration for his old friend, who had, for no apparent reason but the wish to assert his own manhood, turned his back upon the ease and luxury of his wealth to live a life of adventurous hardship. And Patches, as he insisted they should call him, with many a laughing jest and droll comment told them of his new life and work. He was only serious when he made them promise to keep his identity a secret until he himself was ready to reveal his real name.

"And what do you propose to do when your game of Patches is played out?" Stanford asked curiously.

For an instant they saw him smiling mockingly at himself; then he answered lightly, "Try some other fool experiment, I reckon."

Stanford chuckled; the reply was so like the cowboy Patches, and so unlike his old friend Larry Knight.

"As for that, Stan," Patches continued, "I don't see that the game will ever be played out, as you say. Certainly I can never now go back altogether to what I was. The fellow you used to know in Cleveland is not really I, you see. Fact is, I think that fellow is quite dead—peace be to his ashes! The world is wide and there is always work for a man to do."

The appearance of Phil Acton on the ridge, at the spot where the steer, followed by Patches, had first appeared, put an end to their further conversation with Lawrence Knight.

"My boss!" said that gentleman, in his character of Patches the cowboy, as the Cross-Triangle foreman halted his horse on the brow of the hill, and sat looking down upon the camp.

"Be careful, please, and don't let him suspect that you ever saw me before. I'll sure catch it now for loafing so long."

"I know him," said Stanford. Then he called to the man above, "Come on down, Acton, and be sociable."

Phil rode into camp, shook hands with Stanford cordially, and was presented to Mrs. Manning, to whom he spoke with a touch of embarrassment. Then he said, with a significant look at Patches, "I'm glad to meet you people, Mr. Manning, but we really haven't much time for sociability just now. Mr. Baldwin sent me with an outfit into this Granite Basin country to gather some of these outlaw steers. He expects us to be on the job." Turning to Patches, he continued, "When you didn't come back I thought you must have met with some serious trouble, and so trailed you. We've managed to lose a good deal of time, altogether. That steer you were after got away from you, did he?"

Helen spoke quickly. "Oh, Mr. Acton, you must not blame Mr. Patches for what happened. Really, you must not. No one was to blame; it just happened—" She stopped, unable to finish the explanation, for she was thinking of that part of the incident which was known only to herself and Patches.

Stanford told in a few words of his wife's danger and how the cowboy had saved her.

"That was mighty good work, Patches," said Phil heartily, "mighty good work. I'm sorry, Mr. Manning, that our coming up here after these outlaws happened at just this time. It is too bad to so disturb you and Mrs. Manning. We are going home Friday, however, and I'll tell the boys to keep clear of your neighborhood in the meantime."

As the two Cross-Triangle men walked toward their horses, Helen and Stanford heard Phil ask, "But where is that steer, Patches?"

"I let him go," returned Patches.

"You let him go!" exclaimed the foreman. "After you had him roped and tied? What did you do that for?"

Patches was confused. "Really, I don't know."

"I'd like to know what you figure we're up here for," said Phil, sharply. "You not only waste two or three hours visiting with these people, but you take my time trailing you up; and then you turn loose a steer after you get him. It looks like you'd lost your head mighty bad, after all."

"I'm afraid you're right, Phil," Patches answered quietly.

Helen looked at her husband indignantly but Stanford was grinning with delight.

"To think," he murmured, "of Larry Knight taking a dressing-down like that from a mere cowboy foreman!"

But Patches was by no means so meek in spirit as he appeared in his outward manner. He had been driven almost to the verge of desperation by the trying situation, and was fighting for self-control. To take his foreman's rebuke in the presence of his friends was not easy.

"I reckon I'd better send you to the home ranch to-night, instead of Bob," continued Phil, as the two men mounted their horses and sat for a moment facing each other. "It looks like we could spare you best. Tell Uncle Will to send the chuck wagon and three more punchers, and that we'll start for the home ranch Friday. And be sure that you get back here to-morrow."

"Shall I go now?"

"Yes, you can go now."

Patches wheeled his horse and rode away, while Phil disappeared over the ridge in the direction from which he had come.

When the two cowboys were out of sight, Helen went straight to her husband, and to Stanford's consternation, when he took her in his arms, she was crying.

"Why, girl, what is it?" he asked, holding her close.

But she only answered between sobs as she clung to him, "It—it's nothing—never mind, Stan. I'm just upset."

And Stanford quite naturally thought it was only a case of nerves caused by the danger through which she had passed.

For nearly an hour, Patches rode toward the home ranch, taking only such notice of his surroundings as was necessary in order for him to keep his direction. Through the brush and timber, over the ridges down into valleys and washes, and along the rock-strewn mountain sides he allowed his horse to pick the way, and take his own gait, with scarcely a touch of rein or spur.

The twilight hour was beginning when he reached a point from which he could see, in the distance, the red roofs of the Cross-Triangle buildings. Checking his horse, he sat for a long time, motionless, looking away over the broad land that had come to mean so much to him, as though watching the passing of the day.

But the man did not note the changing colors in the western sky; he did not see the shadows deepening; he was not thinking of the coming of the night. The sight of the distant spot that, a year before, had held such possibilities for him, when, on the summit of the Divide, he had chosen between two widely separated ways of life, brought to him, now, a keener realization of the fact that he was again placed where he must choose. The sun was down upon those hopes and dreams that in the first hard weeks of his testing had inspired and strengthened him. The night of despairing, reckless abandonment of the very ideals of manhood for which he had so bravely struggled was upon him; while the spirit and strength of that manhood which he had so hardly attained fought against its surrender.

When Stanford Manning had asked, "What will you do when your game of Patches is played out?" he had said that the man whom they had known in the old days was dead. Would this new man also die? Deliberately the man turned about and started back the way he had come.

In their honeymoon camp, that evening, when the only light in the sky was the light of the stars, and the camp fire's ruddy flames made weird shadows come and go in the little glade, Helen, lying in the hammock, and Stanford, sitting near, talked of their old friend Lawrence Knight. But as they talked they did not know that a lonely horseman had stopped on the other side of the low ridge, and leaving his horse, had crept carefully through the brush, to a point on the brow of the hill, from which he could look down into the camp.

From where he lay in the darkness, the man could see against the camp fire's light the two, where the hammock was swung under the trees. He could hear the low murmur of their voices, with now and then a laugh. But it was always the man who laughed, for there was little mirth in Helen's heart that night. Then he saw Stanford go into the tent and return again to the hammock; and soon there came floating up to him the sweet, plaintive music of Helen's guitar, and then her voice, full and low, with a wealth of womanhood in every tone, as she sang a love song to her mate. Later, when the dancing flames of the camp fire had fallen to a dull red glow, he saw them go arm in arm into their tent. Then all was still. The red glow of the fire dimmed to a spark, and darkness drew close about the scene. But even in the darkness the man could still see, under the wide, sheltering arms of the trees, a lighter spot—the white tent.

"Gethsemane," said the Dean to me once, when our talk had ranged wide and touched upon many things, "Gethsemane ain't no place; it's somethin' that happens. Whenever a man goes up against himself, right there is where Gethsemane is. And right there, too, is sure to be a fight. A man may not always know about it at the time; he may be too busy fightin' to understand just what it all means; but he'll know about it afterwards—No matter which side of him wins, he'll know afterwards that it was the one big fight of his life."



CHAPTER XIV.

AT MINT SPRING.

When those days at Prescott were over, and Mr. and Mrs. Manning had left for their camp in Granite Basin, Kitty Reid returned to Williamson Valley reluctantly. She felt that with Phil definitely out of her life the last interest that bound her to the scenes of her girlhood was broken. Before many weeks the ranch would be sold. A Prescott agent had opened negotiations for an eastern client who would soon be out to look over the property; and Mr. Reid felt, from all that the agent had said, that the sale was assured. In the meantime Kitty would wait as patiently as she could. To help her, there would be Helen's visit, and there was her friendship with Professor Parkhill. It was not strange, considering all the circumstances, that the young woman should give her time more generously than ever to the only person in the neighborhood, except Patches, perhaps, who she felt could understand and appreciate her desires for that higher life of which even her own parents were ignorant.

And the professor did understand her fully. He told her so many times each day. Had he not given all the years of his little life to the study of those refining and spiritualizing truths that are so far above the comprehension of the base and ignoble common herd? Indeed, he understood her language; he understood fully, why the sordid, brutal materialism of her crude and uncultured environment so repulsed and disgusted her. He understood, more fully than Kitty herself, in fact, and explained to her clearly, that her desires for the higher intellectual and spiritual life were born of her own rare gifts, and evidenced beyond all question the fineness and delicacy of her nature. He rejoiced with her—with a pure and holy joy—that she was so soon to be set free to live amid the surroundings that would afford her those opportunities for the higher development of her intellectual and spiritual powers which her soul craved. All this he told her from day to day; and then, one afternoon, he told her more.

It was the same afternoon that Patches had so unexpectedly found Helen and Stanford in their Granite Basin camp. Kitty and the professor had driven in the buckboard to Simmons for the mail, and were coming back by the road to the Cross-Triangle, when the man asked, "Must we return to the ranch so soon? It is so delightful out here where there is no one to intrude with vulgar commonplaces, to mar our companionship."

"Why, no," returned Kitty. "There is no need for us to hurry home." She glanced around. "We might sit over there, under those cedars on the hill, where you found me with Mr. Patches that day—the day we saw Yavapai Joe, you remember."

"If you think it quite safe to leave the vehicle," he said, "I should be delighted."

Kitty tied the horses to a convenient bush at the foot of the low hill, and soon they were in the welcome shade of the cedars.

"Miss Reid," the professor began, with portentous gravity, "I must confess that I have been rather puzzled to account for your presence here that day with such a man as that fellow Patches. You will pardon my saying so, I am sure, but you must have observed my very deep interest in you. I also chanced to see you with him one day in Prescott, in the park. You don't mind my speaking of it?"

"Not at all, Professor Parkhill," Kitty returned, smiling as she thought how ignorant the professor was of the cowboy's real character. "I like Patches. He interests me very much; and there is really no reason why I should not be friendly with him. Don't you think that I should be kind to our cowboys?"

"I suppose so," the professor sighed. "But it hurts me to see you have anything whatever in common with such a man. It shocks me to know that you must, in any degree, come in touch with such fellows. I shall be very glad, indeed, when you are free from any such kindly obligations, and safe among those of your own class."

Kitty found it very hard to reply. She did not wish to be disloyal to Patches and her many Williamson Valley friends; nor did she like to explain how Patches had played a part for the professor's benefit, for she felt that by not exposing the deception she had, in a way, been a party to it. So she said nothing, but seemed to be silently weighing the value of her learned companion's observations. At least, it so appeared to the professor, and in her ready acceptance of his implied criticism of her conduct he found the encouragement he needed for that which followed.

"You must understand, Miss Reid, that I have become exceedingly zealous for your welfare. In these months that we have been so much together your companionship—your spiritual and intellectual companionship, I should say—has come to be very dear to me. As our souls have communed, I have felt myself uplifted and inspired. I have been strengthened and encouraged, as never before, to climb on toward the mountain peaks of pure intellectuality. If I am not mistaken, you, too, have felt a degree of uplift as a result of our fellowship, have you not?"

"Yes, indeed, Professor Parkhill," Kitty answered sincerely. "Our talks together have meant much more to me than I can tell. I shall never forget this summer. Your friendship has been a wonderful influence in my life."

The little man moved uneasily and glanced timidly around. "I am truly glad to know that our companionship has not been altogether distasteful to you; I felt sure that it was not, but I—ahem!—I am glad to hear your confirmation of my opinion. It—ah—it enables me to say that which for several weeks past has been weighing heavily on my mind."

Kitty looked at him with the manner of a trusting disciple waiting for the gems of truth that were about to fall from the lips of a venerable teacher.

"Miss Reid—ah—why need our beautiful and mutually profitable companionship cease?"

"I fear that I do not understand, Professor Parkhill," she answered, puzzled by his question.

He looked at her with just a shade of mild—very mild—rebuke, as he returned, "Why, I think that I have stated my thought clearly. I mean that I am very desirous that our relation—the relation which we both have found so helpful—should continue. I am sure that we have, in these months which we have spent together, sufficient evidence that our souls vibrate in perfect harmony. I need you, dear friend; your understanding of my soul's desires is so sympathetic; I feel that you so complement and fill out, as it were, my spiritual self. I need you to encourage, to inspire, to assist me in the noble work to which I am devoting all my strength."

She looked at him, now, with an expression of amazement. "Do you mean—" she faltered in confusion while the red blood colored her cheeks.

"Yes," he answered, confidently. "I am asking you to be my wife. Not, however," he added hastily, "in the common, vulgar understanding of that relation. I am offering you, dear friend, that which is vastly higher than the union of the merely animal, which is based wholly upon the purely physical and material attraction. I am proposing marriage of our souls—a union, if you please, of our higher intellectual and spiritual selves. I feel, indeed, that by those higher laws which the vulgar, beastlike minds are incapable of recognizing, we are already one. I sense, as it were, that oneness which can exist only when two souls are mated by the great over-soul; I feel that you are already mine—that, I am—that we are already united in a spiritual union that is—"

The young woman checked him with a gesture, which, had he interpreted it rightly, was one of repulsion. "Please stop, Professor Parkhill," she gasped in a tone of disgust.

He was surprised, and not a little chagrined. "Am I to understand that you do not reciprocate my sentiment, Miss Reid? Is it possible that I have been so mistaken?"

Kitty turned her head, as though she could not bear even to look at him. "What you ask is so impossible," she said in a low tone. "Impossible!"

Strive as she might, the young woman could not altogether hide her feeling of abhorrence. And yet, she asked herself, why should this man's proposal arouse in her such antagonism and repugnance? He was a scholar, famed for his attainments in the world of the highest culture. As his wife, she would be admitted at once into the very inner circle of that life to which she aspired, and for which she was leaving her old home and friends. He had couched his proposal in the very terms of the spiritually and intellectually elect; he had declared himself in that language which she had so proudly thought she understood, and in which she had so often talked with him; and yet she was humiliated and ashamed. It was, to her, as though, in placing his offer of marriage upon the high, pure ground of a spiritual union, he had insulted her womanhood. Kitty realized wonderingly that she had not felt like this when Phil had confessed his love for her. In her woman heart, she was proud and glad to have won the love of such a man as Phil, even though she could not accept the cowboy as her mate. On that very spot which the professor had chosen for his declaration, Patches had told her that she was leaving the glorious and enduring realities of life for vain and foolish bubbles—that she was throwing aside the good grain and choosing the husks. Was this what Patches meant? she wondered.

"I regret exceedingly, Miss Reid," the professor was saying, "that the pure and lofty sentiments which I have voiced do not seem to find a like response in your soul. I—"

Again she interrupted him with that gesture of repulsion. "Please do not say any more, Professor Parkhill. I—I fear that I am very human, after all. Come, it is time that we were returning to the house."

All through the remaining hours of that afternoon and evening Kitty was disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's conception of an ideal mating the legitimate and logical conclusion of those very advanced ideas of culture which he represented, and which she had so much admired? If she sincerely believed the life represented by the professor and his kind so superior—so far above the life represented by Phil Acton—why should she not feel honored instead of being so humiliated and shamed by the professor's—she could not call it love? If the life which Phil had asked her to share was so low in the scale of civilization; if it were so far beneath the intellectual and spiritual ideals which she had formed, why did she feel so honored by the strong man's love? Why had she not felt humiliated and ashamed that Phil should want her to mate with him? Could it be, she asked herself again and again, that there was something, after all, superior to that culture which she had so truly thought stood for the highest ideals of the race? Could it be that, in the land of Granite Mountain, there was something, after all, that was as superior to the things she had been taught as Granite Mountain itself was superior in its primeval strength and enduring grandeur to the man-made buildings of her school?

It was not strange that Kitty's troubled thoughts should turn to Helen Manning. Clearly, Helen's education had led to no confusion. On the contrary, she had found an ideal love, and a happiness such as every true, womanly woman must, in her heart of hearts, desire.

It was far into the night when Kitty, wakeful and restless, heard the sound of a horse's feet. She could not know that it was Honorable Patches riding past on his way to the ranch on the other side of the broad valley meadows.

Weary in body, and with mind and spirit exhausted by the trials through which he had passed, Patches crept to his bed. In the morning, when he delivered his message, the Dean, seeing the man's face, urged him to stay for the day at the ranch. But Patches said no; Phil was expecting him, and he must return to the outfit in Granite Basin. As soon as breakfast was over he set out.

He had ridden as far as the head of Mint Wash, and had stopped to water his horse, and to refresh himself with a cool drink and a brief rest beside the fragrant mint-bordered spring, when he heard someone riding rapidly up the wash the way he had come. A moment later, Kitty, riding her favorite Midnight, rounded a jutting corner of the rocky wall of the bluff.

As the girl caught sight of him, there beside the spring, she waved her hand in greeting. And the man, as he waved his answer, and watched her riding toward him, felt a thrill of gladness that she had come. The strong, true friendship that began with their very first meeting, when she had been so frankly interested in the tenderfoot, and so kindly helpful, and which had developed so steadily through the year, gave him, now, a feeling of comfort and relief. Wearied and worn by his disappointment and by his struggle with himself, with the cherished hope that had enabled him to choose and endure the hard life of the range brought to a sudden end, with his life itself made so empty and futile, he welcomed his woman friend with a warmth and gladness that brought a flush of pleasure to Kitty's cheek.

For Kitty, too, had just passed through a humiliating and disappointing experience. In her troubled frame of mind, and in her perplexed and confused questioning, the young woman was as glad for the companionship of Patches as he was glad to welcome her. She felt a curious sense of relief and safety in his presence—somewhat as one, who, walking over uncertain bogs or treacherous quicksands, finds, all at once, the solid ground.

"I saw you go past the house," she said, when she reached the spring where he stood awaiting her, "and I decided right then that I would go along with you to Granite Basin and visit my friends the Mannings. They told me that I might come this week, and I think they have had quite enough honeymooning, anyway. You know where they are camped, do you?"

"Yes," he answered. "I saw them yesterday. But, come! Get down and cool off a bit. You've been riding some, haven't you?"

"I wanted to catch you as soon as I could," she laughed, as she sprang lightly to the ground. "And you see you gained a good start while I was getting Midnight saddled. What a pretty spot! I must have a drink of that water this minute."

"Sorry I have no cup," he said, and then he laughed with the pleasure of good comradeship as she answered:

"You forget that I was born to the customs of this country." And, throwing aside her broad hat, she went down on the ground to drink from the spring, even as he had done.

As the man watched her, a sudden thought flashed into his mind—a thought so startling, so unexpected, that he was for the moment bewildered.

"Talk about the nectar of the gods!" cried Kitty with a deep breath of satisfaction, as she lifted her smiling face from the bright water to look up at him. And then she drank again.

"And now, if you please, sir, you may bring me some of that water-cress; we'll sit over there in the shade, and who cares whether Granite Basin, the Mannings, and your fellow cow-punchers, are fifteen or fifty miles away?"

He brought a generous bunch of the water-cress, and stretched himself full length beside her, as she sat on the ground under a tall sycamore.

"Selah!" he laughed contentedly. "We seem to lack only the book of verses, the loaf and the jug; the wilderness is here, all right, and that's a perfectly good bough up there, and, of course, you could furnish the song; I might recite 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,' but, alas! we haven't even a flask and biscuit."

"What a pity that you should be so near and yet so far from paradise!" she retorted quickly. Then she added, with a mischievous smile, "It just happens that I have a sandwich in my saddle pocket."

"Won't you sing? Please do," he returned, with an eagerness that amused her.

But she shook her head reprovingly. "We would still lack the jug of wine, you know, and, really, I don't think that paradise is for cow-punchers, anyway, do you?"

"Evidently not," he answered. And at her jesting words a queer feeling of rebellion possessed him. Why should he be condemned to years of loneliness? Why must he face a life without the companionship of a mate? If the paradise he had sought so hard to attain were denied him, why should he not still take what happiness he might?

He was lying flat on his back, his hands clasped beneath his head, watching an eagle that wheeled, a tiny black speck, high under the blue arch of the sky. He seemed to have forgotten his companion.

Kitty leaned toward him, and held a sprig of water-cress over his upturned face. "I haven't a penny," she said, "but I'll give you this."

He sat up quickly. "Even at that price, my thoughts might cost you too much. But you haven't told me what you have done with our dear friend the professor? Haven't you a guilty conscience, deserting him like this?"

Kitty held up both hands in a gesture of dismay. "Don't, Patches, please don't. Ugh! if you only knew how good it is to be with a man again!"

He laughed aloud in a spirit of reckless defiance. "And Phil is over in Granite Basin. I neglected to tell you that he knows the location of the Mannings' camp, as well as I."

Kitty was a little puzzled by the tone of his laughter, and by his words. She spoke gravely. "Perhaps I should tell you, Patches—we have been such good friends, you and I—Phil—"

"Yes!" he said.

"Phil is nothing to me, Patches. I mean—"

"You mean in the way he wanted to be?" He helped her with a touch of eager readiness.

"Yes."

"And have you told him, Kitty?" Patches asked gently.

"Yes—I have told him," she replied.

Patches was silent for a moment. Then, "Poor Phil!" he said softly. "I understand now; I thought that was it. He is a man among thousands, Kitty."

"I know—I know," she returned, as though to dismiss the subject. "But it simply couldn't be."

Patches was looking at her intently, with an expression in his dark eyes that Kitty had never before seen. The man's mind was in a whirl of quick excitement. As they had talked and laughed together, the thought that had so startled him, when her manner of familiar comradeship had brought such a feeling of comfort to his troubled spirit, had not left him. From that first moment of their meeting a year before there had been that feeling between them, of companionship, a feeling which had grown as their acquaintance had developed into the intimate friendship that had allowed him to speak to her as he had spoken that day under the cedars on the ridge. What might that friendship not grow into! He thought of her desire for the life that he knew so well, and how he could, while granting every wish of her heart, yet protect her from the shams and falseness. And with these thoughts was that feeling of rebellion against the loneliness of his life.

Kitty's words regarding Phil removed the barrier, as it were, and the man's nature, which prompted him so often to act without pausing to consider, betrayed him into saying, "Would you be greatly shocked, Kitty, if I were to tell you that I am glad? That, while I am sorry for Phil, I am glad that you have said no to him?"

"You are glad?" she said wonderingly. "Why?"

"Because, now, I am free to say what I could not have said had you not told me what you have. I want you, Kitty. I want to fill your life with beauty and happiness and contentment. I want you to go with me to see and know the natural wonders of the world, and the wonders that men have wrought. I want to surround you with the beauties of art and literature, with everything that your heart craves. I want you to know the people whose friendship would be a delight to you. Come with me, girl—be my wife, and together we will find—if not paradise, at least a full and useful and contented and happy life. Will you come, Kitty? Will you come with me?"

As she listened her eyes grew big with wonder and delight. It was as though some good genie had suddenly opened wide the way to an enchanted laud. Then the gladness went swiftly from her face, and she said doubtingly, "You are jesting with me, Patches."

As she spoke his cowboy name, the man laughed aloud. "I forgot that you do not even know me—I mean, that you do not know my name."

"Are you some fairy prince in disguise, Sir Patches?"

"Not a fairy, dear, and certainly not a prince; just a man, that's all. But a man, dear girl, who can offer you a clean life, an honored name, and all of which I have spoken. But I must tell you—I always knew that I would tell you some day, but I did not dream that it would be to-day. My name is Lawrence Knight. My home is in Cleveland, Ohio. Your father can easily satisfy himself as to my family and my own personal life and standing. It is enough for me to assure you now, dear, that I am abundantly able to give you all that I have promised."

At the mention of his name, Kitty's eyes grew bright again. Thanks to her intimate friend and schoolmate, Helen Manning, she knew much more of Lawrence Knight than that gentleman supposed.

"But, tell me," she asked curiously, trembling with suppressed excitement, "why is Mr. Lawrence Knight masquerading here as the cowboy Honorable Patches?"

He answered earnestly. "I know it must seem strange to you, dear, but the simple truth is that I became ashamed of myself and my life of idle uselessness. I determined to see if I could take my place among men, simply as a man. I wanted to be accepted by men for myself, for my manhood, if you like, and not because of my—" he hesitated, then said frankly—"my money and social position. I wanted to depend upon myself—to live as other men live, by my own strength and courage and work. If I had given my real name, when I asked for work at the Cross-Triangle—someone would have found me out before very long, and my little experiment would have failed, don't you see?"

While he spoke, Kitty's excited mind had caught at many thoughts. She believed sincerely that her girlhood love for Phil was dead. This man, even as Patches the cowboy, with a questionable shadow on his life, had compelled her respect and confidence, while in his evident education and social culture he had won her deepest admiration. She felt that he was all that Phil was, and more. There was in her feeling toward him, as he offered himself to her now, no hint of that instinctive repulsion and abhorrence with which she had received Professor Parkhill's declaration of spiritual affinity. Her recent experience with the Master of Aesthetics had so outraged her womanly instincts that the inevitable reaction from her perplexed and troubled mind led her to feel more deeply, and to be drawn more strongly, toward this man with whom any woman might be proud to mate. At the same time, the attractions of the life which she knew he could give her, and for which she longed so passionately, with the relief of the thought that her parents would not need to sacrifice themselves for her, were potent factors in the power of Lawrence Knight's appeal.

"It would be wonderful," she said musingly. "I have dreamed and dreamed about such things."

"You will come with me, dear? You will let me give you your heart's wish—you will go with me into the life for which you are so fitted?"

"Do you really want me, Patches?" she asked timidly, as though in her mind there was still a shadow of doubt.

"More than anything in the world," he urged. "Say yes. Kitty. Say that you will be my wife."

The answer came softly, with a hint of questioning, still.

"Yes."

Kitty did not notice that the man had not spoken of his love for her. There were so many other things for her to consider, so many other things to distract her mind. Nor did the man notice that Kitty herself had failed to speak in any way that little word, which, rightly understood, holds in its fullest, deepest meaning, all of life's happiness—of labor and accomplishment—of success and triumph—of sacrifice and sorrow; holds, in its fullest, deepest meaning, indeed, all of life itself.



CHAPTER XV.

ON CEDAR RIDGE.

Kitty's friends were very glad to welcome her at their camp in Granite Basin. The incident which had so rudely broken the seclusion of their honeymoon had been too nearly a tragedy to be easily forgotten. The charm of the place was, in some degree, for them, lost, and Kitty's coming helped to dispel the cloud that had a little overshadowed those last days of their outing.

It was not at all difficult for them to persuade Kitty to remain longer than the one night that she had planned, and to accompany them to Prescott. Prom Prescott, Stanford must go to the mines, to take up his work, and to arrange for Helen's coming later, and Helen would go home with Kitty for the visit she had promised. The cowboys, who were returning to the Cross-Triangle Ranch, would take Kitty's horse to her home, and would carry a message explaining the young woman's absence, and asking that someone be sent to Prescott with the clothing she would need in town, and that the Reid automobile might be in Prescott in readiness to take the two young women back to the ranch on the appointed day.

Kitty could not bring herself to tell even Helen about her engagement to Lawrence Knight, or Patches, as she would continue to call him until the time came for the cowboy himself to make his true name and character known. It had all happened so suddenly; the promises of the future were so wonderful—so far beyond the young woman's fondest dreams—that she herself could scarcely realize the truth. There would be time enough to tell Helen when they were together at the ranch. And she was insistent, too, that Patches must not interview her father until she herself had returned home.

Phil and his cowboys with the cattle reached the Cross-Triangle corrals the evening before the day set for Kitty and Helen to arrive at the ranch on the other side of the valley meadows. The Cross-Triangle men were greeted by the news that Professor Parkhill had said good-by to Williamson Valley, and that the Pot-Hook-S Ranch had been sold. The eastern purchaser expected by Reid had arrived on the day that Kitty had gone to Granite Basin, and the deal had been closed without delay. But Reid was not to give possession of the property until after the fall rodeo.

As the men sat under the walnut trees with the Dean that evening, discussing the incidents of the Granite Basin work, and speculating about the new owner of the neighboring ranch, Phil sat with Little Billy apart from the circle, and contributed to the conversation only now and then a word or a brief answer to some question. When Mrs. Baldwin persuaded the child that it was bedtime, Phil slipped quietly away in the darkness, and they did not see him again until breakfast the next morning. When breakfast was over, the foreman gave a few directions to his men, and rode away alone.

The Dean, understanding the lad, whom he loved as one of his own sons, watched him go without a word or a question. To Mrs. Baldwin he said, "Just let him alone, Stella. The boy is all right. He's only gone off somewhere on the range to fight it out alone. Most likely he'll put in the day watching those wild horses over beyond Toohey. He generally goes to them when he's bothered about anything or in trouble of any sort."

Patches, who had been sent on an errand of some kind to Fair Oaks, was returning home early in the afternoon, and had reached the neighborhood of that spring where he had first encountered Nick Cambert, when he heard a calf bawling lustily somewhere in the cedar timber not far away. Familiar as he now was with the voices of the range, the cowboy knew that the calf was in trouble. The call was one of fright and pain.

Turning aside from his course, he rode, rapidly at first, then more cautiously, toward the sound. Presently he caught a whiff of smoke that came with the light breeze from somewhere ahead on the ridge along which he was riding. Instantly he rode into a thick clump of cedars, and, dismounting, tied his horse. Then he went on, carefully and silently, on foot. Soon he heard voices. Again the calf bawled in fright and pain, and the familiar odor of burning hair was carried to him on the breeze. Someone was branding a calf.

It might be all right—it might not. Patches was unarmed, but, with characteristic disregard of consequences, he crept softly forward, toward a dense growth of trees and brush, from beyond which the noise and the smoke seemed to come.

He had barely gained the cover when he heard someone on the other side ride rapidly away down the ridge. Hastily parting the bushes, he looked through to catch a glimpse of the horseman, but he was a moment too late; the rider had disappeared from sight in the timber. But, in a little open space among the cedars, the cowboy saw Yavapai Joe, standing beside a calf, fresh-branded with the Four-Bar-M iron, and earmarked with the Tailholt marks.

Patches knew instantly, as well as though he had witnessed the actual branding, what, had happened. That part of the range was seldom visited except by the Dean's cowboys, and the Tailholt Mountain men, knowing that the Cross-Triangle riders were all at Granite Basin, were making good use of their opportunities. The man who had ridden away so hurriedly, a moment too soon for Patches to see him, was, without doubt, driving the mother of the calf to a distance that would effectually separate her from her offspring.

But while he was so sure in his own mind, the Cross-Triangle man—as it had so often happened before—had arrived on the scene too late. He had no positive evidence that the animal just branded was not the lawful property of Nick Cambert.

As Patches stepped from the bushes, Yavapai Joe faced him for a moment in guilty astonishment and fear; then he ran toward his horse.

"Wait a minute, Joe!" called Patches. "What good will it do for you to run now? I'm not going to harm you."

Joe stopped, and stood hesitating in indecision, watching the intruder with that sneaking, sidewise look.

"Come on, Joe; let's have a little talk about this business," the Cross-Triangle man said in a matter-of-fact tone, as he seated himself on a large, flat-topped stone near the little fire. "You know you can't get away, so you might as well."

"I ain't tellin' nothin' to nobody," said Joe sullenly, as he came slowly toward the Dean's cowboy.

"No?" said Patches.

"No, I ain't," asserted the Tailholt Mountain man stoutly. "That there calf is a Four-Bar-M calf, all right."

"I see it is," returned the Cross-Triangle rider calmly. "But I'll just wait until Nick gets back, and ask him what it was before he worked over the iron."

Joe, excited and confused by the cool nerve of this man, fell readily into the verbal trap.

"You better go now, an' not wait to ask Nick no fool questions like that. If he finds you here talkin' with me when he gets back, hell'll be a-poppin' fer sure. Me an' you are friends, Patches, an' that's why I'm a-tellin' you you better pull your freight while the goin's good."

"Much obliged, Joe, but there's no hurry. You don't need to be so rushed. It will be an hour before Nick gets back, if he drives that cow as far as he ought."

Again poor Yavapai Joe told more than he intended. "You don't need to worry none 'bout Nick; he'll sure drive her far enough. He ain't takin' no chances, Nick ain't."

With his convictions so readily confirmed, Patches had good ground upon which to base his following remarks. He had made a long shot when he spoke so confidently of the brand on the calf being worked over. For, of course, the calf might not have been branded at all when the Tailholt Mountain men caught it. But Joe's manner, as well as his warning answer, told that the shot had gone home. The fact that the brand had been worked over established also the fact that it was the Cross-Triangle brand that had been changed, because the Cross-Triangle was the only brand in that part of the country that could be changed into the Four-Bar-M.

Patches, dropping his easy manner, and speaking straight to the point, said, "Look here, Joe, you and I might as well get down to cases. You know I am your friend, and I don't want to see you in trouble, but you can take it from me that you are in mighty serious trouble right now. I was hiding right there in those bushes, close enough to see all that happened, and I know that this is a Cross-Triangle calf, and that Nick and you worked the brand over. You know that it means the penitentiary for you, as well as for Nick, if the boys don't string you both up without any ceremony."

Patches paused to let his words sink in.

Joe's face was ashy white, and he was shaking with fright, as he stole a sneaking look toward his horse.

Patches added sharply, "You can't give me the slip, either; I can kill you before you get half way to your horse."

Trapped and helpless, Joe looked pleadingly at his captor. "You wouldn't send me up, would you, now, Patches?" he whined. "You an' me's good friends, ain't we? Anyway he wouldn't let me go to the pen, an' the boys wouldn't dast do nothin' to me when they knew."

"Whom are you talking about?" demanded Patches. "Nick? Don't be a fool, Joe; Nick will be there right alongside of you."

"I ain't meanin' Nick; I mean him over there at the Cross-Triangle—Professor Parkhill. I'm a-tellin' you that he wouldn't let you do nothin' to me."

"Forget it, Joe," came the reply, without an instant's hesitation. "You know as well as I do how much chance Professor Parkhill, or anyone else, would have, trying to keep the boys from making you and Nick dance on nothing, once they hear of this. Besides, the professor is not in the valley now."

The poor outcast's fright was pitiful. "You ain't meanin' that he—that he's gone?" he gasped.

"Listen, Joe," said Patches quickly. "I can do more for you than he could, even if he were here. You know I am your friend, and I don't want to see a good fellow like you sent to prison for fifteen or twenty years, or, perhaps, hanged. But there's only one way that I can see for me to save you. You must go with me to the Cross-Triangle, and tell Mr. Baldwin all about it, how you were just working for Nick, and how he made you help him do this, and all that you know. If you do that, we can get you off."

"I—I reckon you're right, Patches," returned the frightened weakling sullenly. "Nick has sure treated me like a dog, anyway. You won't let Nick get at me, will you, if I go?"

"Nobody can get at you, Joe, if you go with me, and do the square thing. I'm going to take care of you myself, and help you to get out of this, and brace up and be a man. Come on; let's be moving. I'll turn this calf loose first, though."

He was bending over the calf when a noise in the brush caused him to stand suddenly erect.

Joe was whimpering with terror.

Patches said fiercely, but in a low tone, "Shut up, and follow my lead. Be a man, and I'll get you out of this yet."

"Nick will kill us sure," whined Joe.

"Not if I get my hands on him first, he won't," retorted Patches.

But it was with a feeling of relief that the cowboy saw Phil Acton ride toward them from the shelter of the timber.

Before Patches could speak, Phil's gun covered him, and the foreman's voice rang out sharply.

"Hands up!"

Joe's hands shot above his head. Patches hesitated.

"Quick!" said Phil.

And as Patches saw the man's eyes over the black barrel of the weapon he obeyed. But as he raised his hands, a dull flush of anger colored his tanned face a deeper red, and his eyes grew dark with passion. He realized his situation instantly. The mystery that surrounded his first appearance when he had sought employment at the Cross-Triangle; the persistent suspicion of many of the cowboys because of his friendship for Yavapai Joe; his meeting with Joe which the professor had reported; his refusal to explain to Phil; his return to the ranch when everyone was away and he himself was supposed to be in Prescott—all these and many other incidents had come to their legitimate climax in his presence on that spot with Yavapai Joe, the smouldering fire and the freshly branded calf. He was unarmed, but Phil could not be sure of that, for many a cowboy carries his gun inside the leg of his leather chaps, where it does not so easily catch in the brush.

But while Patches saw it all so clearly, he was enraged that this man with whom he had lived so intimately should believe him capable of such a crime, and treat him without question as a common cattle thief. Phil's coldness toward him, which had grown so gradually during the past three months, in this peremptory humiliation reached a point beyond which Patches' patient and considerate endurance could not go. The man's sense of justice was outraged; his fine feeling of honor was insulted. Trapped and helpless as he was under that menacing gun, he was possessed by a determination to defend himself against the accusation, and to teach Phil Acton that there was a limit to the insult he would endure, even in the name of friendship. To this end his only hope was to trap his foreman with words, as he had caught Yavapai Joe. At a game of words Honorable Patches was no unskilled novice. Controlling his anger, he said coolly, with biting sarcasm, while he looked at the cowboy with a mocking sneer, "You don't propose to take any chances, do you—holding up an unarmed man?"

Patches saw by the flush that swept over Phil's cheeks how his words bit.

"It doesn't pay to take chances with your kind," retorted the foreman hotly.

"No," mocked Patches, "but it will pay big, I suppose, for the great 'Wild Horse Phil' to be branded as a sneak and a coward who is afraid to face an unarmed man unless he can get the drop on him?"

Phil was goaded to madness by the cool, mocking words. With a reckless laugh, he slipped his weapon into the holster and sprang to the ground. At the same moment Patches and Joe lowered their hands, and Joe, unnoticed by either of the angry men, took a few stealthy steps toward his horse.

Phil, deliberately folding his arms, stood looking at Patches.

"I'll just call that bluff, you sneakin' calf stealer," he said coolly. "Now, unlimber that gun of yours, and get busy."

Angry as he was, Patches felt a thrill of admiration for the man, and beneath his determination to force Phil Acton to treat him with respect, he was proud of his friend who had answered his sneering insinuation with such fearlessness. But he could not now hesitate in his plan of provoking Phil into disarming himself.

"You're something of a four-flusher yourself, aren't you?" he mocked. "You know I have no gun. Your brave pose is very effective. I would congratulate you, only, you see, it doesn't impress me in the least."

With an oath Phil snatched his gun from the holster, and threw it aside.

"Have it any way you like," he retorted, and started toward Patches.

Then a curious thing happened to Honorable Patches. Angry as he was, he became suddenly dominated by something that was more potent than his rage.

"Stop!" he cried sharply, and with such ringing force that Phil involuntarily obeyed. "I can't fight you this way, Phil," he said; and the other, wondering, saw that whimsical, self-mocking smile on his lips. "You know as well as I do that you are no match for me barehanded. You couldn't even touch me; you have seen Curly and the others try it often enough. You are as helpless in my power, now, as I was in yours a moment ago. I am armed now and you are not. I can't fight you this way, Phil."

In spite of himself Phil Acton was impressed by the truth and fairness of Patches' words. He recognized that an unequal contest could satisfy neither of them, and that it made no difference which of the contestants had the advantage.

"Well," he said sarcastically, "what are you going to do about it?"

"First," returned Patches calmly, "I am going to tell you how I happened to be here with Yavapai Joe."

"I don't need any explanations from you. It's some more of your personal business, I suppose," retorted Phil.

Patches controlled himself. "You are going to hear the explanation, just the same," he returned. "You can believe it or not, just as you please."

"And what then?" demanded Phil.

"Then I'm going to get a gun, and we'll settle the rest of it, man to man, on equal terms, just as soon as you like," answered Patches deliberately.

Phil replied shortly. "Go ahead with your palaver. I'll have to hand it to you when it comes to talk. I am not educated that way myself."

For a moment Patches hesitated, as though on the point of changing his mind about the explanation. Then his sense of justice—justice both for Phil and himself—conquered.

But in telling Phil how he had come upon the scene too late for positive proof that the freshly branded calf was the Dean's property, and in explaining how, when the foreman arrived, he had just persuaded Joe to go with him and give the necessary evidence against Nick, Patches forgot the possible effect of his words upon Joe himself. The two Cross-Triangle men were so absorbed in their own affair that they had paid no attention to the Tailholt Mountain outcast. And Joe, taking advantage of the opportunity, had by this time gained a position beside his horse. As he heard Patches tell how he had no actual evidence that the calf was not Nick Cambert's property, a look of anger and cunning darkened the face of Nick's follower. He was angry at the way Patches had tricked him into betraying both himself and his evil master, and he saw a way to defeat the two cowboys and at the same time win Nick's approval. Quickly the fellow mounted his horse, and, before they could stop him, was out of sight in the timber.

"I've done it now," exclaimed Patches in dismay. "I forgot all about Joe."

"I don't think he counts for much in this game anyway," returned Phil, gruffly.

As he spoke, the foreman turned his back to Patches and walked toward his gun. He had reached the spot where the weapon lay on the ground, when, from the bushes to the right, and a little back of Patches, who stood watching his companion, a shot rang out with startling suddenness.

Patches saw Phil stumble forward, straighten for an instant, as though by sheer power of his will, and, turning, look back at him. Then, as Phil fell, the unarmed cowboy leaped forward toward that gun on the ground. Even as he moved, a second shot rang out and he felt the wind of the bullet on his cheek. With Phil's gun in his hand, he ran toward a cedar tree on the side of the open space opposite the point from which the shots came, and as he ran another bullet whistled past.

A man moving as Patches moved is not an easy mark. The same man armed, and protected by the trunk of a tree, is still more difficult. A moment after he had gained cover, the cowboy heard the clatter of a horse's feet, near the spot from which the shots had come, and by the sound knew that the unseen marksman had chosen to retire with only half his evident purpose accomplished, rather than take the risk that had arisen with Patches' success in turning the ambush into an open fight.

As the sound of the horse's swift rush down the side of the ridge grew fainter and fainter, Patches ran to Phil.

A quick examination told him that the bullet had entered just under the right shoulder, and that the man, though unconscious and, no doubt, seriously wounded, was living.

With rude bandages made by tearing his shirt into strips Patches checked the flow of blood, and bound up the wound as best he could. Then for a moment he considered. It was between three and four miles to the ranch. He could ride there and back in a few minutes. Someone must start for a doctor without an instant's loss of time. With water, proper bandages and stimulants, the wounded man could be cared for and moved in the buckboard with much greater safety than he could be carried in his present condition on a horse. The risk of leaving him for a few minutes was small, compared to the risk of taking him to the house under the only conditions possible. The next instant Patches was in Phil's saddle and riding as he had never ridden before.

Jim Reid, with Kitty and Helen, was on the way back from Prescott as Kitty had planned. They were within ten miles of the ranch when the cattleman, who sat at the wheel of the automobile, saw a horseman coming toward them. A moment he watched the approaching figure, then, over his shoulder, he said to the girls, "Look at that fellow ride. There's something doin', sure." As he spoke he turned the machine well out of the road.

A moment later he added, "It's Curly Elson from the Cross-Triangle. Somethin's happened in the valley." As he spoke, he stopped the machine, and sprang out so that the cowboy could see and recognize him.

Curly did not draw rein until he was within a few feet of Reid; then he brought his running horse up with a suddenness that threw the animal on its haunches.

Curly spoke tersely. "Phil Acton is shot. We need a doctor quick."

Without a word Jim Reid leaped into the automobile. The car backed to turn around. As it paused an instant before starting forward again, Kitty put her hand on her father's shoulder.

"Wait!" she cried. "I'm going to Phil. Curly, I want your horse; you can go with father."

The cowboy was on the ground before she had finished speaking. And before the automobile was under way Kitty was riding back the way Curly had come.

Kitty was scarcely conscious of what she had said. The cowboy's first words had struck her with the force of a physical blow, and in that first moment, she had been weak and helpless. She had felt as though a heavy weight pressed her down; a gray mist was before her eyes, and she could not see clearly. "Phil Acton is shot—Phil Acton is shot!" The cowboy's words had repeated themselves over and over. Then, with a sudden rush, her strength came again—the mist cleared; she must go to Phil; she must go fast, fast. Oh, why was this horse so slow! If only she were riding her own Midnight! She did not think as she rode. She did not wonder, nor question, nor analyze her emotions. She only felt. It was Phil who was hurt—Phil, the boy with whom she had played when she was a little girl—the lad with whom she had gone to school—the young man who had won the first love of her young woman heart. It was Phil, her Phil, who was hurt, and she must go to him—she must go fast, fast!

It seemed to Kitty that hours passed before she reached the meadow lane. She was glad that Curly had left the gates open. As she crossed the familiar ground between the old Acton home and the ranch house on the other side of the sandy wash, she saw them. They were carrying him into the house as she rode into the yard, and at sight of that still form the gray mist came again, and she caught the saddle horn to save herself from falling. But it was only a moment until she was strong again, and ready to do all that Mrs. Baldwin asked.

Phil had regained consciousness before they started home with him, but he was very weak from the loss of blood and the journey in the buckboard, though Bob drove ever so carefully, was almost more than he could bear. But with the relief that came when he was at last lying quietly in his own bed, and with the help of the stimulant, the splendid physical strength and vitality that was his because of his natural and unspoiled life again brought him back from the shadows into the light of full consciousness.

It was then that the Dean, while Mrs. Baldwin and Kitty were occupied for a few moments in another part of the house, listened to all that his foreman could tell him about the affair up to the time that he had fallen unconscious. The Dean asked but few questions. But when the details were all clearly fixed in his mind, the older man bent over Phil and looked straight into the lad's clear and steady eyes, while he asked in a low tone, "Phil, did Patches do this?"

And the young man answered, "Uncle Will, I don't know."

With this he closed his eyes wearily, as though to sleep, and the Dean, seeing Kitty in the doorway, beckoned her to come and sit beside the bed. Then he stole quietly from the room.

As in a dream Phil had seen Kitty when she rode into the yard. And he had been conscious of her presence as she moved about the house and the room where he lay. But he had given no sign that he knew she was there. As she seated herself, at the Dean's bidding, the cowboy opened his eyes for a moment, and looked up into her face. Then again the weary lids closed, and he gave no hint that he recognized her, save that the white lips set in firmer lines as though at another stab of pain.

As she watched alone beside this man who had, since she could remember, been a part of her life, and as she realized that he was on the very border line of that land from which, if he entered, he could never return to her, Kitty Reid knew the truth that is greater than any knowledge that the schools of man can give. She knew the one great truth of her womanhood; knew it not from text book or class room; not from learned professor or cultured associates; but knew it from that good Master of Life who, with infinite wisdom, teaches his many pupils who are free to learn in the school of schools, the School of Nature. In that hour when the near presence of death so overshadowed all the trivial and non-essential things of life—when the little standards and petty values of poor human endeavor were as nothing—this woman knew that by the unwritten edict of God, who decreed that in all life two should be as one, this man was her only lawful mate. Environment, circumstance, that which we call culture and education, even death, might separate them; but nothing could nullify the fact that was attested by the instinct of her womanhood. Bending over the man who lay so still, she whispered the imperative will of her heart.

"Come back to me, Phil—I want you—I need you, dear—come back to me!"

Slowly he came out of the mists of weakness and pain to look up at her—doubtfully—wonderingly. But there was a light in Kitty's face that dispelled the doubt, and changed the look of wondering uncertainty to glad conviction. He did not speak. No word was necessary. Nor did he move, for he must be very still, and hold fast with all his strength to the life that was now so good. But the woman knew without words all that he would have said, and as his eyes closed again she bowed her head in thankfulness.

Then rising she stole softly to the window. She felt that she must look out for a moment into the world that was so suddenly new and beautiful.

Under the walnut trees she saw the Dean talking with the man whom she had promised to marry.

Later Mr. Reid, with Helen and Curly, brought the doctor, and the noise of the automobile summoned every soul on the place to wait for the physician's verdict of life or death.

While the Dean was in Phil's room with the physician, and the anxious ones were gathered in a little group in front of the house, Jim Reid stood apart from the others talking in low tones with the cowboy Bob. Patches, who was standing behind the automobile, heard Bob, who had raised his voice a little, say distinctly, "I tell you, sir, there ain't a bit of doubt in the world about it. There was the calf a layin' right there fresh-branded and marked. He'd plumb forgot to turn it loose, I reckon, bein' naturally rattled; or else he figgered that it warn't no use, if Phil should be able to tell what happened. The way I make it out is that Phil jumped him right in the act, so sudden that he shot without thinkin'; you know how he acts quick that-a-way. An' then he seen what he had done, an' that it was more than an even break that Phil wouldn't live, an' so figgered that his chance was better to stay an' run a bluff by comin' for help, an' all that. If he'd tried to make his get-away, there wouldn't 'a' been no question about it; an' he's got just nerve enough to take the chance he's a-takin' by stayin' right with the game."

Patches started as though to go toward the men, but at that moment the doctor came from the house. As the physician approached the waiting group, that odd, mirthless, self-mocking smile touched Patches' lips; then he stepped forward to listen with the others to the doctor's words.

Phil had a chance, the doctor said, but he told them frankly that it was only a chance. The injured man's wonderful vitality, his clean blood and unimpaired physical strength, together with his unshaken nerve and an indomitable will, were all greatly in his favor. With careful nursing they might with reason hope for his recovery.

With expressions of relief, the group separated. Patches walked away alone. Mr. Reid, who would return to Prescott with the doctor, said to his daughter when the physician was ready, "Come, Kitty, I'll go by the house, so as to take you and Mrs. Manning home."

But Kitty shook her head. "No, father. I'm not going home. Stella needs me here. Helen understands, don't you, Helen?"

And wise Mrs. Manning, seeing in Kitty's face something that the man had not observed, answered, "Yes, dear, I do understand. You must stay, of course. I'll run over again in the morning."

"Very well," answered Mr. Reid, who seemed in somewhat of a hurry. "I know you ought to stay. Tell Stella that mother will be over for a little while this evening." And the automobile moved away.

That night, while Mrs. Baldwin and Kitty watched by Phil's bedside, and Patches, in his room, waited, sleepless, alone with his thoughts, men from the ranch on the other side of the quiet meadow were riding swiftly through the darkness. Before the new day had driven the stars from the wide sky, a little company of silent, grim-faced horsemen gathered in the Pot-Hook-S corral. In the dim, gray light of the early morning they followed Jim Reid out of the corral, and, riding fast, crossed the valley above the meadows and approached the Cross-Triangle corrals from the west. One man in the company led a horse with an empty saddle. Just beyond the little rise of ground outside the big gate they halted, while Jim Reid with two others, leaving their horses with the silent riders behind the hill, went on into the corral, where they seated themselves on the edge of the long watering trough near the tank, which hid them from the house.

Fifteen minutes later, when the Dean stepped from the kitchen porch, he saw Curly running toward the house. As the older man hurried toward him, the cowboy, pale with excitement and anger, cried, "They've got him, sir—grabbed him when he went out to the corral."

The Dean understood instantly. "My horse, quick, Curly," he said, and hurried on toward the saddle shed. "Which way did they go?" he asked, as he mounted.

"Toward the cedars on the ridge where it happened," came the answer. "Do you want me?"

"No. Don't let them know in the house," came the reply. And the Dean was gone.

The little company of horsemen, with Patches in their midst, had reached the scene of the shooting, and had made their simple preparations. From that moment when they had covered him with their guns as he stepped through the corral gate, he had not spoken.

"Well, sir," said the spokesman, "have you anything to say before we proceed?"

Patches shook his head, and wonderingly they saw that curious mocking smile on his lips.

"I don't suppose that any remarks I might make would impress you gentlemen in the least," he said coolly. "It would be useless and unkind for me to detain you longer than is necessary."

An involuntary murmur of admiration came from the circle. They were men who could appreciate such unflinching courage.

In the short pause that followed, the Dean, riding as he had not ridden for years, was in their midst. Before they could check him the veteran cowman was beside Patches. With a quick motion he snatched the riata from the cowboy's neck. An instant more, and he had cut the rope that bound Patches' hands.

"Thank you, sir," said Patches calmly.

"Don't do that, Will," called Jim Reid peremptorily. "This is our business." In the same breath he shouted to his companions, "Take him again, boys," and started forward.

"Stand where you are," roared the Dean, and as they looked upon the stern countenance of the man who was so respected and loved throughout all that country, not a man moved. Reid himself involuntarily halted at the command.

"I'll do this and more, Jim Reid," said the Dean firmly, and there was that in his voice which, in the wild days of the past, had compelled many a man to fear and obey him. "It's my business enough that you can call this meetin' off right here. I'll be responsible for this man. You boys mean well, but you're a little mite too previous this trip."

"We aim to put a stop to that thievin' Tailholt Mountain outfit, Will," returned Reid, "an' we're goin' to do it right now."

A murmur of agreement came from the group.

The Dean did not give an inch. "You'll put a stop to nothin' this way; an' you'll sure start somethin' that'll be more than stealin' a few calves. The time for stringin' men up promiscuous like, on mere suspicion, is past in Arizona. I reckon there's more Cross-Triangle stock branded with the Tailholt Mountain iron than all the rest of you put together have lost, which sure entitles me to a front seat when it comes, to the show-down."

"He's right, boys," said one of the older men.

"You know I'm right, Tom," returned the Dean quickly. "You an' me have lived neighbors for pretty near thirty years, without ever a hard word passed between us, an' we've been through some mighty serious troubles together; an' you, too, George, an' Henry an' Bill. The rest of you boys I have known since you was little kids; an' me and your daddies worked an' fought side by side for decent livin' an' law-abidin' times before you was born. We did it 'cause we didn't want our children to go through with what we had to go through, or do some of the things that we had to do. An' now you're all thinkin' that you can cut me out of this. You think you can sneak out here before I'm out of my bed in the mornin', an' hang one of my own cowboys—as good a man as ever throwed a rope, too. Without sayin' a word to me, you come crawlin' right into my own corral, an' start to raisin' hell. I'm here to tell you that you can't do it. You can't do it because I won't let you."