ly, an' we'll
be startin' hungry."

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

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

So they rode together that night, homeward bound, at the end of the
long, hard weeks of the rodeo, in the deepening gloom of the day's
passing, in the hushed stillness of the wild land, under the wide sky
where the starry sentinel hosts were gathering for their ever-faithful
watch. And as they rode, their stirrups often touching, each was alone
with his own thoughts. Phil, still in the depth of hi