his leather chaps he said shortly, "I'm not
looking for a job as a professional bronco-buster."

The Dean's eyes twinkled. "Thought you might like to help a neighbor
out; just to be neighborly, you know."

"Do you want me to ride for Reid?" demanded Phil.

"Well, I suppose as long as there's broncs to bust somebody's got to
bust 'em," the Dean returned, without committing himself. And then, when
Phil made no reply, he added laughing, "I told Kitty to tell him,
though, that I reckoned you had as big a string as you could handle
here."

As they moved away toward the house, Phil returned with significant
emphasis, "When I have to ride for anybody besides you it won't be Kitty
Reid's father."

And the Dean commented in his reflective tone, "It does sometimes seem
to make a difference who a man rides for, don't it?"

In the pasture by the corrals, the horses that awaited the approaching
trial that would mark for them the beginning of a new life passed a
restless night. Some in meekness of spirit or, perhaps, with deeper
wisdom fed quietly. Others wandered about aimlessly, snatching an
occasional uneasy mouthful of grass, and looking about often in troubled
doubt. The more rebellious ones followed the fence, searching for some
place of weakness in the barbed barrier that imprisoned them. And one,
who, had he not been by circumstance robbed of his birthright, would
have been the strong leader of a wild band, stood often with wide
nostrils and challenging eye, gazing toward the corrals and buildings as
if questioning the right of those who had brought him there from the
haunts he loved.

And somewhere in the night of that land which was as unknown to him as
the meadow pasture was strange to the unbroken horses, a man awaited the
day which, for him too, was to stand through all his remaining years as
a mark between the old life and the new.

As Phil Acton lay in his bed, with doors and windows open wide to
welcome the cool night air, he heard the restless horses in the near-by
pasture, and smiled as he thought of the big bay and the morrow--smiled
with the smile of a man who looks forward to a battle worthy of his best
strength and skill.

And then, strangely enough, as he was slipping into that dreamless sleep
of those who live as he lived, his mind went back again to the stranger
whom he had met on the summit of the Divide. If he were more like that
man, would it make any difference--the cowboy wondered.

C