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They were working the cattle that day on the rodeo ground just outside the home ranch corral. Phil and Curly were cutting out some Cross-Triangle steers, when the riders, who were holding the cattle, saw them separate a nine-months-old calf from the herd, and start it, not toward the cattle they had already cut out, but toward the corral. Instantly everybody knew what had happened.
Phil Acton laughed, as he returned, "It might be interesting, all right, but I think I better tell you, just the same, that there's a ranch down yonder in the timber. It's nothing but a goat ranch, but I reckon they would take you in. It's too far to the Cross-Triangle for me to ask you there. You can see the buildings, though, from here." The stranger sprang up in quick interest. "You can?
"There's one in that bunch that's sure aimin' to make you ride some," said Curly Elson with a grin, to Phil, as the family sat at breakfast. On the Cross-Triangle the men who were held through the summer and winter seasons between the months of the rodeos were considered members of the family.
"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.
"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."
"That's right, and we'll just fix him now, before somebody else beats us to him." He moved his horse slowly toward the cattle as he spoke. "But," exclaimed Patches, "how do you know that he belongs to the Cross-Triangle?" "He doesn't," returned Phil, laughing. "He belongs to me." "But I don't see how you can tell."
"If I was you, I'd put some hand that I knew to ridin' that drift fence," returned Jim significantly, as he mounted his horse to go. "You're plumb wrong, Jim," returned the Dean earnestly. "Why, the man don't know a Cross-Triangle from a Five-Bar, or a Pot-Hook-S." "It's your business, Will; I just thought I'd tell you," growled Reid. "Good-night!" "Good-night, Jim!
Yavapai sneaked away while I was gettin' the lantern an' lightin' it, but Patches, he jest stayed an' held the light for me while I fixed ol' Pedro, jest as if nothin' had happened." "Well," said Curly sarcastically, "what had happened?" "I don't know-nothin' mebby." "If Patches was what some o' you boys seem to think, do you reckon he'd be a-ridin' for the Cross-Triangle?" demanded Curly.
But the other spoke quickly. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Acton, I did not mean that for you." The horseman dropped his hands again to the saddle horn, and resumed his lounging posture, thus tacitly accepting the apology. "You have the advantage of me," he said. The stranger laughed. "Everyone knows that 'Wild Horse Phil' of the Cross-Triangle Ranch won the bronco-riding championship yesterday.
Baldwin would return dryly, which saying indicted not only the Dean but Phil and every man on the Cross-Triangle, including Little Billy. Then came that day when Patches was given a task that the Dean assured him is one of the duties of even the oldest and best qualified cowboys. Patches was assigned to the work of fenceriding.
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