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Updated: May 7, 2025
On the morning following his meeting with the stranger on the Divide Phil Acton, with two of his cowboy helpers, rode out to the big pasture to bring in the band. The owner of the Cross-Triangle always declared that Phil was intimately acquainted with every individual horse and head of stock between the Divide and Camp Wood Mountain, and from Skull Valley to the Big Chino.
"Do they belong to the Cross-Triangle?" asked Patches, still mystified. "The Cross-Triangle!" Phil chuckled. Then, with a note of genuine reverence in his voice, he added softly, "They belong to God, Mr. Honorable Patches." Then Patches understood. "Wild horses!" he ejaculated softly. There are few men, I think, who can look without admiration upon a beautifully formed, noble spirited horse.
So it was that these riders from the Tonto Flats country told the Dean that in looking over the Cross-Triangle cattle watering at Toohey they had seen several cases of screwworms. "We doped a couple of the worst, and branded a calf for you," said "Shorty" Myers.
"And you put our iron on him?" asked Phil, still watching Nick. "I did," returned Patches, coolly. "Tell us about it," directed the Dean's foreman. And Patches obeyed, briefly. "It was that day you sent me to fix the fence on the southwest corner of the big pasture. I saw a bunch of cattle a little way outside the fence, and went to look them over. This calf was following a Cross-Triangle cow."
"Come from Prescott to Simmons on the stage, did you?" "No, sir, I walked." "Walked! Huh! Tried anywhere else for a job?" "No, sir." "Who sent you out here?" The stranger smiled. "I saw Mr. Acton ride in the contest. I learned that he was foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. I thought I would rather work where he worked, if I could." The Dean looked at Phil. Phil looked at the Dean.
But in his thinking of the man whose personality had so impressed him one thing stood out above all the rest the stranger clearly belonged to that world of which, from experience, the young foreman of the Cross-Triangle knew nothing. Phil Acton had no desire for the world to which the stranger belonged, but in his heart there was a troublesome question.
In the heart of that beautiful land upon which, from the summit of the Divide, the stranger looked with such rapt appreciation, lies Williamson Valley, a natural meadow of lush, dark green, native grass. And, had the man's eyes been trained to such distances, he might have distinguished in the blue haze the red roofs of the buildings of the Cross-Triangle Ranch.
Then, smiling to himself, he went to the big barn and saddled a horse there are always two or three that are not turned out in the pasture and in a few minutes was riding leisurely away on the Simmons road, along the western edge of the valley. An hour later he met Kitty Reid, who was on her way from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle. The young woman was sincerely glad to meet him.
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."
Still Patches hesitated. Phil helped him again. "Look at his ears." "They're not marked," exclaimed Patches. "And what should they be marked?" asked the teacher. "Under-bit right and a split left, if he belongs to the Cross-Triangle," returned the pupil proudly, and in the same breath he exclaimed, "He is not branded either." Phil smiled approval.
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