“Well, you see,” said Patches slowly, “I fear I can’t explain, but it was just a part of my job.”

“Your job!  But you didn’t have any job until this afternoon.”

“Oh, yes, I did.  I had the biggest kind of a job.  You see, that’s what I was doing on the Divide all night; trying to find some other way to do it.”

“And do you mind telling me what that job is?” asked Phil curiously.

Patches laughed as though at himself.  “I don’t know that I can, exactly,” he said.  “I think, perhaps, it’s just to ride that big bay horse out there.”

Phil laughed aloud—­a hearty laugh of good-fellowship.  “You’ll do that all right.”

“Do you think so, really,” asked Patches, eagerly.

“Sure; I know it.”

“I wish I could be sure,” returned the strange man doubtfully—­and the cowboy, wondering, saw that wistful look in his eyes.

“That big devil is a man’s horse, all right,” mused Phil.

“Why, of course—­and that’s just it—­don’t you see?” cried the other impulsively.  Then, as if he regretted his words, he asked quickly, “Do you name your horses?”

“Sure,” answered the cowboy; “we generally find something to call them.”

“And have you named the big bay yet?”

Phil laughed.  “I named him yesterday, when he broke away as we were bringing the bunch in, and I had to rope him to get him back.”

“And what did you name him?”

“Stranger.”

“Stranger!  And why Stranger?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Just one of my fool notions,” returned Phil.  “Good-night!”

CHAPTER V.

A bit of the past.

The next morning Mr. Baldwin and Patches set out for town.

“I suppose,” said the Dean, and a slightly curious tone colored the remark, “that mebby you’ve been used to automobiles.  Buck and Prince here, an’ this old buckboard will seem sort of slow to you.”

Patches was stepping into the rig as the Dean spoke.  As the young man took his seat by the cattleman’s side, the Dean nodded to Phil who was holding the team.  At the signal Phil released the horses’ heads and stepped aside, whereupon Buck and Prince, of one mind, looked back over their shoulders, made a few playful attempts to twist themselves out of the harness, lunged forward their length, stood straight up on their hind feet, then sprang away as if they were fully determined to land that buckboard in Prescott within the next fifteen minutes.

“Did you say slow?” questioned Patches, as he clung to his seat.

The Dean chuckled and favored his new man with a twinkling glance of approval.

A few seconds later, on the other side of the sandy wash, the Dean skillfully checked their headlong career, with a narrow margin of safety between the team and the gate.

“I reckon we’ll get through with less fuss if you’ll open it,” he said to Patches.  Then to Buck and Prince:  “Whoa! you blamed fools.  Can’t you stand a minute?”