“You let him go?” cried Patches.

“It’s God’s truth, Patches.  I couldn’t do anything else—­I just couldn’t.  One of the boys came up just in time to catch me turning him loose, and, of course, the whole outfit just naturally raised hell about it.  You see, in a chase like that, we always bunch all we get and sell them off to the highest bidder, and every man in the outfit shares alike.  The boys figured that the black was worth more than any five others that were caught, and so you couldn’t blame them for feeling sore.  But I fixed it with them by turning all my share into the pot, so they couldn’t kick.  That, you see, makes the black belong to me, in a way, and it’s pretty generally understood that I propose to take care of him.  There was a fellow, riding in the rodeo last fall, that took a shot at him one day, and—­well—­he left the country right after it happened and hasn’t been seen around here since.”

The cowboy grinned as his companion’s laugh rang out.

“Do you know,” Phil continued in a low tone, a few minutes later, “I believe that horse knows me yet.  Whenever I am over in this part of the country I always have a look at him, if he happens to be around, and we visit a little, as we did to-day.  I’ve got a funny notion that he likes it as much as I do, and, I can’t tell how it is, but it sort of makes me feel good all over just to see him.  I reckon you think I’m some fool,” he finished with another short laugh of embarrassment, “but that’s the way I feel—­and that’s why they call me ’Wild Horse Phil’.”

For a little they rode in silence; then Patches spoke, gravely, “I don’t know how to tell you what I think, Phil, but I understand, and from the bottom of my heart I envy you.”

And the cowboy, looking at his companion, saw in the man’s eyes something that reminded him of that which he had seen in the wild horse’s eyes, that day when he had set him free.  Had Patches, too, at some time in those days that were gone, been caught by the riata of circumstance or environment, and in some degree robbed of his God-inheritance?  Phil smiled at the fancy, but, smiling, felt its truth; and with genuine sympathy felt this also to be true, that the man might yet, by the strength that was deepest within him, regain that which he had lost.

And so that day, as the man from the ranges and the man from the cities rode together, the feeling of kinship that each had instinctively recognized at their first meeting on the Divide was strengthened.  They knew that a mutual understanding which could not have been put into words of any tongue or land was drawing them closer together.

A few days later the incident occurred that fixed their friendship—­as they thought—­for all time to come.

CHAPTER IX.

The Tailholt mountain outfit.

Phil and Patches were riding that day in the country about Old Camp.  Early in the afternoon, they heard the persistent bawling of a calf, and upon riding toward the sound, found the animal deep in the cedar timber, which in that section thickly covers the ridges.  The calf was freshly branded with the Tailholt iron.  It was done, Phil said, the day before, probably in the late afternoon.  The youngster was calling for his mother.