Jim laughed.  The speech was so characteristic of the Dean, and Jim Reid loved his old friend and neighbor, as all men did, for being, as was commonly said, “so easy.”

“Don’t worry, Will,” he answered.  “I’m not goin’ to start anything.  If I should happen to be right about Mr. Honorable Patches, he’s exactly where we want him.  I propose to keep my eye on him, that’s all.  And I think you an’ Phil had better do the same.”

CHAPTER XI.

AFTER THE RODEO.

As the fall rodeo swept on its way over the wide ranges, the last reluctant bits of summer passed, and hints of the coming winter began to appear The yellow glory of the goldenrod, and the gorgeous banks of color on sunflower flats faded to earthy russet and brown; the white cups of the Jimson weed were broken and lost; the dainty pepper-grass, the thin-leafed grama-grass, and the heavier bladed bear-grass of the great pasture lands were dry and tawny; and the broom-weed that had tufted the rolling hills with brighter green, at the touch of the first frost, turned a dull and somber gray; while the varied beauties of the valley meadows became even as the dead and withered leaves of the Dean’s walnut trees that, in falling, left the widespread limbs and branches so bare.

Then the rodeo and the shipping were over; the weeks of the late fall range riding were past—­and it was winter.

From skyline to skyline the world was white, save for the dark pines upon the mountain sides, the brighter cedars and junipers upon the hills and ridges, and the living green of the oak brush, that, when all else was covered with snow, gave the cattle their winter feed.

More than ever, now, with the passing of the summer and fall, Kitty longed for the stirring life that, in some measure, had won her from the scenes of her home and from her homeland friends.  The young woman’s friendship with Patches—­made easy by the fact that the Baldwins had taken him so wholly into their hearts—­served to keep alive her memories of that world to which she was sure he belonged, and such memories did not tend to make Kitty more contented and happy in Williamson Valley.

Toward Phil, Kitty was unchanged.  Many times her heart called for him so insistently that she wished she had never learned to know any life other than that life to which they had both been born.  If only she had not spent those years away from home—­she often told herself—­it would all have been so different.  She could have been happy with Phil—­very happy—­if only she had remained in his world.  But now—­now she was afraid—­afraid for him as well as for herself.  Her friendship with Patches had, in so many ways, emphasized the things that stood between her and the man whom, had it not been for her education, she would have accepted so gladly as her mate.