ons, and Patches was regaining his seat. "But I told her I'd be
scared to death to ride in the fool contraption."

At this Buck and Prince, in a wild riot of animal strength and spirit,
leaped a slight depression in the road with such vigor that the front
wheels of the buckboard left the ground. Patches glanced sidewise at his
employer, with a smile of delighted appreciation, but said nothing.

The Dean liked him for that. The Dean always insists that the hardest
man in the world to talk to is the one who always has something to say
for himself.

"Why," he continued, with a burst of honest feeling, "if I was ever to
bring one of them things home to the Cross-Triangle, I'd be ashamed to
look a horse or steer in the face."

They dashed through a patch of wild sunflowers that in the bottom lands
grow thick and rank; whirled past the tumble-down corner of an old fence
that enclosed a long neglected garden; and dashed recklessly through a
deserted and weed-grown yard. On one side of the road was the ancient
barn and stable, with sagging, weather-beaten roof, leaning walls and
battered doors that hung dejectedly on their rusty and broken hinges.
The corral stockade was breached in many places by the years that had
rotted the posts. The old-time windlass pump that, operated by a blind
burro, once lifted water for the long vanished herds, was a pathetic old
wreck, incapable now of offering drink to a thirsty sparrow. On their
other hand, beneath the wide branches of giant sycamores and walnuts,
and backed by a tangled orchard wilderness, stood an old house, empty
and neglected, as if in the shadowy gloom of the untrimmed trees it
awaited, lonely and forlorn, the kindly hand of oblivion.

"This is the old Acton homestead," said the Dean quietly, as one might
speak beside an ancient grave.

Then as they were driving through the narrow lane that crosses the great
meadow, he indicated with a nod of his head group of buildings on the
other side of the green fields, and something less than a mile to the
south.

"That's Jim Reid's place. His iron is the Pot-Hook-S. Jim's stock runs
on the old Acton range, but the homestead belongs to Phil yet. Jim
Reid's a fine man." The Dean spoke stoutly, almost as though he were
making the assertion to convince himself. "Yes, sir, Jim's all right.
Good neighbor; good cowman; square as they make 'em. Some folks seem to
think he's a mite over-bearin' an' rough-spoken sometimes, and he's kind