g country with an expression on independence, freedom and
fearlessness very different from the manner of the troubled man who had
faced Phil Acton that night on the Divide. It was as though the spirit
of the land was already working its magic within this man, too. He
patted the holster at his side, felt the handle of the gun, lovingly
fingered the bright cartridges in his shiny belt, leaned sidewise to
look admiringly down at his fringed, leather chaps and spur ornamented
boot heels, and wished for his riata--not forgetting, meanwhile, to scan
the fence for places that might need his attention.

The guardian angel who cares for the "tenderfoot" was good to Patches
that day, and favored him with many sagging wires and leaning or broken
posts, so that he could not ride far. Being painstaking and
conscientious in his work, he had made not more than four miles by the
beginning of the afternoon. Then he found a break that would occupy him
for two hours at least. With rueful eyes he surveyed the long stretch of
dilapidated fence. It was time, he reflected, that the Dean sent someone
to look after his property, and dismounting, he went to work,
forgetting, in his interest in the fencing problem, to insure his
horse's near-by attendance. Now, the best of cow-horses are not above
taking advantage of their opportunities. Perhaps Snip felt that
fenceriding with a tenderfoot was a little beneath the dignity of his
cattle-punching years. Perhaps he reasoned that this man who was always
doing such strange things was purposely dismissing him. Perhaps he was
thinking of the long watering trough and the rich meadow grass at home.
Or, perhaps again, the wise old Snip, feeling the responsibility of his
part in training the Dean's pupil, merely thought to give his
inexperienced master a lesson. However it happened, Patches looked up
from his work some time later to find himself alone. In consternation,
he stood looking about, striving to catch a glimpse of the vanished
Snip. Save a lone buzzard that wheeled in curious circles above his head
there was no living thing in sight.

As fast as his heavy, leather chaps and high-heeled, spur-ornamented
boots would permit, he ran to the top of a knoll a hundred yards or so
away. The wider range of country that came thus within the circle of his
vision was as empty as it was silent. The buzzard wheeled nearer--the
strange looking creature beneath it seemed so helpless that there might
be in the sit