hen Patches said,
"What puzzles me is, why you didn't take a shot at him, after you were
up, instead of risking your neck again trying to rope him."

"Why, there was no use killing a good bull, as long as there was any
other way. It's my business to keep him alive; that's what I started in
to do, wasn't it?" And thus the cowboy, in a simple word or two, stated
the creed of his profession, a creed that permits no consideration of
personal danger or discomfort when the welfare of the employer's
property is at stake.

When they had removed saddle and bridle from the dead horse and had
cleaned the ugly wound in the bull's side, Phil said, "Now, Mr.
Honorable Patches, you'd better move on down the wash a piece, and get
out of sight behind one of those cedars. This fellow is going to get
busy again when I let him up. I'll come along when I've got rid of him."

A little later, as Phil rode out of the cedars toward Patches, a deep,
bellowing challenge came from up the wash.

"He's just telling us what he'll do to us the next chance he gets,"
chuckled Phil. "Hop up behind me now and we'll go home."

The gloom, that all day had seemed to overshadow Phil, was effectually
banished by the excitement of the incident, and he was again his sunny,
cheerful self. As they rode, they chatted and laughed merrily. Then,
suddenly, as it had happened that morning, the cowboy was again grim and
silent.

Patches was wondering what had so quickly changed his companion's mood,
when he caught sight of two horsemen, riding along the top of the ridge
that forms the western side of the wash, their course paralleling that
of the Cross-Triangle men, who were following the bed of the wash.

When Patches directed Phil's attention to the riders, the cowboy said
shortly, "I've been watching them for the last ten minutes." Then, as if
regretting the manner of his reply, he added more kindly, "If they keep
on the way they're going, we'll likely meet them about a mile down the
wash where the ridge breaks."

"Do you know them?" asked Patches curiously.

"It's Nick Cambert and that poor, lost dog of a Yavapai Joe," Phil
answered.

"The Tailholt Mountain outfit," murmured Patches, watching the riders on
the ridge with quickened interest. "Do you know, Phil, I believe I have
seen those fellows before."

"You have!" exclaimed Phil. "Where? When?"

"I don't know how to tell you where," Patches replied, "but it was the
day I rode the drift fence. They