were on a ridge, across a little valley
from me."

"That must have been this same Horse Wash that we're following now,"
replied Phil; "it widens out a bit below here. What makes you think it
was Nick and Joe?"

"Why, those fellows up there look like the two that I saw, one big one
and one rather lightweight. They were the same distance from me, you
know, and--yes--I am sure those are the same horses."

"Pretty good, Patches, but you ought to have reported it when you got
home."

"Why, I didn't think it of any importance."

"There are two rules that you must follow, always," said the cowboy, "if
you are going to learn to be a top hand in this business. The first is:
to see everything that there is to see, and to see everything about
everything that you see. And the second is: to remember it all. I don't
mind telling you, now, that Jim Reid found a calf, fresh-branded with
the Tailholt iron, that same afternoon, in that same neighborhood; and
that, on our side of the drift fence, he ran onto a Cross-Triangle cow
that had lost her calf. There come our friends now."

The two horsemen were riding down the side of the hill at an angle that
would bring about the meeting which Phil had foreseen. And Patches
immediately broke the first of the two rules, for, while watching the
riders, he did not notice that his companion loosened his gun in its
holster.

Nick Cambert was a large man, big-bodied and heavy, with sandy hair, and
those peculiar light blue eyes which do not beget confidence. But, as
the Tailholt Mountain men halted to greet Phil, Patches gave to Nick
little more than a passing glance, so interested was he in the big man's
companion.

It is doubtful if blood, training, environment, circumstances, the
fates, or whatever it is that gives to men individuality, ever marked a
man with less manhood than was given to poor Yavapai Joe. Standing
erect, he would have been, perhaps, a little above medium height, but
thin and stooped, with a half-starved look, as he slouched listlessly in
the saddle, it was almost impossible to think of him as a matured man.
The receding chin, and coarse, loosely opened mouth, the pale, lifeless
eyes set too closely together under a low forehead, with a ragged thatch
of dead, mouse-colored hair, and a furtive, sneaking, lost-dog
expression, proclaimed him the outcast that he was.

The big man eyed Patches as he greeted the Cross-Triangle's foreman.
"Howdy, Phil!"

"Hello, Nick!" ret