urned Phil coldly. "Howdy, Joe!"

The younger man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the
salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded to roll a
cigarette.

"You folks at the Cross-Triangle short of horses?" asked Nick, with an
evident attempt at jocularity, alluding to the situation of the two men,
who were riding one horse.

"We got mixed up with a bull back yonder," Phil explained briefly.

"They can sure put a horse out o' the game mighty quick sometimes,"
commented the other. "I've lost a few that way myself. It's about as far
from here to my place as it is to Baldwin's, or I'd help you out. You're
welcome, you know."

"Much obliged," returned Phil, "but we'll make it home all right. I
reckon we'd better be moving, though. So long!"

"Adios!"

Throughout this brief exchange of courtesies, Yavapai Joe had not moved,
except to puff at his cigarette; nor had he ceased to regard Patches
with a stupid curiosity. As Phil and Patches moved away, he still sat
gazing after the stranger, until he was aroused by a sharp word from
Nick, as the latter turned his horse toward Tailholt Mountain. Without
changing his slouching position in the saddle, and with a final
slinking, sidewise look toward Patches, the poor fellow obediently
trailed after his master.

Patches could not resist the impulse to turn for another look at the
wretched shadow of manhood that so interested him.

"Well, what do you think of that pair?" asked Phil, breaking in upon his
companion's preoccupation.

Patches shrugged his shoulders much as he had done that day of his first
experience with the screwworms; then he said quietly, "Do you mind
telling me about them, Phil?"

"Why, there's not much to tell," returned the cowboy. "That is, there's
not much that anybody knows for certain. Nick was born in Yavapai
County. His father, old George Cambert, was one of the kind that seems
honest enough, and industrious, too, but somehow always just misses it.
They moved away to some place in Southern California when Nick was about
grown. He came back six years ago, and located over there at the foot of
Tailholt Mountain, and started his Four-Bar-M iron; and, one way or
another, he's managed to get together quite a bunch of stock. You see,
his expenses don't amount to anything, scarcely. He and Joe bach in an
old shack that somebody built years ago, and they do all the riding
themselves. Joe's not much force, but he's handier than you'd