mer."

"'Tain't like Nick to lay down so easy for anybody," added another.

"Nick's on to something about Mr. Patches that we ain't next to,"
insisted a third.

"Or else we're all bein' strung for a bunch of suckers," offered still
another.

"You boys just hold your horses, an' ride easy," said Curly. "My money's
still on Honorable Patches."

And Bob added his loyal support with his cheerful "Me, too!"

"It all looked straight enough," Jim Reid admitted to the Dean that
evening, "but I can't get away from the notion that there was some sort
of an understanding between your man an' that damned Tailholt Mountain
thief. It looked like it was all too quiet an' easy somehow; like it had
been planned beforehand."

The Dean laughingly told his neighbor that he was right; that there was
an understanding between Patches and Nick, and then explained by
relating how Patches had met the Tailholt Mountain men that day at the
spring.

When the Dean had finished the big cowman asked several very suggestive
questions. How did the Dean know that Patches' story was anything more
than a cleverly arranged tale, invented for the express purpose of
allaying any suspicion as to his true relationship with Nick? If
Patches' character was so far above suspicion, why did he always dodge
any talk that might touch his past? Was it necessary or usual for men to
keep so close-mouthed about themselves? What did the Dean, or anyone
else, for that matter, really know about this man who had appeared so
strangely from nowhere, and had given a name even that was so plainly a
ridiculous invention? The Dean must remember that the suspicion as to
the source of Nick's too rapidly increasing herds had, so far, been
directed wholly against Nick himself, and that the owner of the
Four-Bar-M iron was not altogether a fool. It was quite time, Reid
argued, for Nick to cease his personal activities, and to trust the
actual work of branding to some confederate whose movements would not be
so closely questioned. In short, Reid had been expecting some stranger
to seek a job with some of the ranches that were in a position to
contribute to the Tailholt Mountain outfit, and, for his part, he would
await developments before becoming too enthusiastic over Honorable
Patches.

All of which the good Dean found very hard to answer.

"But look here, Jim," he protested, "don't you go makin' it unpleasant
for the boy. Whatever you think, you don't know any more than t