to remain longer
than the one night that she had planned, and to accompany them to
Prescott. Prom Prescott, Stanford must go to the mines, to take up his
work, and to arrange for Helen's coming later, and Helen would go home
with Kitty for the visit she had promised. The cowboys, who were
returning to the Cross-Triangle Ranch, would take Kitty's horse to her
home, and would carry a message explaining the young woman's absence,
and asking that someone be sent to Prescott with the clothing she would
need in town, and that the Reid automobile might be in Prescott in
readiness to take the two young women back to the ranch on the
appointed day.

Kitty could not bring herself to tell even Helen about her engagement to
Lawrence Knight, or Patches, as she would continue to call him until the
time came for the cowboy himself to make his true name and character
known. It had all happened so suddenly; the promises of the future were
so wonderful--so far beyond the young woman's fondest dreams--that she
herself could scarcely realize the truth. There would be time enough to
tell Helen when they were together at the ranch. And she was insistent,
too, that Patches must not interview her father until she herself had
returned home.

Phil and his cowboys with the cattle reached the Cross-Triangle corrals
the evening before the day set for Kitty and Helen to arrive at the
ranch on the other side of the valley meadows. The Cross-Triangle men
were greeted by the news that Professor Parkhill had said good-by to
Williamson Valley, and that the Pot-Hook-S Ranch had been sold. The
eastern purchaser expected by Reid had arrived on the day that Kitty had
gone to Granite Basin, and the deal had been closed without delay. But
Reid was not to give possession of the property until after the fall
rodeo.

As the men sat under the walnut trees with the Dean that evening,
discussing the incidents of the Granite Basin work, and speculating
about the new owner of the neighboring ranch, Phil sat with Little Billy
apart from the circle, and contributed to the conversation only now and
then a word or a brief answer to some question. When Mrs. Baldwin
persuaded the child that it was bedtime, Phil slipped quietly away in
the darkness, and they did not see him again until breakfast the next
morning. When breakfast was over, the foreman gave a few directions to
his men, and rode away alone.

The Dean, understanding the lad, whom he loved as one of his own