anything, was not altogether like the
uncertain, embarrassed, half-frightened and troubled gentleman at whom
Phil had first laughed with thinly veiled contempt, and then had pitied.
It was as though the man who sat that night alone on the Divide had, out
of the very bitterness of his experience, called forth from within
himself a strength of which, until then, he had been only dimly
conscious. There was now, in his face and bearing, courage and decision
and purpose, and with it all a glint of that same humor that had made
him so bitterly mock himself. The Dean's philosophy touching the
possibilities of the man who laughs when he is hurt seemed in this
stranger about to be justified. Phil felt oddly, too, that the man was
in a way experimenting with himself--testing himself as it were--and
being altogether a normal human, the cowboy felt strongly inclined to
help the experimenter. In this spirit he answered the Dean, while
looking mischievously at the stranger.

"We can use him if he can ride."

The stranger smiled understandingly. "I don't see why I couldn't," he
returned in that droll tone. "I seem to have the legs." He looked down
at his long lower limbs reflectively, as though quaintly considering
them quite apart from himself.

Phil laughed.

"Huh," said the Dean, slightly mystified at the apparent understanding
between the young men. Then to the stranger: "What do you want to work
for? You don't look as though you needed to. A sort of vacation, heh?"

There was spirit in the man's answer. "I want to work for the reason
that all men want work. If you do not employ me, I must try somewhere
else."

"Come from Prescott to Simmons on the stage, did you?"

"No, sir, I walked."

"Walked! Huh! Tried anywhere else for a job?"

"No, sir."

"Who sent you out here?"

The stranger smiled. "I saw Mr. Acton ride in the contest. I learned
that he was foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. I thought I would
rather work where he worked, if I could."

The Dean looked at Phil. Phil looked at the Dean. Together they looked
at the stranger. The two cowboys who were sitting on their horses
near-by grinned at each other.

"And what is your name, sir?" the Dean asked courteously.

For the first time the man hesitated and seemed embarrassed. He looked
uneasily about with a helpless inquiring glance, as though appealing for
some suggestion.

"Oh, never mind your name, if you have forgotten it," said the Dean
dryly.

The