"Well, then, why don't you ride cheerfully home and report the progress
of your work as though nothing had happened?"

"You mean that you won't tell?" he cried.

She nodded gaily. "I told them this afternoon that it wasn't fair for
you to have no one but Stella on your side."

"What a good Samaritan you are! You put me under an everlasting
obligation to you."

"All right," she laughed. "I'm glad you feel that way about it. I shall
hold that debt against you until some day when I am in dreadful need,
and then I shall demand payment in full. Good-by!"

And once again Kitty had spoken, in jest, words that held for them both,
had they but known, great significance.

Patches watched until she was out of sight. Then he made his way
happily to the house to receive, with a guilty conscience but with a
light heart, congratulations and compliments upon his safe return.

That evening Phil disappeared somewhere, in the twilight. And a little
later Jim Reid rode into the Cross-Triangle dooryard.

The owner of the Pot-Hook-S was a big man, tall and heavy, outspoken and
somewhat gruff, with a manner that to strangers often seemed near to
overbearing. When Patches was introduced, the big cattleman looked him
over suspiciously, spoke a short word in response to Patches'
commonplace, and abruptly turned his back to converse with the