"Shucks!" retorted the Dean. "Some of the best men I ever had was
strangers when I hired 'em. Bein' a stranger ain't nothin' against a
man. You and me would be strangers if we was to go many miles from
Williamson Valley. Patches is a good man, I tell you. I'll stand for
him, all right. Why, he's been out all day, alone, ridin' the drift
fence, just as good any old-timer."

"The drift fence!"

"Yes, it's in pretty bad shape in places."

"Yes, an' I ran onto a calf over in Horse Wash, this afternoon, not four
hundred yards from the fence on the Tailholt side, fresh-branded with
the Tailholt iron, an' I'll bet a thousand dollars it belongs to a
Cross-Triangle cow."

"What makes you think it was mine?" asked the Dean calmly.

"Because it looked mighty like some of your Hereford stock, an' because
I came on through the Horse Wash gate, an' about a half mile on this
side, I found one of your cows that had just lost her calf."

"They know we're busy an' ain't ridin' much, I reckon," mused the Dean.

"If I was you, I'd put some hand that I knew to ridin' that drift
fence," returned Jim significantly, as he mounted his horse to go.

"You're plumb wrong, Jim," returned the Dean earnestly. "Why, the man
don't know a Cross-Triangle from a Five-Bar, or a Pot-Hook-S."