"It's your business, Will; I just thought I'd tell you," growled Reid.
"Good-night!"

"Good-night, Jim! I'm much obliged to you for ridin' over."




CHAPTER VII.

THINGS THAT ENDURE.


When Kitty Reid told Patches that it was her soul sickness, from too
much of nothing at all, that had sent her to visit Mrs. Baldwin that
afternoon, she had spoken more in earnest than in jest. More than this,
she had gone to the Cross-Triangle hoping to meet the stranger, of whom
she had heard so much. Phil had told Kitty that she would like Patches.
As Phil had put it, the man spoke her language; he could talk to her of
people and books and those things of which the Williamson Valley folk
knew so little.

But as she rode slowly homeward after leaving Patches, she found herself
of two minds regarding the incident. She had enjoyed meeting the man; he
had interested and amused her; had taken her out of herself, for she was
not slow to recognize that the man really did belong to that world which
was so far from the world of her childhood. And she was glad for the
little adventure that, for one afternoon, at least, had broken the dull,
wearying monotony of her daily life. But the stranger, by the very fact
of his belonging to that other world, had stimulated her desire for