"Well, we'll all try him out this fall rodeo"; and "better not let him
drift far from the home ranch for a while," laughed the visitors. "So
long!" and they were away.

Before breakfast the next morning Phil said to Patches, "Catch up Snip,
and give him a feed of grain. You'll ride with me to-day."

At Patches' look of surprise he explained laughingly, "I'm going to give
my school a little vacation, and Uncle Will thinks it's time you were
out of the kindergarten."

Later, as they were crossing the big pasture toward the country that
lies to the south, the foreman volunteered the further information that
for the next few weeks they would ride the range.

"May I ask what for?" said Patches, encouraged by the cowboy's manner.

It was one of the man's peculiarities that he rarely entered into the
talk of his new friends when their work was the topic of conversation.
And he never asked questions except when alone with Phil or the Dean,
and then only when led on by them. It was not that he sought to hide his
ignorance, for he made no pretenses whatever, but his reticence seemed,
rather, the result of a curious feeling of shame that he had so little
in common with these men whose lives were so filled with useful labor.
And this, if he had known, was one of the things that made them like
him. Men who live in such close daily touch with the primitive realities
of life, and who thereby acquire a simple directness, with a certain
native modesty, have no place in their hearts for--to use their own
picturesque vernacular--a "four-flusher."