there--they're not more than four hundred yards away, and they're
working toward us."

"Do you mean those horses?" whispered Patches, amazed at his companion's
manner.

Phil nodded.

"Do they belong to the Cross-Triangle?" asked Patches, still mystified.

"The Cross-Triangle!" Phil chuckled. Then, with a note of genuine
reverence in his voice, he added softly, "They belong to God, Mr.
Honorable Patches."

Then Patches understood. "Wild horses!" he ejaculated softly.

There are few men, I think, who can look without admiration upon a
beautifully formed, noble spirited horse. The glorious pride and
strength and courage of these most kingly of God's creatures--even when
they are in harness and subject to their often inferior masters--compel
respect and a degree of appreciation. But seen as they roam free in
those pastures that, since the creation, have never been marred by plow
or fence--pastures that are theirs by divine right, and the sunny slopes
and shady groves and rocky nooks of which constitute their
kingdom--where, in their lordly strength, they are subject only to the
dictates of their own being, and, unmutilated by human cruelty, rule by
the power and authority of Nature's laws--they stir the blood of the
coldest heart to a quicker flow, and thrill the mind of the dullest with
admiring awe.