his poise of perfect strength and freedom, he looked, as indeed he was,
a prince of his kind--a lord of the untamed life that homes in those
God-cultivated fields.

Patches glanced at his companion, as if to speak, but struck by the
expression on the cowboy's face, remained silent. Phil was leaning a
little forward in his saddle, his body as perfect in its poise of alert
and graceful strength as the body of the wild horse at which he was
gazing with such fixed interest. The clear, deeply tanned skin of his
cheeks glowed warmly with the red of his clean, rich blood, his eyes
shone with suppressed excitement, his lips, slightly parted, curved in a
smile of appreciation, love and reverence for the unspoiled beauty of
the wild creature that he himself, in so many ways, unconsciously
resembled.

And Patches--bred and schooled in a world so far from this world of
primitive things--looking from Phil to the wild horse, and back again
from the stallion to the man, felt the spirit and the power that made
them kin--felt it with a, to him, strange new feeling of reverence, as
though in the perfect, unspoiled life-strength of man and horse he came
in closer touch with the divine than he had ever known before.

Then, without taking his eyes from the object of his almost worship,
Phil said, "Now, watch him, Patches, watch him!"

As he spoke, he moved slowly toward the band, while Patches rode close
by his side.

At their movement, the wild stallion called another warning to his
followers, and went a few graceful paces toward the slowly approaching