mean that for you."

The horseman dropped his hands again to the saddle horn, and resumed his
lounging posture, thus tacitly accepting the apology. "You have the
advantage of me," he said.

The stranger laughed. "Everyone knows that 'Wild Horse Phil' of the
Cross-Triangle Ranch won the bronco-riding championship yesterday. I saw
you ride."

Philip Acton's face showed boyish embarrassment.

The other continued, with his strange enthusiasm. "It was great
work--wonderful! I never saw anything like it."

There was no mistaking the genuineness of his admiration, nor could he
hide that wistful look in his eyes.

"Shucks!" said the cowboy uneasily. "I could pick a dozen of the boys in
that outfit who can ride all around me. It was just my luck, that's
all--I happened to draw an easy one."

"Easy!" ejaculated the stranger, seeing again in his mind the fighting,
plunging, maddened, outlawed brute that this boy-faced man had mastered.
"And I suppose catching and throwing those steers was easy, too?"

The cowboy was plainly wondering at the man's peculiar enthusiasm for
these most commonplace things. "The roping? Why, that was no more than
we're doing all the time."