according to disposition and temper and strength, was different. While
his helpers did their part the rider caught a few moments rest. Always
he was good natured, soft spoken and gentle. When a frightened animal,
not understanding, tried to kill him, he accepted it as evidence of a
commendable spirit, and, with that sunny, boyish smile, informed his
pupil kindly that he was a good horse and must not make a fool of
himself.

In so many ways, as the Dean had said at breakfast that morning, horses
are just like men.

It was mid-afternoon when the master of the Cross-Triangle again
strolled leisurely out to the corrals. Phil and his helpers, including
Little Billy, were just disappearing over the rise of ground beyond the
gate on the farther side of the enclosure as the Dean reached the gate
that opens toward the barn and house. He went on through the corral,
and slowly, as one having nothing else to do, climbed the little knoll
from which he could watch the riders in the distance. When the horsemen
had disappeared among the scattered cedars on the ridge, a mile or so to
the west, the Dean still stood looking in that direction. But the owner
of the Cross-Triangle was not watching for the return of his men. He was
not even thinking of them. He was looking beyond the cedar ridge to
where, several miles away, a long, mesa-topped mountain showed black
against the blue of the more distant hills. The edge of this high
table-land broke abruptly in a long series of vertical cliffs, the
formation known to Arizonians as rim rocks. The deep shadows of the
towering black wall of cliffs and the gloom of the pines and cedars that
hid the foot of the mountain gave the place a sinister and threatening
appearance.