"Not to-day, you ain't," returned the Dean. "You're workin' for me now,
an' you're too good a man to be killed tryin' any more crazy
experiments."

At the Dean's words the look of gratitude in the man's eyes was almost
pathetic.

"I wonder if I am," he said, so low that only the Dean and Phil heard.

"If you are what?" asked the Dean, puzzled by his manner.

"Worth anything--as a man--you know," came the strange reply.

The Dean chuckled. "You'll be all right when you get your growth. Come
on over here now, out of the way, while Phil takes some of the
cussedness out of that fool horse."

Together they watched Phil ride the bay and return him to his mates a
very tired and a much wiser pupil. Then, while Patches remained to watch
further operations in the corral, the Dean went to the house to tell
Stella all about it.

"And what do you think he really is?" she asked, as the last of a long
list of questions and comments.

The Dean shook his head. "There's no tellin'. A man like that is liable
to be anything." Then he added, with his usual philosophy: "He acts,
though, like a genuine thoroughbred that's been badly mishandled an' has
just found it out."