man, I mean--an' that's the way you got to take 'em--there ain't a
better man that Phil livin'. Yet a lot of these folks would say he's
nothin' but a cow-puncher. As for that, Jim Reid ain't much more than a
cow-puncher himself. I tell you, I've seen cow-punchers that was mighty
good men, an' I've seen graduates from them there universities that was
plumb good for nothin'--with no more real man about 'em than there is
about one of these here wax dummies that they hang clothes on in the
store windows. What any self-respectin' woman can see in one of them
that would make her want to marry him is more than I've ever been able
to figger out."

If the Dean had not been so engrossed in his own thoughts, he would have
wondered at the strange effect of his words upon his companion. The
young man's face flushed scarlet, then paled as though with sudden
illness, and he looked sidewise at the older man with an expression of
shame and humiliation, while his eyes, wistful and pleading, were filled
with pain. Honorable Patches who had won the admiration of those men in
the Cross-Triangle corrals was again the troubled, shamefaced,
half-frightened creature whom Phil met on the Divide.

But the good Dean did not see, and so, encouraged by the other's
silence, he continued his dissertation. "Of course, I don't mean to say
that education and that sort of thing spoils every man. Now, there's
young Stanford Manning--"

If the Dean had suddenly fired a gun at Patches, the young man could not
have shown greater surprise and consternation. "Stanford Manning!" he
gasped.

At his tone the Dean turned to look at him curiously. "I mean Stanford