"His father must have been a fine man," said Patches, with quiet
earnestness.

The Dean looked at him with an approving twinkle. "Fine?" For a few
minutes, as they were rounding the turn of the road on the summit of the
Divide where Phil and the stranger had met, the Dean looked away toward
Granite Mountain. Then, as if thinking aloud, rather than purposely
addressing his companion, he said, "John Acton--Honest John, as
everybody called him--and I came to this country together when we were
boys. Walked in, sir, with some pioneers from Kansas. We kept in touch
with each other all the while we was growin' to be men; punched cattle
for the same outfits most of the time; even did most of our courtin'
together, for Phil's mother an' Stella were neighbors an' great friends
over in Skull Valley. When we'd finally saved enough to get started we
located homesteads close together back there in the Valley, an' as soon
as we could get some sort of shacks built we married the girls and set
up housekeepin'. Our stock ranged together, of course, but John sort of
took care of the east side of the meadows an' I kept more to the west.
When the children came along--John an' Mary had three before Phil, but
only Phil lived--an' the stock had increased an' we'd built some decent
houses, things seemed to be about as fine as possible. Then John went on
a note for a man in Prescott. I tried my best to keep him out of it,
but, shucks! he just laughed at me. You see, he was one of the best
hearted men that ever lived--one of those men, you know, that just
naturally believes in everybody.

"Well, it wound up after a-while by John losin' mighty nigh everything.
We managed to save the homestead, but practically all the stock had to
go. An' it wasn't more than a year after that till Mary died. We never