following day set out for the long return drive to the ranch.

They had reached the top of the hill at the western end of the meadow
lane, when they saw a young woman, on a black horse, riding away from
the gate that opens from the lane into the Pot-Hook-S meadow pasture,
toward the ranch buildings on the farther side of the field.

As they drove into the yard at home, it was nearly supper time, and the
men were coming from the corrals.

"Kitty's been over all the afternoon," Little Billy informed them
promptly. "I told her all about you, Patches. She says she's just dyin'
to see you."

Phil joined in the laugh, but Patches fancied that there was a shadow in
the cowboy's usually sunny eyes as the young man looked at him to say,
"That big horse of yours sure made me ride some to-day."




CHAPTER VI.

THE DRIFT FENCE.


The education of Honorable Patches was begun without further delay.
Because Phil's time was so fully occupied with his four-footed pupils,
the Dean himself became the stranger's teacher, and all sorts of odd
jobs about the ranch, from cleaning the pig pen to weeding the garden,