And so it came about that, little by little, the young man told Patches the story of his dream, and of how it was now shattered and broken.

Sometimes bitterly, as though he felt injustice; sometimes harshly, as though in contempt for some weakness of his own; with sentences broken by the pain he strove to subdue, with halting words and long silences, Phil told of his plans for rebuilding the home of his boyhood, and of restoring the business that, through the generosity of his father, had been lost; of how, since his childhood almost, he had worked and saved to that end; and of his love for Kitty, which had been the very light of his dream, and without which for him there was no purpose in dreaming.  And the man who rode so close beside him listened with a fuller understanding and a deeper sympathy than Phil knew.

“And now,” said Phil hopelessly, “it’s all over.  I’ve sure come to the end of my string.  Reid has put the outfit on the market.  He’s going to sell out and quit.  Uncle Will told me night before last when I went home to see about the shipping.”

“Reid is going to sell!” exclaimed Patches; and there was a curious note of exultation in his voice which Phil did not hear.  Neither did Phil see that his companion was smiling to himself under cover of the darkness.

“It’s that damned Professor Parkhill that’s brought it about,” continued the cowboy bitterly.  “Ever since Kitty came home from the East she has been discontented and dissatisfied with ranch life.  I was all right when she went away, but when she came back she discovered that I was nothing but a cow-puncher.  She has been fair, though.  She has tried to get back where she was before she left and I thought I would win her again in time.  I was so sure of it that it never troubled me.  You have seen how it was.  And you have seen how she was always wanting the life that she had learned to want while she was away—­the life that you came from, Patches.  I have been mighty glad for your friendship with her, too, because I thought she would learn from you that a man could have all that is worth having in that life, and still be happy and contented here.  And she would have learned, I am sure.  She couldn’t help seeing it.  But now that damned fool who knows no more of real manhood than I do of his profession has spoiled it all.”

“But Phil, I don’t understand.  What has Parkhill to do with Reid’s selling out?”

“Why, don’t you see?” Phil returned savagely.  “He’s the supreme representative of the highest highbrowed culture, isn’t he?  He’s a lord high admiral, duke, or potentate of some sort, in the world of loftiest thought, isn’t he?  He lives, moves and has his being in the lofty realms of the purely spiritual, doesn’t he?  He’s cultured, and cultivated, and spiritualized, until he vibrates nothing but pure soul—­whatever that means—­and he’s refined himself, and mental-disciplined himself, and soul-dominated himself, until there’s not an ounce of red blood left in his carcass.  Get him between you and the sun, after what he calls a dinner, and you can see every material mouthful that he, has disgraced himself by swallowing.  He’s not human, I tell you; he’s only a kind of a he-ghost, and ought to be fed on sterilized moonbeams and pasteurized starlight.”