“You are just as Stan said you were,” retorted Helen.

“Uncle Will!” cried Kitty.  “I am ashamed of you!  I didn’t think you would turn down your own home folks like that!”

The Dean lifted his hat and rumpled his grizzly hair as though fairly caught.  Then:  “Why, Kitty, you know that I couldn’t love any girl more than I do you.  Why, you belong to me most as much as you belong to your own father and mother.  But, you see—­honey—­well, you see, we’ve just naturally got to be nice to strangers, you know.”  When they had laughed at this, Kitty explained to that Dean how Mrs. Manning was the Helen Wakefield with whom she had been such friends at school, and that, after the Mannings’ outing in Granite Basin, Helen was to visit Williamson Valley.

“Campin’ out in Granite Basin, heh?” said the Dean to Stanford.  “I reckon you’ll be seein’ some o’ my boys.  They’re goin’ up into that country after outlaw steers next week.”

“I hope so,” returned Stanford.  “Helen has been complaining that there are no cowboys to be seen.  I pointed out Phil Acton, but he didn’t seem to fill the bill; she doesn’t believe that he is a cowboy at all.”

The Dean chuckled.  “He’s never been anything else.  They don’t make ’em any better anywhere.”  Then he added soberly, “Phil’s not ridin’ in the contest this year, though.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.  He’s got some sort of a fool notion in his head that he don’t want to make an exhibition of himself—­that’s what he said.  I’ve got another man on the ranch now,” he added, as though to change the subject, “that’ll be mighty near as good as Phil in another year.  His name is Patches.  He’s a good one, all right.”

Kitty, who, had been looking away down the street while the Dean was talking, put her hand on Helen’s arm.  “Look down there, Helen.  I believe that is Patches now—­that man sitting on his horse at the cross street, at the foot of the hill, just outside the ropes.”

Helen was looking through the field glasses.  “I see him,” she cried.  “Now, that’s more like it.  He looks like what I expected to see.  What a fine, big chap he is, isn’t he?” Then, as she studied the distant horseman, a puzzled expression came over her face.  “Why, Kitty!” she said in a low tone, so that the men who were talking did not hear.  “Do you know, that man somehow reminds me”—­she hesitated and lowered the glasses to look at her companion with half-amused, half-embarrassed eyes—­“he reminds me of Lawrence Knight.”

Kitty’s brown, fun-loving eyes glowed with mischief.  “Really, Mrs. Manning, I am ashamed of you.  Before the honeymoon has waned, your thoughts, with no better excuse than the appearance of a poor cow-puncher, go back to the captivating charms of your old millionaire lover.  I—­”

“Kitty!  Do hush,” pleaded Helen.

She lifted her glasses for another look at the cowboy.

“I don’t wonder that your conscience reproves you,” teased Kitty, in a low tone.  “But tell me, poor child, how did it happen that you lost your millionaire?”