“Yes, and I must hurry on to them, or they will think I am not coming,” she said.  “Have a good time, Patches; you surely have earned it.  Good-by!”

He stood for a moment watching her cross the park.  Then, with a quick look around, as though he did not wish to be observed, he hurried across the street to the Western Union office.  A few moments later he made his way, by little-frequented side streets, to the stable where he had left his horse; and while Kitty and her friends were watching the first of the racing cars cross the line, Patches was several miles away, riding as though pursued by the sheriff, straight for the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

Several times that day, while she was with her eastern friends, Kitty saw Phil near by.  But she gave him no signal to join them, and the cowboy, shy always, and hurt by Kitty’s indifference, would not approach the little party without her invitation.  But that evening, while Kitty was waiting in the hotel lobby for Mr. and Mrs. Manning, Phil, finding her alone, went to her.

“I have been trying to speak to you all day,” he said reproachfully.  “Haven’t you any time for me at all, Kitty?”

“Don’t be foolish, Phil,” she returned; “you have seen me a dozen times.”

“I have seen you, yes,” he answered bitterly.

“But, Phil, you could have come to me, if you had wanted to.”

“I have no desire to go where I am not wanted,” he answered.

“Phil!”

“Well, you gave no sign that you wanted me.”

“There was no reason why I should,” she retorted.  “You are not a child.  I was with my friends from the East.  You could have joined us if you had cared to.  I should be very glad, indeed, to present you to Mr. and Mrs. Manning.”

“Thank you, but I don’t care to be exhibited as an interesting specimen to people who have no use for me except when I do a few fool stunts to amuse them.”

“Very well, Phil,” she returned coldly.  “If that is your feeling, I do not care to present you to my friends.  They are every bit as sincere and genuine as you are; and I certainly shall not trouble them with anyone who cannot appreciate them.”

Kitty was angry, as she had good reason for being.  But beneath her anger she was sorry for the man whose bitterness, she knew, was born of his love for her.  And Phil saw only that Kitty was lost to him—­saw in the girl’s eastern friends those who, he felt, had robbed him of his dream.

“I suppose,” he said, after a moment’s painful silence, “that I had better go back to the range where I belong.  I’m out of place here.”

The girl was touched by the hopelessness in his voice, but she felt that it would be no kindness to offer him the relief of an encouraging word.  Her day with her eastern friends, and the memories that her meeting with Mrs. Manning had aroused, convinced her more than ever that her old love for Phil, and the life of which he was a part, were for her impossible.