that he shot without thinkin’; you know how he acts quick that-a-way.  An’ then he seen what he had done, an’ that it was more than an even break that Phil wouldn’t live, an’ so figgered that his chance was better to stay an’ run a bluff by comin’ for help, an’ all that.  If he’d tried to make his get-away, there wouldn’t ‘a’ been no question about it; an’ he’s got just nerve enough to take the chance he’s a-takin’ by stayin’ right with the game.”

Patches started as though to go toward the men, but at that moment the doctor came from the house.  As the physician approached the waiting group, that odd, mirthless, self-mocking smile touched Patches’ lips; then he stepped forward to listen with the others to the doctor’s words.

Phil had a chance, the doctor said, but he told them frankly that it was only a chance.  The injured man’s wonderful vitality, his clean blood and unimpaired physical strength, together with his unshaken nerve and an indomitable will, were all greatly in his favor.  With careful nursing they might with reason hope for his recovery.

With expressions of relief, the group separated.  Patches walked away alone.  Mr. Reid, who would return to Prescott with the doctor, said to his daughter when the physician was ready, “Come, Kitty, I’ll go by the house, so as to take you and Mrs. Manning home.”

But Kitty shook her head.  “No, father.  I’m not going home.  Stella needs me here.  Helen understands, don’t you, Helen?”

And wise Mrs. Manning, seeing in Kitty’s face something that the man had not observed, answered, “Yes, dear, I do understand.  You must stay, of course.  I’ll run over again in the morning.”

“Very well,” answered Mr. Reid, who seemed in somewhat of a hurry.  “I know you ought to stay.  Tell Stella that mother will be over for a little while this evening.”  And the automobile moved away.

That night, while Mrs. Baldwin and Kitty watched by Phil’s bedside, and Patches, in his room, waited, sleepless, alone with his thoughts, men from the ranch on the other side of the quiet meadow were riding swiftly through the darkness.  Before the new day had driven the stars from the wide sky, a little company of silent, grim-faced horsemen gathered in the Pot-Hook-S corral.  In the dim, gray light of the early morning they followed Jim Reid out of the corral, and, riding fast, crossed the valley above the meadows and approached the Cross-Triangle corrals from the west.  One man in the company led a horse with an empty saddle.  Just beyond the little rise of ground outside the big gate they halted, while Jim Reid with two others, leaving their horses with the silent riders behind the hill, went on into the corral, where they seated themselves on the edge of the long watering trough near the tank, which hid them from the house.

Fifteen minutes later, when the Dean stepped from the kitchen porch, he saw Curly running toward the house.  As the older man hurried toward him, the cowboy, pale with excitement and anger, cried, “They’ve got him, sir—­grabbed him when he went out to the corral.”