“Jim Reid’s goin’ to begin breakin’ horses next week.”

“So I heard,” returned Phil, carefully spreading his saddle blanket to dry.

The Dean spoke again in a tone of indifference.  “He wants you to help him.”

“Me!  What’s the matter with Jack?”

“He’s goin’ to the D.1 to-morrow.”

Phil was examining the wrapping on his saddle horn with—­the Dean noted—­quite unnecessary care.

“Kitty was over this mornin’,” said the Dean gently.

The young man turned, and, taking off his spurs, hung them on the saddle horn.  Then as he kicked off his leather chaps he said shortly, “I’m not looking for a job as a professional bronco-buster.”

The Dean’s eyes twinkled.  “Thought you might like to help a neighbor out; just to be neighborly, you know.”

“Do you want me to ride for Reid?” demanded Phil.

“Well, I suppose as long as there’s broncs to bust somebody’s got to bust ’em,” the Dean returned, without committing himself.  And then, when Phil made no reply, he added laughing, “I told Kitty to tell him, though, that I reckoned you had as big a string as you could handle here.”

As they moved away toward the house, Phil returned with significant emphasis, “When I have to ride for anybody besides you it won’t be Kitty Reid’s father.”

And the Dean commented in his reflective tone, “It does sometimes seem to make a difference who a man rides for, don’t it?”

In the pasture by the corrals, the horses that awaited the approaching trial that would mark for them the beginning of a new life passed a restless night.  Some in meekness of spirit or, perhaps, with deeper wisdom fed quietly.  Others wandered about aimlessly, snatching an occasional uneasy mouthful of grass, and looking about often in troubled doubt.  The more rebellious ones followed the fence, searching for some place of weakness in the barbed barrier that imprisoned them.  And one, who, had he not been by circumstance robbed of his birthright, would have been the strong leader of a wild band, stood often with wide nostrils and challenging eye, gazing toward the corrals and buildings as if questioning the right of those who had brought him there from the haunts he loved.

And somewhere in the night of that land which was as unknown to him as the meadow pasture was strange to the unbroken horses, a man awaited the day which, for him too, was to stand through all his remaining years as a mark between the old life and the new.

As Phil Acton lay in his bed, with doors and windows open wide to welcome the cool night air, he heard the restless horses in the near-by pasture, and smiled as he thought of the big bay and the morrow—­smiled with the smile of a man who looks forward to a battle worthy of his best strength and skill.

And then, strangely enough, as he was slipping into that dreamless sleep of those who live as he lived, his mind went back again to the stranger whom he had met on the summit of the Divide.  If he were more like that man, would it make any difference—­the cowboy wondered.