It was mid-afternoon when the master of the Cross-Triangle again strolled leisurely out to the corrals.  Phil and his helpers, including Little Billy, were just disappearing over the rise of ground beyond the gate on the farther side of the enclosure as the Dean reached the gate that opens toward the barn and house.  He went on through the corral, and slowly, as one having nothing else to do, climbed the little knoll from which he could watch the riders in the distance.  When the horsemen had disappeared among the scattered cedars on the ridge, a mile or so to the west, the Dean still stood looking in that direction.  But the owner of the Cross-Triangle was not watching for the return of his men.  He was not even thinking of them.  He was looking beyond the cedar ridge to where, several miles away, a long, mesa-topped mountain showed black against the blue of the more distant hills.  The edge of this high table-land broke abruptly in a long series of vertical cliffs, the formation known to Arizonians as rim rocks.  The deep shadows of the towering black wall of cliffs and the gloom of the pines and cedars that hid the foot of the mountain gave the place a sinister and threatening appearance.

As he looked, the Dean’s kindly face grew somber and stern; his blue eyes were for the moment cold and accusing; under his grizzled mustache his mouth, usually so ready to smile or laugh, was set in lines of uncompromising firmness.  In these quiet and well-earned restful years of the Dean’s life the Tailholt Mountain outfit was the only disturbing element.  But the Dean did not permit himself to be long annoyed by the thoughts provoked by Tailholt Mountain.  Philosophically he turned his broad back to the intruding scene, and went back to the corral, and to the more pleasing occupation of looking at the horses.

If the Dean had not so abruptly turned his back upon the landscape, he would have noticed the figure of a man moving slowly along the road that skirted the valley meadow leading from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

Presently the riders returned, and Phil, when he had removed saddle, blanket and hackamore from his pupil, seated himself on the edge of the watering trough beside the Dean.

“I see you ain’t tackled the big bay yet,” remarked the older man.

“Thought if I’d let him look on for a while, he might figure it out that he’d better be good and not get himself hurt,” smiled Phil.  “He’s sure some horse,” he added admiringly.  Then to his helpers:  “I’ll take that black with the white forefoot this time, Curly.”

Just as the fresh horse dashed into the larger corral a man on foot appeared, coming over the rise of ground to the west; and by the time that Curly’s loop was over the black’s head the man stood at the gate.  One glance told Phil that it was the stranger whom he had met on the Divide.

The man seemed to understand that it was no time for greetings and, without offering to enter the enclosure, climbed to the top of the big gate, where he sat, with one leg over the topmost bar, an interested spectator.