“We can use him if he can ride.”

The stranger smiled understandingly.  “I don’t see why I couldn’t,” he returned in that droll tone.  “I seem to have the legs.”  He looked down at his long lower limbs reflectively, as though quaintly considering them quite apart from himself.

Phil laughed.

“Huh,” said the Dean, slightly mystified at the apparent understanding between the young men.  Then to the stranger:  “What do you want to work for?  You don’t look as though you needed to.  A sort of vacation, heh?”

There was spirit in the man’s answer.  “I want to work for the reason that all men want work.  If you do not employ me, I must try somewhere else.”

“Come from Prescott to Simmons on the stage, did you?”

“No, sir, I walked.”

“Walked!  Huh!  Tried anywhere else for a job?”

“No, sir.”

“Who sent you out here?”

The stranger smiled.  “I saw Mr. Acton ride in the contest.  I learned that he was foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch.  I thought I would rather work where he worked, if I could.”

The Dean looked at Phil.  Phil looked at the Dean.  Together they looked at the stranger.  The two cowboys who were sitting on their horses near-by grinned at each other.

“And what is your name, sir?” the Dean asked courteously.

For the first time the man hesitated and seemed embarrassed.  He looked uneasily about with a helpless inquiring glance, as though appealing for some suggestion.

“Oh, never mind your name, if you have forgotten it,” said the Dean dryly.

The stranger’s roaming eyes fell upon Phil’s old chaps, that in every wrinkle and scar and rip and tear gave such eloquent testimony as to the wearer’s life, and that curious, self-mocking smile touched his lips.  Then, throwing up his head and looking the Dean straight in the eye, he said boldly, but with that note of droll humor in his voice, “My name is Patches, sir, Honorable Patches.”

The Dean’s eyes twinkled, but his face was grave.  Phil’s face flushed; he had not failed to identify the source of the stranger’s inspiration.  But before either the Dean or Phil could speak a shout of laughter came from Curly Elson, and the stranger had turned to face the cowboy.

“Something seems to amuse you,” he said quietly to the man on the horse; and at the tone of his voice Phil and the Dean exchanged significant glances.

The grinning cowboy looked down at the stranger in evident contempt.  “Patches,” he drawled.  “Honorable Patches!  That’s a hell of a name, now, ain’t it?”

The man went two long steps toward the mocking rider, and spoke quietly, but with unmistakable meaning.

“I’ll endeavor to make it all of that for you, if you will get off your horse.”

The grinning cowboy, with a wink at his companion, dismounted cheerfully.  Curly Elson was held to be the best man with his hands in Yavapai County.  He could not refuse so tempting an opportunity to add to his well-earned reputation.