When his companion made no comment, the Dean said reflectively, as Buck and Prince climbed slowly up the grade to the summit of the Divide, “I’ll tell you, son, I’ve seen a good many changes in this country.  I can remember when there wasn’t a fence in all Yavapai County—­hardly in the Territory.  And now—­why the last time I drove over to Skull Valley I got so tangled up in ’em that I plumb lost myself.  When Phil’s daddy an’ me was youngsters we used to ride from Camp Verde and Flagstaff clean to Date Creek without ever openin’ a gate.  But I can’t see that men change much, though.  They’re good and bad, just like they’ve always been—­an’ I reckon always will be.  There’s been leaders and weaklin’s and just betwixt and betweens in every herd of cattle or band of horses that ever I owned.  You take Phil, now.  He’s exactly like his daddy was before him.”

“His father must have been a fine man,” said Patches, with quiet earnestness.

The Dean looked at him with an approving twinkle.  “Fine?” For a few minutes, as they were rounding the turn of the road on the summit of the Divide where Phil and the stranger had met, the Dean looked away toward Granite Mountain.  Then, as if thinking aloud, rather than purposely addressing his companion, he said, “John Acton—­Honest John, as everybody called him—­and I came to this country together when we were boys.  Walked in, sir, with some pioneers from Kansas.  We kept in touch with each other all the while we was growin’ to be men; punched cattle for the same outfits most of the time; even did most of our courtin’ together, for Phil’s mother an’ Stella were neighbors an’ great friends over in Skull Valley.  When we’d finally saved enough to get started we located homesteads close together back there in the Valley, an’ as soon as we could get some sort of shacks built we married the girls and set up housekeepin’.  Our stock ranged together, of course, but John sort of took care of the east side of the meadows an’ I kept more to the west.  When the children came along—­John an’ Mary had three before Phil, but only Phil lived—­an’ the stock had increased an’ we’d built some decent houses, things seemed to be about as fine as possible.  Then John went on a note for a man in Prescott.  I tried my best to keep him out of it, but, shucks! he just laughed at me.  You see, he was one of the best hearted men that ever lived—­one of those men, you know, that just naturally believes in everybody.

“Well, it wound up after a-while by John losin’ mighty nigh everything.  We managed to save the homestead, but practically all the stock had to go.  An’ it wasn’t more than a year after that till Mary died.  We never did know just what was the matter with her—­an’ after that it seemed like John never was the same.  He got killed in the rodeo that same fall—­just wasn’t himself somehow.  I was with him when he died.