“Yes,” he said, “you could; and that’s the answer.”

“What is the answer?” she asked.

“Love, just love, Kitty—­any place with love is a good place, and without love no life can satisfy.  I am glad you said that.  It was what I wanted you to say.  I know now what I have to do.  I am like Patches.  I have found my job.”  There was no bitterness in his voice now.

The girl was deeply moved, but—­“I don’t think I quite understand, Phil,” she said.

“Why, don’t you see?” he returned.  “My job is to win your love—­to make you love me—­for myself—­for just what I am—­as a man—­and not to try to be something or to live some way that I think you would like.  It’s the man that you must love, and not what he does or where he lives.  Isn’t that it?”

“Yes,” she answered slowly.  “I am sure that is so.  It must be so, Phil.”

He rose to his feet abruptly.  “All right,” he said, almost roughly.  “I’ll go now.  But don’t make any mistake, Kitty.  You’re mine, girl, mine, by laws that are higher than the things they taught you at school.  And you are going to find it out.  I am going to win you—­just as the wild things out there win their mates.  You are going to come to me, girl, because you are mine—­because you are my mate.”

And then, as she, too, arose, and they stood for a silent moment facing each other, the woman felt his strength, and in her woman heart was glad—­glad and proud, though she could not give all that he asked.

As she watched him ride away into the night, and the soft mystery of the darkness out of which he had come seemed to take his shadowy form again to itself, she wondered—­wondered with regret in the thought—­would he, perhaps, go thus out of her life?  Would he?

When Phil turned his horse into the meadow pasture at home the big bay, from somewhere in the darkness, trumpeted his challenge.  A low laugh came from near by, and in the light of the stars Phil saw a man standing by the pasture fence.  As he went toward the shadowy figure the voice of Patches followed the laugh.

“I’ll bet that was Stranger.”

“I know it was,” answered Phil.  “What’s the matter that you’re not in bed?”

“Oh, I was just listening to the horses out there, and thinking,” returned Patches.

“Thinking about your job?” asked Phil quietly.

“Perhaps,” admitted the other.

“Well, you have no reason to worry; you’ll ride him all right,” said the cowboy.

“I wish I could be as sure,” the other returned doubt fully.

And they both knew that they were using the big bay horse as a symbol.

“And I wish I was as sure of making good at my job, as I am that you will win out with yours,” returned Phil.

Patches’ voice was very kind as he said reflectively, “So, you have a job, too.  I am glad for that.”

“Glad?”

“Yes,” the tall man placed a hand on the other’s shoulder as they turned to walk toward the house, “because, Phil, I have come to the conclusion that this old world is a mighty empty place for the man who has nothing to do.”