“That must have been this same Horse Wash that we’re following now,” replied Phil; “it widens out a bit below here.  What makes you think it was Nick and Joe?”

“Why, those fellows up there look like the two that I saw, one big one and one rather lightweight.  They were the same distance from me, you know, and—­yes—­I am sure those are the same horses.”

“Pretty good, Patches, but you ought to have reported it when you got home.”

“Why, I didn’t think it of any importance.”

“There are two rules that you must follow, always,” said the cowboy, “if you are going to learn to be a top hand in this business.  The first is:  to see everything that there is to see, and to see everything about everything that you see.  And the second is:  to remember it all.  I don’t mind telling you, now, that Jim Reid found a calf, fresh-branded with the Tailholt iron, that same afternoon, in that same neighborhood; and that, on our side of the drift fence, he ran onto a Cross-Triangle cow that had lost her calf.  There come our friends now.”

The two horsemen were riding down the side of the hill at an angle that would bring about the meeting which Phil had foreseen.  And Patches immediately broke the first of the two rules, for, while watching the riders, he did not notice that his companion loosened his gun in its holster.

Nick Cambert was a large man, big-bodied and heavy, with sandy hair, and those peculiar light blue eyes which do not beget confidence.  But, as the Tailholt Mountain men halted to greet Phil, Patches gave to Nick little more than a passing glance, so interested was he in the big man’s companion.

It is doubtful if blood, training, environment, circumstances, the fates, or whatever it is that gives to men individuality, ever marked a man with less manhood than was given to poor Yavapai Joe.  Standing erect, he would have been, perhaps, a little above medium height, but thin and stooped, with a half-starved look, as he slouched listlessly in the saddle, it was almost impossible to think of him as a matured man.  The receding chin, and coarse, loosely opened mouth, the pale, lifeless eyes set too closely together under a low forehead, with a ragged thatch of dead, mouse-colored hair, and a furtive, sneaking, lost-dog expression, proclaimed him the outcast that he was.

The big man eyed Patches as he greeted the Cross-Triangle’s foreman.  “Howdy, Phil!”

“Hello, Nick!” returned Phil coldly.  “Howdy, Joe!”

The younger man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded to roll a cigarette.

“You folks at the Cross-Triangle short of horses?” asked Nick, with an evident attempt at jocularity, alluding to the situation of the two men, who were riding one horse.

“We got mixed up with a bull back yonder,” Phil explained briefly.

“They can sure put a horse out o’ the game mighty quick sometimes,” commented the other.  “I’ve lost a few that way myself.  It’s about as far from here to my place as it is to Baldwin’s, or I’d help you out.  You’re welcome, you know.”