“Much obliged,” returned Phil, “but we’ll make it home all right.  I reckon we’d better be moving, though.  So long!”

“Adios!”

Throughout this brief exchange of courtesies, Yavapai Joe had not moved, except to puff at his cigarette; nor had he ceased to regard Patches with a stupid curiosity.  As Phil and Patches moved away, he still sat gazing after the stranger, until he was aroused by a sharp word from Nick, as the latter turned his horse toward Tailholt Mountain.  Without changing his slouching position in the saddle, and with a final slinking, sidewise look toward Patches, the poor fellow obediently trailed after his master.

Patches could not resist the impulse to turn for another look at the wretched shadow of manhood that so interested him.

“Well, what do you think of that pair?” asked Phil, breaking in upon his companion’s preoccupation.

Patches shrugged his shoulders much as he had done that day of his first experience with the screwworms; then he said quietly, “Do you mind telling me about them, Phil?”

“Why, there’s not much to tell,” returned the cowboy.  “That is, there’s not much that anybody knows for certain.  Nick was born in Yavapai County.  His father, old George Cambert, was one of the kind that seems honest enough, and industrious, too, but somehow always just misses it.  They moved away to some place in Southern California when Nick was about grown.  He came back six years ago, and located over there at the foot of Tailholt Mountain, and started his Four-Bar-M iron; and, one way or another, he’s managed to get together quite a bunch of stock.  You see, his expenses don’t amount to anything, scarcely.  He and Joe bach in an old shack that somebody built years ago, and they do all the riding themselves.  Joe’s not much force, but he’s handier than you’d think, as long as there’s somebody around to tell him what to do, and sort of back him up.  Nick, though, can do two men’s work any day in the year.”

“But it’s strange that a man like Nick would have anything to do with such a creature as that poor specimen,” mused Patches.  “Are they related in any way?”

“Nobody knows,” answered Phil.  “Joe first showed up at Prescott about four years ago with a man by the name of Dryden, who claimed that Joe was his son.  They camped just outside of town, in some dirty old tents, and lived by picking up whatever was lying around loose.  Dryden wouldn’t work, and, naturally, no one would have Joe.  Finally Dryden was sent up for robbing a store, and Joe nearly went with him.  They let him off, I believe, because it was proved pretty well that he was only Dryden’s tool, and didn’t have nerve enough to do any real harm by himself.  He drifted around for several months, living like a stray cur, until Nick took him in tow.  Nick treats him shamefully, abuses him like a beast, and works him like a slave.  The poor devil stays on with him because he doesn’t know what else to do, I suppose.”