In the home-life at the Cross-Triangle, too, Patches gradually came to hold his own peculiar place.  His cheerful helpfulness, and gentle, never-failing courtesy, no less than the secret pain and sadness that sometimes, at some chance remark, drove the light from his face and brought that wistful look into his eyes, won Mrs. Baldwin’s heart.  Many an evening under his walnut trees, with Stella and Phil and Curly and Bob and Little Billy near, the Dean was led by the rare skill and ready wit of Patches to open the book of his kindly philosophy, as he talked of the years that were past.  And sometimes Patches himself, yielding to temptation offered by the Dean, would speak in such vein that the older man came to understand that this boy, as he so often called him, had somewhere, somehow, already experienced that Gethsemane which soon or late—­the Dean maintains—­leaves its shadow upon us all.  The cowboys, for his quick and genuine appreciation of their skill and knowledge, as well as for his unassuming courage, hearty good nature and ready laugh, took him into their fellowship without question or reserve, while Little Billy, loyal ever to his ideal, “Wild Horse Phil,” found a large place in his boyish heart for the tenderfoot who was so ready always to recognize superior wisdom and authority.

So the stranger found his place among them, and in finding it, found also, perhaps, that which he most sorely needed.

[Illustration:]

When rodeo time came Patches was given a “string” of horses and, through the hard, grilling work that followed, took his place among the riders.  There was no leisurely roaming over the range now, with only an occasional short dash after some animal that needed the “iron” or the “dope can;” but systematically and thoroughly the thirty or forty cowboys covered the country—­mountain and mesa and flat, and wash and timbered ridge and rocky pass—­for many miles in every direction.

In this section of the great western cattle country, at the time of my story, the round-ups were cooperative.  Each of the several ranchers whose cattle, marked by the owner’s legally recorded brand, ranged over a common district that was defined only by natural boundaries, was represented in the rodeo by one or two or more of his cowboys, the number of his riders being relative to the number of cattle marked with his iron.  This company of riders, each with from three to five saddle horses in his string, would assemble at one of the ranches participating in the rodeo.  From this center they would work until a circle of country within riding distance was covered, the cattle gathered and “worked”—­or, in other words, sorted—­and the animals belonging to the various owners disposed of as the representatives were instructed by their employers.  Then the rodeo would move to another ranch, and would so continue until the entire district of many miles was covered.  The owner or the foreman of each ranch was in charge