Many times when the three were together, and Kitty had led the talk far from the life with which the cowboy was familiar, the young woman was forced, against the wish of her heart, to make comparisons.  Kitty did not understand that Phil—­unaccustomed to speaking of things outside his work and the life interests of his associates, and timid always in expressing his own thoughts—­found it very hard to reveal the real wealth of his mind to her when she assumed so readily that he knew nothing beyond his horses and cattle.  But Patches, to whom Phil had learned to speak with little reserve, understood.  And, knowing that the wall which the girl felt separated her from the cowboy was built almost wholly of her own assumptions, Patches never lost an opportunity to help the young woman to a fuller acquaintance with the man whom she thought she had known since childhood.

During the long winter months, many an evening at the Cross-Triangle, at the Reid home, or, perhaps, at some neighborhood party or dance, afforded Kitty opportunities for a fuller understanding of Phil, but resulted only in establishing a closer friendship with Patches.

Then came the spring.

The snow melted; the rains fell; the washes and creek channels were filled with roaring floods; hill and ridge and mountain slope and mesa awoke to the new life that was swelling in every branch and leaf and blade; the beauties of the valley meadow appeared again in fresh and fragrant loveliness; while from fence-post and bush and grassy bank and new-leaved tree the larks and mocking birds and doves voiced their glad return.

And, with the spring, came a guest to the Cross-Triangle Ranch—­another stranger.

Patches had been riding the drift fence, and, as he made his way toward the home ranch, in the late afternoon, he looked a very different man from the Patches who, several months before, had been rescued by Kitty from a humiliating experience with that same fence.

The fact that he was now riding Stranger, the big bay with the blazed face, more than anything else, perhaps, marked the change that had come to the man whom the horse had so viciously tested, on that day when they began together their education and work on the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

No one meeting the cowboy, who handled his powerful and wild spirited mount with such easy confidence and skill, would have identified him with the white-faced, well-tailored gentleman whom Phil had met on the Divide.  The months of active outdoor life had given his tall body a lithe and supple strength that was revealed in his every movement, while wind and sun had stained his skin that deep tan which marks those who must face the elements every waking hour.  Prom tinkling bridle chain and jingling spur, to the coiled riata, his equipment showed the unmistakable marks of use.  His fringed chaps, shaped, by many a day in the saddle, to his long legs, expressed experience, while his broad hat, soiled by sweat and dust, had acquired individuality, and his very jumper—­once blue but now faded and patched—­disclaimed the tenderfoot.