You are right to go." "You mean that you will not come to me ?" he faltered.
"Could you really think that I would ?" she retorted.
"But, Kitty, you will let me go?
You will not betray me?
You will give me a chance ?" "It is the only thing that I can do," she answered coldly.

"I should die of shame, if it were ever known that I had thought of being more to you than I have been; but you must go to-night." And with this she left him, fairly running toward the house.
Alone in the darkness, Honorable Patches smiled mockingly to himself.
When morning came there was great excitement at the Cross-Triangle Ranch.

Patches was missing.

And more, the best horse in the Dean's outfit--the big bay with the blazed face, had also disappeared.
Quickly the news spread throughout the valley, and to the distant ranches.

And many were the wise heads that nodded understandingly; and many were the "I told you so's." The man who had appeared among them so mysteriously, and who, for a year, had been a never-failing topic of conversation, had finally established his character beyond all question.
But the cattlemen felt with reason, because of the Dean's vigorous defense of the man when they would have administered justice, that the matter was now in his hands.