Mrs.Reid greeted the officer cordially, while Mrs.Baldwin, to the Dean's great delight, demonstrated her welcome in the good old-fashioned mother way.
"Will Baldwin, I could shake you," she cried, as Patches stood, a little confused by her impulsive greeting.

"Here you knew all the time; and you kept pesterin' me by trying to make me believe that you thought he had run away because he was a thief!" It was, perhaps, the proudest moment of the Dean's life when he admitted that Patches had confided in him that morning when they were so late to breakfast.

And how he had understood that the man's disappearance and the pretense of stealing a horse had been only a blind.

The good Dean never dreamed that there was so much more in Honorable Patches' strategy than he knew! "Mr.Baldwin," said Patches presently, "could you let me have the team and buckboard?
I want to get my prisoners to Prescott to-night, and"-- he laughed shortly--"well, I certainly would appreciate those cushions." "Sure, son, you can have the whole Cross-Triangle outfit, if you want it," answered the Dean.

"But hold on a minute." He turned with twinkling eyes to his neighbor.