"That's too bad, isn't it?"
"Yes. You see, Jim Reid is Kitty's daddy. They live over there." He pointed across the meadow to where, a mile away, a light twinkled in the window of the Pot-Hook-S ranch house. "Kitty Reid's a mighty nice girl, I tell you, but Jim, he says that there needn't no cow-puncher come around tryin' to get her, 'cause she's been away to school, you know, an' I think Phil—"
"Whoa! Hold on a minute, sonny," interrupted Patches hastily.
"What's the matter?" questioned Little Billy.
"Why, it strikes me that a boy with a pardner like 'Wild Horse Phil' ought to be mighty careful about how he talked over that pardner's private affairs with a stranger. Don't you think so?"
"Mebby so," agreed Billy. "But you see, I know that Phil wants Kitty 'cause—"
"Sh! What in the world is that?" whispered Patches in great fear, catching his small companion by the arm.
"That! Don't you know an owl when you hear one? Gee! but you're a tenderfoot, ain't you?" Catching sight of the Dean who was coming toward them, he shouted gleefully. "Uncle Will, Mr. Patches is scared of an owl. What do you know about that; Patches is scared of an owl!"
"Your Aunt Stella wants you," laughed the Dean.
And Billy ran off to the house to share his joke on the tenderfoot with his Aunt Stella and his "pardner," Phil.