"Funny name," grunted Jim.
"Yes, but there's a lot of funny names, Jim," the Dean answered quietly. "I don't know as Patches is any funnier than Skinner or Foote or Hogg, or a hundred other names, when you come to think about it. We ain't just never happened to hear it before, that's all."
"Where did you pick him up?"
"He just came along an' wanted work. He's green as they make 'em, but willin', an' he's got good sense, too."
"I'd go slow 'bout takin' strangers in," said the big man bluntly.
"Shucks!" retorted the Dean. "Some of the best men I ever had was strangers when I hired 'em. Bein' a stranger ain't nothin' against a man. You and me would be strangers if we was to go many miles from Williamson Valley. Patches is a good man, I tell you. I'll stand for him, all right. Why, he's been out all day, alone, ridin' the drift fence, just as good any old-timer."
"The drift fence!"
"Yes, it's in pretty bad shape in places."
"Yes, an' I ran onto a calf over in Horse Wash, this afternoon, not four hundred yards from the fence on the Tailholt side, fresh-branded with the Tailholt iron, an' I'll bet a thousand dollars it belongs to a Cross-Triangle cow."
"What makes you think it was mine?" asked the Dean calmly.