He realized his situation instantly.

The mystery that surrounded his first appearance when he had sought employment at the Cross-Triangle; the persistent suspicion of many of the cowboys because of his friendship for Yavapai Joe; his meeting with Joe which the professor had reported; his refusal to explain to Phil; his return to the ranch when everyone was away and he himself was supposed to be in Prescott--all these and many other incidents had come to their legitimate climax in his presence on that spot with Yavapai Joe, the smouldering fire and the freshly branded calf.

He was unarmed, but Phil could not be sure of that, for many a cowboy carries his gun inside the leg of his leather chaps, where it does not so easily catch in the brush.
But while Patches saw it all so clearly, he was enraged that this man with whom he had lived so intimately should believe him capable of such a crime, and treat him without question as a common cattle thief.

Phil's coldness toward him, which had grown so gradually during the past three months, in this peremptory humiliation reached a point beyond which Patches' patient and considerate endurance could not go.

The man's sense of justice was outraged; his fine feeling of honor was insulted.