I am not educated that way myself." For a moment Patches hesitated, as though on the point of changing his mind about the explanation.

Then his sense of justice--justice both for Phil and himself--conquered.
But in telling Phil how he had come upon the scene too late for positive proof that the freshly branded calf was the Dean's property, and in explaining how, when the foreman arrived, he had just persuaded Joe to go with him and give the necessary evidence against Nick, Patches forgot the possible effect of his words upon Joe himself.

The two Cross-Triangle men were so absorbed in their own affair that they had paid no attention to the Tailholt Mountain outcast.

And Joe, taking advantage of the opportunity, had by this time gained a position beside his horse.

As he heard Patches tell how he had no actual evidence that the calf was not Nick Cambert's property, a look of anger and cunning darkened the face of Nick's follower.