I reckon you think I'm some fool," he finished with another short laugh of embarrassment, "but that's the way I feel--and that's why they call me 'Wild Horse Phil'." For a little they rode in silence; then Patches spoke, gravely, "I don't know how to tell you what I think, Phil, but I understand, and from the bottom of my heart I envy you." And the cowboy, looking at his companion, saw in the man's eyes something that reminded him of that which he had seen in the wild horse's eyes, that day when he had set him free.

Had Patches, too, at some time in those days that were gone, been caught by the riata of circumstance or environment, and in some degree robbed of his God-inheritance?
Phil smiled at the fancy, but, smiling, felt its truth; and with genuine sympathy felt this also to be true, that the man might yet, by the strength that was deepest within him, regain that which he had lost.
And so that day, as the man from the ranges and the man from the cities rode together, the feeling of kinship that each had instinctively recognized at their first meeting on the Divide was strengthened.

They knew that a mutual understanding which could not have been put into words of any tongue or land was drawing them closer together.
A few days later the incident occurred that fixed their friendship--as they thought--for all time to come..