You show him. I'll have your supper
as soon as you are ready."
Patches almost fell asleep at the table. As soon as they had finished he
went to his bed, where he remained, as Phil reported at intervals during
the next forenoon, "dead to the world," until dinner time. In the
afternoon they gathered under the walnut trees--the Cross-Triangle
household and the friends from the neighboring ranch--and Patches told
them his story; how, when he had left the ranch that night, he had
ridden straight to his old friend Stanford Manning; and how Stanford had
gone with him to the sheriff, where, through Manning's influence,
together with the letter which Patches had brought from the Dean, he had
been made an officer of the law. As he told them briefly of his days and
nights alone, they needed no minute details to understand what it had
meant to him.
"It wasn't the work of catching Nick in a way to ensure his conviction
that I minded," he said, "but the trouble was, that while I was watching
Nick day and night, and dodging him all the time, I was afraid some
enthusiastic cow-puncher would run on to me and treat himself to a shot
just for luck.
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