As soon as he could escape from the professor, Phil went straight to Patches, who was in his room, reading. The man looked up with a welcoming smile as Phil entered, but as he saw the foreman's face his smile vanished quickly, and he laid aside his book. "Patches," said Phil abruptly, "what's this talk of the professor's about you and Yavapai Joe?" "I don't know what the professor is talking," Patches replied coldly, as though he did not exactly like the tone of Phil's question. "He says that Joe was sneaking about in the brush over on the ridge wanting to see you about something," returned Phil. "Joe was certainly over there on the ridge, and he may have wanted to see me; at any rate, I saw him." "Well, I've got to ask you what sort of business you have with that Tailholt Mountain thief that makes it necessary for him to sneak around in the brush for a meeting with you. If he wants to see you, why doesn't he come to the ranch, like a man?" Honorable Patches looked the Dean's foreman straight in the eyes, as he answered in a tone that he had never used before in speaking to Phil: "And I have to answer, sir, that my business with Yavapai Joe is entirely personal; that it has no relation whatever to your business as the foreman of this ranch. As to why Joe didn't come to the house, you must ask him; I don't know." "You refuse to explain?" demanded Phil. "I certainly refuse to discuss Joe Dryden's private affairs--that, so far as I can see, are of no importance to anyone but himself--with you or anyone else. Just as I should refuse to discuss any of your private affairs, with which I happened, by some chance, to be, in a way, familiar. I have made all the explanation necessary when I say that my business with him has nothing to do with your business. You have no right to ask me anything further." "I have the right to fire you," retorted Phil, angrily. Patches smiled, as he answered gently, "You have the right, Phil, but you won't use it." "And why not?" "Because you are not that kind of a man, Phil Acton," answered Patches slowly. "You know perfectly well that if you discharged me because of my friendship with poor Yavapai Joe, no ranch in this part of the country would give me a job. You are too honest yourself to condemn any man on mere suspicion, and you are too much of a gentleman to damn another simply because he, too, aspires to that distinction." "Very well, Patches," Phil returned, with less heat, "but I want you to understand one thing; I am responsible for the Cross-Triangle property and there is no friendship in the world strong enough to influence me in the slightest degree when it comes to a question of Uncle Will's interests. Do you get that?" "I got that months ago, Phil." Without another word, the Dean's foreman left the room.