Sundown sat up blinking. "I reckon that's the difference between a hoss and a dog," he said, slowly. "Now, a hoss and me ain't what you'd call a nacheral combination. And a hoss gets away and don't come back. But a dog comes back every time, if he can. 'Most any hoss will stay where the feedin' is good, but a dog won't. He wants to be where his boss is."

"And that there Chance is with the boss," said the cowboy, gesturing toward the north. "Seen him foller him down the trail."

Sundown nodded. The cowboy departed, swaggering away in the dusk.

Just before Sundown was called to take his turn with the night-shift, a lean, brown shape tore through the camp, upsetting a pot of frijoles and otherwise disturbing the peace and order of the culinary department.

"Coyote!" shouted Wingle, vainly reaching for the gun that he had given to Sundown.

"Coyote nothin'!" said a puncher, laughing. "It's the Killer come back hot-foot to find his pardner."

Chance bounded into the lean-to: it was empty. He sniffed at the place where his bed had once been, found Sundown's tracks and followed them toward the river. Sundown was on his knees pawing over something that looked very much like a torn and frayed saddle-blanket. Chance volleyed into him, biting playfully at his sleeve, and whining.

Sundown jumped to his feet. He stood speechless. Then a slow grin crept to his face. "Gee Gosh!" he said, softly. "Gee Gosh! It's you!"

Chance lay down panting. He had come far and fast. Sundown gathered up the blanket and pan, rose and marched to the shack. "I was airin' 'em out against your comin' back," he explained, untruthfully. The fact was that he could not bear to see the empty bed in the lean-to and had hidden it in the bushes.

The dog watched him spread the blanket, but would not lie down. Instead he followed Sundown to the camp and found a place under the chuck-wagon, where he watched his lean companion work over the fires until midnight. If Sundown disappeared for a minute in search of something. Chance was up and at his heels. Hi Wingle expressed himself profanely in regard to the return of the dog, adding with unction, "There's a pair of 'em; a pair of 'em." Which ambiguity seemed to satisfy him immensely.

When Sundown finally returned to the lean-to, he was too happy to sleep. He built a small fire, rolled a cigarette and sat gazing into the flames. Chance sat beside him, proud, dignified, contented. Sundown became drowsy and slept, his head fallen forward and his lean arms crossed upon his knees. Chance waited patiently for him to waken. Finally the dog nuzzled Sundown's arm with little jerks of impatience. "What's bitin' you now?" mumbled Sundown. "We're here, ain't we?" Nevertheless he slipped his arm around the dog's muscular shoulders and talked to him. "How'd you get away? The boss'll raise peelin's over this, Chance. It ain't like to set good with him." He noticed that Chance frequently scratched at his collar as though it irritated him. Finally he slipped his fingers under the collar. "Suthin' got ketched in here," he said, unbuckling the strap. Tied inside the collar was a folded piece of paper. Sundown was about to throw it away when he reconsidered and unfolded it. In the flickering light of the fire he spread the paper and read laboriously:—

"Chance followed me to the Concho because I made him come. He showed that he didn't want to stay. I let him go. If he gets back to you, keep him. He is yours.

"JOHN CORLISS."

Sundown folded the note and carefully tucked it in his pocket. He rose and slapped his chest grandiloquently. "Chance, ole pal," he said with a brave gesture, "you're mine! Got the dockyments to show. What do you think?"

Chance, with mouth open and lolling tongue, seemed to be laughing.

Sundown reached out his long arm as one who greets a friend.

The dog extended his muscular fore leg and solemnly placed his paw in Sundown's hand. No document was required to substantiate his allegiance to his new master, nor his new master's title to ownership. Despite genealogy, each was in his way a thoroughbred.



CHAPTER XIII

SUNDOWN, VAQUERO

The strenuous days of the round-up were over. Bands of riders departed for their distant ranches leaving a few of their number to ride line and incidentally to keep a vigilant eye On the sheep-camps.

David Loring, realizing that he had been checkmated in the first move of the game in which cattle and sheep were the pawns and cowboys and herders the castles, knights, and, stretching the metaphor a bit, bishops, tacitly admitted defeat and employed a diagonal to draw the cattle-men's forces elsewhere. He determined to locate on the abandoned water-hole ranch, homestead it, and, by so doing, cut off the supply of water necessary to the cattle on the west side of the Concho River. This would be entering the enemy's territory with a vengeance, yet there was no law prohibiting his homesteading the ranch, the title of which had reverted to the Government. Too shrewd to risk legal entanglement by placing one of his employees on the homestead, he decided to have his daughter file application, and nothing forbade her employing whom she chose to do the necessary work to prove up. The plan appealed to the girl for various reasons, one of which was that she might, by her presence, avert the long-threatened war between the two factions.

Sundown and, indirectly, Fadeaway precipitated the impending trouble. Fadeaway, riding for the Blue, was left with a companion to ride line on the mesas. Sundown, although very much unlike Othello, found that his occupation was gone. Assistant cooks were a drug on the range. He was equipped with a better horse, a rope, quirt, slicker, and instructions to cover daily a strip of territory between the Concho and the sheep-camps. He became in fact an itinerant patrol, his mere physical presence on the line being all that was required of him.

It was the Senora Loring who drove to the Concho one morning and was welcomed by Corliss to whom she gave the little sack of gold. She told him all that he wished to know in regard to his brother Will, pleading for him with motherly gentleness. Corliss assured her that he felt no anger toward his brother, but rather solicitude, and made her happy by his generous attitude toward the wrongdoer. He had already heard that his brother had driven to Antelope and taken the train for the West. His great regret was that Will had not written to him or come to him directly, instead of leaving to the good Senora the task of explanation. "Never figured that repenting by proxy was the best plan," he told the Senora. "But he couldn't have chosen a better proxy." At which she smiled, and in departing blessed him in her sincere and simple manner, assuring him in turn that should the sheep and cattle ever come to an understanding—the Spanish for which embraced the larger aspect of the problem—there was nothing she desired or prayed for more than the friendship and presence of Corliss at the Loring hacienda. Corliss drew his own inference from this, which was a pleasant one. He felt that he had a friend at court, yet explained humorously that sheep and cattle were not by nature fitted to occupy the same territory. He was alive to sentiment, but more keen than ever to maintain his position unalterably so far as business was concerned. The Senora liked him none the less for this. To her he was a man who stood straight, on both feet, and faced the sun. Her daughter Nell . . . Ah, the big Juan Corliss has such a fine way with him . . . what a husband for any woman! In the mean time . . . only thoughts, hopes were possible . . . yet . . . manana . . . manana . . . there was always to-morrow that would be a brighter day.

To say that Sundown was proud of his unaccustomed regalia from the crown of his lofty Stetson to the soles of his high-heeled riding-boots, would be putting it mildly. To say that he was especially useful in his new calling as vaquero would not be to put it so mildly. Under the more or less profane tutelage of his companions, he learned to throw a rope after a fashion, taking the laughing sallies of his comrades good-naturedly. He persevered. He was forever stealing upon some maternal and unsuspicious cow and launching his rope at her with a wild shout—possibly as an anticipatory expression of fear in case his rope should fall true. More than once he had been yanked bodily from the saddle and had arisen to find himself minus rope, cow, and pony, for no self-respecting cow-horse could watch Sundown's unprecedented evolutions and not depart thitherward, feeling ashamed and grieved to think that he had ever lived to be a horse. And Sundown, despite his length of limb, seemed unbreakable. "He's the most durable rider on the range," remarked Hi Wingle, incident to one of his late assistant's meteoric departures from the saddle. "He wears good."

One morning as Sundown was jogging along, engaged chiefly in watching his shadow bob up and down across the wavering bunch-grass, he saw that which appeared to be the back of a cow just over a rise. He walked his horse to the rise and for some fantastic reason decided to rope the cow. He swung his rope. It fell true—in fact, too true, for it encircled the animal's neck and looped tight just where the neck joins the shoulders. He took a turn of the rope around the saddle horn. At last he had mastered the knack of the thing! Why, it was as easy as rolling pie-crust! He was about to wonder what he was going to do next, when the cow—which happened to be a large and active steer—humped itself and departed for realms unknown.

With the perversity of inanimate objects the rope flipped in a loop around Sundown's foot. The horse bucked, just once, and Sundown was launched on a new and promising career. The ground shot beneath him. He clutched wildly at the bunch-grass, secured some, and took it along with him. Chance, who always accompanied Sundown, raced alongside, enjoying the novelty of the thing. He barked and then shot ahead, nipping at the steer's heels, and this did not add to his master's prospects of ultimate survival. Sundown shouted for help when he could, which was not often. Startled prairie-dogs disappeared in their holes as the mad trio shot past. The steer, becoming warmed up to his work, paid little attention to direction and much to speed. That a band of sheep were grazing ahead made no difference to the charging steer. He plunged into the band. Sundown dimly saw a sea of sheep surge around him and break in storm-tossed waves of wool on either side. He heard some one shout. Then he fainted.

When he again beheld the sun, a girl was kneeling beside him, a girl with dark, troubled eyes. She offered him wine from a wicker jug. He drank and felt better.

"Are you hurt badly?" she asked.

"Am—I—all here?" queried Sundown.

"I guess so. You seem to be."

"Was anybody else killed in the wreck?"

The girl smiled. "You're feeling better. Let me help you to sit up."

Sundown for the moment felt disinclined to move. He was in fact pretty thoroughly used up. "Say, did he win?" he queried finally.

"Who?"

"Me dog, Chance. I got the start at first, but he kind of got ahead for a spell."

"I don't know. Chance is right behind you. He's out of breath."

"Huh! Reckon I'm out more'n that. He's in luck this trip."

"How did it happen?"

"That's what I'm wonderin', lady. And say, would you be so kind as to tell me which way is north?"

Despite her solicitude for the recumbent Sundown, Eleanor Loring laughed. "You are in one of the sheep-camps. I'm Eleanor Loring."

"Sheep-camp? Gee Gosh! Did you stop me?"

"Yes. I was just riding into camp when you—er—arrived. I headed the steer back and Fernando cut the rope."

"Thanks, miss. And Fernando is wise to his business, all right."

"Can you sit up now?" she asked.

"Ow! I guess I can. That part of me wasn't expectin' to be moved sudden-like. How'd I get under these trees?"

"Fernando carried you."

"Well, little old Fernando is some carrier. Where is he? I wouldn't mind shakin' hands with that gent."

"He's out after the sheep. The steer stampeded them."

"Well, miss, speakin' from me heart—that there steer was no lady. I thought she was till I roped him. I was mistook serious."

"He might have killed you. Let me help you up."

Sundown had been endeavoring to get to his feet. Finally he rose and leaned against a tree. Fortunately for him his course had been over a stretch of yielding bunch-grass, and not, as might have been the case, over the ragged tufa. As it was his shirt hung from his back in shreds, and he felt that his overalls were not all that their name implied. The numbness of his abrasions and bruises was wearing off. The pain quickened his senses. He realized that his hat was missing, that one spur was gone and the other was half-way up his leg. He was not pleased with his appearance, and determined to "make a slope" as gracefully and as quickly as circumstances would permit.

Chance, gnawing at a burr that had stuck between his toes, saw his master rise. He leaped toward Sundown and stood waiting for more fun.

"Chance seems all right now," said the girl, patting the dog's head.

"John Corliss give him to me, miss. He's my dog now. Yes, he's active all right, 'specially chasin' steers."

"I remember you. You're the man that carried Chance up the canon trail that day when he was hurt."

"Yes, miss. He ain't forgettin' either."

The girl studied Sundown's lean face as he gazed across the mesas, wondering how he was going to make his exit without calling undue attention to his dearth of raiment. She had heard that this man, this queer, ungainly outlander, had been companion to Will Corliss. She had also heard that Sundown had been injured when the robbery occurred. Pensively she drew her empty gauntlet through her fingers.

"Do you know who took the money—that night?" she asked suddenly, and Sundown straightened and gazed at her.

He blinked and coughed. "Bein' no hand to lie to a lady, I do," he said, simply. "But I can't tell, even if you did save me life from that there steer."

She bit her lips, and nodded. "I didn't really mean to ask. I was curious to know. Won't you take my horse? You can send him back to-morrow."

"And you beat it home afoot? Say, lady, I mebby been a Bo onct, but I ain't hurt that bad. If I can't find me trail back to where I started from, it won't be because it ain't there. Thanks, jest the same."

Sundown essayed a step, halted and groaned. He felt of himself gingerly. He did not seem to be injured in any special place, as he ached equally all over. "I'll be goin', lady. I say thanks for savin' me life."

The girl smiled and nodded. "Will you please tell Mr. Corliss that I should like to see him, to-morrow, at Fernando's camp? I think he'll understand."

"Sure, miss! I'll tell him. That Fernando man looks to be havin' some trouble with them sheep."

The girl glanced toward the mesa. Fernando and his assistant were herding the sheep closer, and despite their activity were really getting the frightened animals bunched well. When she turned again Sundown had disappeared.

Sundown's arrival in camp, on foot, was not altogether unexpected. One of the men had seen a riderless horse grazing on the mesa, and had ridden out and caught it. Circumstantial evidence—rider and rope missing—confirmed Hi Wingle's remark that "that there walkin' clothes-pin has probably roped somethin' at last." And the "walking clothes-pin's" condition when he appeared seemed to substantiate the cook's theory.

"Lose your rope?" queried Wingle as Sundown limped up.

"Uhuh. And that ain't all. You ain't got a pair of pants that ain't working have you?"

Wingle smiled. "Pants? Think this here's a Jew clothin'-store?"

"Nope. But if she was a horsepital now—"

"Been visitin'?"

"Uhuh. I jest run over to see some friends of mine in a sheep-camp."

"Did, eh? And mebby you can tell me what you run over?"

"'Most everything out there," said Sundown, pointing to the mesa. "Say, you ain't got any of that plaster like they put on a guy's head when he gets hit with a brick?"

"Nope. But I got salt."

"And pepper," concluded Sundown with some sarcasm. "Mebby I do look like a barbecue."

"Straight, Sun, salt and water is mighty healin'. You better ride over to the Concho and get fixed up."

"Reckon that ain't no dream, Hi. Got to see the boss, anyhow."

"Well, 'anyhow' is correc'. And, say, you want to see him first and tell him it's you. Your hoss is tied over there. Sinker fetched him in."

"Hoss? Oh, yes, hoss! My hoss! Uhuh!"

With this somewhat ambiguous string of ejaculations Sundown limped toward the pony. He turned when halfway there and called to Wingle. "The cattle business is fine, Hi, fine, but between you and me I reckon I'll invest in sheep. A fella is like to live longer."

Wingle stared gravely at the tall and tattered figure. He stared gravely, but inwardly he shook with laughter. "Say, Sun!" he managed to exclaim finally, "that there Nell Loring is a right fine gal, ain't she?"

"You bet!"

"And Jack ain't the worst . . ." Wingle spat and chewed ruminatively. "No, he ain't the worst," he asserted again.

"I dunno what that's got to do with gettin' drug sixteen mile," said Sundown. "But, anyhow, you're right."



CHAPTER XIV

ON THE TRAIL TO THE BLUE

In the shade of the forest that edged the mesa, and just back of Fernando's camp, a Ranger trail cuts through a patch of quaking-asp and meanders through the heavy-timbered land toward the Blue range, a spruce-clad ridge of southern hills. Close to the trail two saddle horses were tied.

Fadeaway, riding toward his home ranch on the "Blue," reined up, eyed the horses, and grinned. One of them was Chinook, the other Eleanor Loring's black-and-white pinto, Challenge. The cowboy bent in his saddle and peered through the aspens toward the sheep-camp. He saw Corliss and Nell Loring standing close together, evidently discussing something of more than usual import, for at that moment John Corliss had raised his broad Stetson as though bidding farewell to the girl, but she had caught his arm as he turned and was clinging to him. Her attitude was that of one supplicating, coaxing, imploring. Fadeaway, with a vicious twist to his mouth, spat. "The cattle business and the sheep business looks like they was goin' into partnership," he muttered. "Leave it to a woman to fool a man every time. And him pertendin' to be all for the long-horns!" He saw the girl turn from Corliss, bury her face in her arms, and lean against the tree beneath which they were standing. Fadeaway grinned. "Women are all crooked, when they want to be," he remarked,—"or any I ever knowed. If they can't work a guy by talkin' and lovin', then they take to cryin'."

Just then Corliss stepped to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. Again she turned to him. He took her hands and held them while he talked. Fadeaway could see her lips move, evidently in reply. He could not hear what was being said, as his horse was restless, fretting and stamping. The saddle creaked. Fadeaway jerked the horse up, and in the momentary silence he caught the word "love."

"Makes me sick!" he said, spurring forward. "'Love,' eh? Well, mebby my little idea of puttin' Billy Corliss in wrong didn't work, but I'll hand Jack a jolt that'll make him think of somethin' else besides love, one of these fine mornin's!" And the cowboy rode on, out of tune with the peace and beauty of his surroundings, his whole being centered upon making trouble for a man who he knew in his heart wished him no ill, and in fact had all but forgotten him so far as considering him either as an enemy or a friend.

Just as he was about to swing out to the open of the mesa near the edge of the canon, he came upon a Mexican boy asleep beneath the low branches of a spruce. Fadeaway glanced across the mesa and, as he had expected, saw a band of sheep grazing in the sunshine. His trail ran directly toward the sheep. Beyond lay the canon. He would not ride around a herd of sheep that blocked his trail, not if he knew it! As he drew nearer the sheep they bunched, forcing those ahead to move on. Fadeaway glanced back at the sleeping boy, then set spur to his horse and waved his sombrero. The sheep broke into a trot. He rode back and forth behind them forcing them toward the canon. He beat upon his rolled slicker with his quirt. The sound frenzied the sheep and they leaped forward. Lambs, trailing behind, called dolefully to the plunging ewes that trampled each other in their terror. Again the cowboy glanced back. No one was in sight. He wondered, for an instant, what had become of Fernando, for he knew it was Fernando's herd. He shortened rein and spurred his pony, making him rear. The sheep plunged ahead, those in front swerving as they came to the canon's brink. The crowding mass behind forced them on. Fadeaway reined up. A great gray wave rolled over the cliff and disappeared into the soundless chasm. A thousand feet below lay the mangled carcasses of some five hundred sheep and lambs. A scattered few of the band had turned and were trotting aimlessly along the edge of the mesa. They separated as the rider swept up. One terror-stricken lamb, bleating piteously, hesitated on the very edge of the chasm. Fadeaway swung his hat and laughed as the little creature reared and leaped out into space. There had been but little noise—an occasional frightened bleat, a drumming of hoofs on the mesa, and they were swept from sight.

Fadeaway reined around and took a direct line for the nearest timber. Halfway across the open he saw the Mexican boy running toward him. He leaned forward in the saddle and hung his spurs in his pony's sides. A quick beat of hoofs and he was within the shadow of the forest. The next thing was to avoid pursuit. He changed his course and rode toward the heart of the forest. He would take an old and untraveled bridle-trail to the Blue. He was riding in a rocky hollow when he thought he heard the creak of saddle-leather. He glanced back. No one was following him. Farther on he stopped. He was certain that he had again heard the sound. As he topped the rise he saw Corliss riding toward him. The rancher had evidently swung from the Concho trail and was making his way directly toward the unused trail which Fadeaway rode. The cowboy became doubly alert. He shifted a little in the saddle, sitting straight, his right hand resting easily on his hip. Corliss drew rein and they faced each other. There was something about the rancher's grim, silent attitude that warned Fadeaway.

Yet he grinned and waved a greeting. "How!" he said, as though he were meeting an old friend.

Corliss nodded briefly. He sat gazing at Fadeaway with an unreadable expression.

"Got the lock-jaw?" queried Fadeaway, his pretended heartiness vanishing.

Corliss allowed himself to smile, a very little. "You better ride back with me," he said, quietly.

Fadeaway laughed. "I'm takin' orders from the Blue, these days," he said. "Mebby you forgot."

"No, I haven't."

"And I'm headed for the Blue," continued the cowboy. "Goin' my way?"

"You're on the wrong trail," asserted Corliss. "You've been riding the wrong trail ever since you left the Concho."

"Uhuh. Well, I been keepin' clear of the sheep camps, at that."

"Don't know about that," said Corliss, easily.

Fadeaway was too shrewd to have recourse to his gun. He knew that Corliss was the quicker man, and he realized that, even should he get the better of a six-gun argument, the ultimate result would be outlawry and perhaps death. He wanted to get away from that steady, heart-searching gaze that held him.

"Sheep business is lookin' up," he said, with an attempt at jocularity.

"We'll ride back and have a talk with Loring," said Corliss. "Some one put a band of his sheep into the canon, not two hours ago. Maybe you know something about it."

"Me? What you dreaming anyhow?"

"I'm not. It looks like your work."

"So you're tryin' to hang somethin' onto me, eh? Well, you want to call around early—you're late."

"No, I'm the first one on the job. Did you stampede Loring's sheep?"

"Did I stampede the love-makin'?" sneered Fadeaway.

Corliss shortened rein and drew close to the cowboy.

"Just explain that," he said.

"Oh, I don' know. You the boss of creation?"

Corliss's lips hardened. He let his quirt slip butt-first through his hand and grasped the lash. Fadeaway's hand slipped to his holster. Before he could pull his gun, Corliss swung the quirt. The blow caught Fadeaway just below the brim of his hat. He wavered and grabbed at the saddle-horn. As Corliss again swung his quirt, the cowboy jerked out his gun and brought it down on the rancher's head. Corliss dropped from the saddle. Fadeaway rode around and covered him. Corliss's hat lay a few feet from where he had fallen. Beneath his head a dark ooze spread a hand's-breadth on the trail. The cowboy dismounted and bent over him. "He's sportin' a dam' good hat," he said, "or that would 'a' fixed him. Guess he'll be good for a spell." Then he reached for his stirrup, mounted, and loped up the trail.

Old Fernando, having excused himself on some pretext when Corliss rode into the camp that morning, returned to find Corliss gone and Nell Loring strangely grave and white. She nodded as he spoke to her and pointed toward the mesa. "Carlos—is out—looking for the sheep," she said, her lips trembling. "He says some one stampeded them—run them into the canon."

Fernando called upon his saints and cursed himself for his negligence in leaving his son with the sheep. Nell Loring spoke to him quietly, assuring him that she understood why he had absented himself. "It's my fault, Fernando, not yours. The patron will want to know why you were away. You will tell him that John Corliss came to your camp; that you thought I wanted to talk with him alone. Then he will know that it was my fault. I'll tell him when I get back to the rancho."

Fernando straightened his wizened frame. "Si! As the Senorita says, I shall do. But first I go to look. Perhaps the patron shall not know that the vaquero Corlees was here this morning. It is that I ask the Senorita to say nothing to the patron until I look. Is it that you will do this?"

"What can you do?" she asked.

"It is yet to know. Adios, Senorita. You will remember the old Fernando, perhaps?"

"But you're coming back! Oh! it was terrible!" she cried. "I rode to the canon and looked down."

Fernando meanwhile had been thinking rapidly. With quaint dignity he excused himself as he departed to catch up one of the burros, which he saddled and rode out to where his son was standing near the canon. The boy shrank from him as he accosted him. Fernando's deep-set eyes blazed forth the anger that his lips imprisoned. He sent the boy back to the camp. Then he picked up the tracks of a horseman on the mesa, followed them to the canon's brink, glanced down, shrugged his shoulders, and again took up the horseman's trail toward the forest. With the true instinct of the outlander, he reasoned that the horseman had headed for the old trail to the Blue, as the tracks led diagonally toward the south. Finally he realized that he could never overtake the rider by following the tracks, so he dismounted and tied his burro. He struck toward the canon. A mile above him there was a ford. He would wait there and see who came. He made his perilous way down a notch in the cliff, dropped slowly to the level of the stream, and followed it to the ford. He searched for tracks in the sun-baked mud. With a sigh of satisfaction, perhaps of anticipation, he stepped to a clump of cottonwoods down the stream and backed within them. Scarcely had he crossed himself and drawn his gun from its weather-blackened holster, when he heard the click of shod hoofs on the trail. He stiffened and his eyes gleamed as though he anticipated some pleasant prospect. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened as he recognized in the rider the vaquero who had set the Concho dog upon his sheep some months before. He had a score to settle with that vaquero for having shot at him. He had another and larger score to settle with him for—no, he would not think of his beloved sheep mangled and dead at the bottom of the canon. That would anger him and make his hand unsteady.

Fadeaway rode his horse into the ford and sat looking downstream as the horse drank. Just as he drew rein, the old herder imitated with perfect intonation the quavering bleat of a lamb calling to its mother. Fadeaway jerked straight in the saddle. A ball of smoke puffed from the cottonwoods. The cowboy doubled up and slid headforemost into the stream. The horse, startled by the lunge of its rider, leaped to the bank and raced up the trail. A diminishing echo ran along the canon walls and rolled away to distant, faint muttering. Old Fernando had paid his debt of vengeance.

Leisurely he broke a twig from the cottonwoods, tore a strip from his bandanna, and cleaned his gun. Then he retraced his steps to the burro, mounted, and rode directly to his camp. After he had eaten he told his son to pack their few belongings. Then he again mounted the burro and rode toward the hacienda to face the fury of the patron.

He had for a moment left the flock in charge of his son. He had returned to find all but a few of the sheep gone. He had tracked them to the canon brink. Ah! could the patron have seen them, lying mangled upon the rocks! It had been a long hard climb to the bottom of the canon, else he should have reported sooner. Some one had driven the sheep into the chasm. As to the man who did it, he knew nothing. There were tracks of a horse—that was all. He had come to report and receive his dismissal. Never again should he see the Senora Loring. He had been the patron's faithful servant for many years. He was disgraced, and would be dismissed for negligence.

So he soliloquized as he rode, yet he was not altogether unhappy. He had avenged insult and the killing of his beloved sheep with one little crook of his finger; a thing that his patron, brave as he was, would not dare do. He would return to New Mexico. It was well!



CHAPTER XV

THEY KILLED THE BOSS!

Sundown, much to his dismay, was lost. With a sack of salt tied across his saddle, he had ridden out that morning to fill one of the salt-logs near a spring where the cattle came to drink. He had found the log, filled it, and had turned to retrace his journey when a flock of wild turkeys strung out across his course. His horse, from which the riders of the Concho had aforetime shot turkeys, broke into a kind of reminiscent lope, which quickened as the turkeys wheeled and ran swiftly through the timberland. Sundown clung to the saddle-horn as the pony took fallen logs at top speed. The turkeys made for a rim of a narrow canon and from it sailed off into space, leaving Chance a disconsolate spectator and Sundown sitting his horse and thanking the Arizona stars that his steed was not equipped with wings. It was then that he realized that the Concho ranch might be in any one of the four directions he chose to take. He wheeled the horse, slackened rein, and allowed that sagacious but apparently disinterested animal to pick its leisurely way through the forest. Chance trotted sullenly behind. He could have told his master something about hunting turkeys had he been able to speak, and, judging from the dog's dejected stride and expression, speech would have been a relief to his feelings.

The horse, nipping at scant shoots of bunch-grass and the blue-flowered patches of wild peas, gravitated toward the old trail to the Blue and, once upon it, turned toward home. Chance, refreshing his memory of the old trail, ran ahead, pausing at this fallen log and that fungus-spotted stump to investigate squirrel-holes with much sniffing and circling of the immediate territory. Sundown imagined that Chance was leading the way toward home, though in reality the dog was merely killing time, so to speak, while the pony plodded deliberately down the homeward trail.

Dawdling along in the barred sunshine, at peace with himself and the pleasant solitudes, Sundown relaxed and fell to dreaming of Andalusian castles builded in far forests of the south, and of some Spanish Penelope—possibly not unlike the Senorita Loring—who waited his coming with patient tears and rare fidelity. "Them there true-be-doors," he muttered, "like Billy used to say, sure had the glad job—singin' and wrastlin' out po'try galore! A singin'-man sure gets the ladies. Now if I was to take on a little weight—mebby . . ." His weird soliloquy was broken by a sharp and excited bark. Chance was standing in the trail, and beyond him there was something . . .

Sundown, anticipating more turkeys, slid from his horse without delay. He stalked stealthily toward the quivering dog. Then, dropping the reins, he ran to Corliss, knelt beside him, and lifted his head. He called to him. He ripped the rancher's shirt open and felt over his heart. "They killed me boss! They killed me boss!" he wailed, rising and striding back and forth in impotent excitement and grief. He did not know where to look for water. He did not know what to do. A sudden fury at his helplessness overcame him, and he mounted and rode down the trail at a wild gallop. Fortunately he was headed in the right direction.

Wingle, Bud Shoop, and several of the men were holding a heated conference with old man Loring when Sundown dashed into the Concho. Trembling with rage and fear he leaped from his horse.

"They killed the boss!" he cried hoarsely. "Up there—in the woods."

"Killed who? Where? Slow down and talk easy! Who's killed?" volleyed the group.

"Me boss! Up there on the trail with his head bashed in! Chance and me found him layin' on the trail."

The men swung to their saddles. "Better come along, Loring," said Shoop, riding close to the old sheep-man. "Looks like they was more 'n one side to this deal. And you, too, Sun."

The riders, led by the gesticulating and excited Sundown, swung out to the road and crossed to the forest. Shoop and Hi Wingle spurred ahead while the others questioned Sundown, following easily. When they arrived at the scene of the fight, Corliss was sitting propped against a tree with Shoop and Wangle on either side of him. Corliss stared stupidly at the men.

"Who done it?" asked Wingle.

"Fadeaway," murmured the rancher.

Loring, in the rear of the group, laughed ironically.

Shoop's gun jumped from its holster and covered the sheep-man. "If one of your lousy herders done this, he'll graze clost to hell to-night with the rest of your dam' sheep!" he cried.

"Easy, Bud!" cautioned Wingle. "The boss ain't passed over yet. Bill, you help Sinker here get the boss back home. The rest of you boys hit the trail for the Blue. Fadeaway is like to be up in that country."

"Ante up, Loring!" said Shoop, mounting his horse. "I'll see your hand if it takes every chip in the stack."

"Here, too!" chorused the riders. "We're all in on this."

They trailed along in single file until they came to the ford. They reined up sharply. One of them dismounted and dragged the body of Fadeaway to the bank. They grouped around gazing at the hole in Fadeaway's shirt.

Shoop turned the body over. "Got it from in front," he said, which was obvious to their experienced eyes.

"And it took a fast gun to get him," asserted Loring.

The men were silent, each visualizing his own theory of the fight on the trail and the killing of Fadeaway.

"Jack was layin' a long way from here," said Wingle.

"When you found him," commented Loring.

"Only one hoss crossed the ford this morning," announced Shoop, wading across the stream.

"And Fade got it from in front," commented a puncher. "His tracks is headed for the Blue."

Again the men were silent. Shoop rolled a cigarette. The splutter of the sulphur-match, as it burned from blue to yellow, startled them. They relaxed, cursing off their nervous tension in monosyllables.

"Well, Fade's played his stack, and lost. Jack was sure in the game, but how far—I dunno. Reckon that's got anything to do with stampedin' your sheep?" asked Wingle, turning to Loring.

Loring's deep-set eyes flashed. "Fernando reported that a Concho rider done the job. He didn't say who done it."

"Didn't, eh? And did Fernando say anything about doin' a job himself?" asked Shoop.

"If you're tryin' to hang this onto any of my herders, you're ridin' on the wrong side of the river. I reckon you won't have to look far for the gun that got him." And Loring gestured toward the body.

Hi Wingle stooped and pulled Fadeaway's gun from its holster. He spun the cylinder, swung it out, and invited general inspection. "Fade never had a chance," he said, lowering the gun. "They's six pills in her yet. You got to show me he wasn't plugged from behind a rock or them bushes." And Wingle pointed toward the cottonwoods.

One of the men rode down the canon, searching for tracks. Chance, following, circled the bushes, and suddenly set off toward the north.

Sundown, who had been watching him, dismounted his horse. "Chance, there, mebby he's found somethin'."

"Well, he's your dog. Go ahead if you like. Mebby Chance struck a scent."

"Coyote or lion," said Wingle. "They ain't no trail down them rocks."

Sundown, following Chance, disappeared in the canon. The men covered Fadeaway's body with a slicker and weighted it with stones. Then they sent a puncher to Antelope to notify the sheriff.

As they rode into the Concho, they saw that Corliss's horse was in the corral. Their first anger had cooled, yet they gazed sullenly at Loring. They were dissatisfied with his interpretation of the killing and not a little puzzled.

"Where's Fernando?" queried Shoop aggressively.

Loring put the question aside with a wave of his hand. "Jest a minute afore I go. You're tryin' to hang this onto me or mine. You're wrong. You're forgettin' they's five hundred of my sheep at the bottom of the Concho Canon, I guess. They didn't get there by themselves. Fadeaway's got his, which was comin' to him this long time. That's nothin' to me. What I want to see is Jack Corliss's gun."

Bud Shoop stepped into the ranch-house and presently returned with the Coitus. "Here she is. Take a look."

The old sheep-man swung out the cylinder and pointed with a gnarled and horny finger. The men closed in and gazed in silence. One of the shells was empty.

Loring handed the gun to Shoop. "I'll ask Jack," said the foreman. When he returned to the group he was unusually grave. "Says he plugged a coyote this mornin'."

Loring's seamed and weathered face was expressionless. "Well, he did a good job, if I do say it," he remarked, as though to himself.

"Which?" queried Shoop.

"I don't say," replied Loring. "I'm lettin' the evidence do the talkin'."

"Well, you'll hear her holler before we get through!" asserted the irrepressible Bud. "Fade, mebby, wa'n't no lady's man, but he had sand. He was a puncher from the ground up, and we ain't forgettin' that!"

"And I ain't forgettin' them five hundred sheep." Loring reined around. "And you're goin' to hear from me right soon. I reckon they's law in this country."

"Let her come!" retorted Shoop. "We'll all be here!"



CHAPTER XVI

SUNDOWN ADVENTURES

By dint of perilous scrambling Sundown managed to keep within sight of Chance, who had picked up Fernando's tracks leading from the cottonwoods. The dog leaped over rocks and trotted along the levels, sniffing until he came to the rift in the canon wall down which the herder had toiled on his grewsome errand. Chance climbed the sharp ascent with clawing reaches of his powerful forelegs and quick thrusts of his muscular haunches. Sundown followed as best he could. He was keyed to the strenuous task by that spurious by-product of anticipation frequently termed a "hunch."

When the dog at last reached the edge of the timber and dashed into Fernando's deserted camp, Sundown was puzzled until he happened to recall the incidents leading to Fadeaway's discharge from the Concho. He reclined beneath a tree familiar to him as a former basis for recuperation. He felt of himself reminiscently while watching Chance nose about the camp. Presently the dog came and, squatting on his haunches, faced his master with the query, "What next?" scintillating in his glowing eyes.

"I dunno," replied Sundown. "You see, pardner, this here's Fernando's camp all right. Now, I ain't got nothin' ag'in' that little ole Fernando man, 'specially as it was him cut the rope that was snakin' me to glory onct. I ain't got nothin' ag'in' him, or nobody. Mebby Fade did set after them sheep. Mebby Fernando knows it and sets after him. Mebby he squats in them cotton-woods by the ford and 'Pom!' goes somethin' and pore Fadeaway sure makes his name good. Never did like him, but I ain't got nothin' ag'in' him now. You see, Chance, he's quit bein' mean, now. And say, gettin' killed ain't no dream. I been there three, four times myself—all but the singin'. Two wrecks, one shootin', and one can o' beans that was sick. It sure ain't no fun. Wonder if gettin' killed that way will square Fade with the Big Boss over there? I reckon not. 'T ain't what a fella gets done to him that counts. It's what he does to the other guy, good or bad. Now, take them martyrs what my pal Billy used to talk about. They was always standin' 'round gettin' burned and punctured with arrers, and lengthened out and shortened up when they ought to been takin' boxin' lessons or sords or somethin'. Huh! I never took much stock in them. If it's what a fella gets done to him, it's easy money I'll be takin' tickets at the gate instead of crawlin' under the canvas—and mebby tryin' to sneak you in, too—eh, Chance?"

To all of which the great wolf-dog listened with exemplary patience. He would have preferred action, but not unlike many human beings who strive to appear profound under a broadside of philosophical eloquence, applauding each bursting shrapnel of platitudes by mentally wagging their tails, Chance wagged his tail, impressed more by the detonation than the substance. And Chance was quite a superior dog, as dogs go.

When Sundown finally arrived at the Concho, he was met by Bud Shoop, who questioned him. Sundown gave a detailed account of his recent exploration.

"You say they was no burros at the camp—no tarp, or grub, or nothin'?"

"Nope. Nothin' but a dead fire," replied Sundown.

"Any sheep?"

"Mebby four or five. Didn't count 'em."

"Huh! Wonder where the rest of the greaser's herd is grazin'?"

"I dunno. I rode straight acrost to here."

"Looks mighty queer to me," commented the foreman. "I take it that Fernando's lit out."

"Will they pinch the boss?" queried Sundown.

"I don' know. Anyhow, they can't prove it on him. Even if Jack did—and I don't mind sayin' it to you—plug Fade, he did it to keep from gettin' plugged hisself. Do you reckon I'd let any fella chloroform me with the butt of a .45 and not turn loose? I tell you, if Jack had been a-goin' to get Fade right, you'd 'a' found 'em closter together. And that ain't all. If Jack had wanted to get Fade, you can bet he wouldn't got walloped on the head first. The gun that got Fade weren't packed by a puncher."

"Will they be any more shootin'?" queried Sundown.

"Gettin' cold feet, Sun?"

"Nope. But say, it ain't no fun to get shot up. It don't feel good and it's like to make a guy cross. A guy can't make pie or eat pie all shot up, nohow."

"Pie? You sure are loco. What you tryin' to rope now?"

"Nothin'. But onct I was in the repair shop with two docs explorin' me works with them there shiny little corkscrews, lookin' for a bullit that Clammie-the-dip let into me system—me bein' mistook for another friend of his by mistake. After the docs dug up the bullit they says, 'Anything you want to say?'—expectin' me to pass over, I reckon. 'There is,' says I. 'I want to say that I ain't et nothin' sense the day before Clammie done me dirt. An' if I'm goin' to hit the slide I jest as soon hit it full of pie as empty.' And them docs commenced to laugh. 'Let him have it,' says one. 'But don't you reckon ice-cream would be less apt to—er—hasten—the—er—' jest like that. 'Pussuble you're correct' says the other.'" Sundown scratched his ear. "And I et the ice-cream, feelin' kind o' sad-like seein' it wasn't pie. You see, Bud, gettin' shot up is kind of disconvenient."

"Well, you're the limit!" exclaimed Shoop. "Say, the boss wants to make a few talks to you to-morrow. Told me to tell you when you come back. You better go feed up. As I recollec' Hi's wrastlin' out some pie-dough right now."

"Well, I ain't takin' no chances, Bud."

"You tell that to Hi and see what he says."

"Nope. 'T ain't necessary. You see when them docs seen, about a week after, that I was comin' strong instead of goin', they says, 'Me man, if you'd 'a' had pie in your stummick when you was shot, you wouldn't be here to-day. You'd be planted—or somethin' similar. The fac' that your stummick was empty evidentially saved your life.' And," concluded Sundown, "they's no use temptin' Providence now."

Shortly after breakfast next morning Corliss sent for Sundown. The rancher sat propped up in a wide armchair. He was pale, but his eyes were clear and steady.

"Bud told me about yesterday," he began, anticipating Sundown's leisurely and erratic recital. "I understand you found me on the trail and went for help."

"Yes. I thought you was needin' some about then."

"How did you come to find me?"

"Got lost. Hoss he took me there."

"Did you see any one on the trail?"

"Nope."

"Hear any shooting?"

"Nope. But I seen some turkeys."

"Well, I expect the sheriff will be here tomorrow. He'll want to talk to you. Answer him straight. Don't try to help me in any way. Just tell him what you know—not what you think."

"I sure will, boss. Wish Chance could talk. He could tell."

Corliss smiled faintly. "Yes, I suppose he could. You followed him to Fernando's camp?"

"Uhuh."

"All right. Now, I've had a talk with Bud about something that has been bothering me. I think I can trust you. I want you to ride to Antelope to-morrow morning and give a letter from me to the lawyer there, Kennedy. He'll tell you what to do after that. I don't feel like talking much, but I'll say this: You remember the water-hole ranch. Well, I want you to file application to homestead it. Kennedy will tell you what to do. Don't ask any questions, but do as he says. You'll have to go to Usher by train and he'll go with you. You won't lose anything by it."

"Me? Homestead? Huh! And have cows and pigs and things? I don't jest get you, boss, but what you say goes. Why, I'd homestead a ranch in hell and take chances on findin' water if you said it. Say, boss,"—and Sundown leaned toward Corliss confidentially and lowered his voice,—"I ain't what you'd call a nervy man, but say, I got somethin' jest as good. I—I—" and Sundown staggered around feeling for the word he wanted.

"I know. We'll look it up in the dictionary some day when we're in town. Here's ten dollars for your trip. If you need more, Kennedy will give it to you."

Sundown departed, thrilled with the thought that his employer had placed so much confidence in him. He wanted to write a poem, but circumstances forbade his signaling to his muse. On his way to the bunk-house he hesitated and retraced his steps to the ranch office. Corliss told him to come in. He approached his employer deferentially as though about to ask a favor.

"Say, boss," he began, "they's two things just hit me to onct. Can I take Chance with me?"

"If you like. Part of your trip will be on the train."

"I can fix that. Then I was thinkin': No! my hoss is lame. I got to ride a strange hoss, which I'm gettin' kind o' used to. But if you'll keep your eye on my hoss while I'm gone, it'll ease me mind considerable. You see he's been with me reg'lar and ain't learned no bad tricks. If the boys know I'm gone and get to learnin' him about buckin' and bitin' the arm offen a guy and kickin' a guy's head off and rollin' on him, and rarin' up and stompin' him, like some, they's no tellin' what might happen when I get back."

Corliss laughed outright. "That's so. But I guess the boys will be busy enough without monkeying with your cayuse. If you put that homestead deal through, you can have any horse on the range except Chinook. You'll need a team, anyway, when you go to ranching."

"Thanks, boss, but I'm gettin' kind of used to Pill."

"Pill? You mean Phil—Phil Sheridan. That's your horse's name."

"Mebby. I did try callin' him 'Phil.' It went all right when he was standin' quiet. But when he got to goin' I was lucky if I could holler just 'Whoa, Pill!' The 'h' got jarred loose every time. 'Course, bein' a puncher now,"—and Sundown threw out his chest,—"it's different. Anyhow, Pill is his name because there ain't anything a doc ever give a fella that can stir up your insides worse 'n he can when he takes a spell. Your head hurtin' much?"

"No. But it will be if you don't get out of here." And Corliss laughed and waved his hand toward the door.



CHAPTER XVII

THE STRANGER

Sundown, maintaining a mysterious and unusual silence, prepared to carry out his employer's plans. His preparations were not extensive. First, he polished his silver spurs. Then he borrowed a coat from one of the boys, brushed his Stetson, and with the business instinct of a Hebrew offered Hi Wingle nine dollars for a pair of Texas wing chaps. The cook, whose active riding-days were over, had no use for the chaps and would have gladly given them to Sundown. The latter's offer of nine dollars, however, interested Wingle. He decided to have a bit of fun with the tall one. He cared nothing for the money, but wondered why Sundown had offered nine dollars instead of ten.

"What you been eatin'?" he queried as Sundown made his bid. "Goin' courtin'?"

"Nope," replied the lean one. "Goin' east."

"Huh! Expect to ride all the way in them chaps?"

"Nope! But I need 'em. Heard you tell Bud you paid ten dollars for 'em 'way back fifteen years. Guess they's a dollar's worth worn off of 'em by now."

"Well, you sure do some close figurin'. I sure paid ten for 'em. Got 'em from a Chola puncher what was hard up. Mebby you ain't figurin' that they's about twenty bucks' worth of hand-worked silver conchas on 'em which ain't wore off any."

Sundown took this as Wingle's final word. The amused Hi noted the other's disappointment and determined to enhance the value of the chaps by making them difficult to obtain, then give them to his assistant. Wingle liked Sundown in a rough-shod way, though Sundown was a bit too serious-minded to appreciate the fact.

The cook assumed the air of one gravely concerned about his friend's mental balance. "Somethin' sure crawled into your roost, Sun, but if you're goin' crazy I suppose a pair of chaps won't make no difference either way. Anyhow, you ain't crazy in your legs—just your head."

"Thanks, Hi. It's accommodatin' of you to put me wise to myself. I know I ain't so durned smart as some."

"Say, you old fool, can't you take a fall to it that I'm joshin'? You sure are the melancholiest stretch of bones and hide I ever seen. Somehow you always make a fella come down to cases every time, with that sad-lookin' mug of yourn. You sure would 'a' made a good undertaker. I'll get them chaps."

And Wingle, fat, bald, and deliberate, chuckled as he dug among his belongings and brought forth the coveted riding apparel. "Them chaps has set on some good hosses, if I do say it," he remarked. "Take 'em and keep your nine bucks for life insurance. You'll need it."

Sundown grinned like a boy. "Nope. A bargain's a bargain. Here's the money. Mebby you could buy a fust-class cook-book with it and learn somethin'."

"Learn somethin'! Why, you long-geared, double-jointed, glass-eyed, hay-topped, star-smellin' st-st-steeple, you! Get out o' this afore I break my neck tryin' to see your face! Set down so I can look you in the eye!" And Wingle waved his stout arms and glowered in mock anger.

Sundown laid the money on the table. "Keep the change," he said mildly with a twinkle in his eye.

He picked up the chaps and stalked from the bunk-house. Chance, who had been an interested spectator of this lively exchange of compliment and merchandise, followed his master to the stable where Sundown at once put on the chaps and strutted for the dog's benefit, and his own. By degrees he was assuming the characteristics of a genuine cow-puncher. He would show the folks in Antelope what a rider for the Concho looked like.

The following morning, much earlier than necessary, he mounted and rode to the bunk-house, where Corliss gave him the letter and told him to leave the horse at the stables in Antelope until he returned from Usher.

Sundown, stiffened by the importance of his mission, rode straight up, looking neither to the right nor to the left until the Concho was far behind him. Then he slouched in the saddle, gazing with a pleased expression first at one leather-clad leg and then the other. For a time the wide, free glory of the Arizona morning mesas was forgotten. The shadow of his pony walked beside him as the low eastern sun burned across the golden levels. Long silhouettes of fantastic buttes spread across the plain. The sky was cloudless and the crisp thin air foretold a hot noon. The gaunt rider's face beamed with an inner light—the light of romance. What more could a man ask than a good horse, a faithful and intelligent dog, a mission of trust, and sixty undisturbed miles of wondrous upland o'er which to journey, fancy-free and clad in cowboy garb? Nothing more—except—and Sundown realized with a slight sensation of emptiness that he had forgotten to eat breakfast. He had plenty to eat in his saddle-bags, but he put the temptation to refresh himself aside as unworthy, for the nonce, of his higher self. Naturally the pent-up flood of verse that had been oppressing him of late surged up and filled his mind with vague and poignant fancies. His love for animals, despite his headlong experiences on the Concho, was unimpaired, so to speak. He patted the neck of the rangy roan which he bestrode, and settled himself to the serious task of expressing his inner-most being in verse. He dipped deep into the Pierian springs, and poesy broke forth. But not, however, until he had "cinched up," as he mentally termed it, the saddle of his Pegasus of the mesas.

Sundown paused and called the attention of his horse to the last line.

He hesitated, harking back for his climax. "Jing!" he exclaimed, "it's the durndest thing to put a finish on a piece of po'try! You get to goin' and she goes fine. Then you commence to feel that you're comin' to the end and nacherally you asks yourself what's the end goin' to be like. Fust thing you're stompin' around in your head upsettin' all that you writ tryin' to rope somethin' to put on the tail-end of the parade that'll show up strong. Kind o' like ropin' a steer. No tellin' where that pome is goin' to land you."

Sundown was more than pleased with himself. He again recited the verse as he plodded along, fixing it in his memory for the future edification of his compatriots of the Concho.

"The best thing I ever writ!" he assured himself. "Fust thing I know they'll be puttin' me in one of them doxologies for keeps. 'Sundown Slim, The Poet of the Mesas!' Sounds good to me. Reckon that's why I never seen a woman that I wanted to get married to. Writin' po'try kind of detracted me mind from love. Guess I could love a woman if she wouldn't laugh at me for bein' so dog-goned lengthy. She would have to be a small one, though, so as she'd be kind o' scared o' me bein' so big. Then mebby we could get along pretty good. 'Course, I wouldn't like her to be scared all the time, but jest kind o' respectable-like to me. Them's the best kind. Mebby I'll ketch one some day. Now there goes that Chance after a rabbit ag'in. He's a long piece off—jest can hardly see him except somethin' movin'. Well, if he comes back as quick as he went, he'll be here soon." And Sundown jogged along, spur-chains jingling a fairy tune to his oral soliloquies.

Aside from forgetting to have breakfast that morning, he had made a pretty fair beginning. He was well on his way, had composed a roan-colored lyric of the ranges, discoursed on the subject of love, and had set his spirit free to meander in the realms of imagination. Yet his spirit swept back to him with a rush of wings and a question. Why not get married? And "Gee! Gosh!" he ejaculated, startled by the abruptness of the thought. "Now I like hosses and dogs and folks, but livin' with hosses and dogs ain't like livin' with folks. If hosses and dogs take to you, they think you're the whole thing. But wimmen is different. If they take to you—why, they think they're the whole thing jest because they landed you. I dunno! Jest bein' good to folks ain't everything, either. But bein' good to hosses and dogs is. Funny. I dunno, though. You either got to understand 'em and be rough to 'em, or be good to 'em and then they understand you. Guess they ain't no regular guide-book on how to git along with wimmen. Well, I never come West for me health. I brung it with me, but I ain't goin' to take chances by fallin' in love. Writin' po'try is wearin' enough."

For a while he rode silently, enjoying his utter freedom. But followers of Romance must ever be minute-men, armed and equipped to answer her call with instant readiness and grace. Lacking, perhaps, the grace, nevertheless Sundown was loyal to his sovereign mistress, in proof of which he again sat straight in the saddle, stirred to speech by hidden voices. "Now, take it like I was wearin' a hard-boiled hat and a collar and buttin shoes, like the rest of them sports. Why, that wouldn't ketch the eye of some likely-lookin' lady wantin' to get married. Nix! When I hit town it's me for the big smoke and me picture on the front page, standin' with me faithful dog and a lot of them fat little babies without any clothes on, but wings, flyin' around the edge of me picture and down by me boots and up around me hat—and in big letters she'll say: 'Romance of A Cowboy. Western Cattle King in Search for his Long-lost Sweetheart. Sundown, once one of our Leading Hoboes, now a Wealthy Rancher, visits the Metrokolis on Mysterious Errand.' Huh! I guess mebby that wouldn't ketch a good one, mebby with money."

But the proverbial fly must appear in the equally proverbial amber. "'Bout as clost as them papers ever come to it," he soliloquized. "Anyhow, if she was the wrong one, and not me long-lost affiniky, and was to get stuck on me shape and these here chaps and spurs, reckon I could tell her that the papers made the big mistake, and that me Mexican wife does the cookin' with a bread-knife in her boot-leg, and that I never had no Mormon ideas, nohow. That ought to sound kind o' home-like, and let her down easy and gentle. I sure don't want to get sent down for breakin' the wimmen's hearts, so I got to be durned careful."

So immersed was he in his imaginings that he did not at once realize that his horse had stopped and was leisurely grazing at the edge of the trail. Chance, who had been running ahead, swung back in a wide circle and barked impatiently. Sundown awakened to himself. "Here, you red hoss, this ain't no pie-contest. We got to hit the water-hole afore dark." Once more in motion, he reverted to his old theme, but with finality in his tone. "I guess mebby I can't tell them reporters somethin' about me hotel out here on the desert! 'The only prevailable road-house between Antelope and the Concho, run by the retired cattle-king, Sundown Slim.' Sounds good to me. Mebby I could work up a trade by advertisin' to some of them Eastern folks that eats nothin' tougher for breakfast than them quakin'-oats and buns and coffee. Get along, you red hoss."

About six o'clock that evening Sundown arrived at the deserted ranch. He unsaddled and led the horse to water. Then he picketed him for the night. Returning, he prepared a meal and ate heartily. Just as the light faded from the dusty windows, Chance, who was curled in a corner, rose and growled. Sundown strode to the door. The dog followed, sniffing along the crack. Presently Sundown heard the shuffling tread of a horse plodding through the sand. He swung open the door and stood peering into the dusk. He saw a horseman dismount and enter the gateway. Chance again bristled and growled. Sundown restrained him.

"Hello, there! That you, Jack?"

"Nope. It's me—Sundown from the Concho."

"Concho, eh? Was headed that way myself. Saw the dog. Thought mebby it was Jack's dog."

"Goin' to stop?" queried Sundown as the other advanced, leading his horse.

"Guess I'll have to. Don't fancy riding at night. Getting too old." And the short, genial-faced stranger laughed heartily.

"Well, they's plenty room. Had your supper?"

"No, but I got some chuck along with me. Got a match?"

Sundown produced matches. The other rolled a cigarette and studied Sundown's face covertly in the glow of the match. In the flare Sundown beheld a thick-set, rather short-necked man, smooth-shaven, and of a ruddy countenance. He also noticed that the stranger wore a coat, and at once surmised that he was neither cowboy nor herder.

"Guess I'll stake out the hoss," said the man. "See you later."

Chance, who had stood with head lowered and neck outstretched, whined and leaped up at Sundown, standing with paws on his master's chest and vainly endeavoring to tell him something. The dog's eyes were eloquent and intense.

Sundown patted him. "It's all right, Chance. That guy's all right. Guess I know a good face when I see one. What's the matter, anyway?"

Chance dropped to his feet and stalked to his corner. He settled himself with a lugubrious sigh, as though unwillingly relinquishing his responsibilities in the matter.

When the stranger returned, Sundown had a fire going. "Feels good," commented the man, rubbing his hands and surveying the room in the glow that flared up as he lifted the stove-lid. "On your way in?"

"Me? Nope. I'm goin' to Antelope."

"So? Is Jack Corliss hurt bad?"

"He was kind o' shook up for a couple of days. Guess he's gettin' along all right now. Reckon you heard what somebody done to Fadeaway."

The stranger nodded. "They got him, all right. Knew Fade pretty well myself. Guess I'll eat.—That coffee of yours was good, all right," he said as he finished eating. He reached for the coffee-pot and tipped it. "She's plumb empty."

"I'll fill her," volunteered Sundown, obligingly.

As he disappeared in the darkness, the stranger stepped to the rear door of the room and opened it. Then he closed the door and stooping laid his saddle and blankets against it. "He can't make a break that way," he said to himself. As Sundown came in, the man noticed that the front door creaked shrilly when opened or closed and seemed pleased with the fact. "Too bad about Fadeaway," he said, helping himself to more coffee. "Wonder who got him?"

"I dunno. I found me boss with his head busted the same day they got Fade."

"Been riding for the Concho long?"

"That ain't no joke, if you're meanin' feet and inches."

The other laughed. His eyes twinkled in the ruddy glow of the stove. Suddenly he straightened his shoulders and appeared to be listening. "It's the hosses," he said finally. "Some coyote's fussin' around bothering 'em. It's a long way from home as the song goes. Lend me your gun and I'll go see if I can plug one of 'em and stop their yipping."

Sundown presented his gun to the stranger, who slid it between trousers and shirt at the waist-band. "Don't hear 'em now," he announced finally. "Well, guess I'll roll in."

Strangely enough, he had apparently forgotten to return the gun. Sundown, undecided whether to ask for it or not, finally spread his blankets and called Chance to him. The dog curled at his master's feet. Save for the diminishing crackle of dry brush in the stove, the room was still. Evidently the ruddy-faced individual was asleep. Vaguely troubled by the stranger's failure to return his gun, Sundown drifted to sleep, not for an instant suspecting that he was virtually the prisoner of the sheriff of Apache County, who had at Loring's instigation determined to arrest the erstwhile tramp for the murder of Fadeaway. The sheriff had his own theory as to the killing and his theory did not for a moment include Sundown as a possible suspect, but he had a good, though unadvertised, reason for holding him. Accustomed to dealing with frontier folk, he argued that Sundown's imprisonment would eventually bring to light evidence leading to the identity of the murderer. It was a game of bluff, and at such a game he played a master hand.

The stranger seemed unusually affable in the morning. He made the fire, and, before Sundown had finished eating, had the two ponies saddled and ready for the road. Sundown thought him a little too agreeable. He was even more perplexed when the man said that he had changed his mind and would ride to Antelope with him. "Thought you said you was goin' to the Concho?"

"Well, seeing you say Jack can't ride yet, guess I'll wait."

"He can talk, all right," asserted Sundown.

The other paid no apparent attention to this remark but rode along pointing out landmarks and discoursing largely upon the weather, the feed, and price of hay and grain and a hundred topics associated with ranch-life. Sundown, forgetful of his pose as a vaquero of long standing (unintentional), assumed rather the attitude of one absorbing information on such topics than disseminating it. Nor did he understand the stranger's genial invitation to have supper with him at Antelope that night, as they rode into the town. He knew, however, that he was creating a sensation, which he attributed to his Mexican spurs and chaps. People stared at him as he stalked down the street and turned to stare again. His companion seemed very well known in Antelope. Nearly every one spoke to him or waved a greeting. Yet there was something peculiar in their attitudes. There was an aloofness about them that was puzzling.

"He sure looks like the bad man from Coyote Gulch," remarked one who stood in front of "The Last Chance" saloon.

"He ain't heeled," asserted the speaker's companion.

"Heeled! Do you reckon Jim's plumb loco? Jim took care of that."

All of which was music to Sundown. He was making an impression, yet he was not altogether happy. He did not object to being classed as a bad man so long as he knew at heart that he was anything but that. Still, he was rather proud of his instant notoriety.

They stopped in front of a square, one-story building. Sundown's companion unlocked the door. "Come on in," he said. "We'll have a smoke and talk things over."

"But I was to see Mr. Kennedy the lawyer," asserted Sundown.

"So? Well, it ain't quite time to see him yet."

Sundown's back became cold and he stared at the stranger with eyes that began to see the drift of things. "You ain't a cop, be you?" he asked timorously.

"They call it 'sheriff' here."

"Well, I call it kind o' warm and I'm goin' outside."

"I wouldn't. One of my deputies is sitting just across the street. He's a mighty good shot. Can beat me hands down. Suppose you drop back in your chair and tell me what you know about the shooting of Fadeaway."

"Me? You ain't joshin', be you?"

"Never more serious in my life! I'm interested in this case."

"Well, I ain't!" was Sundown's prompt remark. "And I got to go. I'm goin' on privut business for me boss and confidenshell. Me and Chance."

"That's all right, my friend. But I have some private and confidential business that can't wait."

"But I ain't done nothin'," whined Sundown, lapsing into his old attitude toward the law.

"Maybe not. Mr. Loring telephoned me that Fadeaway had been shot and that a man answering your description—a tramp, he said—seemed to know something about it. You never was a puncher. You don't get on or off a cayuse like one. From what I learn you were a Hobo when Jack Corliss gave you a job. That's none of my business. I arrest you as a suspicious character, and I guess I'll have to keep you here till I find out more about Fadeaway's case. Have a cigar?"

"Huh! Say, don't you ever get mad?" queried Sundown, impressed by the other's most genial attitude.

The sheriff laughed. "Doesn't pay in my business. Now, you just ease up and tell me what you know. It will save time. Did you ever have trouble with Fadeaway?"

"Not on your life! I give him all the room he wanted."

"Did you know Fernando—-one of Loring's herders?"

"I seen him onct. He saved me life from bein' killed by a steer. Did he say I done it?" parried Sundown.

The sheriff's opinion of Sundown's acumen was disturbed. Evidently this queer individual posing as a cowboy was not such a fool, after all.

"No. Have you seen him lately?"

"Nope. Chance and me was over to his camp, but he was gone. We kind o' tracked back there from the place where we found Fadeaway."

"That so?"

"Uhuh. It was like this." And Sundown gave a detailed account of his explorations.

When he had finished, the sheriff made a note on the edge of a newspaper. Then he turned to Sundown. "You're either the deepest hand I've tackled yet, or you're just a plain fool. You don't act like a killer."

"Killer! Say, mister, I wouldn't kill a bug that was bitin' me 'less'n he wouldn't let go. Why, ask Chance there!"

"I wish that dog could talk," said the sheriff, smiling. "Did you know that old Fernando had left the country—crossed the line into New Mexico?"

"What? Him?"

"Yes. I know about where he is."

"Guess his boss fired him for lettin' all the sheep get killed. Guess he had to go somewhere."

The sheriff nodded. "So you were going to take a little trip yourself, were you?"

"For me boss. You ask him. He can tell you."

"I reckon when he finds out where you are he'll come in."

"And you're goin' to pinch me?"

"You're pinched."

"Well, I'm dum clost to gettin' mad. You look here! Do you think I'd be ridin' to Antelope if I done anything like shoot a man? Do you think I'd hand you me gun without sayin' a word? And if you think I didn't shoot Fadeaway, what in hell you pinchin' me for? Ain't a guy got a right to live?"

"Yes. Fadeaway had a right to live."

"Well, I sure never wanted to see him cross over. That's the way with you cops. If a fella is a Bo, he gets pinched, anyhow. If he quits bein' a Bo and goes to workin' at somethin', then he gets pinched for havin' been a Bo onct. I been livin' honest and peaceful-like and straight—and I get pinched. Do you wonder a Bo gets tired of tryin' to brace up?"

"Can't say that I do. Got to leave you now. I'll fix you up comfortable in here." And the sheriff unlocked the door leading to the one-room jail. "I'll talk it over with you in the morning. The wife and kid will sure be surprised to see me back, so I'll mosey down home before somebody scares her to death telling her I'm back in town. So-long."

Sundown sat on the narrow bed and gazed at the four walls of the room. "Wife and kid!" he muttered. "Well, I reckon he's got a right to have 'em. Gee Gosh! Wonder if he'll feed Chance!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHERIFF AND OTHERS

Chance, disconsolate, wandered about Antelope, returning at last to lie before the door of the sheriff's office. The sheriff, having reestablished himself, for the nonce, in the bosom of his family, strolled out to the street. He called to Chance, who dashed toward him, then stopped with neck bristling.

The sheriff's companion laughed. "I was going to feed him," explained the sheriff.

"I know what I'd feed him," growled his companion.

"What for? He's faithful to his boss—and that's something."

The other grunted and they passed up the street. Groups of men waylaid them asking questions. As they drifted from one group to another, the friend remarked that his companion seemed to be saying little. The stout sheriff smiled. He was listening.

Chance, aware that something was wrong, fretted around the door of Sundown's temporary habitation. Finally he threw himself down, nose on outstretched paws, and gazed at the lights and the men across the way. Later, when the town had become dark and silent, the dog rose, shook himself, and padded down the highway taking the trail for the Concho. He knew that his master's disappearance had not been voluntary. He also knew that his own appearance alone at the Concho would be evidence that something had gone wrong.

Once well outside the town, Chance settled to a long, steady stride that ate into the miles. At the water-hole he leaped the closed gate and drank. Again upon the road he swung along across the starlit mesas, taking the hills at a trot and pausing on each rise to rest and sniff the midnight air. Then down the slopes he raced, and out across the levels, the great bunching muscles of his flanks and shoulders working tirelessly. As dawn shimmered across the ford he trotted down the mud-bank and waded into the stream, where he stood shoulder-deep and lapped the cool water.

Corliss, early afoot, found him curled at the front door of the ranch-house. Chance braced himself on his fore legs and yawned. Then stretching he rose and, frisking about Corliss, tried to make himself understood. Corliss glanced toward the corral, half expecting to see Sundown's horse. Then he stepped to the men's quarters. He greeted Wingle, asking him if Sundown had returned.

"No. Thought he went east."

"Chance came back, alone."

And Corliss and the cook eyed each other simultaneously and nodded.

"Loring," said Wingle.

"Guess you're right, Hi."

"Sheriff must 'a' been out of town and got back just in time to meet up with Sundown," suggested Wingle. And he seized a scoop and dug into the flour barrel.

An hour later the buckboard stood at the ranch gate. Bud Shoop, crooning a range-ditty that has not as yet disgraced an anthology, stood flicking the rear wheel with his whip:—

"Oh, that biscuit-shooter on the Santa Fe, —Hot coffee, ham-and-eggs, huckleberry pies,— Got every lonely puncher that went down that way With her yella-bird hair and them big blue eyes . . .

"For a two-bit feed and a two-bit smile . . ."

The song was interrupted by the appearance of Corliss, who swung to the seat and took the reins.

"I'll jog 'em for a while," he said as Shoop climbed beside him. "Go ahead, Bud. Don't mind me."

Shoop laughed and gestured over his shoulder. "Chance, there, is sleepin' with both fists this lovely mornin'. Wonder how Sun is makin' it?"

"We'll find out," said Corliss, shaking his head.

"Believe us! For we're goin' to town! Say, ain't you kind of offerin' Jim Banks a chance to get you easy?"

"If he wants to. If he locked Sundown up, he made the wrong move."

"It's easy!" said Shoop, gesturing toward the Loring rancho as they passed. "Goin' to bush at the water-hole to-night?"

"No. We'll go through."

Shoop whistled. "Suits me! And I reckon the team is good for it."

He glanced sideways at Corliss, who sat with eyes fixed straight ahead. The cattle-man's face was expressionless. He was thinking hard and fast, but chose to mask it.

Suddenly Shoop, who had watched him some little time, burst into song. "Suits me!" he reiterated, more or less ambiguously, by the way, for he had just concluded another ornate stanza of the "Biscuit-shooter" lyric.

"It's a real song," remarked Corliss.

"Well, now!" exclaimed Shoop. And thereafter he also became silent, knowing from experience that when Corliss had anything worth while to say, he would say it.

About noon they reached the water-hole where Corliss spent some time examining the fences and inspecting the outbuildings.

"She's in right good shape yet," commented Shoop.

"The title has reverted to the State. It's queer Loring hasn't tried to file on it."

"Mebby he's used his homestead right a'ready," suggested Shoop. "But Nell Loring could file."

They climbed back into the buckboard. Again Shoop began a stanza of his ditty. He seemed well pleased about something. Possibly he realized that his employer's attitude had changed; that he had at last awakened to the obvious necessity for doing something. As Corliss put the team to a brisk trot the foreman's song ran high. Action was his element. Inactivity tended to make him more or less cynical, and ate into his tobacco money.

Suddenly Corliss turned to him. "Bud, I'm going to homestead that ranch."

"Whoop!" cried the foreman. "First shot at the buck!"

"I'm going to put Sundown on it, for himself. He's steady and wouldn't hurt a fly."

Shoop became silent. He, in turn, stared straight ahead.

"What do you think of it?" queried Corliss.

"Nothin'. 'Cept I wouldn't mind havin' a little ole homestead myself."

Corliss laughed. "You're not cut out for it, Bud. You mean you'd like the chance to make the water-hole a base for operations against Loring. And the place isn't worth seed, Bud."

"But that water is goin' to be worth somethin'—and right soon. Loring can't graze over this side the Concho, if he can't get to water."

"That's it. If I put you on that ranch, you'd stand off Loring's outfit to the finish, I guess."

"I sure would."

"That's why I want Sundown to take it up. He'd let his worst enemy water sheep or cattle there. He won't fight, but he's loyal enough to my interests to sue Loring for trespass, if necessary."

"See you and raise you one, Jack. They'll bluff Sun clean off his hind feet. He won't stick."

"I'll chance it, Bud. And, besides, I need you right where you are."

"I'm sure happy!" exclaimed the irrepressible Bud, grinning.

Corliss laughed, then shook his head. "I'll tell you one thing," he said, facing his foreman. "I've been 'tending too many irons and some of 'em are getting cold. I don't want trouble with any one. I've held off from Loring because—oh—because I had a good reason to say nothing. Billy's out of it again. The coast is clear, and I'm going to give old man Loring the fight of his life."

The whoop which Shoop let out startled the team into a lunging gallop. "Go it, if you want to!" said Corliss as the buckboard swung around a turn and took the incline toward Antelope. "I'm in a hurry myself."

Nevertheless, he saved the team as they struck the level and held them to a trot. "Wise old head," was Shoop's inward comment. And then aloud: "Say, Jack, I ain't sayin' I'm glad to see you get beat up, but that bing on the head sure got you started right. The boys was commencin' to wonder how long you'd stand it without gettin' your back up. She's up. I smell smoke."

At Antelope, Shoop put up the horses. Later he joined his employer and they had supper at the hotel. Then they strolled out and down the street toward the sheriff's home. When they knocked at the door it was opened by a plump, dark-eyed woman who greeted them heartily.

"Come right in, boys. Jim's tendin' the baby." And she took their hats.

They stepped to the adjoining room where Sheriff Jim sat on the floor, his coat off, while his youngest deputy, clad only in an abbreviated essential garnished with a safety-pin, sat opposite, gravely tearing up the evening paper and handing the pieces to his proud father, who stuffed the pieces in his pants pocket and cheerfully asked for more.

"Election?" queried Shoop.

"And all coming Jim's way," commented Corliss.

The baby paused in his balloting and solemnly surveyed the dusty strangers. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his father's pocket and offered it to Shoop. "Wants me to vote, the little cuss! Well, here goes." And, albeit unfamiliar with plump aborigines at close range, the foreman entered into the spirit of the game and cast his vote for the present incumbent, deputizing the "yearlin'" to handle the matter. The yearling however, evidently thought it was time for a recount. He gravitated to the perspiring candidate and, standing on his hands and feet,—an attitude which seemingly caused him no inconvenience,—reached in the ballot-box and pulling therefrom a handful of votes he cast them ceiling-ward with a shrill laugh, followed by an unintelligible spluttering as he sat down suddenly and began to pick up the scattered pieces of paper.

"You're elected," announced Shoop.

And the by-play was understood by the three men, yet each maintained his unchanged expression of countenance.

"You see how I'm fixed, boys," said the sheriff. "Got to stick by my constituent or he'll howl."

"We're in no hurry, Jim. Just drove into town to look around a little."

"I'll take him now," said Mrs. Jim, as she came from the kitchen drying her hands on her apron.

The elector, however, was of a different mind. He greeted his mother with a howl and a series of windmill revolutions of his arms and legs as she caught him up.

"Got mighty free knee-action," remarked Shoop. "Mebby when he's bedded down for the night you can come over to the 'Palace.'"

"I'll be right with you." And the sheriff slipped into his coat. "How you feeling, Jack?"

"Pretty good. That's a great boy of yours."

"Sure got your brand," added Shoop. "Built close to the ground like his dad."

Sheriff Banks accepted these hardy compliments with an embarrassed grin and followed his guests to the doorway.

"Good-night!" called Mrs. Jim from the obscurity of the bedroom.

"Good-night, ma'am!" from Shoop.

"Good-night!" said Corliss. "Take good care of that yearling."

"Well, now, John, as if I wouldn't!"

"Molly would come out," apologized Jim, "only the kid is—is grazin'. How's the feed holdin' out on the Concho?" which question following in natural sequence was not, however, put accidentally.

"Fair," said Corliss. "We looked for you up that way."

"I was over on the Reservation. I sent Tom up there to see after things," and the sheriff gestured toward the distant Concho. "Sent him up to-night. Let's go over to the office."

Corliss shook his head. "Don't want to see him, just now. Besides, I want to say a few things private."

"All right. There was a buyer from Kansas City dropped in to town to-day. Didn't see him, did you?"

"Cattle?"

"Uhuh."

"No. We just got in."

They turned and walked up the street, nodding to an occasional lounger, laughing and talking easily, yet each knew that their banter was a meandering current leading to something deeper which would be sounded before they separated.

Sheriff Banks suddenly stopped and slapped his thigh. "By Gum! I clean forgot to ask if you had chuck. You see that kid of mine—"

"Sure! But we put the 'Palace' two feeds to the bad," asserted Shoop.

They drifted to the hotel doorway and paused at the counter where each gravely selected a cigar. Then they clumped upstairs to Corliss's room. Jim Banks straddled a chair and faced his friends.

Shoop, excusing himself with humorous politeness, punched the pillows together and lay back on the bed which creaked and rustled beneath his weight. "These here corn-husk mattresses is apologizin'," he said, twisting around and leaning on his elbow.

"Well, Jack," said the smiling sheriff, "shoot the piece."

"Or the justice of the peace—don't matter," murmured Shoop.

Corliss, leaning forward, gazed at the end of his cigar. Then he raised his eyes. "Jim," he said quietly, "I want Sundown."

"So do I."

Corliss smiled. "You've got him, all right. What's your idea?"

"Well, if anybody else besides you asked me, Jack, they'd be wasting time. Sundown is your man. I don't know anything about him except he was a Hobo before he hit the Concho. But I happen to know that he was pretty close to the place where Fadeaway got his, the same day and about the same time. I've listened to all the talk around town and it hasn't all been friendly to you. You can guess that part of it."

"If you want me—" began Corliss.

"No." And the sheriff's gesture of negation spread a film of cigar-ash on the floor. "It's the other man I want."

"Sundown?" asked Shoop, sitting up suddenly.

"You go to sleep, Bud," laughed the sheriff. "You can't catch me that easy."

Shoop relaxed with the grin of a school-boy.

"I'll go bail," offered Corliss.

"No. That would spoil my plan. See here, Jack, I know you and Bud won't talk. Loring telephoned me to look out for Sundown. I did. Now, Loring knows who shot Fadeaway, or I miss my guess. Nellie Loring knows, too. So do you, but you can't prove it. It was like Fade to put Loring's sheep into the canon, but we can't prove even that, now. I'm pretty sure your scrap with Fade didn't have anything to do with his getting shot. You ain't that kind."

"Well, here's my side of it, Jim. Fadeaway had it in for me for firing him. He happened to see me talking to Nellie Loring at Fernando's camp. Later we met up on the old Blue Trail. He said one or two things that I didn't like. I let him have it with the butt of my quirt. He jerked out his gun and hit me a clip on the head. That's all I remember till the boys came along."

"You didn't ride as far as the upper ford, that day?"

"No. I told Fadeaway I wanted him to come back with me and talk to Loring. I was pretty sure he put the sheep into the canon."

"Well, Jack, knowing you since you were a boy, that's good enough for me."

"But how about Sundown?"

"He stays. How long do you think I'll hold Sundown before Nell Loring drives into Antelope to tell me she can like as not prove he didn't kill Fade?"

"But if you know that, why do you hold him?"

"To cinch up my ideas, tight. Holding him will make talk. Folks always like to show off what they know about such things. It's natural in 'em."

"New Mex. is a comf'table-sized State," commented Shoop from the bed.

"And he was raised there," said the sheriff. "He's got friends over the line and so have I. Sent 'em over last week."

"Thought Sun was raised back East?" said Shoop, again sitting up.

Corliss smiled. "Better give it up, Bud."

"Oh, very well!" said Shoop, mimicking a grande dame who had once stopped at Antelope in search for local color. "Anyhow, you got to set a Mexican to catch a Mexican when he's hidin' out with Mexicans." With this bit of advice, Shoop again relapsed to silence.

"Going back to the Concho to-morrow?" queried Banks.

"No. Got a little business in town."

"I heard Loring was due here to-morrow." The sheriff stated this casually, yet with intent. "I was talking with Art Kennedy 'bout two hours ago—"

"Kennedy the land-shark?" queried Shoop.

"The same. He said something about expecting Loring."

Bud Shoop had never aspired to the distinction of being called a diplomat, but he had an active and an aggressive mind. With the instinct for seizing the main chance by its time-honored forelock, he rose swiftly. "By Gravy, Jack! I gone and left them things in the buckboard!"

"Oh, they'll be all right," said Corliss easily. Then he caught his foreman's eye and read its meaning. His nod to Shoop was all but imperceptible.

"I dunno, Jack. I'd hate to lose them notes."

"Notes?" And the sheriff grinned. "Writing a song or starting a bank, Bud?"

"Song. I was composin' it to Jack, drivin' in." And the genial Bud grabbed his hat and swept out of the room.

Long before he returned, Sheriff Jim had departed puzzling over the foreman's sudden exit until he came opposite "The Last Chance" saloon. There he had an instant glimpse of Bud and the one known as Kennedy leaning against the bar and conversing with much gusto. Then the swing-door dropped into place. The sheriff smiled and putting two and two together found that they made four, as is usually the case. He had wanted to let Corliss know that Loring was coming to Antelope and to let him know casually, and glean from the knowledge anything that might be of value. Sheriff Banks knew a great deal more about the affairs of the distant ranchers than he was ordinarily given credit for. He had long wondered why Corliss had not taken up the water-hole homestead.

Corliss was in bed when Shoop swaggered in. The foreman did a few steps of a jig, flung his hat in the corner, and proceeded to undress.

"Did you see Kennedy?" yawned Corliss.

"Bet your whiskers I did! Got the descriptions in my pocket. You owe me the price of seven drinks, Jack, to say nothin' of what I took myself. Caught him at 'The Last Chance' and let on I was the pore lonely cowboy with a sufferin' thirst. Filled him up with 'Look-out-I'm-Comin'' and landed him at his shack, where he dug up them ole water-hole descriptions, me helpin' promiscus. He kind o' bucked when I ast him for them papers. Said he only had one copy that he was holdin' for another party. And I didn't have to strain my guesser any, to guess who. I told him to saw off and get busy quick or I'd have him pinched for playin' favorites. Guess he seen I meant business, for he come acrost. She toots for Antelope six-forty tomorrow mornin'. This is where I make the grand play as a homesteader, seein' pore Sundown's eatin' on the county. Kind o' had a hunch that way."

"We'll have to nail it quick. If you file you'll have to quit on the Concho."

"Well, then, I quit. Sinker is right in line for my bunk. Me for the big hammer and the little ole sign what says: 'Private property! Keep off! All trespassers will be executed!' And underneath, kind o' sassy-like, 'Bud Shoop, proprietor.'"



CHAPTER XIX

THE ESCAPE

About midnight Corliss and his foreman were awakened by a cry of "Fire!" They scrambled from bed and pawed around in the dark for their clothes.

"Spontinuous conibustication," said Shoop, with a yawn. "A Jew clothin'-store and a insurance-policy. Wonder who's ablaze?"

"I can see from here," said Corliss at the window. "Keep on dressing, Bud, it's the sheriff's office!"

"Sundown!" Shoop exclaimed, dancing about inelegantly with one foot halfway down his pants-leg.

They tramped down the stairs and ran across to the blazing building. A group of half-dressed citizens were passing buckets and dashing their final and ineffectual contents against the spouting flames.

"He's sure done on both sides if he's in there," remarked Shoop. He ran around to the back of the jail and called loudly on Sundown. Jumping, he caught the high wooden bars of the window and peered into the rear room. A rivulet of flame crept along the door that led from the jail to the office. The room seemed to be empty. Shoop dropped to the ground and strolled around to the front. "Tryin' to save the buildin' or the prisoner?" he asked of a sweating bucket-passer.

The man paused for a second, slopping water on his boots and gazing about excitedly. "Hey, boys!" he shouted. "Get an axe and chop open the back! The long gent is roastin' to death in there!"

"And I reckon that'll keep 'em busy while Sun fans it," soliloquized Shoop. "Hello, Jack!" And he beckoned to Corliss. "He ain't in there," he whispered, "But how he got out, gets me!"

"We might as well go back to bed," said Corliss. "They'll get him, anyway. There's one of Jim's deputies on a cayuse now."

"Where do you reckon he'll head for?"

"Don't know, Bud. If he heads for the water-hole, they'll get him in no time."

"Think he set her on fire?"

"Maybe he dropped a cigarette. I don't think he'd risk it, on purpose."

Shoop glanced at his watch, tilting it toward the light of the flames. "It's just one. Hello! There comes the agent. Reckon he thought the station was afire."