Sundown Slim

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 Señora 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 Señora the task of explanation. "Never figured that repenting by proxy was the best plan," he told the Señora. "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 Señora 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… mañana… mañana… 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 cañon 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 cañon, 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 cañon. 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 cañon. 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 cañon'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 cañon, 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 cañon."

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 Señorita 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 Señorita 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, Señorita. You will remember the old Fernando, perhaps?"

"But you're coming back! Oh! it was terrible!" she cried. "I rode to the cañon 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 cañon. 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 cañon'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 cañon. 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 cañon. 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 cañon 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 cañon 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 cañon, 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 Señora 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 cañon 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 Señorita 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 cañon, 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 cañon. 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 Cañon, 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 cañon 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."