Sundown Slim

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 Fé,
    —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 cañon, 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 cañon."

"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.'"