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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.
"If I wasn't in every jump of that fight, me heart was." "Better shoot him and put him out of his sufferin'," suggested the puncher. Sundown rose from beside the dog. Shoot Chance? Not so long as he could keep between the dog and the cowboy's gun. The puncher, half in jest, reached for his holster. Sundown's overwrought nerves gave way. He dropped to his knees and lifted his long arms imploringly.
Sundown encouraged him by waving his arm toward the south. "Go ahead, Chance. The boss wants you." Chance trotted toward the cottonwood, nosed among them, and finally took Sundown's trail to the knoll. Sundown crept to the bunk-house, wondering what had become of the Mexican, Tony.
Shoop roped the horse and handed the rope to Sundown, who marched to the water-trough. The pony sniffed at the water and threw up his head. "I reckoned that was it!" said Shoop. "What?" queried Corliss, meanwhile watching Sundown's face. "Oh, some dam' coyote's been paddlin' in that trough again. No wonder the hosses won't drink this mornin'. I don't blame 'em."
It was a long ride, but Sundown's mind was so preoccupied with the preparing of his proposed appeal to the sheep-man that the morning hours and the sunlit miles swept past unnoticed. The dark green of the acacias bordering the hacienda, the twinkling white of the speeding windmill, and the dull brown of the adobes became distinct and separate colors against the far edge of the eastern sky.
Among them he recognized several of Loring's herders, armed and evidently equipped with horses, for they were booted and spurred. He pushed back his hat. "Vamose, eh? I'll be damned if I do." The Mexican whipped his gun out and covered Sundown, who wisely put up his hands. Two of the men crawled through the fence, secured Sundown's horse, and ordered him to dismount.
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."
In his simple way he wondered why he had not wept. He rode slowly to the Concho. Chance leaped circling about his horse. He greeted the dog with a word. When he dismounted, Chance cringed and crept to him. Without question this was his master, and yet there was something in Sundown's attitude that silenced the dog's joyous welcoming.
"Well," he would invariably remark, "you take the trail along Sundown's shadder there, and keep a-fannin' it smart for about three hours. When you come to the end of the shadder, take the right fork of the river, and in another hour you'll strike the Concho. That's the quickest way." And this bit of attenuated humor never failed to produce an effect.
Nevertheless, he realized that Sundown's presence in Usher was quite apt to be followed by a wire from the sheriff of Antelope which would complicate matters, to say the least. He shook hands with the two townsmen and assured them that the hospitality of the Concho was theirs when they chose to honor it. Then he turned to Bud Shoop.
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