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Updated: June 14, 2025
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.
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?"
The face of his old friend, intense, hard, desperate, was the last thing imaged upon his mind as the room swung round and he dropped limply to the floor. "Just in time," said Fadeaway, bending over the prostrate figure. "Get a move, Bill. I followed him from the cottonwoods and heard his talk. I was waitin' to get him when he come out, but I seen what he was up to and I fixed him."
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?
Now what's bitin' you?" "The sheep! He kill the lamb!" cried the herder. Fadeaway laughed. "Did, eh? Well, I tried to call him off. Reckon you heard me whistle him, didn't you?" The cowboy's assertion was so palpably an insult that old Fernando's anger overcame his caution. He stepped forward threateningly. Fadeaway's gun was out and a splash of dust leaped up at Fernando's feet.
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.
"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.
"Nothing 'ceptin' I'm game to stand by a pal any time." "You mean ?" "Jest a josh, Billy. I was only thinkin' what could be pulled off by a couple of wise ones. So-long!" And the cowboy departed wondering just how far his covert suggestion had carried with Will Corliss. As for Will Corliss, Fadeaway cared nothing whatever.
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?"
The young man refused the proffered cigar, picked up the gold-piece and strolled out. The sheriff leaned back in his chair. "Well if Billy feels that way toward folks, reckon he won't get far with John, or anybody else. Too dinged bad. He used to be a good kid." Fadeaway, one of the Concho riders, urged his cayuse through the ford, reined short, and turned to watch Chance, who accompanied him.
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