the herder?"

"No, you must not think of it; you are a man of a family. But if you can
find any one who has had the smallpox send him up; the old herder who is
nursing the patient is not strong, and may drop any moment. Then it's up
to me."

The men came back to the camp-fire conversing in low voices, some of them
cursing in tones of awe. One or two of them were small farmers from Deer
Creek, recent comers to the State, or men with bunches of milk-cows, and
to them this deed was awesome.

The sheriff followed, saying: "Well, there's nothing to do but wait till
morning. The rest of you men better go home. You can't be of any use
here."

For more than three hours the sheriff and Redfield sat with the ranger
waiting for daylight, and during this time the name of every man in the
region was brought up and discussed. Among others, Ross mentioned the old
man in the ditch.

"He wouldn't hurt a bumblebee!" declared the sheriff. "He's got a bunch of
cattle, but he's the mildest old man in the State. He's the last rancher
in the country to even stand for such work. What made you mention him?"

"I passed him as I was riding back," replied Cavanagh, "and he had a
scared look in his eyes."

The sheriff grunted. "You imagined all that. The old chap always has a
kind of meek look."

Cavanagh, tired, hungry, and rebellious, waited until the first faint
light in the east announced the dawn; then he rose, and, stretching his
hand out toward it, said: "Here comes the new day. Will it be a new day to
the State, or is it to be the same old round of savagery?"

Redfield expressed a word of hope, and in that spirit the ranger mounted
and rode away back toward the small teepee wherein Wetherford was doing
his best to expiate his past--a past that left him old and friendless at
fifty-five. The sheriff and his men took up the work of vengeance which
fell to them as officers of the law.

It was nearly noon of a glorious day as Cavanagh, very tired and very
hungry, rode up to the sheep-herder's tent. Wetherford was sitting in the
sun calmly smoking his pipe, the sheep were feeding not far away, attended
by the dog, and an air of peace covered his sunlit rocky world.

"How is the Basque?" asked the ranger.

Wetherford pointed upward. "All over."

"Then it wasn't smallpox?"

"I reckon that's what it was; it sure was fierce. I judge it's a case of
Injun burial--no ceremony--right here in the rocks. I'll let you dig the
hole (I'm jus