n' 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.