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 Fe,
--Hot coffee, ham-and-eggs, huckleberry pies,--
Got every lonely puncher that went down that way
With her yella-