s Senor Jim?" he queried, breathing hard.

"Don' know, hombre. This his hoss?"

"Si! It is Dex."

'Well, the hoss came in, recent, draggin' the reins."

"Then you have seen him?"

"Seen who? Who are you, anyway?"

"Me, I am Ramon Ortego, of Sonora. The Senor Jim is my friend. I would
find him."

"Well, if your friend sports a black Stetson and a dam' bad eye and
performs with a short-barreled .45, he rode in this afternoon just about
a hour behind three other fellas. They lit out into the dry spot. Reckon
you'll find your friend out there, if the coyotes ain't got to him."

Ramon limped to the rail and untied Dex. Then he mounted his own horse.

"Dex," he said softly, riding alongside, "where is the Senor Jim?"

The big buckskin swung his head round and sniffed Ramon's hand. Then he
plodded down the street toward the desert. At the tank Ramon let his
horse drink. Dex, like a great dog, sniffed the back trail on which he
had come, plodding through the night toward the spot where he knew his
master to be.

Ramon, burdened with dread and weariness, rode with his hands clasped
round the saddle-horn. The Senor Jim, his Senor Jim, had found those
whom he sought. He had not come back. Ramon was glad that he had filled
the canteen. If the man who had killed his Senor Jim had escaped, he
would follow him even as he had followed Waring. And he would find him.
"And then I shall kill him," said Ramon simply. "He does not know my
face. As I speak to him the Senor Jim's name I shall kill him, and the
Senor Jim will know then that I have been faithful."

The big buckskin plodded on across the sand, the empty stirrups
swinging. Ramon's gaze lifted to the stars. He smiled wanly.

"I follow him. Wherever he has gone, I follow him, and he will not lose
the way."

His bowed head, nodding to the pace of the pony, seemed to reiterate in
grotesque assertion his spoken word. Ramon's tired body tingled as Dex
strode faster. The horse nickered, and an answering nicker came from the
night. His own tired pony struck into a trot. Dex stopped. Ramon slid
down, and, stumbling forward, he touched a black bulk that lay on the
sand.

Waring, despite his trim build, was a heavy man. Ramon was just able to
lift him and lay him across the saddle. A coyote yipped from the brush
of the arroyo. As Ramon started back toward town his horse shied at
something near the arroyo's entrance. Ramon did not know that the bodies
of Tony and Bob Brewst