p when he could go no farther without plunging headlong into
blackness, and mentally sketched a map of that particular portion of
the globe and tried to find in it a place where the gulch might
consistently lie. After a minute he gave over the attempt and admitted
to himself that, according to his mental map, it could not consistently
lie anywhere at all. Even Glory seemed to have lost interest in the
quest and stood listlessly with his head down. His attitude irritated
Weary very much.

"Yuh damn', taffy colored cayuse!" he said fretfully. "This is as much
your funeral as mine--seeing yuh started out all so brisk to find that
pinto. Do yah suppose yuh could find a horse if he was staked ten feet
in front of your nose? Chances are, yuh couldn't. I reckon you'd have
trouble finding your way around the little pasture at the ranch--unless
the sun shone real bright and yuh had somebody to lead yuh!"

This was manifestly unjust and it was not like Weary; but this night's
mission was getting on his nerves. He leaned and shifted the
medicine-case again, and felt ruefully of his bruised leg. That also
was getting upon his nerves.

"Oh, Mamma!" he muttered disgustedly. "This is sure a sarcastic
layout; dope enough here to cure all the sickness in Montana--if a
fellow knew enough to use it--battering a hole in my leg you could
throw a yearling calf into, and me wandering wild over the hills like a
locoed sheepherder! Glory, you get a move on yuh, you knock-kneed,
buzzard-headed--" He subsided into incoherent grumbling and rode back
whence he came, up the gully's brim.

When the night was far gone and the slant of the Great Dipper told him
that day-dawn was near, he heard a horse nicker wistfully, away to the
right. Wheeling sharply, his spurs raking the roughened sides of
Glory, he rode recklessly toward the sound, not daring to hope that it
might be the pinto and yet holding his mind back from despair.

When he was near the place--so near that he could see a dim, formless
shape outlined against the sky-line,--Glory stumbled over a sunken rock
and fell heavily upon his knees. When he picked himself up he hobbled
and Weary cursed him unpityingly.

When, limping painfully, Glory came up with the object, the heart of
Weary rose up and stuck in his throat; for the object was a pinto horse
and above it bulked the squat figure of an irate old man.

"Hello, Dock," greeted Weary. "How do yuh stack up?"

"_Mon Dieu