“Woodville,” said the sheriff.  “Hey, you, Jig, hustle that hoss along!”

Obediently the drooping Gaspar spurred his horse.  The animal broke into a gallop that set Gaspar jolting in the seat, with wildly flopping elbows.

“Look at that,” said Sinclair.  “Would you ever think that men could be born as awkward as that?  Would you ever think that men would be born that didn’t have no use in the world?”

“He ain’t altogether useless,” decided the sheriff.  “Seems as how he’s done noble in the school.  Takes on with the little boys and girls most amazing, and he knows how to keep even the eighth graders interested.  But what can you expect of a gent that ain’t got no more pride than to be a schoolteacher, eh?”

Sinclair shook his head.

The trail drifted downward now less brokenly, and Woodville came into view.  It was a wretched town in a wretched landscape, far different from the wild hills and the rich plowed grounds around Sour Creek.  All that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since burned away to drab yellows and browns.  A horrible place to die in, Sinclair thought.

“Speaking of hosses, that’s a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff.”

“Rode him for five years,” said the sheriff.  “Raised him and busted him and trained him all by myself.  Ain’t nobody but me ever rode him.  He can go so soft-footed he wouldn’t bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose and run like the wind.  They ain’t no better hoss than this that’s come under my eye, Sinclair.  Are you much on the points of a hoss?”

“I use hosses—­I don’t love ’em,” said Sinclair gloomily.  “But I can read the points tolerable.”

The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly.  “So you don’t love hosses, eh?” he said, returning distantly to the subject.  It was easy to see where his own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its master spoke.

“Sheriff,” explained Sinclair, “I’m a single-shot gent.  I don’t aim to have no scatter fire in what I like.  They’s only one man that I ever called friend, they’s only one place that I ever called home—­the mountains, yonder—­and they’s only one hoss that I ever took to much.  I raised Molly up by hand, you might say.  She was ugly as sin, but they wasn’t nothing she couldn’t do—­nothing!” He paused.  “Sheriff, I used to talk to that hoss!”

The sheriff was greatly moved.  “What became of her?” he asked softly.

“I took after a gent once.  He couldn’t hit me, but he put a slug through Molly.”

“What became of the gent?” asked the sheriff still more softly.

“He died just a little later.  Just how I ain’t prepared to state.”

“Good!” said the sheriff.  He actually smiled in the pleasure of newfound kinship.  “You and me would get on proper, Sinclair.”

“Most like.”

“This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me touching a rein.  Knows direction like a wolf.”