“I s’pose you’re bustin’ to find out the news about the folks,” he said dryly, at last.

The other sat with his hands loosely clasped in his lap.  His wide eyes looked far away, and there was about his lips that looseness, that lack of compression, which one sees so often in children.  He might have sat, in that posture, for the statue of thoughtlessness.

“What folks?” he asked at last

Buck Daniels had lighted a match, but now he sat staring blank until the match burned down to his fingers.  With an oath he tossed the remnant away and lighted another.  He had drawn down several long breaths of smoke to the bottom of his lungs before he could speak again.

“Some people you used to know; I suppose you’ve forgotten all about ’em, eh?” His eyes narrowed; there was a spark of something akin to dread in them.  “Kate Cumberland?” he queried.

A light came in the face of Dan Barry.

“Kate Cumberland?” he repeated.  “How is she, Buck?  Lately, I been thinkin’ about her every day.”

A trembling took the body and the voice of Daniels; his errand, after all, might meet some success.

“Kate?” he repeated.  “Oh, ay, she’s well enough.  But Joe Cumberland ain’t.”

“No?”

“He’s dyin’ Dan.”

And Dan replied calmly.  “He’s kind of old, I s’pose.”

“Old?” said Buck, with a sort of horror.  “Yes, he’s old, right enough. 
D’you know why he’s dying?  It’s because you went away the way you done,
Dan.  That’s what’s killin’ him.”

Something of thought came in the face of Barry.

“Maybe I understand,” he said slowly.  “If I was to lose Satan, or Bart—­” here the great dog whined at the mention of his name, and Barry dropped a slender hand across the scarred forehead of his servant.  “If I was to lose ’em, I’d sort of mourn for ’em, maybe.”

Buck Daniels set his teeth.

“I don’t suppose it seems possible,” he said, “that a man could miss another man the way you could miss your—­dog, eh?  But it is!  Joe Cumberland is dying for you, Dan, as sure as if you’d put a bullet in his bowels.”

The other hesitated and then frowned and made a gesture of vague dismissal.

“Don’t you figure on doin’ nothing about it?” asked Buck softly.

“What could I do?”

“My God A’mighty, ain’t you got no human feelin’s?”

“I dunno what you mean,” said the soft voice.

“This!  Can’t you git on your hoss and ride back with me to Cumberland Ranch?  Stay with the old man till he gets back on his feet.  Ain’t that easy to do?  Is your time so damned valuable you can’t spare a few days for that?”

“But I am goin’ back,” answered Dan, in a rather hurt voice.  “They ain’t no need for cussin’ me, Buck.  I been thinkin’ of Kate, every day, almost.”

“Since when?”

“I dunno.”  Dan stirred uneasily.  He looked up, and far above Buck, following the direction of Dan’s eyes, saw a pattern of wild geese.  “I been sort of driftin’ North towards the Cumberland Ranch and Kate,” went on Dan.  He sighed:  “I been thinkin’ of her eyes, which is blue, Buck, and her hair, and the soft sound of her voice.  They been hangin’ in my ears, stayin’ behind my eyes, lately, and I been driftin’ up that way steady.”