Dave eased himself in the saddle.  “From the Southwest.”

“You’re quite a ways from home.  I reckon your hills ain’t so uncurried down there, are they?”

The cowpuncher looked over the mountains.  He was among the summits, aglow in the amber light of day with the many blended colors of wild flowers.  “We got some down there, too, that don’t fit a lady’s boodwar.  Say, if I keep movin’ where’ll this road take me?”

The man with the ore team gave information.  It struck Dave that he had run into a blind alley.

“If you’re after a job, I reckon you can find one at some of the mines.  They’re needin’ hands,” the teamster added.

Perhaps this was the best immediate solution of the problem.  The puncher nodded farewell and rode down into the town.

He left Chiquito at a livery barn, after having personally fed and watered the pinto, and went himself to a hotel.  Here he registered, not under his own name, ate breakfast, and lay down for a few hours’ sleep.  When he awakened he wrote a note with the stub of a pencil to Bob Hart.  It read: 

Well, Bob, I done got Chiquito back though it sure looked like I wasn’t going to but you never can tell and as old Buck Byington says its a hell of a long road without no bend in it and which you can bet your boots the old alkali is right at that.  Well I found the little pie-eater in Denver O K but so gaunt he wont hardly throw a shadow and what can you expect of scalawags like Miller and Doble who don’t know how to treat a horse.  Well I run Chiquito off right under their noses and we had a little gun play and made my getaway and I reckon I will stay a spell and work here.  Well good luck to all the boys till I see them again in the sweet by and by.

Dave

P.S.  Get this money order cashed old-timer and pay the boys what I borrowed when we hit the trail after Miller and Doble.  I lit out to sudden to settle.  Five to Steve and five to Buck.  Well so long.

Dave

The puncher went to the post-office, got a money order, and mailed the letter, after which he returned to the hotel.  He intended to eat dinner and then look for work.

Three or four men were standing on the steps of the hotel talking with the proprietor.  Dave was quite close before the Boniface saw him.

“That’s him,” the hotel-keeper said in an excited whisper.

A brown-faced man without a coat turned quickly and looked at Sanders.  He wore a belt with cartridges and a revolver.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

Dave knew at once this man was an officer of the law.  He knew, too, the futility of trying to escape under the pseudonym he had written on the register.

“Sanders—­Dave Sanders.”

“I want you.”

“So?  Who are you?”

“Sheriff of the county.”

“Whadjawant me for?”

“Murder.”

Dave gasped.  His heart beat fast with a prescience of impending disaster.  “Murder,” he repeated dully.