Although Sundown was offered the use of a bunk in the men’s quarters, he chose to sleep in a box-stall in the stable, explaining that he was accustomed to sleep in all kinds of places, and that the unused box-stall with fresh clean straw and blankets would make a very comfortable bedroom.  His reason for declining a place with the men became apparent about midnight.

Bud Shoop had, in a bluff, offhand way, given him a flannel shirt, overalls, an old flop-brimmed Stetson, and, much to Sundown’s delight, a pair of old riding-boots.  Hitherto, Sundown had been too preoccupied with culinary matters to pay much attention to his clothing.  Incidentally he was spending not a little time in getting accustomed to his spurs, which he wore upon all occasions, clinking and clanking about the cook-room, a veritable Don Quixote of the (kitchen) range.

The arrival of Corliss, three days after Sundown’s advent, had a stimulating effect on the new cook.  He determined to make the best appearance possible.

The myriad Arizona stars burned with darting radiance, in thin, unwavering shafts of splintered fire.  The moon, coldly brilliant, sharp-edged and flat like a disk of silver paper, touched the twinkling aspens with a pallid glow and stamped a distorted silhouette of the low-roofed ranch-buildings on the hard-packed earth.  In the corral the shadow of a restless pony drifted back and forth.  Chance, chained to a post near the bunk-house, shook himself and sniffed the keen air, for just at that moment the stable door had opened and a ghostly figure appeared; a figure that shivered in the moonlight.  The dog bristled and whined.  “S-s-s-h!” whispered Sundown.  “It’s me, ain’t it?”

With his bundle of clothes beneath his arm, he picked a hesitating course across the yard and deposited the bundle beside the water-trough.  Chance, not altogether satisfied with Sundown’s assurance, proclaimed his distrust by a long nerve-reaching howl.  Some one in the bunkhouse muttered.  Sundown squatted hastily in the shadow of the trough.  Bud Shoop rose from his bunk and crept to the door.  He saw nothing unusual, and was about to return to his bed when an apparition rose slowly from behind the water-trough.  The foreman drew back in the shadow of the doorway and watched.

Sundown’s bath was extensive as to territory but brief as to duration.  He dried himself with a gunny-sack and slipped shivering into his new raiment.  “That there September Morn ain’t got nothin’ on me except looks,” he spluttered.  “And she is welcome to the looks.  Shirts and pants for mine!”

Then he crept back to his blankets and slept the sleep of one who has atoned for his sins of omission and suffered righteously in the ordeal.

Bud Shoop wanted to laugh, but forgot to do it.  Instead he padded back to his bunk and lay awake pondering.  “Takin’ a bath sure does make a fella feel like the fella he wants to feel like—­but in the drinkin’-trough, at night . . .!  I reckon that there Hobo ain’t right in his head.”