“So that’s what’s worrying you, eh?  Scared you’ll get sent over for this.  Well, you won’t.  You haven’t got anything on you.”

“’T ain’t that, Billy.  It’s you.”

Corliss laughed.  “You’re getting religion, too.  Well, I never thought you’d go back on me.”

“I ain’t.  I was always your friend, Billy.”

Corliss hesitated.  The door behind Sundown moved ever so little.  Corliss’s eyes held Sundown with unwinking gaze.  Slowly the door swung open.  Sundown felt rather than heard a presence behind him.  Before he could turn, something crashed down on his head.  The face of his old friend, intense, hard, desperate, was the last thing imaged upon his mind as the room swung round and he dropped limply to the floor.

“Just in time,” said Fadeaway, bending over the prostrate figure.  “Get a move, Bill.  I followed him from the cottonwoods and heard his talk.  I was waitin’ to get him when he come out, but I seen what he was up to and I fixed him.”

Corliss backed against the wall, trembling and white.  “Is he—­did you—?”

Fadeaway grinned.  “No, just chloroformed him.  Get a move, Bill.  No tellin’ who’ll come moseyin’ along.  Got the stuff?”

Corliss nodded.

Fadeaway blew out the light.  “Come on, Bill.  She worked slick.”

“But—­he knows me,” said Corliss.  “He’ll squeal.”

“And I reckon Jack’ll believe him.  Why, it’s easy, Bill.  They find the Bo on the job and the money gone.  Who did it?  Ask me.”

At the cottonwoods they mounted.  “Now, you fan it for Soper’s,” said Fadeaway.  “I’ll keep on for the Blue.  To-morrow evenin’ I’ll ride over and get my divvy.”

Corliss hesitated.

“You better travel,” said Fadeaway, reining his horse around.  “So-long.”

Chance, a prisoner in the stable, whined and gnawed at the rope with which Corliss had tied him.  The rope was hard-twisted and tough.  Finally the last strand gave way.  The dog leaped through the doorway and ran sniffing around the enclosure.  He found Sundown’s trail and followed it to the ranch-house.  At the threshold the dog stopped.  His neck bristled and he crooked one foreleg.  Slowly he stalked to the prone figure on the floor.  He sniffed at Sundown’s hands and pawed at him.  Slowly Sundown’s eyes opened.  He tried to rise and sank back groaning.  Chance frisked around him playfully coaxing.  Finally Sundown managed to sit up.  With pain-heavy eyes he gazed around the room.  Slowly he got to his feet and staggered to the doorway.  He leaned against the lintel and breathed deeply of the fresh morning air.  The clear cold tang of the storm that had passed, lingered, giving a keen edge to the morning.  “We’re sure in wrong,” he muttered, gazing at Chance, who stood watching him with head cocked and eyes eager for something to happen—­preferably action.  Sundown studied the dog dully.  “Say, Chance,” he said finally, “do you think you could take a little word to the camp?  I heard of dogs doin’ such things.  Mebby you could.  Somebody’s got to do ‘somethin’ and I can’t.”  Painfully he stooped and pointed toward the south.  “Go tell the boss!” he commanded.  Chance whined.  “No, that way.  The camp!”