Sundown shook hands with his informant, crossed to the corner of the room, and slung his blanket-roll across his back.  “Much obliged to you fellas,” he said, his lean, timorous face beaming with gratitude.  “It makes a guy feel happy when a bunch of strangers does him a good turn.  You see I ain’t got the chanct to get a job, like you fellas, me bein’ a Bo.  I had a pal onct—­but He crossed over.  He was the only one that ever done me a good turn without my askin’.  He was a college guy.  I wisht he was here so he could say thanks to you fellas classy-like.  I’m feeling them kind of thanks, but I can’t say ’em.”

The grins faded from some of the faces.  “You ain’t goin’ to fan it to-night?” asked one.

“Guess I will.  You see, I’m broke, now.  I’m used to travelin’ any old time, and nights ain’t bad—­believe me.  It’s mighty hot daytimes in this here country.  How far did you say?”

“Just over the hill—­then a piece down the trail.  You can’t miss it,” said the cowboy who had spoken first.

“Well, so-long, gents.  If I get that job and any of you boys come out to the hotel, I’ll sure feed you good.”

An eddy of smoke followed Sundown as he passed through the doorway.  A cowboy snickered.  The room became silent.

“Call the poor ramblin’ lightnin’-rod back,” suggested a kindly puncher.

“He’ll come back fast enough,” asserted the perpetrator of the “joke.”  “It’s thirty dry and dusty miles to the water-hole ranch.  When he gets a look at how far it is to-morrow mornin’ he’ll sure back into the fence and come flyin’ for Antelope with reins draggin’.  Set ’em up again, Joe.”

CHAPTER II

THE JOKE

Owing to his unaccustomed potations Sundown was perhaps a trifle over-zealous in taking the road at night.  He began to realize this after he had journeyed along the dim, starlit trail for an hour or so and found no break in the level monotony of the mesa.  He peered ahead, hoping to see the blur of a hill against the southern stars.  The air was cool and clear and sweet.  He plodded along, happy in the prospect of work.  Although he was a physical coward, darkness and the solitudes held no enemies for him.  He felt that the world belonged to him at night.  The moon was his lantern and the stars were his friends.  Circumstance and environment had wrought for him a coat of cheerful effrontery which passed for hardihood; a coat patched with slang and gaping with inconsistencies, which he put on or off at will.  Out on the starlit mesas he had metaphorically shed his coat.  He was at home.  Here there were no men to joke about his awkwardness and his ungainly height.  A wanderer by nature, he looked upon space as his kingdom.  Great distances were but the highways of his heritage, each promising new vistas, new adventuring.  His wayside fires were his altars, their smoke the