“Well, Jack,” said the smiling sheriff, “shoot the piece.”

“Or the justice of the peace—­don’t matter,” murmured Shoop.

Corliss, leaning forward, gazed at the end of his cigar.  Then he raised his eyes.  “Jim,” he said quietly, “I want Sundown.”

“So do I.”

Corliss smiled.  “You’ve got him, all right.  What’s your idea?”

“Well, if anybody else besides you asked me, Jack, they’d be wasting time.  Sundown is your man.  I don’t know anything about him except he was a Hobo before he hit the Concho.  But I happen to know that he was pretty close to the place where Fadeaway got his, the same day and about the same time.  I’ve listened to all the talk around town and it hasn’t all been friendly to you.  You can guess that part of it.”

“If you want me—­” began Corliss.

“No.”  And the sheriff’s gesture of negation spread a film of cigar-ash on the floor.  “It’s the other man I want.”

“Sundown?” asked Shoop, sitting up suddenly.

“You go to sleep, Bud,” laughed the sheriff.  “You can’t catch me that easy.”

Shoop relaxed with the grin of a school-boy.

“I’ll go bail,” offered Corliss.

“No.  That would spoil my plan.  See here, Jack, I know you and Bud won’t talk.  Loring telephoned me to look out for Sundown.  I did.  Now, Loring knows who shot Fadeaway, or I miss my guess.  Nellie Loring knows, too.  So do you, but you can’t prove it.  It was like Fade to put Loring’s sheep into the canon, but we can’t prove even that, now.  I’m pretty sure your scrap with Fade didn’t have anything to do with his getting shot.  You ain’t that kind.”

“Well, here’s my side of it, Jim.  Fadeaway had it in for me for firing him.  He happened to see me talking to Nellie Loring at Fernando’s camp.  Later we met up on the old Blue Trail.  He said one or two things that I didn’t like.  I let him have it with the butt of my quirt.  He jerked out his gun and hit me a clip on the head.  That’s all I remember till the boys came along.”

“You didn’t ride as far as the upper ford, that day?”

“No.  I told Fadeaway I wanted him to come back with me and talk to Loring.  I was pretty sure he put the sheep into the canon.”

“Well, Jack, knowing you since you were a boy, that’s good enough for me.”

“But how about Sundown?”

“He stays.  How long do you think I’ll hold Sundown before Nell Loring drives into Antelope to tell me she can like as not prove he didn’t kill Fade?”

“But if you know that, why do you hold him?”

“To cinch up my ideas, tight.  Holding him will make talk.  Folks always like to show off what they know about such things.  It’s natural in ’em.”

“New Mex. is a comf’table-sized State,” commented Shoop from the bed.

“And he was raised there,” said the sheriff.  “He’s got friends over the line and so have I. Sent ’em over last week.”