“Guess not.  He’s lighting up.  Must be a special going to stop.”

“He’s sure set the red.  Say, I’m goin’ over to see.  Wait a minute.”

Shoop followed the agent into the station.  Presently the foreman reappeared and beckoned to Corliss.  “Listen, Jack!  Reddy says he’s got some runnin’ orders for the Flyer and she’s got to stop to get ’em.  That means we can eat breakfast in Usher, ‘stead of here.  No tellin’ who’ll be on the six-forty headed for the same place, tomorrow mornin’.”

Corliss pondered.  His plan of homesteading the water-hole ranch had been upset by the arrest of Sundown.  Still, that was no reason for giving up the plan.  From Shoop’s talk with Kennedy, the lawyer, it was evident that Loring had his eye on the deserted ranch.

Far down the track he saw a glimmering dot of fire and heard the faint muffled whistle of the Flyer.  “All right, Bud.  I’ll get the tickets.  Get our coats.  We can just make it.”

When they stepped from the Flyer at Usher, the faint light of dawn was edging the eastern hills.  A baggage-truck rumbled past and they heard some one shout, “Get out o’ that!” In the dim light they saw a figure crawl from beneath the baggage-car and dash across the station platform to be swallowed up in the shadowy gloom of a side street.

“I only had seven drinks,” said Shoop, gazing after the disappearing figure.  “But if Sundown ain’t a pair of twins, that was him.”

“Hold on, Bud!” And Corliss laid his hand on Shoop’s arm.  “Don’t take after him.  That’s the way to stampede him.  We go easy till it’s light.  He’ll see us.”

They sauntered up the street and stopped opposite an “all-night” eating-house.

“We won’t advertise the Concho, this trip,” said Corliss, as they entered.

Shoop, with his legs curled around the counter stool, sipped his coffee and soliloquized.  “Wise old head!  Never was a hotel built that was too good for Jack when he’s travelin’.  And he don’t do his thinkin’ with his feet, either.”

The waiter, who had retired to the semi-seclusion of the kitchen, dozed in a chair tilted back against the wall.  He was awakened by a voice at the rear door.  Shoop straightened up and grinned at Corliss.  The waiter vocalized his attitude with the brief assertion that there was “nothin’ doin’.”

“It’s him!” said Shoop.

“I got the price,” came from the unseen.

“Then you beat it around to the front,” suggested the waiter.

Shoop called for another cup of coffee.  As the waiter brought it, Sundown, hatless, begrimed, and showing the effects of an unupholstered journey, appeared in the doorway.  Shoop turned and stood up.

“Well, if it ain’t me old pal Buddy!” exclaimed Sundown.  “What you doin’ in this here burg?”

“Why, hello, Hawkins!  Where’d you fall from?  How’s things over to Homer?”

Sundown took the hint and fabricated a heart-rending tale of an all-night ride on “a cayuse that had been tryin’ to get rid of him ever since he started and had finally piled him as the Flyer tooted for Usher.”