“No.  You just keep right on.  Pay no attention to him.”

“Just sick Chance on him, eh?”

“He’d get Chance.  I’m going to run some cattle over that way soon.  Then you’ll have company.  You needn’t be scared.”

“Cattle is some comp’ny at that.  Say, have I got to ride that there bronc Bud jest went down the street on?”

“As soon as we get out of town.”

“Which wouldn’t be long if we had hosses like him, eh?”

“I’ll give you a note to Murphy.  He’ll send your horse back to Usher and let you take a fresh horse when you start for the Concho.  Take it easy, and don’t talk.”

“All right, boss.  But I was thinkin’—­”

“What?”

“Well, it’s men like me and you that puts things through.  It takes a man with sand to go around this country gettin’ pinched and thrun and burnt up and bein’ arrested every time he goes to spit.  Folks’ll be sayin’ that there Sundown gent is a brave man—­me!  Never shot nobody and dependin’ on his nerve, every time.  They’s nothin’ like havin’ a bad repetation.”

“Nothing like it,” assented Corliss, smiling.  “Well, here’s your road.  Keep straight on till you cross the river.  Then take the right fork and stick to it, and you’ll ride right into Murphy’s.  He’ll fix you up, all right.”

“Did you think in this note to tell him to give me a hoss that only travels one way to onct?” queried Sundown.

Corliss laughed.  “Yes, I told him.  Don’t forget you’re a citizen and a homesteader.  We’re depending on you.”

“You bet!  And I’ll be there with the bells!”

Shoop and Corliss watched Sundown top a distant rise and disappear in a cloud of dust.  Then they walked back to the station.  As they waited for the local, Shoop rolled a cigarette.  “Jest statin’ it mild and gentle,” he said, yawning, “the last couple of weeks has been kind of a busy day.  Guess the fun’s all over.  Sundown’s got a flyin’ start; Loring’s played his ace and lost, and you and me is plumb sober.  If I’d knowed it was goin’ to be as quiet as this, I’d ‘a’ brought my knittin’ along.”

“There are times . . .” said Corliss.

“And we got just five minutes,” said Shoop.  “Come on.”

CHAPTER XX

THE WALKING MAN

Sundown’s sense of the dramatic, his love for posing, with his linguistic ability to adopt the vernacular of the moment so impressed the temperamental Murphy that he disregarded a portion of his friend Corliss’s note, and the morning following his lean guest’s arrival at the ranch the jovial Irishman himself saddled and bridled the swiftest and most vicious horse in the corral; a glass-eyed pinto, bronc from the end of his switching tail to his pink-mottled muzzle.  He was a horse with a record which he did not allow to become obsolete, although he had plenty of competition to contend with in the string of broncs that Murphy’s