Pete sat up.  “Shucks!  Well, I ain’t sayin’ thanks for what you done for me, Miss Gray.  ‘Thanks’ sounds plumb starvin’ poor and rattlin’, side of what I want to tell you.  I’d be a’most willin’ to git shot ag’in—­”

“Don’t say that!” exclaimed Doris.

“I would be shakin’ hands with you,” said Pete.  “But this here is just ‘Adios,’ for I’m sure comin’ back.”

CHAPTER XLI

“A LAND FAMILIAR”

The following day Pete had a long talk with Sheriff Owen, a talk which resulted in the sheriff’s accompanying Andover and Pete on their desert journey to Sanborn.

Incidentally Pete gave his word that he would not try to escape.  It was significant, however, that the little sheriff expressed a preference for the back seat, even before Andover, who had invited him to make the journey, asked him if he cared to ride in front.  The sheriff’s choice was more a matter of habit than preference, for, alone upon the ample seat of the touring-car, he was shuttled ignominiously from side to side and bounced and jolted until, during a stop for water, he informed Andover that “he sure would have to pull leather to stay with the car.”

The surgeon, a bit inclined to show off, did not hesitate to “step on her,” when the going was at all good.  And any one familiar with the road from El Paso to Sanborn is aware of just how good even the best going is.  Any one unfamiliar with that road is to be congratulated.

Pete enjoyed the ride, as it brought him once more into the open country.  The car whirred on and on.  It seemed to him as though he were speeding from a nightmare of brick and stone and clamor into the wide and sun-swept spaces of a land familiar and yet strange.

They reached Sanborn about noon, having made about one hundred and fifty miles in something like four hours.

After a wash and a meal at the hotel, they strolled over to the livery-stable to inspect the horse that Andover thought of buying.  A small crowd had collected at the stables, as the auction was advertised to take place that afternoon.  The sheriff himself started the bidding on the thoroughbred, followed by the liveryman, who knew about what he could get for the horse in El Paso.  Andover raised his bid, which was quickly raised in turn by the sheriff.  Pete realized that Andover really wanted the horse and told him quietly to drop out when the bidding reached two hundred, shrewdly estimating that neither the liveryman nor the sheriff would go beyond that figure, as neither of them really wanted the horse save as a speculation.  “Then, if you want him, raise twenty-five, and you get a mighty good horse for a hundred less than he’s worth.  I know him.  He’s no good workin’ cattle—­but he’s one fine trail horse for straight goin’.  And he’s as gentle as your gran’-mother.”

The bidding ran to one hundred and seventy-five, when there was a pause.  The sheriff had dropped out.  The liveryman, conferring with his partner, was about to bid when Andover jumped the price to two hundred and fifty.