As he disappeared in the darkness, the stranger stepped to the rear door of the room and opened it. Then he closed the door and stooping laid his saddle and blankets against it. "He can't make a break that way," he said to himself. As Sundown came in, the man noticed that the front door creaked shrilly when opened or closed and seemed pleased with the fact. "Too bad about Fadeaway," he said, helping himself to more coffee. "Wonder who got him?"
"I dunno. I found me boss with his head busted the same day they got Fade."
"Been riding for the Concho long?"
"That ain't no joke, if you're meanin' feet and inches."
The other laughed. His eyes twinkled in the ruddy glow of the stove. Suddenly he straightened his shoulders and appeared to be listening. "It's the hosses," he said finally. "Some coyote's fussin' around bothering 'em. It's a long way from home as the song goes. Lend me your gun and I'll go see if I can plug one of 'em and stop their yipping."
Sundown presented his gun to the stranger, who slid it between trousers and shirt at the waist-band. "Don't hear 'em now," he announced finally. "Well, guess I'll roll in."
Strangely enough, he had apparently forgotten to return the gun. Sundown, undecided whether to ask for it or not, finally spread his blankets and called Chance to him. The dog curled at his master's feet. Save for the diminishing crackle of dry brush in the stove, the room was still. Evidently the ruddy-faced individual was asleep. Vaguely troubled by the stranger's failure to return his gun, Sundown drifted to sleep, not for an instant suspecting that he was virtually the prisoner of the sheriff of Apache County, who had at Loring's instigation determined to arrest the erstwhile tramp for the murder of Fadeaway. The sheriff had his own theory as to the killing and his theory did not for a moment include Sundown as a possible suspect, but he had a good, though unadvertised, reason for holding him. Accustomed to dealing with frontier folk, he argued that Sundown's imprisonment would eventually bring to light evidence leading to the identity of the murderer. It was a game of bluff, and at such a game he played a master hand.
The stranger seemed unusually affable in the morning. He made the fire, and, before Sundown had finished eating, had the two ponies saddled and ready for the road. Sundown thought him a little too agreeable. He was even more perplexed when the man said that he had changed his mind and would ride to Antelope with him. "Thought you said you was goin' to the Concho?"
"Well, seeing you say Jack can't ride yet, guess I'll wait."
"He can talk, all right," asserted Sundown.