under his hat brim, at his pink cheeks and dimples and
girlish hands, and threw back his head in a loud ha! ha!

Pink asked him politely, but rather stiffly, what there was funny about
it. The sheriff laughed louder and longer; then, being the sort of man
who likes a joke now and then, even in the way of business, he solemnly
deputized Pink, and patted him on the shoulder and told him gravely that
they couldn't possibly do without him.

It looked for a minute as if Pink were going at him with his fists--but
he didn't. He reflected that one must not offer violence to an officer
of the law, and that, being made a deputy, he would have to go, anyway;
so he gritted his teeth and buckled on his gun, and went along sulkily.

They rode silently, for the most part, and swiftly.

Even in the dusk they could see where a band of horses had been driven
at a gallop along the creek bank. When they neared the place it was
dark. Pink pulled up and spoke for the first time since leaving the
tent.

"We better tie up our horses here and walk," he said, quite unconscious
of the fact that he was usurping the leadership, and thinking only of
their quest.

But the sheriff was old at the business, and not too jealous of his
position. He signed to his deputy proper, and they dismounted.

When they started on, Pink was ahead. The sheriff observed that Pink's
gun still swung in its scabbard at his hip, and he grinned--but that was
because he didn't know Pink. That the gun swung at his hip would have
been quite enough for any one who did know him; it didn't take Pink all
day to get into action.

Ten rods from the corral, which they could distinguish as a black blotch
in the sparse willow growth, Pink turned and stopped them. "I know the
layout here," he whispered. "I'll just sneak ahead and rubber around.
You Rubes sound like the beginning of a stampede, in this brush."

The sheriff had never before been called a Rube--to his face, at least.
The audacity took his breath; and when he opened his mouth for scathing
speech, Pink was not there. He had slipped away, like a slim, elusive
shadow, and the sheriff did not even know the exact direction of his
going. There was nothing for it but to wait.

In five minutes Pink appeared with a silent suddenness that startled
them more than they would like to own.

"He's somewheres around," he announced, in a murmur that would not carry
ten feet. "He's got a horse in the corral, and, from the sound,