under the blanket,
and said never a word.

"Mr. Vaughan," she began hesitatingly, "this is too bad; you need not
have left. I--I wasn't afraid."

"I know you weren't," conceded Rowdy. "But it was a hard formation--for
a woman. Are there any more places on this flat marked Unavailable?"

Miss Conroy replied misanthropically that if there were they would be
sure to find them.

They took up their weary wanderings again, while the yellow eye of the
window winked after them. They missed Rodway's by a scant hundred yards,
and didn't know it, because the side of the house next them had no
lighted windows. They traveled in a wide, half circle, and thought that
they were leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was
urged by his aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift
by himself, but habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an
odd twitching at the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against
their leadership. Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and
wondered. Bill Brown's question came insistently to mind; he wondered
the more.

Two minutes and the lead-rope was sawing against the small of his back
again. Rowdy turned Dixie's head, and spoke for the first time in an
hour.

"My packhorse seems to have an idea about where he wants to go," he
said. "I guess we might as well follow him as anybody; he ain't often
taken with a rush of brains to the head. And we can't be any worse lost
than we are now, can we?"

Miss Conroy said no dispiritedly, and they swung about and followed
Chub's leadership apathetically. It took Chub just five minutes to
demonstrate that he knew what he was about. When he stopped, it was with
his nose against a corral gate; not content with that, he whinnied, and
a new, exultant note was in the sound. A deep-voiced dog bayed loudly,
and a shrill yelp cut in and clamored for recognition.

Miss Conroy gasped. "It's Lion and Skeesicks. We're at Rodway's, Mr.
Vaughan."

Rowdy, for the second time, thanked the Lord. But when he was stripping
the pack off Chub's back, ten minutes later, he was thinking many things
he would not have cared to say aloud. It might be all right, but it sure
was strange, he told himself, that Chub belonged here at Rodway's when
Harry Conroy claimed that he was an Oregon horse. Rowdy had thought his
account against Harry Conroy long enough, but it looked now as though
another item must be added to the list. He went i