h plowed grounds around Sour Creek. All
that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since
burned away to drab yellows and browns. A horrible place to die in,
Sinclair thought.

"Speaking of hosses, that's a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff."

"Rode him for five years," said the sheriff. "Raised him and busted him
and trained him all by myself. Ain't nobody but me ever rode him. He
can go so soft-footed he wouldn't bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose
and run like the wind. They ain't no better hoss than this that's come
under my eye, Sinclair. Are you much on the points of a hoss?"

"I use hosses--I don't love 'em," said Sinclair gloomily. "But I can
read the points tolerable."

The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly. "So you don't love hosses, eh?" he
said, returning distantly to the subject. It was easy to see where his
own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its
master spoke.

"Sheriff," explained Sinclair, "I'm a single-shot gent. I don't aim to
have no scatter fire in what I like. They's only one man that I ever
called friend, they's only one place that I ever called home--the
mountains, yonder--and they's only one hoss that I ever took to much. I
raised Molly up by hand, you might say. She was ugly as sin, but they
wasn't nothing she couldn't do--nothing!" He paused. "Sheriff, I used
to talk to that hoss!"

The sheriff was greatly moved. "What became of her?" he asked softly.

"I took after a gent once. He couldn't hit me, but he put a slug
through Molly."

"What became of the gent?" asked the sheriff still more softly.

"He died just a little later. Just how I ain't prepared to state."

"Good!" said the sheriff. He actually smiled in the pleasure of
newfound kinship. "You and me would get on proper, Sinclair."

"Most like."

"This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me
touching a rein. Knows direction like a wolf."

"Could you guide her with your knees?"

"Sure."

"And she's plumb safe with you?"

"Sure."

"I know a gent once that said he'd trust himself tied hand and foot on
his hoss."

"That goes for me and my hoss, too, Sinclair."

"Well, then, just shove up them hands, sheriff!"

The sheriff blinked, as the sun flashed on the revolver in the steady
hand of Sinclair. There was a significant little jerking up of the
revolver. Each time the muzzle stirred, the hands of the sheriff jumped
higher and higher until his arms wer