that hawss of yores now," she said. "I gen'ally
dress thisaway 'cept when we expect to go nigh the settlements or a
ranch where we aim to visit. We was makin' for the Two-Bar-P outfit,
where Grit came from when he was a bit of a pup. I expected that's where
he was headin' for when I sent him off after help, but you come
instead."

"I was wonderin' how he come to make the ranch," said Sandy. "You see
we-all bought the Two-Bar-P, though I never figgered old Samson 'ud ever
own a sheepdawg. He might give one away fast enough."

"Grit was sent him for a present by a man who summered at the ranch an'
heerd Samson say he wanted a dawg," said the girl. "He was a tenderfoot
when he come, an' when he left, 'count bein' sick. Samson didn't want
to kill the dawg an' didn't want to keep him, so he gave him to Dad an'
me when I was ten years old. Are you ready to start?"

She had avoided looking toward the grave, purposely Sandy thought,
talking to bridge over the last good-by, the chance of a breakdown.
Suddenly she pointed down the cliff.

"Wait a minute," she cried and disappeared, sliding and leaping down
like a goat, reappearing with her hat half filled with crimson
silk-petaled cactus blooms, scattering them at the head of the cairn.

"Seemed like there jest had to be flowers," she said as, with Grit
nosing close to his mistress, they mounted to the road. The gray mare
made no bother and soon they were riding down toward the strip of Bad
Lands. Sandy let the collie go afoot for the time.

The glory of the range departed, the cliffs turned slate color, then
black, while a host of stars marshaled and burned without flicker. The
wind moaned through the trough of the canyon as they rode out on the
plain. Up somewhere in the darkness the buzzards came circling down, to
settle on the ledge beside the carcasses of the two horses.

It was close to midnight when they reached the home ranch, riding past
the outbuildings, the bunk-house of the men where a light twinkled, the
cook shack, the corrals, up to the main house. There they alighted. All
about cottonwoods rustled in the dark, the air was sweet and cool, not
far from frost. Molly Casey shivered as she moved stiffly in her
saddle. Sandy lifted her from the saddle and carried her up the steps,
across the porch, kicking open the door of the living-room where the
embers of a fire glowed. There was no other light in the big room, but
there was sufficient to show the great form o