Now, don't be
a fool, Steve."

Stephen continued slowly with his saddling. "It's decent of you
fellows," he said, quietly. "And I don't want you to think me
ungrateful. It's just a feeling I've got. I want to get this horse back
where he belongs."

Another of the group took up the attempt at persuasion. "But you're
sick, man!" he exclaimed, beginning to stroke Pat absently. "You won't
never make the depot! You owe it to everybody you've ever knowed to get
right back into bed and stay there!"

But Stephen only shook his head. Yet he knew that what the boys said was
true. He was sick, and he knew it. He realized that he ought to be in
bed. And he wanted to be in bed. But already he had suffered too much,
lying inert, not because of his arm and the fever upon him, though these
were almost unbearable, but because of the haunting fear, come to him
ever more insistently with each passing day, that since Pat had escaped
from him twice thus far, he was destined to escape from him a third
time. Sometimes this fear took shape in visions of a blazing fire in the
stable, in which Pat was burned to a crisp; again it took form in some
malady peculiar to horses which would prove equally disastrous. At last,
unable to withstand these pictures longer, he had crept out of bed,
dressed as best he could, and stolen out of the house, bent upon getting
Pat to the railroad, and there shipping him east to Helen at whatever
cost to himself. So here he was, about to ride off.

"You're--you're mighty decent," he repeated, hollowly, by way of
farewell. "But I've got to go. And don't worry about my making the
station," he added, reassuringly. "I have the directions, and I'll get
there in time to make that ten-thirty eastbound to-night." He clambered
painfully up into the saddle.

A third member of the group, the round-faced and smiling cowpuncher,
opened up with his pleasing drawl. "Why'n't you stay over till mornin',
then?" he demanded. "The ranch wagon goes up early, and you could ride
the seat just like a well man."

But Stephen remained obdurate, and, repeating his thanks and farewells,
he urged Pat forward at a walk because he himself could not stand the
racking of a more rapid gait. The men sent after him expressions of
regret mingled with friendly denunciations, but he rode steadily on,
closing his ears grimly against their pleas, and soon he was moving
slowly across the Arizona desert. His direction was northwest, and his
destinatio