at the stranger with eyes that
began to see the drift of things. "You ain't a cop, be you?" he asked
timorously.

"They call it 'sheriff' here."

"Well, I call it kind o' warm and I'm goin' outside."

"I wouldn't. One of my deputies is sitting just across the street.
He's a mighty good shot. Can beat me hands down. Suppose you drop
back in your chair and tell me what you know about the shooting of
Fadeaway."

"Me? You ain't joshin', be you?"

"Never more serious in my life! I'm interested in this case."

"Well, I ain't!" was Sundown's prompt remark. "And I got to go. I'm
goin' on privut business for me boss and confidenshell. Me and Chance."

"That's all right, my friend. But I have some private and confidential
business that can't wait."

"But I ain't done nothin'," whined Sundown, lapsing into his old
attitude toward the law.

"Maybe not. Mr. Loring telephoned me that Fadeaway had been shot and
that a man answering your description--a tramp, he said--seemed to know
something about it. You never was a puncher. You don't get on or off
a cayuse like one. From what I learn you were a Hobo when Jack Corliss
gave you a job. That's none of my business. I arrest you as a
suspicious character, and I guess I'll have to keep you here till I
find out more about Fadeaway's case. Have a cigar?"

"Huh! Say, don't you ever get mad?" queried Sundown, impressed by the
other's most genial attitude.

The sheriff laughed. "Doesn't pay in my business. Now, you just ease
up and tell me what you know. It will save time. Did you ever have
trouble with Fadeaway?"

"Not on your life! I give him all the room he wanted."

"Did you know Fernando---one of Loring's herders?"

"I seen him onct. He saved me life from bein' killed by a steer. Did
he say I done it?" parried Sundown.

The sheriff's opinion of Sundown's acumen was disturbed. Evidently
this queer individual posing as a cowboy was not such a fool, after all.

"No. Have you seen him lately?"

"Nope. Chance and me was over to his camp, but he was gone. We kind
o' tracked back there from the place where we found Fadeaway."

"That so?"

"Uhuh. It was like this." And Sundown gave a detailed account of his
explorations.

When he had finished, the sheriff made a note on the edge of a
newspaper. Then he turned to Sundown. "You're either the deepest hand
I've tackled yet, or you're just a plain fool. You don't act like a
killer."

"Kill