on, and, much to Sundown's delight,
a pair of old riding-boots. Hitherto, Sundown had been too preoccupied
with culinary matters to pay much attention to his clothing.
Incidentally he was spending not a little time in getting accustomed to
his spurs, which he wore upon all occasions, clinking and clanking
about the cook-room, a veritable Don Quixote of the (kitchen) range.

The arrival of Corliss, three days after Sundown's advent, had a
stimulating effect on the new cook. He determined to make the best
appearance possible.

The myriad Arizona stars burned with darting radiance, in thin,
unwavering shafts of splintered fire. The moon, coldly brilliant,
sharp-edged and flat like a disk of silver paper, touched the twinkling
aspens with a pallid glow and stamped a distorted silhouette of the
low-roofed ranch-buildings on the hard-packed earth. In the corral the
shadow of a restless pony drifted back and forth. Chance, chained to a
post near the bunk-house, shook himself and sniffed the keen air, for
just at that moment the stable door had opened and a ghostly figure
appeared; a figure that shivered in the moonlight. The dog bristled
and whined. "S-s-s-h!" whispered Sundown. "It's me, ain't it?"

With his bundle of clothes beneath his arm, he picked a hesitating
course across the yard and deposited the bundle beside the
water-trough. Chance, not altogether satisfied with Sundown's
assurance, proclaimed his distrust by a long nerve-reaching howl. Some
one in the bunkhouse muttered. Sundown squatted hastily in the shadow
of the trough. Bud Shoop rose from his bunk and crept to the door. He
saw nothing unusual, and was about to return to his bed when an
apparition rose slowly from behind the water-trough. The foreman drew
back in the shadow of the doorway and watched.

Sundown's bath was extensive as to territory but brief as to duration.
He dried himself with a gunny-sack and slipped shivering into his new
raiment. "That there September Morn ain't got nothin' on me except
looks," he spluttered. "And she is welcome to the looks. Shirts and
pants for mine!"

Then he crept back to his blankets and slept the sleep of one who has
atoned for his sins of omission and suffered righteously in the ordeal.

Bud Shoop wanted to laugh, but forgot to do it. Instead he padded back
to his bunk and lay awake pondering. "Takin' a bath sure does make a
fella feel like the fella he wants to feel like--but in the
drinki