The old man chuckled contentedly--his boy was trying to spare him ; but he was no shirker.
"I've not forgotten," he admitted. "Threatened to fill yu with buckshot if yu showed up again, didn't I? Well, that's all past an' done--I reckon we've both learned sense since that day. yu've made good an' I'm proud o' yu, son." His eyes twinkled as he went on, "It's a pity Carol don't like redheads--claims she's had enough trouble with me, but mebbe she" He looked round the room and seemed surprised to find the girl had slipped away. "Now where in mischief has she gone? yu better go find her, boy ; somebody is liable to steal her again,"
Sandy's old impudent smile was back. "Somebody's goin' to," he promised.
From the crest of a ridge in the plain, a man on a big black horse watched a lumbering, canvas-topped wagon and its attendant group of riders diminish in the distance. The S E outfit was homeward bound and Sudden had ridden with them . this far. Bitterness was again upon him ; once more he was friendless. Even Tyson--well supplied with "smokin'," but disdaining the offer of a new rifle to replace his cherished "Betsy"--had returned to the wilderness in search of, as he had grimly put it, "copper-coloured marks to shoot at."
Sudden was sorely tempted to spur on and take his chance in Texas. Then came the memory of Bill Evesham, the man to whom he owed everything, who had passed out leaving him a legacy of hate. Somewhere on the far-flung frontiers of the west the two men who had wronged his benefactor were to be found. He had given his word and must keep it, at any cost. His young face became flint.
"I have it to do," he muttered, and whirling his mount, rode resolutely towards the town.
THE END