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“He’ll tumble off, sure as yuh live,” predicted Bert; but Weary never did things by halves; he shook his head and untied his coiled rope.

“By the Lord! I hate to see a man ride into town and pack off the only heirloom we got,” complained Rusty Brown. “Dock’s been handed down from generation to Genesis, and there ain’t hardly a scratch on him. If yuh don’t bring him back in good order Weary Davidson, there’ll be things doing.”

Weary looked up from taking the last half-hitch around the saddle horn. “Yuh needn’t worry,” he said. “This medical monstrosity is more valuable to me than he is to you, right now. I’ll handle him careful.”

“Das wass de mean treeck!” cried Dock, for all the world like a parrot.

“It sure is, old boy,” assented Weary cheerfully, and tied the pinto’s bridle-reins into a hard knot at the end. With the reins in his hand he mounted Glory. “Your pinto’ll lead, won’t he?” he asked Rusty then. It was like Weary to take a thing for granted first, and ask questions about it afterward.

“Maybe he will–he never did, so far,” grinned Rusty. “It’s plumb insulting to a self-respecting cow-pony to make a pack-horse out uh him. I wouldn’t be none surprised if yuh heard his views on the subjects before yuh git there.”

“It’s an honor to pack heirlooms,” retorted Weary. “So-long, boys.”

Old Dock made a last, futile effort to free himself and then settled down in the saddle and eyed the world sullenly from under frost-white eyebrows heavy as a military mustache. He did not at that time look particularly patriarchal; more nearly he resembled a humbled, entrapped Santa Claus.

They started off quite tamely. The pinto leaned far back upon the bridle-reins and trotted with stiff, reluctant legs that did not promise speed; but still h went, and Weary drew a relieved breath. His arm was like to ache frightfully before they covered a quarter of the fifteen miles, but he did not mind that much; besides, he guessed shrewdly that the pinto would travel better once they were well out of town.

The soft, warm dusk of a July evening crept over the land and a few stars winked at them facetiously. Over by the reedy creek, frogs cr-ek-ek-ekked in a tuneless medley and night-hawks flapped silently through the still air, swooping suddenly with a queer, whooing rush like wind blowing through a cavern. Familiar sounds they were to Weary–so familiar that he scarce heard them; though he would have felt a vague, uneasy sense of something lost had they stilled unexpectedly. Out in the lane which leads to the open range-land between wide reaches of rank, blue-joint meadows, a new sound met them–the faint, insistent humming of millions of mosquitoes. Weary dug Glory with his spurs and came near having his arm jerked from its socket before he could pull him in again. He swore a little and swung round in the saddle.

“Can’t yuh dig a little speed into that cayuse with your heels, Dock?” he cried to the resentful heirloom. “We’re going to be naturally chewed up if we don’t fan the breeze along here.”

“Ah don’d care–das wass de mean treeck!” growled Dock into his beard.

Weary opened his mouth, came near swallowing a dozen mosquitoes alive, and closed it again. What would it profit him to argue with a drunken man? He slowed till the pinto, still moving with stiff, reluctant knees, came alongside, and struck him sharply with his quirt; the pinto sidled and Dock lurched over as far as Weary’s rope would permit.

“Come along, then!” admonished Weary, under his breath.

The pinto snorted and ran backward until Weary wished he had been content with the pace of a snail. Then the mosquitoes swooped down upon them in a cloud and Glory struck out, fighting and kicking viciously. Presently Weary found himself with part of the pinto’s bridle-rein in his hand, and the memory of a pale object disappearing into the darkness ahead.