"Looks like. We're only wastin' our time here."

Long before day broke they started.

The cañons below were filled with mist as they rode down out of the
mountains toward the crystal dawn that already flooded the plain. The
court-house clock at Malapi said the time was midnight when the
dust-covered men and horses drew into the town.

The tired men slept till noon. At the Delmonico Restaurant they found
Buck Byington and Steve Russell. The trail herd had been driven in an
hour before.

"How's old Alkali?" asked Dave of his friend Buck, thumping him on the
back.

"Jes' tolable," answered the old-timer equably, making great play with
knife and fork. "A man or a hawss don't either one amount to much after
they onct been stove up. Since that bronc piled me at Willow Creek I
been mighty stiff, you might say."

"Dug's payin' off to-day, boys," Russell told them. "You'll find him
round to the Boston Emporium."

The foreman settled first with Hart, after which he, turned to the page
in his pocket notebook that held the account of Sanders.

"You've drew one month's pay. That leaves you three months, less the week
you've fooled away after the pinto."