The day's work was over. Dan Anderson remembered afterward how matter of fact and methodical it all had seemed. A few moments later a short, dirty young man appeared at the door, crawling over the prostrate horse. He held up his hands, grinning. He was followed by two others, both chewing tobacco calmly. The sheriff ordered down his men to meet them. McKinney unbuckled the belts. The captives seated themselves a few feet apart on the ground. "This all the men you've got?" asked the Kid. The sheriff nodded. "You've killed Jim Harbin," he added, jerking a thumb toward the _arroyo_. "Why didn't he stay home, then?" said the Kid, peevishly. No one seemed disposed again to mention an unpleasant subject. "Where you goin' to take us?" the Kid inquired. "Vegas. It's a United States warrant, and you go dead or alive, either way you want." "Oh, that's all right, Ben. We'll take the chance of stayin' alive a while." Stillson now appeared to experience his first concern in regard to his casualties. "Doc," said he, "you take the ranch wagon here and carry Jim back to the settlements. You go along, Anderson. Doc, you drive." "You busted up our breakfast," said the Kid, in an aggrieved tone. "Don't we eat?" He spoke complainingly. The day's work was thus concluded. It was a long ride back for Dan Anderson, lying part of the time himself prone at the bottom of the wagon, too faint to sit with comfort on the narrow, jolting seat. The long, muffled body of the dead man, wrapped tightly in its blankets, at times rolled against him as the wagon tilted, and he pushed it back gently. The day's work had been savage, stern, and simple. The lesson of the landscape, the lesson of life, came to him as he had never felt it before. He saw now how little a thing is life, how easy to lay down--gayly, bitterly, lightly, or quietly perhaps; but not cheaply. He remembered the last words of the boy who now lay there, shrouded and silent,--"I've got to take my medicine." "It's not a question of being happy," thought Dan Anderson, "but of doing your work, and taking your medicine." CHAPTER XXII ADVENTURE AT HEART'S DESIRE _The Strange Story of the King of Gee-Whiz, and his Unusual Experience in Foreign Parts_ In the absence of McKinney with the sheriff's posse, Curly became, by virtue of seniority, acting foreman on the Carrizoso ranch. Grieving over the edict which held him home from sheriffing, and disconsolate now that Ellsworth and Constance had departed, he sought an outlet for his feelings. "I'll show folks what a real cow foreman is like," he asserted, and forthwith began plans which, in his opinion, had been too long deferred by the more conservative McKinney.