"I hate to lose you, Jack," McIntyre said. "Can't you go in and attend to your business and then come back? Take two or three days off. The town ain't so big but what you can do everything you're likely to have to do in the course of twenty-four or forty-eight hours." "Well," Mason replied, "maybe that's better. I'd like it better, if it suits you; only it don't seem just right for a man to take time off right in the middle of the round-up, just to go into town after his own affairs. So I thought, as I've got to go, maybe you'd rather have me quit for good. Still, if you'll let me take three or four days off, it'll be lots handier for me. I'll leave my horses here with the bunch, and then come back when I get through." "All right," agreed McIntyre. "Do it your own way." "Good!" said Mason. "I may as well start now, and then I'll get into town by daylight." He rose from the fire and presently his cheery whistle was heard coming over the prairie from the direction of the horse herd, and a little later the men in the camp who were just dropping off to sleep heard him throw the saddle on the horse and draw the latigos, and then came the sound of hoofs, trotting off over the prairie and growing fainter and fainter in the distance. All night long Mason rode through the dark, under the clear stars. It was nearly twenty miles to the wagon road, and after he had reached that, it was more than twenty miles in to the railroad, but the sun had not long risen when he trotted his tired horse down the straggling street of the forlorn little town. As yet there was hardly a sign of life there. Two or three pigs were rooting in piles of rubbish not far from the road; and a starved-looking cayuse stood humped up at the end of a picket-rope on a bit of prairie where once there had been grass but which now was as bare as the palm of Mason's hand. As Mason trotted along the street, the door of a house opened, and a man came out carrying a bucket. Mason drew up his horse. "Hello! Ross," he called. "Why, hello! Jack," the man replied. "What are you doing down here? I haven't seen you for a dog's age. Four or five years, isn't it, since you were up in Rawlins?" "Five years," said Mason; "and since then I've been away, up North, and now I've drifted back again." The two shook hands, and began to exchange news and experiences, each telling the other more or less of what had happened to him since they last parted. "Well," said Ross, "how long are you going to be in town? I want to see you before you go." "I don't just know how long I'm going to be here; maybe for a day or two. I've got some business I want to attend to here, and as soon as I get through with that I'm liable to move out again. There ain't much to hold me in this burgh."