The two men reached Rocket before midnight and rode up to the door of the combination saloon and hotel. While Scotty hammered on the planks with his fist, Loudon uttered stentorian yells. Rocket, male and female, awoke, poked their heads out of the windows and shrilly demanded information. "Hoss thief!" bawled Loudon. "He's ridin' a long-legged chestnut with a white spot on his nose! Fellah with him on a black horse! The sport on the black may or may not be dressed like a bird, accordin' to whether he's washed himself! Have yuh seen 'em?" Rocket with one voice assured Loudon that he was drunk, and advised the watering-trough. "I ain't foolin'," expostulated Loudon. "The gent on the black cayuse, which his name is Block, Sheriff o' Fort Creek County, was tarred an' feathered in Paradise Bend this afternoon." Partisan Rocket cheered, and, in the same breath, grieved that neither of the fugitives had been seen and clamoured to know details of the tarring and feathering. Rocket was in Sunset County, and it was delightful to hear that Fort Creek, in the person of its sheriff, had been insulted. Loudon, sitting at ease on his weary, drooping-headed pony, told the tale. He carefully refrained, however, from mentioning his own leading part in the affair. Rocket received the story with howls of mirth. Later, the male portion stuffed its nightshirts into trousers, pulled on boots, and gathered three deep around Loudon and Scotty while the two devoured cold beef and beans in the dining room of the hotel. "Glad to see yo're feelin' better over yore hoss," observed Scotty, when the last Rocketer had departed. "Oh, I made 'em laugh," said Loudon, dismally. "But it didn't make me feel like laughin' myself a little bit. I feel just as bad as ever--worse if anythin'. Why, Scotty, that hoss could do everythin' but talk." "Shore," said Scotty, hastily, "but we can't do nothin' now. We've done all we could. They didn't come through Rocket, that's certain. They've done turned off some'ers. We can't trail 'em to-night, an' by to-morrow they'll be forty mile off. There's no use in keepin' it up." Scotty looked anxiously at Loudon. The latter made no reply. He was staring at the lamp on the table, his expression bitter in the extreme. "Tell yuh what," hazarded Scotty. "Yuh can have that bay yo're ridin'. He ain't like yore reg'lar hoss, but he's a good pony. Look at the way he went to-day. Got bottom, that hoss has. Go till the Gulf o' Mexico freezes solid." "That's right good o' yuh, Scotty, but I couldn't take him off yuh thataway. I might buy him some day." "The offer goes as it lays. Yuh don't have to buy him. He's yores whenever yuh want him. Well, what are yuh figurin' on doin'?" "It's no use chasin' 'em any more now. I know that. Might as well wander back where we come from. Later, two or three weeks maybe, I'm goin' south." "Goin' south!" Scotty was aghast. He did not wish to lose his best man.