It took much longer than he had anticipated to come up with the riderless horse. He recognized it as one of the Concho ponies. Almost beneath the animal lay a huddled something. Sundown's scalp tingled. Slowly he got from his horse and stalked across the intervening space. He led the pony from the tumbled shape on the ground. Then he knelt and raised the man's shoulders. Sinker, one of the Concho riders, groaned and tore at the shirt over his stomach. Then Sundown knew. He eased the cowboy back and called his name. Slowly the gray lids opened. "It's me, Sundown! Who done it?" The cowboy tried to rise on his elbow. Sundown supported his head, questioning him, for he knew that Sinker had but little time left to speak. The wounded man writhed impotently, then quieted. "God, Sun!" he moaned, "they got me. Tell Jack--Mexican--Loring--sheep at--waterhole. Tried to bluff--'em off--orders not to shoot. They got orders to shoot--all right. Tell Jack--Guess I'm bleedin' inside--So-long--pardner." The dying man writhed from Sundown's arms and rolled to his face, cursing and clutching at the grass in agony. Sundown stood over him, his hat off, his gaze lifted toward the cloudless sky, his face white with a new and strange emotion. He raised his long arms and clenched his hands. "God A'mighty," he whispered, rocking back and forth, "I got to tell You that sech things is _wrong_. And from what I seen sence I come to this country, You don't care. But some of us does care . . . and I reckon we got to do somethin' if You don't." [Illustration: "God A'mighty, sech things is wrong."] The cowboy raised himself on rigid arms, he lifted his head, and his eyes, filmed with the chill of death, grew clear for an instant. "'Sandro--the herder--got me," he gasped. His lips writhed back from his clenched teeth. A rush of blood choked him. He sank to the ground, quivered, and was still. "'Sandro . . . the herder" . . . whispered Sundown. "Sinker was me friend. I reckon God's got to leave the finish of this to me." CHAPTER XXII WAIT! To see a man's life go out and to stand by unable to help, unable to offer comfort or ease mortal agony, is a bitter experience. It brings the beholder close to the abyss of eternity, wherein the world shrinks to a speck of whirling dust and the sun is but a needle-point of light. Then it is that the fleshless face of the unconquerable One leans close and whispers, not to the insensate clay that mocks the living, but to the impotent soul that mourns the dead.