"Just in time to feed," he drawled. "Didn’t sleep as long as I thought," he said dully, glancing at the sun patch on the floor. "Must be near two o’clock--an’ I felt like I could sleep th’ sun around." Tex would not correct the mistake and nodded. "You must ’a’ slept some last night," he suggested. "Looked like you had when I saw you from th’ window this mornin’." Blascom nodded heavily. "Near sixteen hours. I feel dead all over." "A long sleep like that often makes a man feel that way," responded Tex. "Th’ muscles are stubborn an’ th’ eyes get a little touchy, too," he added. They ate the poorly cooked dinner and leaned back for a smoke, Blascom allowing himself to lose the time because he felt so inert. "Have any visits from friend Jake?" carelessly asked the marshal. Blascom laughed. "Not one. You see, Jake come home that night about as drunk as a man can get an’ walk at all. I planted th’ jug, a full bottle of gin, an’ near half a quart of brandy in his cabin where he’d shore see it. He’s been petrified for a week steady. To make shore I put another bottle of whiskey ag’in’ his door." Tex nodded. "I busted that, just now. You come near killin’ him. I just about got him through. Don’t give him no more. I sat up all last night with him, draggin’ him back from th’ Divide, an’ only left him a little while ago. Get yore gold out quick an’ you don’t have no call to want him drunk. Cache it, an’ then spend a week takin’ things easy. You wasn’t far behind Jake when I saw you." Blascom was staring at him in vast surprise. "I never thought good likker would hurt an animal like him!" "I didn’t say it was good likker," rejoined Tex. "Even good likker will do it when drunk by th’ barrel; an’ there’s no good likker in Windsor, if I’m any judge. Well," he said, arising and taking up his hat, "I’ll drift along for another look at Jake an’ then head for town. Seein’ as how you got him that way, through my suggestion, I’ll admit, you better look in at him once in awhile an’ see he has what he needs. Take some of yore water with you: his stinks." *CHAPTER XVI* *BUFFALO CREEK IN THE SPOTLIGHT* What instinct it is and how it operates, that leads vultures from over the horizon to a dying animal, has never been satisfactorily explained to a lot of people; no more than the instinct which led Sinful and Hank to go prowling around Buffalo Creek when by all rights they should have been hanging around their own camp or loafing in the hotel; but prowl they did, their cunning old eyes missing nothing, certainly nothing so new and shining and high as the sand heap above the creek bank. Sinful saw it first and he nudged his companion, whose cud nearly choked him before he could cough it back where it belonged.