It was dusk when they reached home, and as they drove up to the ranch house door, two men came out, hearing the sound of wheels, and to one of these the colonel surrendered his team. The other, a weazened swarthy man, touched him on the arm as he was about to enter the house. “What is it?” he asked, turning back. “Tom Raymond's here.” The colonel groaned aloud. The speaker grinned. He was the ranch foreman, he had been with the colonel many years and he knew almost as much of Roger's affairs as Rogers did himself. He understood the nature of Raymond's hold on the colonel, and he regarded it as a conspicuous weakness on the part of an otherwise sane and rational man. “What's the matter?” demanded Rogers. “He's in trouble again, I reckon,” said the foreman. “Well, was there ever a time when he wasn't?” asked Rogers with some show of temper. “He wouldn't come up to the house, I happened on him out back of the corrals. He's hid in the old bunk-house he wants to see you the worst kind of a way.” “Go tell my wife I've had to go down to the corrals. Tell her not to wait for me, but to eat,” said the colonel. The old bunk-house was a small building of poles, now no longer used. It was remote from the house, and rarely visited; and toward it the colonel bent his steps in the gathering darkness. The bunk-house door was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open. The room was apparently empty, for he heard no sound. He struck a match, and in the momentary brightness he saw a man asleep in one of the bunks, a gaunt, loose-jointed man with long grey locks that fell to his shoulders. He had been sleeping with his head resting on his arm, and the light flashing full in his face roused him, he sprang up with a startled exclamation, and Rogers caught a sound which he understood perfectly. “Put that up, Tom, it's only me,” he said composedly. “Oh, it's you, Ben, old pardner? Didn't know who it was. When did you get back?” “I just came. Buck told me you were here and wanted to see me.” Tom had quitted the bunk, now he was sitting on the edge of it. Rogers could just distinguish his head with its thick unkempt thatch of grey hair, and his bulk of bone and muscle. “Well, Ben,” he said in a drawling voice, “I reckon you're going to see the last of me; I reckon I'm going to quit the country this time. I've stayed mainly to be near you, old pardner, but I'm clean crowded out at last.”