"Cowboys," grinned Peloff, lunging at the sheep's head. "Plenty drink. Say have fun." "The cowboys, eh?" observed P. Walton. "So they're in town, are they--and looking for fun?" "We fix him goods by midnight," repeated Ivan Peloff, wagging his head; then, with a sudden scowl: "You not tell--eh, Meester Walton?" P. Walton smiled disinterestedly--but there wasn't any doubt in P. Walton's mind that devilment was in the wind--Big Cloud, in the early days, knew its full share of that. "I?" said P. Walton quietly, as he went out. "No; I won't tell. It's no business of mine, is it?" It was fall, and already dark. P. Walton made his way out of the Polack quarters, reached the tracks, crossed them--and then headed out through the fields to circle around the town to the upper end again, where it dwindled away from cross streets to the houses flanking on Main Street alone. "I guess," he coughed--and smiled, "I won't postpone it till to-morrow night, after all." It was a long walk for a man in P. Walton's condition, and it was a good half hour before he finally stopped in the rear of Sheriff Carruthers' back shed and listened--there were no fences here, just a procession of buttes and knolls merging the prairie country into the foothills proper of the Rockies--neither was there any sound. P. Walton stifled a cough, and slipped like a shadow through the darkness around to the front of the shed, shifted the wooden bar noiselessly on its pivot, opened the door, and, as he stepped inside, closed it softly behind him. "Butch!" he whispered. A startled ejaculation, and a quick movement as of a man suddenly shifting his position on the floor, answered him. "Keep quiet, Butcher--it's all right," said P. Walton calmly--and, stooping, guiding his knife blade by the sense of touch, cut away the rope from the other's ankles. He caught at the steel-linked wrists and helped the man to his feet. "Come on," he said. "Slip around to the back of the shed--talk later." P. Walton pushed the door open, and the man he called the Butcher, lurching a little unsteadily from cramped ankles, passed out. P. Walton carefully closed the door, coolly replaced the bar in position, and joined the other. "Now, run for it!" he said--and led the way straight out from the town. For two hundred yards, perhaps a little more, they raced--and then P. Walton stumbled and went down. "I'm--I'm not very well to-night," he gasped. "This will do--it's far enough." The Butcher, halted, gazed at the prostrate form. "Say, cull, what's yer name?" he demanded. "I owe you something for this, an' don't you forget it." P. Walton made no answer. His head was swimming, lights were dancing before his eyes, and there was a premonitory weakness upon him whose issue he knew too well--unless he could fight it off. The Butcher bent down until his face was within an inch of P. Walton's. "So help me!" he informed the universe in unbounded amazement. "It's de Dook!"