"Ain't she a likely filly," mused the love-sick Sheriff. "If there's anybody that could make me good, it's her. I'm all in. If ever I get the nerve all at once--darn me if I don't ask her right out." But Slim's courage oozed as quickly as it had arisen, and with a sigh he followed his companions to the wedding. CHAPTER IX What God Hath Joined Together Dick Lane, on leaving the hospital at Chihuahua, went straight to the fortified ledge where he had made his heroic defense. As he conjectured, the renegade, McKee, had got there first, and found and made off with the buried treasure. So Dick manfully set to work to replace his lost fortune. It seemed too slow work to go to his mine and dig the gold he immediately required out of the ground, so he struck out for civilization to sell some of his smaller claims. In the course of a month, at the end of which his wanderings brought him to Tucson, he had sold enough of his holdings to give him three thousand dollars in ready cash. As he was near the Sweetwater, he resolved not to express the money to Payson, but to take it himself. He entered the courtyard of Allen Hacienda while the wedding was taking place within. None of his friends would have recognized him. His frame was emaciated from sickness; his head was drawn back by the torture which he had suffered; he limped upon feet that had been distorted by the firebrands in McKee's hands; and his face was overgrown by an unkempt beard. Sounds of laughter fell upon his ears as he mounted the steps. He heard Fresno shout to Slim to hurry up, as he was telling the story about a fellow that was so tanked up he could not say "sasaparilla." Dick halted. "There must be some sort of a party going on here," he thought to himself. "It won't do to take Echo too much by surprise. If Jack got my letter and told her, it's all right, but if it miscarried--the shock might kill her. I'll see Jack first." Dick had ridden first to Sweetwater Ranch, but found the place deserted. The party, he mused, accounted for this. While he was planning a way to attract the attention of some one in the house, and to get Payson to the garden without letting Echo know of his presence, Sage-brush Charley, who had espied the stranger through the window, sauntered out on the porch to investigate. Every visitor to the Territory needed looking over, especially after the trouble with Buck McKee. Sage-brush was bound that there should be no hitch at the wedding of his boss. "Howdy," greeted Lane pleasantly. "I'm looking for Jack Payson." "That so?" answered Sage-brush. "Who may you be?" "I'm a friend of his." The foreman could see no danger to come from this weak, sickly man. "Then walk right in," he invited; "he's inside." Sage-brush was about to reenter the house, when Dick halted him with the request: "I want to see him out here--privately." "What's the name," asked Sage-brush, his suspicions returning. "Tell him an old friend from Mexico."