Pete, topping the rise that hides the town of Concho from the northern vistas, turned and looked back.  Far below, on a slightly rounded knoll stood the old herder, a solitary figure in the wide expanse of mesa and morning sunlight.  Pete swung his hat.  Montoya raised his arm in a gesture of good-will and farewell.  Pete might have to come back, but Montoya doubted it.  He knew Pete.  If there was anything that looked like a boy available in Concho, Pete would induce that boy to take his place with Montoya, if he had to resort to force to do so.

Youth on the hilltop!  Youth pausing to gaze back for a moment on a pleasant vista of sunshine and long, lazy days—­Pete brushed his arm across his eyes.  One of the dogs had left the sheep, and came frisking toward the hill where Pete stood.  Pete had never paid much attention to the dogs, and was surprised that either of them should note his going, at this time.  “Mebby the doggone cuss knows that I’m quittin’ for good,” he thought.  The dog circled Pete and barked ingratiatingly.  Pete, touched by unexpected interest, squatted down and called the dog to him.  The sharp-muzzled, keen-eyed animal trotted up and nosed Pete’s hand.  “You ’re sure wise!” said Pete affectionately.  Pete was even more astonished to realize that it was the dog he had roped recently.  “Knowed I was only foolin’,” said Pete, patting the dog’s head.  The sheep-dog gazed up into Pete’s face with bright, unblinking eyes that questioned, “Why was Pete leaving camp early in the morning—­and without the burros?”

“I’m quittin’ for good,” said Pete.

The dog’s waving tail grew still.

“That’s right—­honest!”—­and Pete rose.

The sheep-dog’s quivering joy ceased at the word.  His alertness vanished.  A veritable statue of dejection he stood as though pondering the situation.  Then he lifted his head and howled—­the long, lugubrious howl of the wolf that hungers.

“You said it all,” muttered Pete, turning swiftly and trudging down the road.  He would have liked to howl himself.  Montoya’s kindliness at parting—­and his gift—­had touched Pete deeply, but he had fought his emotion then, too proud to show it.  Now he felt a hot something spatter on his hand.  His mouth quivered.  “Doggone the dog!” he exclaimed.  “Doggone the whole doggone outfit!” And to cheat his emotion he began to sing, in a ludicrous, choked way, that sprightly and inimitable range ballad;

  “’Way high up in the Mokiones, among the mountain-tops,
  A lion cleaned a yearlin’s bones and licked his thankful chops,
  When who upon the scene should ride, a-trippin’ down the slope,”

“Doggone the slope!” blurted Pete as he stubbed his toe on a rock.

But when he reached Concho his eyes had cleared.  Like all good Americans he “turned a keen, untroubled face home to the instant need of things,” and after visiting Roth at the store, and though sorely tempted to loiter and inspect saddlery, he set out to hunt up a boy—­for Montoya.