The morning, however, did not pass without an interesting incident.  Brackton approached Slone with an offer that he take charge of the freighting between the Ford and Durango.  “What would I do with Wildfire?” was Slone’s questioning reply, and Brackton held up his hands.  A later incident earned more of Slone’s attention.  He had observed a man in Brackton’s store, and it chanced that this man heard Slone’s reply to Brackton’s offer, and he said:  “You’ll sure need to corral thet red stallion.  Grandest hoss I ever seen!”

That praise won Slone, and he engaged in conversation with the man, who said his name was Vorhees.  It developed soon that Vorhees owned a little house, a corral, and a patch of ground on a likely site up under the bluff, and he was anxious to sell cheap because he had a fine opportunity at Durango, where his people lived.  What interested Slone most was the man’s remark that he had a corral which could not be broken into.  The price he asked was ridiculously low if the property was worth anything.  An idea flashed across Slone’s mind.  He went up to Vorhees’s place and was much pleased with everything, especially the corral, which had been built by a man who feared horse-thieves as much as Bostil.  The view from the door of the little cabin was magnificent beyond compare.  Slone remembered Lucy’s last words.  They rang like bells in his ears.  “Don’t go—­don’t!” They were enough to chain him to Bostil’s Ford until the crack of doom.  He dared not dream of what they meant.  He only listened to their music as they pealed over and over in his ears.

“Vorhees, are you serious?” he asked.  “The money you ask is little enough.”

“It’s enough an’ to spare,” replied the man.  “An’ I’d take it as a favor of you.”

“Well, I’ll go you,” said Slone, and he laughed a little irrationally.  “Only you needn’t tell right away that I bought you out.”

The deal was consummated, leaving Slone still with half of the money that had been his prize in the race.  He felt elated.  He was rich.  He owned two horses—­one the grandest in all the uplands, the other the faithfulest—­and he owned a neat little cabin where it was a joy to sit and look out, and a corral which would let him sleep at night, and he had money to put into supplies and furnishings, and a garden.  After he drank out of the spring that bubbled from under the bluff he told himself it alone was worth the money.

“Looks right down on Bostil’s place,” Slone soliloquized, with glee.  “Won’t he just be mad!  An’ Lucy! . . .  Whatever’s she goin’ to think?”

The more Slone looked around and thought, the more he became convinced that good fortune had knocked at his door at last.  And when he returned to Brackton’s he was in an exultant mood.  The old storekeeper gave him a nudge and pointed underhand to a young man of ragged aspect sitting gloomily on a box.  Slone recognized Joel Creech.  The fellow surely made a pathetic sight, and Slone pitied him.  He looked needy and hungry.