ead in the negative.

"Young Pete?" Gary's white lips shaped to a faint whisper--"Yes."

One of the men folded a slicker and put it under Gary's head.

Houck stood up. "I guess it's up to us to get Pete Annersley."

"You can count me out," said a cowboy immediately. "Steve was allus
huntin' trouble and it looks like he found it this trip. They's plenty
without me to ride down the kid. Young Pete may be bad--but I figure
he had a dam' good excuse when he plugged Steve, here. You can count
me out."

"And me," said another. "If young Pete was a growed man--"

"Same here," interrupted the third. "Any kid that's got nerve enough
to down Steve has got a right to git away with it. If you corner him
he's goin' to fight--and git bumped off by a bunch of growed men--mebby
four to one. That ain't my style."

Houck turned to several cowboys who had not spoken. They were Gary's
friends, of his kind--in a measure. "How is it, boys?" asked Houck.

"We stick," said one, and the others nodded.

"Then you boys"--and Houck indicated the first group--"can ride back to
the ranch. Or, here, Larkin, you can stay with Steve till the doc
shows up. The rest of you can drift."

Without waiting for dawn the men who had refused to go out after Pete
rode back along the hill-trail to the ranch. But before they left,
Houck took what hastily packed food they had and distributed it among
the posse, who packed it in their saddle-pockets. The remaining
cowboys lay down for a brief sleep. They were up at dawn, and after a
hasty breakfast set out looking for tracks. Houck himself discovered
Andy White's tracks leading from the spot where Gary had been found,
and calling the others together, set off across the eastern mesa.

Meanwhile Andy White was sleeping soundly in a coulee many miles from
the homestead, and just within sight of a desert ranch, to which he had
planned to ride at daybreak, ask for food and depart, leaving the
impression that he was Pete Annersley in haste to get beyond the reach
of the law. He had stopped at the coulee because he had found grass
and water for his horse and because he did not want to risk being found
at the ranch-house. A posse would naturally head for the ranch to
search and ask questions. Fed and housed he might oversleep and be
caught. Then his service to Pete would amount to little. But if he
rode in at daybreak, ahead of the posse, ate and departed, leaving a
hint as to his assumed i