He or the boy
had "got" two of the enemy. In fact, it was more or less of a joke on
the T-Bar-T outfit--they should have known better.

An inquest decided that Annersley had come to his death at the hands of
parties unknown. The matter was eventually shunted to one of the many
legal sidings along the single-track law that operated in that
vicinity. Annersley's effects were sold at auction and the proceeds
used to bury him. His homestead reverted to the Government, there
being no legal heir. Young Pete was again homeless, save for the
kindness of the storekeeper, who set him to work helping about the
place.

In a few months Pete was seemingly over his grief, but he never gave up
the hope that some day he would find the man who had killed his pop.
In cow-camp and sheep-camp, in town and on the range, he had often
heard reiterated that unwritten law of the outlands: "If a man tried to
get you--run or fight. But if a man kills your friend or your kin--get
him." A law perhaps not as definitely worded in the retailing of
incident or example, but as obvious nevertheless as was the necessity
to live up to it or suffer the ever-lasting scorn of one's fellows.

Some nine or ten months after the inquest Young Pete disappeared. No
one knew where he had gone, and eventually he was more or less
forgotten by the folk of Concho. But two men never forgot him--the
storekeeper and the sheriff. One of them hoped that the boy might come
back some day. He had grown fond of Pete. The other hoped that he
would not come back.

Meanwhile the T-Bar-T herds grazed over Annersley's homestead. The
fence had been torn down, cattle wallowed in the mud of the water-hole,
and drifted about the place until little remained as evidence of the
old man's patient toil save the cabin. That Young Pete should again
return to the cabin and there unexpectedly meet Gary was undreamed of
as a possibility by either of them; yet fate had planned this very
thing--"otherwise," argues the Fatalist, "how could it have happened?"

CHAPTER V

A CHANGE OF BASE

To say that Young Pete had any definite plan when he left Concho and
took up with an old Mexican sheep-herder would be stretching the
possibilities. And Pete Annersley's history will have to speak for
itself as illustrative of a plan from which he could not have departed
any more than he could have originated and followed to its final
ultimatum.

Life with the storekeeper had been tame