One thing puzzled Sheriff Sutton.  Both rifles had been used.  So the boy had taken a hand in the fight?  Several shots must have been fired, for Annersley was not a man to suffer such an outrage in silence.  And the boy was known to be a good shot.  Yet there had been no news of anyone having been wounded among the raiders.  Sutton was preparing to ride to the Blue and investigate when a T-Bar-T man loped up and dismounted.  They talked a minute or two.  Then the cowboy rode out of town.  The sheriff was no longer puzzled about the two rifles having been used.  The cowboy had told him that two of the T-Bar-T men had been killed.  That in each instance a thirty-thirty, soft-nosed slug had done the business.  Annersley’s rifle was an old forty-eighty-two, shooting a solid lead bullet.

When Sheriff Button arrived at the cabin he found the empty shells on the floor, noted the holes in the window, and read the story of the raid plainly.  “Annersley shot to scare ’em off—­but the kid shot to kill,” he argued.  “And dam’ if I blame him.”

Later, when Young Pete was able to talk, he was questioned by the sheriff.  He told of the raid, of the burning of the outbuildings, and how Annersley had been killed.  When questioned as to his own share in the proceedings, Pete refused to answer.  When shown the two guns and asked which was his, he invariably replied, “Both of ’em,” nor could he be made to answer otherwise.  Finally Sheriff Sutton gave it up, partly because of public opinion, which was in open sympathy with Young Pete, and partly because he feared that in case arrests were made, and Pete were called as a witness, the boy would tell in court more than he had thus far divulged.  The sheriff thought that Pete was able to identify one or more of the men who had entered the cabin, if he cared to do so.  As it was, Young Pete was crafty.  Already he distrusted the sheriff’s sincerity.  Then, the fact that two of the T-Bar-T men had been killed rather quieted the public mind, which expressed itself as pretty well satisfied that old man Annersley’s account was squared.  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.