Pete strode out.  They stood watching the approaching riders.  Suddenly Andy White touched Pete’s arm.  “One of ’em is Gary!” he said, speaking low.

Pete stopped and, picking up a clod, jerked it toward a fence-post.  The clod happened to hit the post and was flicked into dust.  “That for Gary,” said Pete.

Andy grinned, but his eyes were grave.  “We’ll be right busy,” he said in a sort of tentative way.

Pete nodded and hitched up his chaps.  One of the approaching horsemen waved a hand.  Andy acknowledged the salute.

The T-Bar-T men rode in and dismounted.  “Where’s Bailey?” was Gary’s first word.

“Jim sent us to fix up that line with you,” replied Andy.  “He’s over to Enright.”

Gary glanced at Pete, who stared at him, but made no gesture of greeting.  But Pete had read Gary’s unspoken thought.  “Bailey had sent a couple of kids over to the Blue to help survey the line.”  And Pete did not intend to let Gary “get by” with the idea that his attitude was not understood.

“Where’s Houck?” asked Pete, naming the foreman of the T-Bar-T.

Cotton, Gary’s companion, a light-haired, amiable but rather dull youth, stated that Houck was over to the ranch.

“I reckoned he’d come hisself,” said Pete.  “He knows this country better ’n most.”

“Oh, I dunno,” sneered Gary.  “Some of us been here before.”

“They wasn’t no line then,” said Pete quietly, “but they’s goin’ to be one.”

“You makin’ it?” queried Gary.

Pete smiled.  “I was sent over here with Andy to do that same thing.  But you’re sure welcome to hand out any idees you got, seein’ your fo’man ain’t here.”

Andy, who saw the inevitable end of this kind of talk, nudged Pete.  “Let’s eat,” he said.  “I reckon we’re all willin’.”

Gary, like most of his type, was always anticipating an insult, possibly because his general attitude toward humanity was deliberately intended to provoke argument and recrimination.  He was naturally quarrelsome—­and a bully because of his unquestioned physical courage.  He was popular in a way with those of his fellows who looked upon a gunman—­a killer—­as a kind of hero.  The foreman of the T-Bar-T found him valuable as a sort of animate scarecrow.  Gary’s mere presence often served to turn the balance when the T-Bar-T riders had occasion to substantiate a bluff or settle a dispute with some other outfit riding the high country.  And because Gary imagined that Bailey of the Concho had deliberately sent such youngsters as Andy White and Young Pete to the Blue Mesa to settle the matter of a boundary line, Gary felt insulted.  He was too narrow-minded to reason that Bailey could hardly know whom Houck of the T-Bar-T would send.  Gary’s ill-humor was not improved by the presence of Young Pete nor by Pete’s pugnacious attitude.  Strangely enough, Gary was nervous because he knew that Young Pete was not afraid of him.