“How about young White?” queried a cowboy.

“I dunno.  Either he rode with Pete Annersley or he’s back at the Concho.  Daylight’ll tell.”

“If Steve could talk—­” said the cowboy.

“I guess Steve is done for,” said Houck.  “I knew Young Pete was a tough kid—­but I didn’t figure he’d try to down Steve.”

“Supposin’ they both had a hand in it—­White and Young Pete?”

Houck shook his head.  “Anybody got any whiskey?” he asked.

Some one produced a flask.  Houck knelt and raised Gary’s head, tilting the flask carefully.  Presently Gary’s lips moved and his chest heaved.

“Who was it?  White?” questioned Houck.

Gary moved his head 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