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Concho began to feel uneasy; never before had a mule of pious lineage failed to respond to this kind of exhortation. He made one more desperate attempt: "Ah, defiler of the altar! lie not there! Look!" he threw his hand into the air, extending the fingers suddenly. "Behold, fiend! I exorcise thee! Ha! tremblest! Look but a little now, see! Apostate! I I excommunicate thee, Mula!"
"Here, you red hoss, this ain't no pie-contest. We got to hit the water-hole afore dark." Once more in motion, he reverted to his old theme, but with finality in his tone. "I guess mebby I can't tell them reporters somethin' about me hotel out here on the desert! 'The only prevailable road-house between Antelope and the Concho, run by the retired cattle-king, Sundown Slim. Sounds good to me.
At first, Andy White wasn't goin' to leave me have it but I tells him to fan it. I reckon he's pretty nigh home by now." "Thought you said you didn't see White after the shooting that he forked his horse and rode for the Concho? Cotton, you're lyin' so fast you're like to choke." "Honest, Bill! If I'd 'a' had my gun . . ." "Oh, hell! Don't try to swing that bluff. Where's your horse?"
By degrees he was assuming the characteristics of a genuine cow-puncher. He would show the folks in Antelope what a rider for the Concho looked like. The following morning, much earlier than necessary, he mounted and rode to the bunk-house, where Corliss gave him the letter and told him to leave the horse at the stables in Antelope until he returned from Usher.
And gave it to him, a bolus as large as a musket ball, and as heavy. Concho took it on the spot, and turned to go. "I have no money, Senor Medico." "Never mind. It's only a dollar, the price of the medicine." Concho looked guilty at having gulped down so much cash. Then he said timidly: "I have no money, but I have got here what is fine and jolly. It is yours."
While Pete practiced with the rope he was figuring how long it would take him to save exactly eighteen dollars and a half, for that was the price of a Colt's gun such as he had taken from the store at Concho. Why he should think of saving the money for a gun is not quite clear. He already had one.
His horse, from which the riders of the Concho had aforetime shot turkeys, broke into a kind of reminiscent lope, which quickened as the turkeys wheeled and ran swiftly through the timberland. Sundown clung to the saddle-horn as the pony took fallen logs at top speed.
Pete was repaid a thousand-fold for his efforts by the old man's occasional: "Couldn't 'a' done it any better myself, pardner." For Annersley seldom called the boy "Pete" now, realizing that "pardner" meant so much more to him. Pete had his rifle an old carbine, much scratched and battered by the brush and rock a thirty-thirty the old man had purchased from a cowboy in Concho.
Finally, by a series of cross-questioning, comment, and sympathetic concurrence, she arrived at the feminine conclusion that the gray-eyed nurse in El Paso had set her cap for Pete of course Pete was innocent of any such adjustment of headgear to substantiate which she rose, and, stepping to the bedroom, returned with the letter which had caused her so much speculation as to who was writing to Pete, and why the letter had been directed to the Concho.
Bill Haskins growled and grumbled as he took his place at the table. He kept shaking his head like a dog with a sore ear, vowing that if he found out "who thrun that basin" there would be an empty chair at the Concho board before many days had passed. Andy White glanced at Pete and snickered. Bill Haskins glowered and felt of his head. "Liked to skelp me," he asserted.
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