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The sun was high when he arrived at the wagon-road above the Concho. Dazed and weak, he endeavored to determine which direction the horse had taken. The heat of the sun oppressed him. He became faint, and, crawling beneath the shade of a wayside fir, he rested, promising himself that he would, when the afternoon shadows drifted across the road, make his way to the Concho.
Perhaps he could sell them for a dollar or two. How often did Andy White ride the Largo Cañon? The Concho cattle grazed to the east. Perhaps White had forgotten his promise to ride over some evening. Pete swung his loop and roped a clump of brush. "I'll sure forefoot you, you doggone longhorn!" he said. "I'll git my iron on you, you maverick!
In half an hour or so he would again cross it, which he hoped to do before he was discovered. Once over the ridge, he would head for the Concho. To follow him would mean that his pursuers would be riding directly away from Pete's trail. Many long desert miles lay between Andy and the Concho, but he argued that his horse was as fresh as the horses of his pursuers. He would give them a good run.
The Concho was a long cry from Showdown while the horse Malvey rode had been stolen from a more immediate neighborhood. As for setting this young stranger afoot in the desert, that did not bother Malvey in the least.
In vain Concho tried to lift her from out the ruin of camp kettles, prospecting pans, and picks; she remained quietly recumbent, occasionally raising her head as if to contemplatively glance over the arid plain below. Then he had recourse to useless blows.
While he could not understand English, he knew by the tone of the conversation that these men were not the enemies of his weazened master. "Seen anything of a kind of dark-complected young fella wearin' a black Stetson and ridin' a blue roan?" queried Houck. "Where was he from?" countered The Spider. "The Concho, and ridin' a hoss with the Concho brand." "Wanted bad?" "Yes a whole lot.
There's going to be trouble before long and you know why. It won't begin on the west side of the Concho." "Good-bye, John," said the girl, reining her pony around. He raised his hat. Then he wheeled Chinook and loped toward the ranch. Eleanor Loring, riding slowly, thought of what he had said. "He won't give in an inch," she said aloud.
Neither did this heavy embossed saddle with its silver concho decorations then seem familiar so far north; nor yet the thin braided-leather bridle with its hair frontlet band and its mighty bit; nor again the great spurs with jingling rowel bells. This rider's mount and trappings spoke the far and new Southwest, just then coming into our national ken.
So when Andy White, again visiting the sheep-camp, told Pete that the Concho foreman had offered no encouragement in regard to an extra hand, Pete nodded as though the matter were of slight consequence, which had the effect of stirring Andy to renewed eloquence anent the subject as Pete had hoped. The boys discussed ways and means. There was much discussion, but no visible ways and means.
David Loring, erstwhile plainsman and scout, had drifted in the early days from New Mexico to Arizona with his small band of sheep, and settled in the valley of the Concho. He had been tolerated by the cattle-men, as his flock was but a speck on the limitless mesas.
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