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So they sat by the fire in the keen evening air, each busy with his own thoughts, while the restless sheep bedded down, bleating and shuffling, and the dogs lay with noses toward the fire, apparently dozing, but ever alert for a stampede; alert for any possibility even as were Montoya and Pete, although outwardly placid and silent.
He was fond of Montoya in an offhand way, but with the lessons in gunmanship his fondness became almost reverence for the old man's easy skill and accuracy. Despite their increasing friendliness, Pete could never get Montoya to admit that he had killed a man and Pete thought this strange, at that time. Pete's lessons were not always without grief.
The question was very seriously debated in the Elective Franchise Committee, which many times voted it down only to renew it upon appeal to do so. Mrs. S. F. Culberson, then county school superintendent in Roosevelt county, argued the matter before the committee, and its chairman, Nestor Montoya, cast the deciding vote for it to come before the convention.
Montoya sent him into town for some supplies. As usual, Pete rode one of the burros. It was customary for Pete to leave his gun in camp when going to town. Montoya had suggested that he do this, as much for Pete's sake as for anything else. The old man knew that slightly older boys were apt to make fun of Pete for packing such a disproportionately large gun or, in fact, for packing any gun at all.
Next morning, after the sheep were out, Pete picked up a pack-rope and amused himself by flipping the loop on the burros, the clumps of brush, stubs, and limbs, keeping at it until the old herder noticed and nodded. "He is thinking of the cattle," soliloquized Montoya. "I will have to get a new boy some day. But he will speak, and then I shall know."
Out of breath and half-sobbing as he realized the futility of his effort, he suddenly recalled an incident like this when Montoya, failing to head the band in a similar situation, had coolly shot the leader and had broken the stampede. Pete immediately sat down, and rested the barrel of his six-shooter on his knee. He centered on the pass.
On the 6th, the troops were again embarked to pursue the flying garrison up the river, when we received a flag of truce informing us that the enemy had abandoned the town, after plundering the private houses and magazines; and, together with the Governor, Colonel Montoya, had fled in the direction of Chiloe.
If there was anything that looked like a boy available in Concho, Pete would induce that boy to take his place with Montoya, if he had to resort to force to do so. Youth on the hilltop! Youth pausing to gaze back for a moment on a pleasant vista of sunshine and long, lazy days Pete brushed his arm across his eyes.
Fear, among sheep, spreads like fire in dry grass. In five seconds the band was running, with Montoya calling to the dogs and Pete trying to capture the flying cause of the trouble. When the sheep were turned and had resumed their grazing, Montoya, who had caught the roped dog, strode to Pete. "It was a bad thing to do," he said easily. "Why did you rope him?" Pete scowled and stammered.
Pete, topping the rise that hides the town of Concho from the northern vistas, turned and looked back. Far below, on a slightly rounded knoll stood the old herder, a solitary figure in the wide expanse of mesa and morning sunlight. Pete swung his hat. Montoya raised his arm in a gesture of good-will and farewell. Pete might have to come back, but Montoya doubted it. He knew Pete.
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