Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
And now the T-Bar-T men "had got him." The storekeeper was not half so surprised as he was grieved. He had had an idea that something like this might happen. It was a cattle country, and Annersley had been the only homesteader within miles of Concho. "I wonder just how much of this the sheriff knows already," he soliloquized. "It's mighty tough on the kid."
White-Eye and Longtree were standing near a player at the faro table, evidently interested for the moment in the play. Near White-Eye, Pino was rolling a cigarette. Beyond them, at the next table, stood a man with a deformed shoulder and The Spider recognized Gary of the T-Bar-T, watching the few players at the wheel. . . . A film of cigar smoke eddied round the lamps above the tables.
He's over there in the brush." "Gary!" "Yes. I reckon I got him." "Hell!" The ruddy color sank from Andy's face. He had supposed that Gary and Cotton were by this time tracking the strayed horses toward the T-Bar-T. "Where's Cotton?" he asked. "I told him to fan it." "But, Pete !" "I know. They's no use talkin', Andy. I come back to tell you and to git your rope. Mine's over by Gary."
"Cotton is afoot for I seen his hoss over there. But he can make it to the T-Bar-T in three hours. That'll give us a start of two hours, anyhow. I don't know which way you aim to ride, but " "I'm playin' this hand alone," stated Pete as he saddled Blue Smoke. "No use your gittin' in bad." White made no comment, but cinched up his pony. Pete stepped to him and held out his hand. "So-long, Andy.
He shot Steve Gary yesterday." "Gary of the T-Bar-T?" "The same and a friend of mine," interpolated the cowboy Simpson. "Huh! You say he's young just a kid?" "Yes. But a dam' tough kid." "Pete Annersley, eh? Not the Young Pete that was mixed up in that raid a few years ago?" "The same." "No I didn't see anything of him," said The Spider. "We trailed him down this way." The Spider nodded.
Pete grew silent as he rode with Andy toward the hill-trail that led to his old home on the Blue Mesa, where he finally surveyed the traces of old man Annersley's patient toil. The fences had been pulled down and the water-hole enlarged. The cabin, now a rendezvous for occasional riders of the T-Bar-T, had suffered from weather and neglect.
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.
Pete might have gone far become a well-to-do cattleman or rancher had not Fate, which can so easily wipe out all plans and precautions in a flash, stepped in and laid a hand on his bridle-rein. That summer occasional riders stopped at the cabin, were fed and housed and went on their way. They came chiefly from the T-Bar-T ranch some few from Concho, a cattle outfit of the lower 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.
Several shots must have been fired, for Annersley was not a man to suffer such an outrage in silence. And the boy was known to be a good shot. Yet there had been no news of anyone having been wounded among the raiders. Sutton was preparing to ride to the Blue and investigate when a T-Bar-T man loped up and dismounted. They talked a minute or two. Then the cowboy rode out of town.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking