The Ridin Kid from Powder River | Page 8

feeling secure in his own rights, as a hard-working citizen, to hold
and cultivate the allotment he had earned from the Government.
The T-Bar-T outfit especially grudged him the water that they had
previously used to such good advantage. This water was now under
fence. To make this water available to cattle would disrupt the
homestead. It was at this time that Young Pete first realized the
significance of these hard-riding visitors. He was cleaning his
much-polished carbine, sitting cross-legged round the corner of the
cabin, when two of the chance visitors, having washed and discarded
their chaps, strolled out and squatted by the doorway. Old man
Annersley was at the back of the cabin preparing supper.
One of the riders, a man named Gary, said something to his companion
about "running the old man out of the country."
Young Pete paused in his task.
"You can't bluff him so easy," offered the companion.
"But a thirty-thirty kin talk business," said the man Gary, and he
laughed.
Pete never forgot the remark nor the laugh. Next day, after the riders
had departed, he told his pop what he had heard. The old man made
him repeat the conversation. He shook his head. "Mostly talk," he said.
"They dassent to start runnin' us off--dast they?" queried Young Pete.

"Mostly talk," reiterated Annersley; but Pete saw that his pop was
troubled.
"They can't bluff us, eh, pop?"
"I reckon not, son. How many cartridges you got?"
Young Pete thrilled to the question. "Got ten out of the last box. You
got any?"
"Some. Reckon we'll go to town to-morrow."
"To git some cartridges?"
"Mebby."
This was Young Pete's first real intimation that there might be trouble
that would occasion the use of cartridges. The idea did not displease
him. They drove to town, bought some provisions and ammunition, and
incidentally the old man visited the sheriff and retailed the conversation
that Pete had overheard.
"Bluff!" said the sheriff, whose office depended upon the vote of the
cattlemen. "Just bluff, Annersley. You hang on to what you got and
they won't be no trouble. I know just how far those boys will go."
"Well, I don't," said Annersley. "So I was jest puttin' what you call
bluff on record, case anything happened."
The sheriff, secretly in league with the cattlemen to crowd Annersley
off the range, took occasion to suggest to the T-Bar-T foreman that the
old man was getting cold feet--which was a mistake, for Annersley had
simply wished to keep within the law and avoid trouble if possible.
Thus it happened that Annersley brought upon himself the very trouble
that he had honorably tried to avoid. Let the most courageous man even
seem to turn and run and how soon his enemies will take up the chase!
But nothing happened that summer, and it was not until the following
spring that the T-Bar-T outfit gave any hint of their real intent. The

anonymous letter was a vile screed--because it was anonymous and
also because it threatened, in innuendo, to burn out a homestead held
by one man and a boy.
Annersley showed the letter to Pete and helped him spell it out. Then
he explained gravely his own status as a homesteader, the law which
allowed him to fence the water, and the labor which had made the land
his. It was typical of Young Pete that when a real hazard threatened he
never said much. In this instance the boy did not know just what to do.
That evening Annersley missed him and called, "What you doin',
pardner?"
From the cabin--Annersley, as usual, was seated outside,
smoking--came the reply: "Countin' my cartridges."
Annersley knew that the anonymous letter would be followed by some
hostile act if he did not vacate the homestead. He wasted no time
worrying as to what might happen--but he did worry about Young Pete.
If the cattlemen raided his place, it would be impossible to keep that
young and ambitious fire-eater out of harm's way. So the old man
planned to take Pete to Concho the next morning and leave him with
the storekeeper until the difficulty should be solved, one way or the
other.
This time they did not drive to Concho, but saddled up and rode down
the hill trail. And during the journey Young Pete was unusually silent,
wondering just what his pop planned to do.
At the store Annersley privately explained the situation to the
storekeeper. Then he told Young Pete that he would leave him there for
a few days as he was "goin' over north a spell."
Young Pete studied the old man with bright, blinking eyes that
questioned the truth of this statement. His pop had never lied to him,
and although Pete suspected what was in the wind, he had