"You can count me out," said a cowboy immediately. "Steve was allus huntin' trouble and it looks like he found it this trip. They's plenty without me to ride down the kid. Young Pete may be bad—but I figure he had a dam' good excuse when he plugged Steve, here. You can count me out."
"And me," said another. "If young Pete was a growed man—"
"Same here," interrupted the third. "Any kid that's got nerve enough to down Steve has got a right to git away with it. If you corner him he's goin' to fight—and git bumped off by a bunch of growed men—mebby four to one. That ain't my style."
Houck turned to several cowboys who had not spoken. They were Gary's friends, of his kind—in a measure. "How is it, boys?" asked Houck.
"We stick," said one, and the others nodded.
"Then you boys"—and Houck indicated the first group—"can ride back to the ranch. Or, here, Larkin, you can stay with Steve till the doc shows up. The rest of you can drift."
Without waiting for dawn the men who had refused to go out after Pete rode back along the hill-trail to the ranch. But before they left, Houck took what hastily packed food they had and distributed it among the posse, who packed it in their saddle-pockets. The remaining cowboys lay down for a brief sleep. They were up at dawn, and after a hasty breakfast set out looking for tracks. Houck himself discovered Andy White's tracks leading from the spot where Gary had been found, and calling the others together, set off across the eastern mesa.
Meanwhile Andy White was sleeping soundly in a coulee many miles from the homestead, and just within sight of a desert ranch, to which he had planned to ride at daybreak, ask for food and depart, leaving the impression that he was Pete Annersley in haste to get beyond the reach of the law. He had stopped at the coulee because he had found grass and water for his horse and because he did not want to risk being found at the ranch-house. A posse would naturally head for the ranch to search and ask questions. Fed and housed he might oversleep and be caught. Then his service to Pete would amount to little. But if he rode in at daybreak, ahead of the posse, ate and departed, leaving a hint as to his assumed identity, he could mislead them a day longer at least. He built all his reasoning on the hope that the posse would find and follow his tracks.
Under the silent stars he slept, his head on his saddle, and near him lay Pete's black sombrero.
In the disillusioning light of morning, that which Andy had taken to be a ranch-house dwindled to a goat-herder's shack fronted by a brush-roofed lean-to. Near it was a diminutive corral and a sun-faded tent. The old Indian herder seemed in no way surprised to see a young rider dismount and approach cautiously—for Andy had entered into the spirit of the thing. He paused to glance apprehensively back and survey the western horizon. Andy greeted the Indian, who grunted his acknowledgment in the patois of the plains.