"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."