speak. The frequent
roughings he experienced served to steady him, and also taught him to
distinguish the tentative line between good-natured banter and the
veiled insult.

Unconsciously he studied his fellows, until he thought he pretty well
knew their peculiarities and preferences. Unrealized by Pete, and by
themselves, this set him apart from them. They never studied him, but
took him for just what he seemed--a bright, quick, and withal
industrious youngster, rather quiet at times, but never sullen.
Bailey, whose business it was to know and handle men, confided to his
wife that he did not quite understand Pete. And Mrs. Bailey, who was
really fond of Pete, was consistently feminine when she averred that it
wasn't necessary to understand him so long as he attended to his work
and behaved himself, which was Mrs. Bailey's way of dodging the issue.
She did not understand Pete herself. "He does a heap of thinking--for
a boy," she told Bailey. "He's got something' besides cattle on his
mind," Bailey asserted. Mrs. Bailey had closed the question for the
time being with the rather vague assertion, "I should hope so."

The first real inkling that Andy White had of Pete's deeper nature was
occasioned by an incident during the round-up.

The cutting-out and branding were about over. The Concho men, camped
round their wagon, were fraternizing with visitors from the Blue and
T-Bar-T. Every kind of gossip was afloat. The Government was going to
make a game preserve of the Blue Range. Old man Dobson, of the
Eight-O-Eight, had fired one of his men for packing whiskey into the
camp: "Dobson was drunk hisself!" was asserted. One sprightly and
inventive son-of-saddle-leather had brought a pair of horse-clippers to
the round-up. Every suffering puncher in the outfit had been thrown
and clipped, including the foreman, and even the cattle inspector.
Rumor had it that the boys from the Blue intended to widen their scope
of operation and clip everybody. The "gentleman [described in the
vernacular] who started to clip my [also described] head'll think he's
tackled a tree-kitty," stated a husky cowboy from the T-Bar-T.

Old Montoya's name was mentioned by another rider from the T-Bar-T.
Andy who was lying beside Pete, just within the circle of firelight,
nudged him.

"We run every nester out of this country; and it's about time we
started in on the sheep," said this individual, and he spoke not
jestingly, but with a viciou