horse. Blue Smoke pitched across
the clearing under the spur and rein that finally turned him toward the
south. Pete's sombrero flew off as he headed for the timber. Andy,
reining 'round his horse, that fretted to follow, swung down and caught
up Pete's hat on the run. Pete had pulled up near the edge of the
timber. Andy, as he was about to give Pete his hat, suddenly changed
it for his own. "For luck!" he cried, as Pete slackened rein and Blue
Smoke shot down the dim forest trail.

Pete, perhaps influenced by Montoya's example, always wore a
high-crowned black sombrero. Andy's hat was the usual gray. In the
excitement of leaving, Pete had not thought of that; but as he rode, he
suspected Andy's motive, and glanced back. But Andy was not following,
or if he were, he was riding slowly.

Meanwhile Andy cheerfully put himself in the way of assisting Pete to
escape. He knew the country and thought he knew where Pete was headed
for. Before nightfall a posse would be riding the high country hunting
the slayer of Gary. They would look for a cowboy wearing a black
sombrero. Realizing the risk that he ran, and yet as careless of that
risk as though he rode to a fiesta, Young Andy deliberately turned back
to where Gary lay--he had not yet been to that spot--and, dismounting,
picked up Pete's rope. He glanced at Gary, shivered, and swung to his
horse. Riding so that his trail would be easy to read he set off
toward the open country, east. The fact that he had no food with him,
and that the country was arid and that water was scarce, did not
trouble him. All he hoped for was to delay or mislead the posse long
enough to enable Pete to reach the southern desert. There Pete might
have one chance in twenty of making his final escape. Perhaps it was a
foolish thing to do, but Andy White, inspired by a motive of which
there is no finer, did not stop to reason about it. "He that giveth
his life for a friend . . ." Andy knew nothing of such a quotation.
He was riding into the desert, quite conscious of the natural hazards
of the trail, and keen to the possibilities that might follow in the
form of an excited posse not too discriminating, in their eagerness to
capture an outlaw, yet he rode with a light heart. After all, Pete was
not guilty of murder. He had but defended his own life. Andy's heart
was light because of the tang of adventure, and a certain appreciation
of what a disappointed posse might feel and expre