Pete twisted his hat in his hands. He did not know what to say.
Slowly he backed from the room, turned, and strode out to Andy White.
Andy wondered what Pete had been up to, but waited for him to speak.

Presently Pete cleared his throat. "I'm coming over to your wickiup
to-morrow and strike for a job. I got the promise of a rig, all right.
Don't want no second-hand rig, anyhow! I'm the Ridin' Kid from Powder
River and I'm comin' with head up and tail a-rollin'."

"Whoopee!" sang Andy, and swung to his pony.

"I'm a-comin'!" called Pete as Andy clattered away into the night.

Pete felt happy and yet strangely subdued. The dim road flickered
before him as he trudged back to the sheep-camp. "Pop would 'a' done
it that way," he said aloud. And for a space, down the darkening road
he walked in that realm where the invisible walk, and beside him
trudged the great, rugged shape of Annersley, the spirit of the old man
who always "played square," feared no man, and fulfilled a purpose in
the immeasurable scheme of things. Pete knew that Annersley would have
been pleased. So it was that Young Pete paid the most honorable debt
of all, the debt to memory that the debtor's own free hand may pay or
not--and none be the wiser, save the debtor. Pete had "played square."
It was all the more to his credit that he hated like the dickens to
give up his eighteen dollars and a half, and yet had done so.




CHAPTER VIII