Standing in the middle of the room, well back from the southern window,
the old man gazed out upon the destruction of his buildings and
carefully hoarded hay. He breathed hard. The riders knew that he was
in the cabin--that they had not bluffed him from the homestead.
Probably they would next try to fire the cabin itself. They could
crawl up to it in the dark and set fire to the place before he was
aware of it. Well, they would pay high before they got him. He had
fed and housed these very men--and now they were trying to run him out
of the country because he had fenced a water-hole which he had every
right to fence. He had toiled to make a home for himself, and the boy,
he thought, as he heard Young Pete padding about the cabin. The
cattlemen had written a threatening letter hinting of this, yet they
had not dared to meet him in the open and have it out face to face. He
did not want to kill, yet such men were no better than wolves. And as
wolves he thought of them, as he determined to defend his home.

Young Pete, spider-like in his quick movements, scurried about the
cabin making his own plan of battle. It did not occur to him that he
might get hurt--or that his pop would get hurt. They were safe enough
behind the thick logs. All he thought of was the chance of a shot at
what he considered legitimate game. While drifting about the country
he had heard many tales of gunmen and border raids, and it was quite
evident, even to his young mind, that the man who suffered attack by a
gun was justified in returning the compliment in kind. And to this end
he carefully arranged his cartridges on the floor, knelt and raised the
window a few inches and cocked the old carbine. Annersley realized
what the boy was up to and stepped forward to pull him away from the
window. And in that brief moment Young Pete's career was
shaped--shaped beyond all question or argument by the wanton bullet
that sung across the open, cut a clean hole in the window, and dropped