"You said we
was when you brung me up here. And pardners stick, don't they? I
reckon if it was my shack that was gittin' rushed, you 'd stick, and
not go bellyin' under the bunk and hidin' like a dog-gone prairie-dog."
[Illustration: "Say, ain't we pardners?"]
"That's all right," said Annersley. "But there's no use takin'
chances. You keep back till we find out what they're goin' to do next."
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.
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