went across the prairie toward Dry Sandy
Creek. Evidently he was going to bring home the wounded man.

His guards put Flandrau in the bunk house and one of them sat at the door
with a rifle across his knees. The cook, the stable boy, and redheaded Bob
Cullison, a nephew of the owner of the ranch, peered past the _vaquero_ at
the captive with the same awe they would have yielded to a caged panther.

"Why, he's only a kid, Buck," the cook whispered.

Buck chewed tobacco impassively. "Old enough to be a rustler and a
killer."

Bob's blue eyes were wide with interest "I'll bet he's a regular Billy the
Kid," murmured the half-grown boy to the other lad.

"Sure. Course he is. He's got bad eyes all right."

"I'll bet he's got notches on his gun. Say, if Uncle Luck dies--" Bob left
the result to the imagination.

The excitement at the Circle C increased. Horses cantered up. Men shouted
to each other the news. Occasionally some one came in to have a look at
the "bad man" who had shot Luck Cullison. Young Flandrau lay on a cot and
stared at the ceiling, paying no more attention to them than if they had
been blocks of wood. It took no shrewdness to see that there burned in
them a still cold anger toward him that might easily find expression in
lynch law.

The crunch of wagon wheels over disintegrated granite drifted to the bunk
house.

"They're bringing the boss back," Buck announced from the door to one of
his visitors.

The man joined him and looked over his shoulder. "Miss Kate there too?"

"Yep. Say, if the old man don't pull through it will break her all up."

The boy on the bed turned his face to the wall. He had not cried for ten
years, but now he would have liked the relief of tears. The luck had
broken bad for him, but it would be the worst ever if his random shot were
to make Kate Cullison an orphan. A big lump rose in his throat and would
not stay down. The irony of it was that he was staged for the part of a
gray wolf on the howl, while he felt more like a little child that has
lost its last friend.

After a time there came again the crisp roll of wheels.

"Doc Brown," announced Buck casually to the other men in the bunk house.

There was more than one anxious heart at the Circle C waiting for the
verdict of the bowlegged baldheaded little man with the satchel, but not
one of them--no, not even Kate Cullison herself--was in a colder fear than
Curly Flandrau. He was entitled to a deep interest, for if C