Before he had finished she was off like an arrow shot from a bow, but not until her eyes had fallen on the youth sitting bareheaded and bloody between the guns of his guard. Curly noticed that she had given a shudder, as one might at sight of a mangled mad dog which had just bit a dear friend. Long after the pounding of her pony's hoofs had died away the prisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested on him. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a light spring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. The driver whipped up the horse and 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.