"By the great horned toad!" he cried. "I'm a-goin' in there! Anybody that wants to come along is welcome." Not a man in the party would be dared in that way, so, taking advantage of such cover as offered, they advanced upon the cabin, stealthily at first and then more rapidly, as they met with no resistance--no sign whatever of life. A final rush carried them through the doorway into the house, where they expected to find a shambles. Wade struck a light, and faced about with a start as a low groan came from a corner of the back room. A man lay at full length on the floor, tied hand and foot, and gagged. It was Ed Nelson, one of the Double Arrow hands who had been surprised and captured by the posse, and a little farther away in the shadow against the wall his two companions lay in a like condition. With his knife Wade was cutting them loose, and glancing about in a puzzled search for the wounded men he expected to find in the house, when Santry shouted something from the kitchen. "What is it, Bill?" the ranch owner demanded. Santry tramped back into the room, laughing in a shamefaced sort of way. "They done us, Gordon!" he burst out. "By the great horned toad, they done us! They chucked a bunch of shells into the hot cook-stove, an' sneaked out the side door while we was shootin' into the front room. By cracky, that beats...." "That's what they did," spoke up Nelson, as well as his cramped tongue would permit, being now freed of the gag. "They gagged us first, so's we couldn't sing out; then they filled up the stove an' beat it." What had promised to be a tragedy had proved a fiasco, and Wade smiled a little foolishly. "The joke's on us, I guess, boys," he admitted. "But we've got the ranch back, at any rate. How are you feeling, Ed, pretty stiff and sore?" "My Gawd, yes--awful!" "Me, too," declared Tom Parrish, the second of the victims; and the third man swore roundly that he would not regain the full use of his legs before Christmas. "Well, you're lucky at that," was Santry's dry comment. "All that saved you from gettin' shot up some in the fight was layin' low down in that corner where you was." He let his eyes travel around the littered, blood-spattered room. "From the looks o' this shebang we musta stung some of 'em pretty deep; but nobody was killed, I reckon. I hope Moran was the worst hurt, durn him!" "He'll keep," Wade said grimly. "We've not done with him yet, Bill. We've only just begun." CHAPTER X THE SENATOR GETS BUSY