“How big an outfit is it? What do they look like?”
Hilda answered in little, broken sentences:
“Six of them—and a chuck-wagon. But they had so many guns. He’s very young—almost a boy.”
The colonel was buckling his cartridge belt; he whirled and looked at her, demanding:
“Which one is that you’re speaking of?”
“The one that rode right beside the man that called himself Colonel Marchbanks. He looked like— We all took him for—”
The real Colonel Marchbanks glanced to where his men were getting on their ponies. He waved to them to ride on, and they whirled away in a cloud of dust. Then, bracing hands on knees, he bent down and prompted:
“You took him for—?”
“Your son.”
The colonel straightened up without a word, ran to his pony, flung himself upon it, and was off after the others.