“I see!” ejaculated the ranchman, smiting one doubled fist upon the other palm. “That Pete has fooled us from the start.”
“Sure did,” admitted Sam.
“He never mounted his horse at all?” cried Frances, deeply interested.
“That’s it,” said her father. “We ought to have known that at the time. No horse could have gone smashing through the brush the way that one did without knocking his rider’s head off.”
“Sure,” agreed Sam again.
“And he was right there near the place he held Pratt and me captive all the time we were making a stretcher for poor Pratt,” said Frances.
“Or hiking up stream,” said the foreman, preparing to ride down to the corral.
“Lucky the boy broke the fellow’s gun as he did,” said Captain Rugley, thoughtfully, turning to his daughter. “Otherwise some of us might have been popped off from the bushes.”
“Oh, Daddy!”
“When a man’s as mean as that scalawag,” said her father, philosophically, “there’s no knowing to what lengths he will go. I shan’t feel that you are safe on the ranges until he’s found and jailed.”