the lips were drawn back, exposing his cruel fangs.
“Ugh! I’d hate to meet a critter like that alone, and without more’n a knife to defend myself with, Frank!” Bob exclaimed, as he sat in the saddle, pushing several cartridges into the magazine of his rifle, and looking down at the hated quarry that had rewarded Frank’s last shot.
“Oh! he’s an old one, all right,” remarked Frank. “I can see the scars of many a fight on his hide, and about his muzzle. But wait till I fling him across the horse. Watch Buckskin prance! No horse likes to come in touch with a wild animal like a panther, wolf or bear, dead or alive. The scent of blood makes ’em wild, too. Whoa! Buckskin! don’t be so funny now. You’ve just got to carry this chap back to the ranch, because I want dad to see him.”
“Then we head toward home, now?” remarked Bob.
“Yes, but by way of that timber. I want to take a look at Old Baldy. When the boys hear of his return, there’ll be some tall talking. He used to give heaps of trouble in the past; yet they all liked the old chap. And when he disappeared, in company with a dozen head of stock, there was more range riding to find him than I ever heard of.”
“Old Baldy is waiting for us,” remarked Bob. “Seems like he just knew what we went for, and he wants to see what luck we had.”
“He’s a smart one, all right,” laughed Frank. “And if those rustlers have had him penned up all this while, he’s managed to break out at last, and come home.”
“Say, wouldn’t it be a great stunt now, if some of the boys could follow his trail back to Where he was kept in a corral. That would tell us, Frank, just how Pedro Mendoza manages to disappear, whenever he runs a bunch of cattle off.”
“Well, perhaps it might be done yet, impossible as it seems,” observed Frank.
“What makes you say so?” demanded the other.