“Then they ran the stock away, did they, Andy?” asked one of the listeners.
“We heard ’em get busy, while we wrestled with the ropes,” continued the other. “They’d taken our guns along, and our hosses, too. As we laid thar we could hear the herd get under way. And the style them rustlers did things, it was clean easy to see every one of ’em had been a honest
cow puncher in his time. Reckon that in less’n half an hour arter we was keeled over, I heard the last of the hoofs of the herd pass away.”
“How long ago was that, Andy?” asked the Colonel.
“Must a been ’bout midnight when they kim down on us, sir,” replied the other.
“And then what did you and Clem do?” pursued the stockman, who was by degrees becoming more collected, as he realized that if ever he needed a cool head the time was now.
“I was workin’ like a house afire to git my hands loose, Colonel,” Andy continued. “Clem, I knowed, was hurted worse nor me, for he said he believed his ankle must a been broke. Once I couldn’t get him to answer, an’ then I reckoned as how poor Clem had fainted from the pain.”
“You got loose in the end, Andy?”
“I sure did, after workin, it seemed, for hours. Clem was able to talk again; but after I managed to get his rope off, an’ stood him up, we seen it was no go. He couldn’t walk a step. So I says as how I’d have to make the run in alone. I reckon I must a lost some blood myself. Don’t know what else made me feel so weak every little while. Must a took me a coon’s age to git here. Sorry I couldn’t ’a done it better, but——”
Colonel Haywood was just in time to catch the falling figure of Andy. The poor fellow was indeed