“Nobody was there but Munson, and we had to take his version of it,” went on the narrator. “At least nobody but Munson came back to Square Z after the fracas. The others rode away with the cattle.”
“Oh, then he was the only one who saw ’em. Which way did they go?” asked Gimp, eagerly.
“Over there—same way as the others,” and the Parson pointed toward the rocky defile near which all traces of the former bunch of stolen cattle had been lost.
“Same gang then, I take it,” said Gimp, presently. “Go on. Spin the yarn as we go along. We’ve got a sick boy here and the sooner the doctor sees him the better.”
Gimp told the Parson, briefly, how Jerry had been hurt, and added something about Hinkee Dee which Ned and Bob could not quite catch. Then, in his turn, the Parson told of the raid.
Munson, it appeared, had ridden off, as he often did, to look at a bunch of steers or to inspect some part of the ranch. He had come back, riding a winded horse and with his right leg tied in bloody bandages. His story was to the effect that as he approached a small herd of cattle that were temporarily without cowboy watchers from Square Z, he had seen the steers being rounded up by half a dozen men, who started to drive them away.
“Munson said he knowed they wasn’t our men,” said the Parson, “so he hailed ’em. They fired at him quick as a flash, and then he said he was sure they were the rustlers. He shot back and thinks he hit one, but they got him in the leg. He knows a little about medicine it seems, so he tore up his shirt, bandaged the wound and rode home. I guess most of us would have done the same.”
“Then he saw the rustlers?” asked Gimp, eagerly.
“Sure,” assented the Parson.