The other boys looked around. Just before the fight began they had seen her, Kit, and the old man, but now she was gone.
"Stella was wounded," cried Ted. "Where is she? Scatter, men, and find her. She cannot be far away. If anything has happened to her, some one will suffer."
CHAPTER XXXI.
STELLA A CAPTIVE.
We will leave Ted and the broncho boys, to follow the misadventures of Stella.
After securing Magpie, which was taken back to the cow camp by Kit, who, much against his inclinations, was compelled to go into retirement until his arm healed, Ted released old man Norris, who secured a pony and rode rapidly out of town.
When Stella fell from the back of her pony to the road she became insensible. A ball from the weapon of one of Shan Rhue's gang had clipped a lock of hair from her forehead, creasing the skull. By a miracle her life was saved, for the merest fraction of an inch lay between her and death.
During the hurly-burly of the fight, and as Ted was grasped in the powerful arms of Shan Rhue, one of the gang rushed up to her as she lay in the dust and picked her up.
He was a powerful man, and carried Stella's light body as if she had been a child. That he was not seen by some member of the Running Water outfit was due to the fact that they were too busily engaged in fighting to pay attention to anything else.