"Wal, I reckon; three of them rustlers won't rustle again very soon, onless that bus'ness is carried on below, where they've gone; two others have got holes through their bodies about the size of my hat."
"But—but were any of our people injured?" continued the parent, while Jennie tried to still the throbbing of her heart until the answer came.
"Wal, yes," replied Budd, removing his hat and passing his handkerchief across his forehead, as though the matter was of slight account; "I'm sorry to say some of us got it in the neck."
"Who—who—how was it? Don't trifle!"
"Wal, you see Zip Peters rode over from Capt. Whiting's to tell us about the rustlers, and he hadn't much more'n arriv, when along come the others behind him with one of our branded steers. I made them give him up, and then the fight was on. Zip got a piece of lead through the body and the arm, and went out of the saddle without time to say good-by. My hip was grazed twice, but it didn't amount to nothin'; I'm as good as ever. Grizzly lost a piece of his ear, but he bored the rustler through that done it, so that account was squared."
"Then father and Fred were not hurt?" gasped Jennie, clasping her hands and gazing inquiringly into the face of the messenger.
"Wal," he replied, with the same exasperating coolness he had shown after his first exclamation, "I wish I could say that, but it ain't quite so good."
"What—what of my husband?" demanded Mrs. Whitney, stepping so close that she laid her hand on the knee of the sturdy horseman; "tell me quick; and what of Fred, my son?"
"Fred fought like a house afire; he killed one of the rustlers, but his horse was shot and Fred got it through the arm, which ended his power to do much fighting, but he laid down behind his hoss and kept it up like the trump he is."
"Then he isn't badly injured?"