“What’s that scrub Wellesly doing out here?”
“I don’t know, unless he came to bring ’em some brains. They need some bad enough. Wellesly and Colonel Whittaker have been ridin’ around over the range for the last two or three days, though I didn’t know about it till yesterday. I guess they’ve been so everlastingly beaten on every proposition that he thought he’d better come out himself and see if he couldn’t save the day for ’em on something.”
They hurried on in the trail of the roar from the stampeding herd, but suddenly Ellhorn’s horse struck his fore feet on the slope of a wet and slippery mound beside a prairie dog’s hole. Before the animal could recover, its feet slid down the bank into the mouth of the hole with a forward jerk, and it came down with a groaning cry of pain. Ellhorn rose to his feet in the stirrups, and as the horse struck the ground he stood astride its body and with a quick leap jumped to one side unhurt. By the light of a match, which Tuttle sheltered under his sombrero, standing bareheaded, meanwhile, with the rain running in streams down his neck, Ellhorn examined the fallen horse.
“He’s broke both his forelegs, Tom. There’s only one thing to do with him, now.”
Tuttle stroked the beast’s nose. “I reckon so, Nick. You-all better do it.” Then he turned away, while Ellhorn put his revolver to the horse’s head and ended its pain.
“Now, Tom, you go on after Emerson as fast as you can and I’ll hoof it back to camp and get Bob’s horse.”
“No, you-all jump on behind me, Nick, and we’ll go on together. Emerson will need us both in the morning. If that crowd gets after him maybe he can stand ’em off till we-all get there. But he’ll need us by daylight, Nick.”
“I ’low you’re right, Tommy, but ain’t you on that horse that always bucks at double?”
“Yes, but I reckon he’ll have to pack double, if you and me fork him.”