“It was Lucky who answered, and, in his voice I sensed tragedy.
“‘It’s me, Malcolm! The prize yearlings! They’re plumb gone!’
“Of course I was into my clothes before I was hardly awake, nor did I fully grasp the meaning of what I had heard until I had flung open the door and had beheld Lucky’s face, white in spite of the tan which has been deepening there for the past forty years. One glance at him and I knew that I had heard aright.
“‘What do you make of it?’ we were swinging down the trail toward the corral when I asked the question.
“‘Gypsies, of course,’ was his laconic reply.
“‘It doesn’t seem possible nor reasonable.’ I was not convinced, but, of course, if the prize yearlings were really gone, someone had taken them unless—‘Lucky,’ I said, ‘are you sure they didn’t break through the fence somewhere?’
“‘Ah thought of that, but the tarnel thing is jest as whole as ’twas when Slim got through mendin’ it only Saturday week.’
“Just then we reached the drop in the trail and I could see the corral. Lucky had spoken truly; not a rail was misplaced, and, although the gate was standing open and torn from its hinges, it was evident that it had been broken by the impact of the stampeding cattle.
“I stood and stared almost stunned and hardly able to believe, even then, that so tragic a disaster had come to us. ‘Lucky,’ I said, ‘are you sure you barred the gate? The yearlings couldn’t get through there any more than through another part of the fence if it were equally secure.’
“I saw at once that my companion was hurt.