"Excite me!" said Leland. "It's the one thing that has cured me. I'll be going round with the threshers in a day or two."
"Well," said the Sergeant, "it's quite a simple tale. One of your friends, perhaps a boy who'd worked for you, gave us the office at sun-up, and we started as soon as we heard what the rustlers meant to do. It seems, from what one or two of them have admitted, that they knew the game was up when the new troopers came, and meant to get even with you before lighting out."
"How did they know the boys were away, and what in the name of thunder did Gallwey keep them all this while at the ravine for?" Leland broke in.
Grier raised his hand. "You keep still. I'm telling this thing my own way. How the whisky boys found out more than that is one of the points I'm going to inquire into. Well, we started, and before we were half-way most of the horses were dead played out; and though I went round by a ranch, the boys were out driving cattle, and had only two horses in the stable. I guess we led the horses most of the rest of the way, until, when we were a league off, I rode on with one of the boys. Then, coming in quietly, we saw there was something wrong. While we waited for the boys, we fixed things so that we got our hands on four of the gang. Two of them are the bosses, and one of them wants a doctor, as well as the other man with the bullet in his leg. That's about all there is to it. You're not going to have any more trouble with the rustlers."
"Will the man Charley shot get well?" asked Carrie, with tense anxiety.
The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, yes," he said. "He'll be on his way to Regina jail in a day or two."
He went out with Gallwey by-and-bye, and Carrie sat down by her husband, with a little happy laugh.
"Oh," she said, "that's one trouble done with; and, if you won't excite yourself, Charley, I'll tell you something more. Wheat is going up."