"Two hundred or so."
"Does he still make his head-quarters at the Don's ranche?"
"Yes; but look here, Mr. George," said Springer earnestly; "if you are goin' over there after him, be mighty careful. You know what sort of a looking place that ranche is—all stone, you know—an' them fellows is all old soldiers, an' they'll fight awful."
George nodded his head as if to say that he knew all about that, and spent some minutes in questioning the prisoner in regard to the road that led to the ranche, while Bob sat by on his horse and listened. By the time George had heard all he wanted to know, and Springer had told how he had been arrested by the officer at Eagle Pass and rescued by Fletcher, Carey came back.
"Mr. Wentworth will take care of himself," reported the trooper. "He says that if he went to the fort he would have to come back to Holmes's ranche, anyway—he is going to make his home there for a while, for he and Holmes were boys together—and so he might just as well go there in the first place, and save time and travelling. He sent his best wishes to everybody, and hopes we will catch all the scoundrels who wiped out the squatter."
"I wish we could," said Bob, facing about in his saddle and gazing in the direction in which the thieves had retreated; "but we have five prisoners to take care of, and so our hands are tied."
"You just ought to have seen him, corporal," continued Carey. "He had thrown his three horses in a sort of triangle by tying their feet together and tripping them up in some way, and there he lay with his boys behind his living breastworks, all ready for a fight. Grit to the last, wasn't he? When I asked him why he hadn't mounted and dug out as soon as we left, he said that that wouldn't have been safe, for he might have run right in among the Greasers before he knew it."
"Well, boys," said Bob, gazing sorrowfully at the glowing bed of coals that covered the site of the squatter's cabin, "there is nothing more we can do here, and so we will make a break for the fort."
"Look here, corporal," said one of the troopers: "if you are going to make us carry double with those dirty Greasers, I am going to kick."
"Don't you worry," answered Bob. "I shouldn't do it myself, and of course I sha'n't ask you to do it. They'll have to walk.—Springer, draw these Mexican gentlemen up in line."