"The rest rid off an' left me, but you risked your life to take me up," muttered Steve Judson, as they galloped on through the night. "Milt Derr, I promise you I won't forget tonight."
"That's all right; hang on!"
CHAPTER XVI.
The lurking shadows along the stone wall suddenly grew into animated forms, and the silence was broken by excited speech. The raiders faded as quickly into the night as they had come, while the faint echoes of retreating hoofs betokened a rapid flight of the band toward the hill country.
"Have we bagged any game?"
The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volley had been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried a brief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answer to the leader's question.
"One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," the sheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectant eyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been a total loss of lead."
"No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of the darkness farther along the fence line.