"Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?"
"Shot in the shoulder."
"Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your case at once. Anybody else hurt?"
"I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"—this a second voice tinged with grave anxiety.
"If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of a companion.
The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform—a sudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shook perceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern.
"Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired.
"A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope," and the sheriff came forward to reassure her.
"And the raiders—what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made.
"One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems to have escaped. Lend us your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps he crawled off into the weeds."