"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here. But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."
It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the trail.
"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"
The three men started on a run to meet her. A dark figure in the starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.
"The Indian—had whiskey—he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot Dick—in the leg and ran away."
"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.
"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."
As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.
"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav, you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."
They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door jamb made an effective bolt.