"Boys," said he, "take that down--and ship Mary. I'm mighty glad," he added reflectively, "that my ole woman does the cookin."
"Mary skedaddled after dinner," said Ajax, frowning, "but I'm going into town to-morrow to bring him back."
However, Mary brought himself back that same night. We were smoking our second pipes after supper, when Ajax, pointing an expressive finger at the window, exclaimed sharply: "Great Scot! What's that?"
Pressed against the pane, glaring in at us, was a face--a face so blanched and twisted by terror and pain that it seemed scarcely human. We hurried out. Mary staggered towards us. In his face were the cruel, venomous spines of the prickly pear. The tough boughs of the manzanita thickets through which he had plunged had scourged him like a cat-o'- nine tails. What clothes he wore were dripping with mud and slime.
"Coon Dogs come," he gasped. "I tellee you."
Then he bolted into the shadows of the oaks and sage brush. We pursued, but he ran fast, dodging like a rabbit, till he tumbled over and over--paralysed by fear and fatigue. We carried him back to the ranch-house, propped him up in a chair, and despatched Uncle Jake for a doctor. Before midnight we learned what little there was to know. Mary had been chased by the Coon Dogs. He, of course, was a-foot; the cowboys were mounted. A couple of barbed-wire fences had saved him from capture. We had listened, that afternoon, too coolly, perhaps, to a tale of many outrages, but the horror and infamy of them were not brought home to us till we saw Mary, tattered scarred, bedraggled, lying crumpled up against the gay chintz of the arm-chair. The poor fellow kept muttering: "Coon Dogs come. I know. Killee you, killee me. Heap bad men!"
Next morning Uncle Jake and the doctor rode up.
"I can do nothing," said the latter, presently. "It's a case of shock. He may get over it; he may not. Another shock would kill him. I'll leave some medicine."
Upon further consultation we put Mary into Ajax's bed. The Chinaman's bunk-house was isolated, and the vaqueroes slept near the horse corral, a couple of hundred yards away. Mary feebly protested: "No likee. Coon Dogs--allee same debils--killee you, killee me. Heap bad men!"
We tried to assure him that the Coon Dogs were at heart rank curs. Mary shook his head: "I know. You see."