Buck obeyed promptly, having learned from experience the futility of trying to draw on a person whose very outlines are invisible. Jessup’s hands went up, too, and then dropped quickly to his sides again.
“Why, it’s Slim!” he cried, and spurred swiftly toward the mouth of the gully. “What the deuce is the matter?” he asked anxiously. “What’s happened to Rick?”
There was a momentary pause, and then McCabe stepped out of the shadows, six-gun in one hand.
“What the devil are yuh doin’ here?” he demanded with a harshness which struck Buck in curious contrast to his usual air of good humor. “Who’s that with yuh?”
“Only Green. We—we got worried, an’ saddled up an’—followed yuh. When we heard the shots—What did happen to Rick, Slim? We caught his horse out there, the saddle all—”
“Since yuh gotta know,” snapped the puncher, “he got a hole drilled through one leg. He’s right here behind me.”
As Bud flung himself out of the saddle and hurried 62 over to the man lying just inside the gully, McCabe stepped swiftly to the side of Stratton’s horse. There was a mingling of doubt and sharp suspicion in the upturned face.
“Yuh sure are up an’ doin’ for a new hand,” he commented swiftly. “Was it yuh put it into his head to come out here?”
“I reckon maybe it was,” returned Buck easily. “When we woke up an’ found you all gone, the kid got fretting considerable about his friend here, and I didn’t see why we shouldn’t ride out and join you. According to my mind, when you’re out after rustlers, the more the merrier.”
“Huh! He told yuh we was after rustlers?”