“Wounded in exactly the same place!” murmured Grace. “How strange!”
“What ’bout these cayuses, Boss?” demanded Two-gun Pete, fixing a malignant gaze on the two helpless ruffians who were looking from one to the other of the party with anxiety in their eyes. “Shall I make a good job of it an’ sarve ’em the same way somebody has sarved the Dude?”
“Shut up! They’ll keep. This man gets first attention. Is he bad off, Miss?” questioned Bindloss.
“I can’t say,” answered Elfreda. “If I knew how long he has been in this condition I might make a better guess.”
Pete released the gun from Hippy’s hand, felt of the barrel, smelled of the muzzle, then looked into the cylinder to see how many shots had been fired from it.
“Ain’t been this way more’n ten or fifteen minutes, I reckon. Gun’s warm yit.”
“Then it may be only concussion of the brain, but I shan’t be able to tell definitely for some little time. Some one run to camp and get bandages. Tom, will you please go? Fetch my case along.”
Elfreda called for water and by the time Tom returned had bathed the wound, the same wound reopened, though the scalp on either side of it was lacerated somewhat more than before. Restoratives were administered by Grace, while Elfreda was dressing and re-sewing the wound, she believing it best to do this before the patient recovered consciousness. Grace was not so successful, and at Bindloss’s orders the cowpunchers picked up the wounded Overlander and carried him to his bed at the back of the house.
“Take the gags out of them fellers’ mouths. I reckon they’ll have something to say,” drawled Bindloss in the cool tone that his men knew from experience was a mask for a raging passion beneath it.
The gags were none too gently removed, the captives’ weapons were jerked from their belts, smelled of and examined and found not to have been fired that evening. This was evidenced by the fact that the cylinders were fully loaded, that the barrels were cold, and that there was no odor of burnt powder to be detected at the muzzles.