Suddenly Peggy, who had looked up from the baffling task for an instant, gave a cry:
"Look! Look there! What's all that dust?"
"It's horsemen of some kind, and they're coming this way!" cried
Wandering William.
As he spoke his hand slid to his hip, and he drew out his well-oiled and worn old forty-four.
"Do you think that they are—that they are Red Bill's men?"
"Don't know yet. The dust's thick and the light's bad."
"If they are?"
"Then we are in for a mighty bad quarter of an hour. Consarn the luck, everything seems to be going wrong at once."
On and on swept the dust cloud, growing close with great rapidity. With what anxious feelings the strange herb doctor and the girl watched its advance may be imagined. As for Roy, he lay on the floor of the chassis unaware of what was transpiring without.
There seemed to be several of the riders—a dozen at least.