"Here," answered Texas, leading in a very much bedraggled and sullen individual.
The notorious desperado related to him what Sam had just told them in so far as it concerned the rancher himself and asked the man if it were true. The latter said that it was.
"Then you haven't got any particular love for Sam here, eh?" chortled the desperado.
His men knew that their leader had some scheme in mind, but what it was they could not imagine.
The rancher's face suddenly filled with murderous hate.
"I'd like the chance to show you—and him," replied the other, turning a malignant look on their prisoner.
"Mebby we'll give you the chance. But first I want to make a little bargain with you. We want some horses. We're prospecting through here, and the Indians attacked us on the other side of the gulch, stampeding our ponies, and we barely got away with our lives."
The rancher nodded.
"I hearn them tell there was doings across the gulch."