When we reached the house there was Lane, lounging in the only doorway, and hailing us.
"How, Shermogonish! (Welcome, soldiers.) After deserters, eh? Well, now, I allus aim to oblige you police gents. Got one for yous right here." He jerked his thumb back. "Which he shorely tried to get away when he heerd them shots."
My Brat was caught in Shifty's trap all right, and feeling very sick I led the three horses away to stable them. But Buckie came running behind, and whispered to me, "We'll see to your brother. Don't worry about that. You want to keep your eye skinned watching Shifty. See he don't signal them horse thieves."
When I got back from the stable I found my brother sitting on the door-step.
"Hullo, Brat!" said I. "Deserting?"
Brat was weak with the pain of his wound, slack with fatigue and looked very frail for such a life as ours. I was always rough and ugly, lacking his patrician fineness, the grand air, the gentle grace, envious a little of his large, soft, brilliant eyes, his amazing charm of manner. He gave to our majestic Spanish a sweeter resonance. He pleaded with me for help, for sympathy, telling me why he came to Lane's afoot. Did I think, he asked me, that nobody but myself had the right to rescue a woman?
There was a bench by the door, with a basin, soap and a towel, so while Brat told me his trouble, I stripped to the waist and got comfy. Then I called Buckie and talked with him in whispers lest Lane should overhear.
"Buckie, my Brat says that this horse thief, Low Lived Joe, kidnaped Lane's girl and sold her."
"Got-Wet?"
"Yes. Down in Wyoming. She's a white slave at Cheyenne. She wants to be rescued."