“There she is, Harp. I don’t think it was deep enough to be dangerous. Does it hurt much?”
“Not so much now.” Harp’s voice sounded weary. “The ed thing kinda paralyzed my whole arm. It feels a lot better, but it’s soakin’ me a-plenty. Didja get any of ’em, Brick?”
“No, I don’t think so. How many did you see, Harp?”
“Just one—the one that threw the knife at me. I think it was the squaw. Now what do we do?”
“Go back and have your arm fixed up. Aw, , this was a fizzle. We don’t know any more than we did before, except that we’re dead sure that Mostano’s outfit are the meat-thieves.”
Brick went over to the smoldering fire and kicked the green hides aside. The flames flared up, and as Brick leaned over to search for brands on the hides, a bullet splatted into the fire and threw sparks up into the air.
Brick swore at himself for being such a fool, and ran back to Harp, dragging the hides with him.
“We better be high-tailin’ it out of here,” panted Brick. “Can yuh run all right, cowboy?”
“I never got hit in the leg,” retorted Harp. “ this moonlight! C’mon!”
They ducked low and started back toward the house, running as fast as possible. A rifle bullet screamed past them and hit the old ranch-house a resounding thwack. Brick had glimpsed the flash of the rifle and knew that the shooter was off to their right; so he ducked to the left and led the way around the other side of the ranch-house, where he halted their headlong flight.