They were in the heavy shadow now. Brick stepped back to the corner and peered in the direction where he had seen the flash, but the light was not good enough to distinguish objects clearly. The fire in the corral was blazing merrily, painting the old pole corral with red high-lights.
“We’ve got to bust out across that open space to the horses,” declared Brick. “Mebbe we better separate quite a ways apart, ’cause one man is a hard target in this light.”
They went to the other corner of the house and looked in the direction of the horses. Brick grasped Harp by the arm and pointed toward the bluff trail, where two shadowy objects were plainly visible in the moonlight, going away.
“Our broncs!” snorted Harp. “By , they’ve set us on foot, Brick!”
“It sure has all the earmarks of such a deed,” agreed Brick sadly. “Our rifles are on them saddles, too; and we’ll have one sweet waltz home, cowboy. How’s the arm?”
“Feels kinda numb, but I think it has quit bleedin’. I don’t care a dang how sore it gets, but I can’t afford to lose a lot of blood. What’s the next thing to do, I wonder?”
“Walk home, I reckon.”
“Yeah—and get plugged when we start.”
“Looks that-a-way,” reflected Brick, squinting out into the hazy distance. “We bit off more than we could chaw, cowboy. If we’d had any sense we’d ’a’ cached them broncs.”
“Hind-sight ain’t noways valuable,” sighed Harp, and a moment later a bullet showered splinters off the side of the house.