“It sure looks like it,” agreed Hashknife, as he crossed the room and peered into the kitchen.
“C’mere!” he called to Sleepy. “Somebody got snagged.”
There was a well-defined trail of blood across the kitchen floor, leading out of the back door. They went outside and picked up the trail again. It led them straight to the corral, where they found a man, lying face down, almost against the fence.
He had been shot through the left side, below the heart, but he was still alive. They carried him carefully to the house, where Hashknife cut away his shirt and examined the wound, which had stopped bleeding externally. He was not a man that either of them had ever seen before.
“I’ll betcha this is the man that Bill Steen sent down here to find Eph King,” said Hashknife. “Now, what do yuh reckon he ran into down here?”
Sleepy got some water and they washed the wounded man’s face. It was all they could do for him. They forced a few drops between his teeth and after a few minutes he opened his eyes, looking dazedly up at them.
“All right, pardner,” said Hashknife. “Just take it easy and see if yuh can talk.”
The man frowned, as if trying to remember. Hashknife gave him another drink, which he took greedily, although he was almost too weak to swallow it.
“Do yuh remember what happened?” asked Sleepy.
The man shut his eyes, and they thought he had fainted, but he opened them again. He tried to take a deep breath, but choked with the pain. Then he made the supreme effort and whispered—