"My Gawd, yes—awful!"
"Me, too," declared Tom Parrish, the second of the victims; and the third man swore roundly that he would not regain the full use of his legs before Christmas.
"Well, you're lucky at that," was Santry's dry comment. "All that saved you from gettin' shot up some in the fight was layin' low down in that corner where you was." He let his eyes travel around the littered, blood-spattered room. "From the looks o' this shebang we musta stung some of 'em pretty deep; but nobody was killed, I reckon. I hope Moran was the worst hurt, durn him!"
"He'll keep," Wade said grimly. "We've not done with him yet, Bill. We've only just begun."
CHAPTER X
THE SENATOR GETS BUSY
It was daylight when the routed posse, with Race Moran in the lead, his left arm tied up in a blood-stained handkerchief, rode into Crawling Water. A bullet had pierced the fleshy part of the agent's wrist, a trifling wound, but one which gave him more pain than he might have suffered from a serious injury. None of the members of the posse had been dangerously wounded; indeed, they had suffered more in the spirit than in the flesh; but there had been a number of minor casualties amongst the men, which made a sufficiently bloody display to arouse the little town to active curiosity.
Under instructions from the leader, however, the fugitives kept grouchily silent, so that curiosity was able to feed only on speculations as to Wade's temper, and the fact that he had brought about Santry's release from jail. The story of that achievement had been bruited about Crawling Water since midnight, together with the probability that the Law would be invoked to punish the ranchman for his defiance of it. Popular sentiment was running high over the likelihood of such a step being taken, and the members of the posse were the targets of many hostile glances from the townspeople. At least two-thirds of the citizens were strongly in favor of Wade, but before they took active steps in his behalf they waited for the return of a horseman, who had hurried out to the ranch to learn at first hand exactly what had happened there.