Again he moved off in the darkness, and the boy ranchers, after a moment of hesitation, started in the direction whence the shot had been heard and the sliver of flame seen. Pocut Pete had gone on the opposite trail after returning to the boys, a fact which caused Dick to remark:
"Wouldn't you think he'd want to see if he did wing anybody?"
"He knows well enough he didn't," declared Bud in a low voice, for he and the others realized that sounds, especially voices, carried almost as clearly in the night air as across a body of water.
"What made him talk that way then?" asked Nort.
"Oh, he's—queer, I guess," replied Bud. "I don't exactly just like the way he acts. Did you fellows hear the tinkle of glass just before that shot?"
"I did," answered Nort, but Dick was not so sure. "What do you make of it?" Nort wanted to know.
"Wish I knew," spoke Bud, and then he told them about having found the small, thin, broken phial of dubious-smelling mixture in the bunk tent of the older cowboys.
"Do you think he takes 'dope,' or medicine of some sort?" asked Dick.
"It's hard to say," was Bud's reply. "But let's look around and see what we can find."
Their search was unrewarded, however. The cattle quieted down after the shot, and the coyotes only occasionally gave vent to their blood-curdling yells. But as for finding anyone who had been shot—including even a miserable coyote—there was not a sign.