He had been hit just above the top of his laced boots. Betty uncovered the wound and bathed it with water she brought from the creek in Clint’s hat. Around the wound she bound a large handkerchief she found in his hip pocket.
“Does it hurt much?” she asked, her soft voice mothering him.
“Some. Know I’ve got a leg. Lucky for me you came along. It must ’a’ scared him off. You an’ Lon too.”
“See who he was?”
“Too dark.”
“Think it was the tramps? Or Jake Prowers?”
“The tramps. Not the way Jake pulls off a job. He’s no bungler.”
She sat down and put his head in her lap. “Anything else I can do, Dad? Want a drink?” she asked anxiously.
Reed caught her little hand and pressed it. “Sho! Don’t you go to worryin’ about me, sweetheart. Doc Rayburn, he’ll fix me up good as new. When Lon comes back I’ll have him—”
He stopped. A rough voice was speaking. A foot struck a stone. Vague figures emerged from the gloom, took on distinctness. The big one was Lon Forbes. He walked behind a man who was his prisoner, his great hands clamped to the fellow’s arms.