"The fool would have it. Come, let's burn the wind out of here before a crowd gathers."
Gurley and a fourth man joined them. The four galloped down the road and disappeared in a cloud of white dust.
A moment later Jumbo Wilkins descended heavily from his horse. Quint Sullivan, another rider for the A T O, was with him.
The big line-rider knelt beside his employer and examined the wound. "Hit once—in the side," he pronounced.
"Will—will he live?" asked the white-faced stableboy.
"Don't know. But he's a tough nut, Clint is. He's liable to be cussin' out the boys again in a month or two."
Wadley opened his eyes. "You're damn' whistlin', Jumbo. Get me to my sister's."
Quint, a black-haired youth of twenty, gave a repressed whoop. "One li'l' bit of a lead pill can't faze the boss. They took four or five cracks at him an' didn't hit but once. That's plumb lucky."
"It would 'a' been luckier if they hadn't hit him at all, Quint," answered Jumbo dryly. "You fork yore hawss, son, an' go git Doc Bridgman. An' you—whatever they call you, Mr. Hawss—rustler—harness a team to that buckboard."
Jumbo, with the expertness of an old-timer who had faced emergencies of this kind before, bound up the wound temporarily. The stable-rustler hitched a team, covered the bottom of the buckboard with hay, and helped Wilkins lift the wounded man to it.