"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."
"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.
The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to lose his temper.
There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just now, but his voice was steady, as yet.
"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the dead pony in the sink-hole.
"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."
He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."
"Did they follow you?"
"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."
"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.