Jack’s face fell. There was a moment of disappointed silence, and just then there came the sound of a faint tapping at the outer door.
“What’s that?” asked Munson. The faces of all three showed that they had heard simultaneously.
Dick rose, crossed over, and threw the door wide open.
“My God, who’s this?” he asked, as he stooped over the figure lying prone across the steps. “Pierre, Pierre!” he added, as he turned over the face. “It’s Pierre Luzon, boys, and desperately wounded!”
The others were pressed together in the doorway.
“Looks as if he had crawled here on his hands and knees,” remarked Munson.
“There’s his horse out among the chaparral,” exclaimed Jack, pointing to the shadowy form of the animal from which the wounded man had obviously tumbled.
“Stand clear,” cried Dick, gathering up Pierre in his arms. “He has fainted, but is still alive.”
And Dick, carrying the senseless form, passed into the bedroom beyond the living room, and there laid poor old Pierre on the very cot which he had occupied once before—on the eventful night when Tom Baker had brought the paroled convict from San Quentin.
A few drops of whisky brought the wounded man back to consciousness. Dick leaned over him and caught the faintly whispered words. Piérre was speaking in the French of his childhood days.