"The Indian rose up and brought a rifle to his shoulder. At that I let
out a yell, and he turned to me like a flash, and pulled his trigger.
But he was in too much of a hurry, an' the ball whistled over my head.
"I had my gun out, an' blazed away. The Indian yawped as if he had been
hit, and disappeared. I got to the coulee as fast as I could, but he had
disappeared."
"Was he the only one?" asked Ted.
"I reckon not, for there were any number of moccasin tracks in the
coulee, and the footprints of white men or Indians who wore boots. There
was a splotch of blood where the Indian had been, and a red trail
leading to where there had been ponies. Then I came on to the house."
Ted was thinking deeply. At last he raised his head.
"This has been a day full of things that may mean a great deal to us,"
he said. "Follansbee has been shot by a member of the Whipple gang, Sol
Flatbush was killed after mutilating our cattle, more Whipple gang; and
an Indian prowler has been shot, some more of the Whipple gang. Boys,
the war is on, and it depends on us whether it is going to last all
winter and cause us to lose all our cattle, or whether we are going to
be able to stamp it out right now. Which shall it be?"
"I reckon we'd better get busy. It'll be easier ter do the job now than
fuss along with it all winter," said Pike Bander, who was an old
Northern cow-puncher, and had had lots of experience with the Indians in
Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming.
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