“Someone’s coming mighty fast,” said Titzell, half rising from his chair and shielding his eyes in an attempt to peer into the darkness beyond the creek.
“Two horses,” said Chuck, adding quickly, “they’re pulling a wagon of some kind.”
“Must be from one of the ranches, then,” put in Titzell. The cattle buyer stood up and hurried down toward the creek. Slim and Chuck followed.
Out of the night lurched a lather-covered team, a spring wagon careening behind them. The horses fairly leaped the stream and started a mad dash up the bank.
Chuck without waiting to learn who was in the wagon or what was happening, hurled himself at the team, grasping the bit of the horse on the left. The Circle Four cowboy was lifted from his feet by the wild charge of the horses, but he came down with his legs in motion and dragging hard on the bit. It was 195 pounds of bone and muscle against a tired team, and Chuck soon won, the horses slowing down to a walk. They came to a halt in front of the hotel where the feeble light from the lamp in the main room cast its rays over the wagon, where a man was huddled on the seat.
Hal Titzell vaulted into the wagon and lifted the man’s face.
“It’s Adam Marks,” he cried. “He’s been shot.”
The words drummed into Slim’s brain. Adam Marks, owner of the Box B and the man they had come to help, had been shot! The rustlers were striking out boldly, bidding for a quick finish in their fight to ruin the rancher and win control of his rich grazing lands.
Slim vaulted over the wheel and into the wagon. He picked up the body of the rancher and passed the inert form down to Chuck. The news of the runaway spread rapidly and a crowd was gathering. Hal Titzell shouted for the doctor and the only physician in the entire valley, “Doc” Baldridge, appeared in the doorway of his office, a half block down the street from the Palace Hotel.
Chuck, carrying the unconscious rancher, hurried to the physician’s office where he placed Adam Marks on the old cot. The white hair of the cattleman was streaked with dried blood and his breathing was slow and irregular.
“Looks bad,” said Hal Titzell, shaking his head.
Slim was watching the doctor, now working over his patient with practiced hands. He called for hot water from the hotel and a bystander hurried away to return shortly with a steaming kettle of water.