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Five miles slipped behind them easily–so easily that their horses perked ears and tugged hard against the bits. The next five were rougher, for they had left the trail and struck out across a rough bit of barrenness on a short cut to the ford in Sheep Coulee. All the little gullies and washouts were swept clean and smooth with the storm, and the grass roots showed white where the soil had washed away. They hoped the rain had not reached to the mountains and spoiled the picnic grounds, and wondered what time the girls would have dinner ready.

So they rode down the steep trail into Sheep Coulee, galloped a quarter mile and stopped, amazed, at the ford. The creek was running bank full; more, it was churning along like a mill-race, yellow with the clay it carried and necked with great patches of dirty foam.

“I guess here’s where we don’t cross,” said Weary, whistling mild dismay.

“Now, wouldn’t that jostle yuh?” asked Pink, of no one in particular.

“By golly, the lemonade ‘ll be cold, and so’ll the san’wiches, before we git there,” put in Slim, with one of his sporadic efforts to be funny. “We got t’ go back.”

“Back nothing,” chorused five outraged voices. “We’ll hunt some other crossing.”

“Down the creek a piece–yuh mind where that old sandbar runs half across? We’ll try that.” Weary’s tone was hopeful, and they turned and followed him.

Half a mile along the raging little creek they galloped, with no place where they dared to cross. Then, loping around a willow-fringed bend, Weary and Pink, who were ahead, drew their horses back upon their haunches. They had all but run over a huddle of humanity lying in the fringe of weeds and tall grasses that grew next the willows.

“What in thunder–” began Cal, pulling up. They slid off their horses and bent curiously over the figure. Weary turned it investigatively by a shoulder. The figure stirred, and groaned. “It’s somebody hurt; take a hand here, and help carry him out where the sun shines. He’s wet to the skin,” commanded Weary sharply.

When they lifted him he opened his eyes and looked at them; while they carried him tenderly out from the wet tangle and into the warmth of the sun, he set his teeth against the groans that would come. They stood around him uneasily and looked down at him. He was young, like themselves, and he was a stranger; also, he was dressed like a cowboy, in chaps, high-heeled boots and silver-mounted spurs. The chaps were sodden and heavy with water, as was the rest of his clothing.

“He must uh laid out in all that storm, last night,” observed Cal, in a subdued voice. “He–“

“Somebody better ride back and have the bed wagon brought up, so we can haul him to a doctor,” suggested Pink. “He’s hurt.”

The stranger’s eyes swept the faces of the Happy Family anxiously. “Not on your life,” he protested weakly. “I don’t want any doctor–in mine, thank yuh. I–it’s no use, anyhow.”

“The hell it ain’t!” Pink was drawing off his coat to make a pillow. “You’re hurt, somehow, ain’t yuh?”

“I’m–dying,” the other said, laconically. “So yuh needn’t go to any trouble, on my account. From the looks–yuh was headed for some–blowout. Go on, and let me be.”

The Happy Family looked at one another incredulously; they were so likely to ride on!

“I guess you don’t savvy this bunch, old-timer,” said Weary calmly, speaking for the six. “We’re going to do what we can. If yuh don’t mind telling us where yuh got hurt–“

The lips of the other curled bitterly. “I was shot,” he said distinctly, “by the sheriff and his bunch. But I got away. Last night I tried to cross the creek, and my horse went on down. It was storming–fierce. I got out, somehow, and crawled into the weeds. Laying out in the rain–didn’t help me none. It’s–all off.”