"Hurry up," she commanded, "so I can be in at the death. Remember,
I'm a doctor. They're tying him to his horse--he looks half dead with
fright."

Inwardly she added: "He overacts the part dreadfully."

The little cavalcade in the coulee fired a spectacular volley into the
air and swept down the slope like a dry-weather whirlwind across a patch
of alkali ground. Through the big gate and up the road past the stables
they thundered, the prisoner bound and helpless in their midst.

Then something happened. A wide-open River Press, flapping impotently
in the embrace of a willow, caught the eye of Banjo, a little blaze--
faced bay who bore the captive. He squatted, ducked backward so
suddenly that his reins slipped from Slim's fingers and lowered his
head between his white front feet. His rider seemed stupid beyond
any that Banjo had ever known--and he had known many. Snorting and
pitching, he was away before the valiant band realized what was
happening in their midst. The prisoner swayed drunkenly in the saddle.
At the third jump his hat flew off, disclosing the jagged end of a
two-by-four.

The Happy Family groaned as one man and gave chase.

Banjo, with almost human maliciousness, was heading up the road
straight toward Chip and the woman doctor--and she must be a poor
doctor indeed, and a badly frightened one, withal, if she failed
to observe a peculiarity in the horse thief's cranium.