“Oh, Lem—­Pronto’s hurt!” she cried.

“Wal, I should smile he is,” replied Lem.

But Lem was not smiling.  And when he wore a serious face for Columbine something had indeed happened.  The cowboy was the color of dust and so tired that he reeled.

“Lem, he’s all bloody!” exclaimed Columbine, as she ran toward Pronto.

“Hyar, you jest wait,” ordered Lem, testily.  “Pronto’s all cut up, an’ you gotta hustle some linen an’ salve.”

Columbine flew away to do his bidding, and so quick and violent was she that when she got back to the corral she was out of breath.  Pronto whinnied as she fell, panting, on her knees beside Lem, who was examining bloody gashes on the legs of the mustang.

“Wal, I reckon no great harm did,” said Lem, with relief.  “But he shore hed a close shave.  Now you help me doctor him up.”

“Yes—­I’ll help,” panted Columbine.  “I’ve done this kind—­of thing often—­but never—­to Pronto....  Oh, I was afraid—­he’d been gored by a steer.”

“Wal, he come damn near bein’,” replied Lem, grimly.  “An’ if it hedn’t been fer ridin’ you don’t see every day, why thet ornery Texas steer’d hev got him.”

“Who was riding?  Lem, was it you?  Oh, I’ll never be able to do enough for you!”

“Wuss luck, it weren’t me,” said Lem.

“No?  Who, then?”

“Wal, it was Wils, an’ he made me swear to tell you nuthin’—­leastways about him.”

“Wils!  Did he save Pronto?...  And didn’t want you to tell me?  Lem, something has happened.  You’re not like yourself.”

“Miss Collie, I reckon I’m nigh all in,” replied Lem, wearily.  “When I git this bandagin’ done I’ll fall right off my hoss.”

“But you’re on the ground now, Lem,” said Columbine, with a nervous laugh.  “What happened?”

“Did you hear about the argyment this mawnin’?”

“No.  What—­who—­”

“You can ask Ole Bill aboot thet.  The way Pronto was hurt come off like this.  Buster Jack rode out to where we was brandin’ an’ jumped his hoss over a fence into the pasture.  He hed a rope an’ he got to chasin’ some hosses over thar.  One was Pronto, an’ the son-of-a-gun somehow did git the noose over Pronto’s head.  But he couldn’t hold it, or didn’t want to, fer Pronto broke loose an’ jumped the fence.  This wasn’t so bad as far as it went.  But one of them bad steers got after Pronto.  He run an’ sure stepped on the rope, an’ fell.  The big steer nearly piled on him.  Pronto broke some records then.  He shore was scared.  Howsoever he picked out rough ground an’ run plumb into some dead brush.  Reckon thar he got cut up.  We was all a good ways off.  The steer went bawlin’ an’ plungin’ after Pronto.  Wils yelled fer a rifle, but nobody hed one.  Nor a six-shooter, either....  I’m goin’ back to packin’ a gun.  Wal, Wils did some ridin’ to git over thar in time to save Pronto.”

“Lem, that is not all,” said Columbine, earnestly, as the cowboy concluded.  Her knowledge of the range told her that Lem had narrated nothing so far which could have been cause for his cold, grim, evasive manner; and her woman’s intuition divined a catastrophe.