“Let’s follow him, uncle!” he exclaimed, in an excited voice.  “I can soon overtake him on Roderick.”

“I could not ride a hundred yards to save my life!” replied Mr. Winters, seating himself on the porch, and resting his head on his hands.  “Bring me some water, Frank.”

These words alarmed the boy, who now, for the first time, saw that his uncle’s face was deadly pale, and that his hair was matted with blood, which was trickling down over his collar.

“O, uncle!” cried Frank, in dismay.

“Don’t be uneasy,” said Mr. Winters, quietly.  “Bring me some water.”

Without stopping to make any inquiries, Frank ran into the kitchen and aroused the housekeeper, giving her a very hasty and disconnected account of what had happened, and then he hurried to the quarters to awaken Felix.

“Go to Fort Yuma for the doctor, at once!” shouted Frank, pounding loudly upon the door.

“What’s up?” inquired Felix, from the inside.

“No matter what’s up—­go for the doctor!  Take Roderick; he’s the swiftest horse on the ranch.  Uncle’s badly wounded.”

“Wounded!” repeated Felix, jerking open the door, and appearing upon the threshold, with a revolver in each hand.  “Who did it?  Where is he?”

“I can’t stop to tell you who did it, or where he is.  Hurry up, Felix, and don’t stand there looking at me!  We’ve just had the hardest kind of a fight with Pierre.  Marmion was there, but he didn’t do any good.  He threw the villain down, and then wouldn’t hold him.  I’ve a good notion to shoot that dog if he ever comes back.  Make haste, Felix!  I can’t stop to tell you any more.”

But, after all, Frank did stop to tell a great deal more; and, by the time the Ranchero was dressed, he had given him a complete history of all that had happened in the house since sunset.  Felix, astonished and enraged at the treachery of his companion, examined his pistols very carefully before he put them into his holsters, and Frank knew, by the expression in his eye, that if he should happen to meet Pierre, during his ride to the Fort, the latter would fall into dangerous hands.

As soon as Frank had seen Roderick saddled, he ran back to the house, and found Uncle James lying on a sofa, and the housekeeper engaged in dressing a long, ragged cut on the back of his head.  Being weak from the loss of blood, he sank into a deep slumber before the operation was completed, and Frank, finding nothing to do, and being too nervous, after the exciting events of the evening, to keep still, went out to watch for the doctor, who, seeing that the Fort was sixteen miles from the ranch, could not reasonably be expected before daylight.  For a long time he paced restlessly up and down the porch, his mind busy with the three questions that had so astonished and perplexed him:  What had happened to bring his uncle home that night?  How had he been so easily overpowered by Pierre? and, What was the matter with Marmion?  The longer he pondered upon them, the more bewildered he became; and, finally dismissing them from his mind altogether, he went out to attend to his uncle’s horse, which, all this while, had been running back and forth between the house and barn, now and then neighing shrilly, as if impatient at being so long neglected.