“He’s a proud man, though God knows he has little to be proud about. To him you’re an inferior, and you’ve made him beholden to you. That’ll itch at him like a case of the mange.”

Slowly the rangers gathered. Captain Whitfield was the only casualty. He had taken an arrow in the hip. The wound did not appear deep enough to cripple him permanently, but his ride back to Fort Belknap would be grueling punishment. Blood poisoning was always a possibility.

The captain tried to cover the pain with a forced smile. “At least we’ve scattered them to hell and gone.”

Rusty pointed to the dead warrior. “That was the leader, I think. I was hopin’ to take him alive so we could use him to make the others turn back.”

Whitfield pressed a bloodied neckerchief against his hip. “We set half of them afoot. Ain’t much they can do but give up the game and go back where they came from.”

Typically when Comanches split they regrouped at some previously agreed-upon gathering point. Rusty could see three Indians half a mile away, moving north. Two were on horseback, a third walking.

Whitfield said, “Let’s back off a ways and give some of them a chance to come get this one. Then we’ll follow them so close they can’t do anything except return to the river.”

“We?” Rusty asked. “You’ll do well just to get back to camp.”

Whitfield saw the logic and nodded in reluctant agreement. “I’ll take one man with me in case I fall off my horse and can’t get back on by myself. I’m leavin’ you in charge Rusty. You and the sergeant.” He made a point of leaving the lieutenant out.

Billings was freshly mounted on a horse Rusty had caught. It was skittish, fighting its head. Rusty hoped it would keep the officer so busy staying in the saddle that he could cause no trouble. A brand on its hip indicated it had belonged to some settler before a Comanche had laid claim. Billings objected, “We’ve already lost a lot of time. This wasn’t our responsibility in the first place, chasing somebody else’s Indians.”

Whitfield said, “You can go with me back to camp. The rest’ll come along when they finish the job.”

That suggestion was met in the same sour spirit it was given. “I intend to file a protest when we return to Austin. You people will have hell to pay.”

Whitfield grimaced at the pain in his hip. “File and be damned. Take over, Rusty.” He turned his horse and started away, giving no indication that he cared whether Billings came along or not.

Sergeant Forrest said, “I’ll go with the rangers.”

Billings accepted the decision with poor grace. “You make certain you still have all of them when you get back to Belknap.”