Tex must have aimed that way, because Bill got him and brought him back with his hands tied behind him and his gun riding in Bill's holster, and with no bullet holes in his person such as Mary V's captives carried.
Johnny did not know that the other boys had been signaled back with shots, and that the prisoners had been turned over to them while Bill, Bland, and Mary V stayed with Johnny and waited for Sudden to negotiate that rough stretch of country with the Ford.

That was what Mary V's voice referred to when she couldn't see why he didn't hurry.
Between times, Bland told their side of the adventure, as far as Bland understood it.

He told of the horses they had scared back, and of the horse thieves left afoot several miles across the line.

He did not know just where, however.

He told of the rancho they had flown to that morning, the rancho Johnny had discovered a short mile from where he had got the plane in the first place.
The horses which they had turned loose from the field would probably make their way back, Bill said.