He was now running back toward the bunkhouse, trying to tighten the waistband of his trousers with a belt whose buckleless end persisted in eluding his grasp.
His words had spurred the other men to frenzied action.

There was confusion in the bunkhouse where men collided with their fellows as they plunged about for discarded garments, gun-belts, and boots.

But soon they began to straggle out of the door in twos and threes and singly, racing for the corral and for the lean-to where they kept their saddles.
Foremost among them was Shorty.

His tall figure appeared first at the corral gates, and his long legs were the first astride a horse.

While the others were running hither and yon near the bunkhouse and the corral, Shorty raced his horse to the ranchhouse, slid off and crossed the wide porch in two or three leaps.
He was confronted at the door by Mrs.Lawler, ashen, trembling.
"Rustlers!" he said, shortly, answering her look of interrogation.
"Where's the boss ?" The woman's voice broke.