70CHAPTER VIIITHE HOODOO OUTFIT
Pop Daggett hesitated and glanced uneasily toward the door.
“I warned yuh, didn’t I, the Shoe-Bar was a hoodoo outfit?” he evaded.
Stratton shook some tobacco into a cigarette-paper and jerked the draw-string with his teeth.
“Sure you did, but that’s not the question,” he persisted. “I asked you if any other punchers had met up with—accidents out there lately.”
The old man continued to cock an eye on the store entrance.
“Since yuh gotta know,” he answered in a lowered tone, “there was two. About three months ago Jed Terry was scoutin’ around back in the mountains, Lord knows what fur, an’ fell into a cañon an’ broke his skull. Four or five weeks arter that Sam Bennett was plugged through the chest down below Las Vegas.”
“Did Lynch happen to be with either of them?”
“No, sir-ee,” returned Daggett hastily. “An’ don’t yuh go blattin’ around I told yuh anythin’ about it. I ain’t one to gossip about my neighbors, more especially71Tex Lynch. Them two deaths— Say, Tex ain’t in town with yuh, is he?”
“Not that I know of. He certainly didn’t come with me.”
“Huh! Wal, yuh never c’n tell with him. As I was sayin’, Terry’s death was pernounced a accident, an’ they allowed Bennett was plugged by one of them greaser rustlers I hear tell of. I ain’t sayin’ nothing to the contrary. All I’m tellin’ yuh is the Shoe-Bar ain’t a healthy outfit to work for, an’ this business about Rick Bemis proves it. I wouldn’t sign on with ’em, not for a hundred a month.”
Buck thrust the cigarette between his lips and felt for a match. “Still I’ve got a mind to stick it out a while,” he drawled. “Accidents come in threes, they say, so there won’t likely be another right soon. Well, I reckon I’d better be traveling. How long will it take that doctor man to get over?”
“Not much longer than ’t will yuh, if he was home when yuh telephoned,” answered Daggett. “The railroad takes a bend, an’ Harpswell ain’t more than a mile or two further from the Shoe-Bar than Paloma.”
Evidently Dr. Blanchard must have been at home, for Buck had just finished unsaddling and was coming away from the corral when he rode up. Stratton took his horse and answered his brief questions as to the accident, and then walked down to the bunk-house with his blankets, tarp, and other belongings. The72place was empty, for it was after one o’clock and evidently the men had gone off somewhere directly after dinner. Indeed, Buck learned as much from Pedro when he went back to forage for something to eat.
“They go to move herd some place,” shrugged the Mexican. “W’ere, I don’ know.”
Stratton ate his meal of beef, bread, and warmed-over coffee in silence and then returned to the bunk-house, vaguely dissatisfied at the idle afternoon which stretched before him. Of course, Lynch had no way of knowing when he would get back from town, but it seemed to Buck that an up-and-doing foreman would have left word for him to join them when he did return.
“Unless, of course, he don’t want me around,” murmured Stratton. “Though for the life of me I can’t see what he gains by keeping me idle.”
Presently it occurred to him that this might be a good chance of pursuing some of the investigations he had planned. Since noticing the disreputable condition of the fence the afternoon of his arrival, he had kept his eyes open, and a number of other little signs had confirmed his suspicion that the ranch had very much gone to seed. Of course this might be merely the result of careless, slovenly methods on the part of the foreman, and possibly it did not extend to anything really radical. It would need a much wider, more general inspection to justify a definite73conclusion, and Stratton decided he might as well do some of it this afternoon. On the plea of seeking Lynch and the other men, he could ride almost anywhere without exciting suspicion, and he at once left the bunk-house to carry out his plan. Just outside the door he met Dr. Blanchard.
“You made a good job of that dressing,” remarked the older man briefly. He was tall with a slight stoop, bearded, a little slovenly in dress, but with clear, level eyes and a capable manner. “Where’d you learn how?”
Stratton smiled. “Overseas. I was in the Transportation, and we had to know a little of everything, including first aid.”
“Hum,” grunted the doctor. “Well, the kid’s doing all right. I won’t have to come over again unless fever develops.”
As they walked back to the hitching-rack, he gave Buck a few directions about the care of the invalid. There followed a slight pause.
“You’re new here,” commented the doctor, untying his bridle-reins.
“Just came yesterday,” answered Stratton.
“Friend of Lynch?”
Buck’s lips twitched. “Not exactly,” he shrugged. “Miss Thorne hired me while he was in Paloma. I got a notion he was rather peevish about it. Reckon he prefers to pick his own hands.”74
As the doctor swung into the saddle, his face momentarily lightened.
“Don’t let that worry you,” he said, a faint little twinkle in his eyes. “It isn’t good for anybody to have their own way all the time. Well, you know what to do about Bemis. If he shows any signs of fever, get hold of me right away.”
With a wave of his hand he rode off. Stratton’s glance followed him curiously. Had he really been pleased to find that the new hand was not a friend of Tex Lynch, or was the idea merely a product of Buck’s imagination?
Still pondering, he turned abruptly to find Pedro regarding him intently from the kitchen door. As their glances met, the Mexican’s lids drooped and his face smoothed swiftly into its usual indolent indifference; but he was not quite quick enough to hide entirely that first look of searching speculation mingled with not a little venom.
Stratton’s own expression was the perfection of studied self-control. He half smiled, and yawned in a realistically bored manner.
“You sure you don’t know where the bunch went?” he asked. “I’m getting dead sick of hanging around doing nothing.”
“They don’ say,” shrugged the Mexican. “I wash dishes an’ don’ see ’em go. Mebbe back soon.”
“Not if they’re moving a herd—I don’t think!”75retorted Buck. “Guess I’ll ask Miss Thorne,” he added, struck by a sudden inspiration.
Without waiting for a reply, he walked briskly along the front of the house toward the further entrance. As he turned the corner he met the girl, booted, spurred, her face shaded becomingly by a wide-brimmed Stetson.
“I was just going to find you,” she said. “Rick wants to see you a minute.”
Stratton followed her into the living-room, where she paused and glanced back at him.
“You haven’t met my aunt, Mrs. Archer,” she said in her low, pleasant voice. “Auntie, this is Buck Green, our new hand.”
From a chair beside one of the west windows, there rose a little old lady at the sight of whom Buck’s eyes widened in astonishment. Just what he had expected Mrs. Archer to be he hardly knew, but certainly it wasn’t this dainty, delicate, Dresden-China person who came forward to greet him. Tiny she was, from her old-fashioned lace cap to the tips of her small, trim shoes. Her gown, of some soft gray stuff, with touches of old lace here and there, was modishly cut yet without any traces of exaggeration. Her abundant white hair was beautifully arranged, and her cheeks, amazingly soft and smooth, with scarcely a line in them, were faintly pink. A more utterly incongruous figure to find on an outlying Arizona ranch76would be impossible to imagine, and Buck was hard put to refrain from showing his surprise.
“How do you do, Mr. Green?” she said in a soft agreeable voice, which Stratton recognized at once as the one he had overheard that morning. “My niece has told me how helpful you’ve been already.”
Buck took her outstretched hand gingerly, and looked down into her upturned face. Her eyes were blue, and very bright and eager, with scarcely a hint of age in them. For a brief moment they gazed steadily into his, searching, appraising, an underlying touch of wistful anxiety in their clear depths. Then a twinkle flashed into them and of a sudden Stratton felt that he liked her very much indeed.
“I’m mighty glad to meet you,” he said impulsively.
The smile spread from eyes to lips. “Thank you,” she replied. “I think I may say the same thing. I hope you’ll like it here well enough to stay.”
There was a faint accent on the last word. Buck noticed it, and after she had left them, saying she was going to rest a little, he wondered. Did she want him to remain merely because of the short-handed condition of the ranch, or was there a deeper reason? He glanced at Miss Thorne to find her regarding him with something of the same anxious scrutiny he had noticed in her aunt. Her gaze was instantly averted, and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, to be reflected an instant later in Stratton’s face.77
“By the way,” he said hurriedly, annoyed at his embarrassment, “do you happen to know where the men are? I thought I’d hunt them up. There’s no sense in my hanging around all afternoon doing nothing.”
“They’re down at the south pasture,” she answered readily. “Tex thinks it will be better to move the cattle to where it won’t be so easy for those rustlers to get at them. I’m just going down there and we can ride together, if you like.” She turned toward the door. “When you’re through with Rick you’ll find me out at the corral.”
“Don’t you want me to saddle up for you?”
“Pedro will do that, thank you. Tell Rick if he wants anything while I’m gone all he has to do is to ring the bell beside his bed and Maria will answer it.”
She departed, and Buck walked briskly into the bedroom. Bemis lay in bed propped up with pillows and looking much better physically than he had done that morning. But his face was still strained, with that harassed, worried expression about the eyes which Stratton had noted before.
“Yuh saw Doc Blanchard, didn’t yuh?” he asked, as Buck sat down on the side of his bed. “What’d he say?”
“Why, that you were doing fine. Not a chance78in a hundred, he said, of your having any trouble with the wound.”
“Oh, I know that. But when’d he say I’d be on my feet?”
Buck shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t mention any particular time for that. I should think it would be two or three weeks, at least.”
“Hell!” The young fellow’s fingers twisted the coverlet nervously. “Don’t yuh believe I could—er—ride before that?” he added, almost pleadingly.
Stratton’s eyes widened. “Ride!” he repeated. “Where the deuce do you want to ride to?”
Bemis hesitated, a slow flush creeping into his tanned face. The glance he bent on Stratton was somewhat shamefaced.
“Anywhere,” he answered curtly, a touch of defiance in his tone. “You’ll say I’ve lost my nerve, an’ maybe I have. But after what’s happened around this joint lately, and especially last night—”
He paused, glancing nervously toward the door. Buck’s expression had grown suddenly keen and eager.
“Well?” he urged. “What did happen, anyhow? I had my suspicions there was something queer about that business, but—You can trust me, old man.”
Bemis nodded, his dark eyes searching Stratton’s face. “I’ll take a chance,” he answered. “I got to. There ain’t nobody else. They’ve kept Bud away,79and Miss Mary—Well, she’s all right, uh course, but Tex has got her buffaloed. She won’t believe nothin’ ag’in him. I told Bud I’d stay as long as he did, but—A man’s got to look after himself some. They ain’t likely to miss twice runnin’.”
“You mean to say—”
Bemis stopped him with a cautious gesture. “Where’s that sneaking greaser?” he asked in a low tone, his eyes shifting nervously to the open door.
“Out saddling her horse.”
“Oh! Well, listen.” The young puncher’s voice sank almost to a whisper. “That sendin’ me down to Las Vegas was a plant; I’m shore of it. My orders was to sleep days an’ patrol around nights to get a line on who was after the cattle. I wasn’t awful keen about it, but still an’ all, I didn’t think they’d dare do what they tried to.”
“You mean there weren’t any rustlers at all?” put in Stratton impulsively.
“Shore there was, but they didn’t fire that shot that winged me. I’d just got sight of ’em four or five hundred yards away an’ was ridin’ along in the shadow tryin’ to edge close enough to size ’em up an’ mebbe pick off a couple. My cayuse was headin’ south, with the rustlers pretty near dead ahead, when I come to a patch of moonlight I had to cross. I pulled out considerable to ride around a spur just80beyond, so when that shot came I was facin’ pretty near due east. The bullet hit me in the left leg, yuh recollect.”
Stratton’s eyes narrowed. “Then it must have been fired from the north—from the direction of the—”
He broke off abruptly as Rick’s fingers gripped his wrist.
“Look!” breathed Bemis, in a voice that was scarcely audible.
He was staring over the low foot-board of the bed straight at the open door, and Buck swiftly followed the direction of his glance. For an instant he saw nothing. The doorway was quite empty, and he could not hear a sound. Then, of a sudden, his gaze swept on across the living-room and he caught his breath.
On the further wall, directly opposite the bedroom door, hung a long mirror in a tarnished gilded frame. It reflected not only the other side of the doorway but a portion of the wall on either side of it—reflected clearly, among other things, the stooping figure of a woman, her limp calico skirts dragged cautiously back in one skinny hand, her sharp, swarthy face bent slightly forward in an unmistakable attitude of listening.
81CHAPTER IXREVELATIONS
It was the Mexican woman, Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one entering for the first time.
“Mees T’orne, she ask me see if Reek, he wan’ somet’ing,” she explained, with a flash of her white teeth.
“He doesn’t,” returned Buck shortly, eyeing the woman intently. “If he does, he’ll ring the bell.”
“Ver’ good,” she nodded. “I leave the door open to ’ear.”
With a nod and another smile she departed, and Buck heard her moving away along the passage. For a moment he was tempted to close and lock the door. Then he realized that even if she dared return to her82eavesdropping, he would have ample warning by keeping an eye on the mirror, and so returned to Bemis.
“I hate that woman,” said Rick, when informed of her departure. “She’s always snoopin’ around, an’ so is her greaser husband. Down at the bunk-house it’s the same way, with Slim, an’ Flint Kreeger an’ the rest. I tell yuh, I’m dead sick of being spied on, an’ plotted against, an’ never knowin’ when yuh may get a knife in the back, or stop a bullet. I hate to leave Bud, but he’s so plumb set on—”
“But what’s it all about?” put in Buck impatiently. “Can’t you tell a fellow, or don’t you know?”
Bemis flushed slightly at his tone. “I can tell yuh this much,” he retorted. “Tex don’t want them rustlers caught. He throws a clever bluff, an’ he’s pulled the wool over Miss Mary’s eyes, but for all that, he’s workin’ on their side. What kind of a foreman is it who’ll lose over a thousand head without stoppin’ the stealin’? It ain’t lack of brains, neither; Tex has got them a-plenty.”
“But Miss Thorne—” protested Stratton, half-incredulously.
“I tell yuh, he’s got her buffaloed. She won’t believe a word against him. He was here in her dad’s time, an’ he’s played his cards mighty slick since then. She’s told yuh he can’t get men, mebbe? All rot, of course. He could get plenty of hands, but he don’t want ’em. What’s more, he’s done his best83to get rid of me an’ Bud, an’ would of long ago, only Miss Mary won’t let him fire us.”
“But what in thunder’s his object?”
“So’s to have the place to himself, I reckon. He an’ those greasers in the kitchen, and the rest of the bunch, are as thick as thieves.”
“You mean he’d find it easier to get away with cattle if there wasn’t anybody around to keep tabs on him?”
Bemis hesitated. “I—I’m not sure,” he replied slowly. “Partly that, mebbe, but there’s somethin’ else. I’ve overheard things now an’ then I couldn’t make head or tail of, but they’re up to somethin’—Yuh ain’t goin’, are yuh?”
Buck had risen. “Got to,” he shrugged. “Miss Thorne’s waiting for me to go down to the south pasture.”
Bemis raised up on his pillows. “Well, listen; keep what I said under yore hat, will yuh?”
“Sure,” nodded Stratton reassuringly. “You needn’t worry about that. Anything else you want before I go?”
“Yes. Jest reach me my six-gun outer the holster there in the chair. If I’m goin’ to be left alone with that greaser, Pedro, I’d feel more comfortable, someway, with that under my pillow.”
Buck did as he requested and then departed. Something else! That was the very feeling which had84assailed him vaguely at times, that some deviltry which he couldn’t understand was going on beneath the surface. As he made for the corral, a sudden possibility flashed into his mind. With her title so precarious, might not Mary Thorne be at the bottom of a systematic attempt to loot the Shoe-Bar of its movable value against the time of discovery? But when he met her face to face the idea vanished and he even felt ashamed of having considered it for a moment. Whatever crookedness was going on, this sweet-faced, clear-eyed girl was much more likely to be a victim than one of the perpetrators. The feeling was vastly strengthened when he had saddled up and they rode off together.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to—to tell you,” the girl said suddenly, breaking a brief silence.
Buck glanced at her to find her eyes fixed on the ears of her horse and a faint flush staining her cheeks.
“That room—” she went on determinedly, but with an evident effort. “A man’s room— You must have thought it strange. Indeed, I saw you thought it strange—”
Again she paused, and in his turn Buck felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
“I didn’t mean to—” he began awkwardly. “It just seemed funny to find a regular man’s room in a household of women. I suppose it was your—your father’s,” he added.85
“No, it wasn’t,” she returned briefly. She glanced at him for an instant and then looked away again. “You probably don’t know the history of the Shoe-Bar,” she went on more firmly. “Two years ago it was bought by a young man named Stratton. I never met him, but he was a business acquaintance of my father’s and naturally I heard a good deal of him from time to time. He was a ranchman all his life and very keen about it, and the moment he saw the Shoe-Bar he fell in love with it. But the war came, and he had scarcely taken title to the place before he went off and enlisted. Just before he sailed for France he sold the ranch to my father, with the understanding that if he came back safely, Dad would turn it over to him again. He felt, I suppose, how uncertain it all was and that money in the bank would be easier for his—his heirs, than property.”
She paused for an instant, her lips pressed tightly together. “He never came back,” she went on in a lower, slightly unsteady voice. “He—gave up his life for those of us who stayed behind. After a little we left Chicago and came here. I loved the place at once, and I’ve gone on caring for it increasingly ever since. But back of everything there’s always been a sense of the tragedy, the injustice of it all. They never even found his body. He was just—missing. And yet, when I came into that room, with his things about just as he had left them when he went86away, he seemed soreal,—I—I couldn’t touch it. Somehow, it was all that was left of him. And even though I’d never seen him, I felt as if I wanted to keep it that way always in memory of a—a brave soldier, and a—man.”
Her low voice ceased. With face averted, she stared in silence across the brown, scorched prairie. Stratton, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and his cheeks tinged with unwonted color, found it quite impossible to speak, and for a space the stillness was broken only by the creak of saddle-leather and the dull thud of horses’ hoofs.
“It’s mighty fine of you to feel like that,” he said at length. “I’m sorry if I gave you the idea I—I was—curious.”
“But you would be, naturally. You see, the other boys all know.” She turned her head and looked at him. “I think we’re all curious at times about things which really don’t concern us. I’ve even wondered once or twice about you. You know you don’t talk like the regulation cow-puncher—quite.”
Stratton laughed. “Oh, but I am,” he assured her. “I suppose the war rubbed off some of the accents, and of course I had a pretty good education to start with. But I’m too keen about the country and the life to ever want to do anything else.”
Her face glowed. “It is wonderful,” she agreed. “When I think of the years I’ve wasted in cities! I87couldn’t ever go back. Even with all the worries, this is a thousand times better. Ah! There they are ahead. They’re turning the herd into this pasture, you see.”
Half a mile or more to the southward a spreading dust-cloud hugged the earth, through which, indistinctly, Stratton could make out the moving figures of men and cattle. The two spurred forward, reaching the wide opening in the fence ahead of the vanguard of steers. Passing through, they circled to the right to avoid turning back any of the cattle, and joined the sweating, hard-worked cow-punchers.
As they rode up together, Buck found Lynch’s eyes fixed on him with an expression of angry surprise, which was suppressed with evident difficulty.
“How’d yuh get back so quick?” he inquired curtly.
“Nothing more to keep me,” shrugged Stratton. “I waited for the doctor to look Rick over, and then thought I’d come out and see if you needed me.”
“Huh! Well, since you’re here, yuh might as well whirl in. Get over on the far side of the herd an’ help Flint. Don’t let any of ’em break away, but don’t crowd ’em too much.”
As Buck rode off he heard Miss Thorne ask if there wasn’t something she could do. Lynch’s reply was indistinct, but the tone of his voice, deferential, yet with a faint undercurrent of honey-sweetness, irritated him inexplicably. With a scowl, he spurred88forward, exchanged a brief greeting with Bud Jessup as he passed, and finally joined Kreeger, who was having considerable difficulty in keeping the herd together at that point.
During the succeeding two hours or so, Buck forgot his irritation in the interest and excitement of the work. Strenuous as it was, he found a distinct pleasure in the discovery that two years’ absence from the range had not lessened his ability to hold his own. His horse was well trained, and he thoroughly enjoyed the frequent sharp dashes after some refractory steer, who stubbornly opposed being driven. Before the last animal had passed through the fence-gap into the further pasture, he was drenched from head to foot with perspiration and his muscles ached from the unaccustomed labor, but all that was discounted by the satisfaction of doing his chosen work again, and doing it well.
Then, in the lull which followed, his thoughts returned to Miss Thorne and he wondered whether there would be any chance for further conversation with her on the way back to the ranch-house? The question was quickly answered in a manner he did not in the least enjoy. After giving instructions about nailing up the fence, Tex Lynch joined the girl, who sat her horse at a little distance, and the two rode off together.
For a moment or two Stratton’s frowning glance followed them. Then of a sudden he realized that89Slim McCabe’s shrewd eyes were fixed curiously on him, and the discovery brought him abruptly to his senses. For a space he had forgotten what his position was at the Shoe-Bar. He must keep a better guard over himself, or he would certainly arouse suspicion. Averting his eyes, but still continuing to frown a little as if lack of tobacco was responsible for his annoyance, he searched through his pockets.
“Got the makin’s?” he asked McCabe. “Darned if I haven’t left mine in the bunk-house.”
Slim readily produced a sack, and when Buck had rolled a cigarette, he returned it with a jesting remark, and swung himself rather stiffly out of his saddle.
“Haven’t any hammer, but I can help tighten wires,” he commented.
He had intended joining Bud Jessup and trying while helping him to get a chance to discuss some of the things he had learned from Bemis. But somehow he found himself working beside McCabe, and when the fence had been put up again and they started home, it was Slim who rode beside him, chatting volubly and amusingly, but sticking like a leach.
It “gave one to think,” Stratton decided grimly, remembering the expressive French phrase he had heard so often overseas. He could not quite make up his mind whether the action was deliberate or the result of accident, but after supper he had no doubt whatever.90
During the meal Lynch showed himself in quite a new light. He chatted and joked with a careless good humor which was a revelation to Stratton, whom he treated with special favor. Afterward he asked Buck if he didn’t want to look his patient over, and accompanied him into Bemis’s room, remaining while the wound was inspected and freshly dressed. Later, in the bunk-house, he announced that they would start a round-up next morning to pick out some three-year-olds for shipment.
“Got a rush order for twelve hundred head,” he explained. “We’ll all have to get busy early except Bud, who’ll stay here to look after things. If any of yuh have saddles or anythin’ else to look after, yuh’d better do it to-night, so’s we can get goin’ by daybreak.”
Like a flash Stratton realized the other’s game, and his eyes narrowed ever so little. So that was it! By this most simple of expedients, he was to be kept away from the ranch-house and incidentally from any communication with Bemis or Bud, or Mary Thorne, unless accompanied by Lynch or one of his satellites. And the worst of it was he was quite helpless. He was merely a common, ordinary hand, and at the first sign of disobedience, or even evasion of orders, Lynch would have a perfectly good excuse to discharge him—an excuse he was doubtless itching to create.
91CHAPTER XBUCK FINDS OUT SOMETHING
When the fact is chronicled that no less than three times in the succeeding eight days Buck Stratton was strongly tempted to put an end to the whole puzzling business by the simple expedient of declaring his identity and taking possession of the Shoe-Bar as his own, something may be guessed of the ingenuity of Tex Lynch in making life unpleasant for the new hand.
Buck told himself more than once that if he had really been a new hand and nothing more, he wouldn’t have lasted forty-eight hours. Any self-respecting cow-man would have promptly demanded his time and betaken himself to another outfit, and Stratton sometimes wondered whether his mere acceptance of the persecution might not rouse the foreman’s suspicion that he had motives for staying which did not appear on the surface.
He had to admit that Lynch’s whole course of action was rather cleverly worked out. It consisted mainly in giving Stratton the most difficult and arduous work to do, and keeping him at it longer92than anyone else, not only on the round-up, but while driving the herd to Paloma Springs and right up to the point where the steers were loaded on cattle-cars and the job was over.
That, broadly speaking, was the scheme; but there were delicate touches of refinement and ingenuity in the process which wrung from Stratton, in rare intervals when he was not too furious to judge calmly, a grudging measure of admiration for the wily foreman. Frequently, for instance, Stratton would be assigned to night-herd duty with promise of relief at a certain hour. Almost always that relief failed to materialize, and Buck, unable to leave the herd, reeling with fatigue and cursing impotently, had to keep at it till daybreak. The erring puncher generally had an excellent excuse, which might have passed muster once, but which grew threadbare with repetition.
Then, after an hour or two of sleep, the victim was more likely than not to be dragged out of bed and ordered to take the place of Peters, Kreeger, or one of the others, who had been sent to the ranch or elsewhere on so-called necessary business. More than once the others got started on a meal ahead of him, and what food remained was cold, unappetizing, and scant in quantity. There were other little things Lynch thought of from time to time to make Buck’s life miserable, and he quite succeeded, though it must be said that Stratton’s hard-won self-control93prevented the foreman from enjoying the full measure of his triumph.
What chiefly influenced Buck in holding back his big card and scoring against them all was the feeling that Mary Thorne would be the one to suffer most. He would be putting an abrupt finish to Lynch’s game, whatever that was, but his action would also involve the girl in deep and bitter humiliation, if not something worse. Moreover, he was not quite ready to stop Lynch’s scheming. He wanted to find out first what it was all about, and he felt he had a better chance of success by continuing to play his present part, hedged in and handicapped though he was, than by coming out suddenly in his own proper person.
So he stuck it out to the end, successfully suppressing all evidence of the smouldering rage that grew steadily within him against the whole crowd. Returning to the ranch for the first time in more than a week, he went to bed directly after supper and slept like a log until breakfast. Rising, refreshed and fit, he decided that the time had come to abandon his former haphazard methods of getting information, and to launch a campaign of active detective work without further delay.
Since the night of Bemis’s accident, Buck had scarcely had a word with Bud Jessup, who he felt could give him some information, though he was not counting much on the importance of what the youngster94was likely to know. Through the day there was no chance of getting the fellow apart. But Buck kept his eyes and ears open, and at supper-time Bud’s casual remark to Lynch that he “s’posed he’d have to fix that busted saddle-girth before he hit the hay” did not escape him.
The meal over, Stratton left the kitchen and headed for the bunk-house with a purposeful air, soon leaving the others well in the rear. Presently one of them snickered.
“Looks like the poor rube’s goin’ to tear off some more sleep,” commented Kreeger in a suppressed tone, evidently not thinking Stratton was near enough to hear.
But Buck’s ears were sharp, and his lips twitched in a grim smile as he moved steadily on, shoulders purposely sagging. When he had passed through the doorway his head went up abruptly and his whole manner changed. Darting to his bunk, he snatched the blankets out and unrolled them with a jerk. Scrambling his clothes and other belongings into a rough mound, he swiftly spread the blankets over them, patted down a place or two to increase the likeness to a human body, dropped his hat on the floor beside the bunk, and then made a lightning exit through a window at the rear.
It was all accomplished with such celerity that before the dawdling punchers had entered the bunk-house,95Buck was out of sight among the bushes which thickly lined the creek. From here he had no difficulty in making his way unseen around to the back of the barns and other out-buildings, one of which he entered through a rear door. A moment or two later he found Jessup, as he expected, squatting on the floor of the harness-room, busily mending his broken saddle-girth.
“Hello, Bud,” he grinned, as the youngster looked up in surprise. “Thought I’d come up and have a chin with you.”
“But how the deuce—I thought they—yuh—”
“You thought right,” replied Stratton, as Jessup hesitated. “Tex and his friends have been sticking around pretty close for the past week or so, but I gave ’em the slip just now.”
Briefly he explained what he had done, and then paused, eying the young fellow speculatively.
“There’s something queer going on here, old man,” he began presently. “You’ll say it’s none of my business, maybe, and I reckon it isn’t. But unless I’ve sized ’em up wrong, Lynch and his gang are a bunch of crooks, and I’m not the sort to sit back quietly and leave a lady like Miss Thorne to their mercy.”
Jessup’s eyes widened. “What do yuh know?” he demanded. “What have yuh found out?”
Buck shrugged his shoulders. “Found out? Why,96nothing, really. But I’ve seen enough to know that bunch is up to some deviltry, and naturally the owner of the outfit is the one who’ll suffer, in pocket, if not something worse. It’s a dirty deal, taking advantage of a girl’s ignorance and inexperience, as that gang sure is doing some way—specially a girl who’s as decent and white as she is. I thought maybe you and me might get together and work out something. You don’t act like you were for ’em any more than I am.”
“I’ll tell a man I ain’t!” declared Jessup emphatically. “They’re a rotten bunch. Yuh can go as far’s you like, an’ I’ll stick with yuh. Have yuh got anything on ’em?”
“Not exactly, but we may have if we put our heads together and talk it over.” He glanced questioningly around the dusty room. “They’ll likely find out the trick I played on ’em, and come snooping around here before long. Suppose we slip out and go down by the creek where we can talk without being interrupted.”
Jessup agreed readily and followed Buck into the barn and out through the back door, where they sought a secluded spot down by the stream, well shielded by bushes.
“You’ve been here longer than I have and noticed a lot more,” Stratton remarked when they were settled. “I wish you’d tell me what you think that97bunch is up to. They haven’t let me out of their sight for over a week. What’s the idea, anyhow?”
“They don’t want yuh should find out anythin’,” returned Bud promptly.
“That’s what I s’posed, but what’s there to find out? That’s what I can’t seem to get at. Bemis says they’re in with the rustlers, but even he seems to think there’s something else in the wind besides that.”
Jessup snorted contemptuously. “Bemis—huh! I’m through with him. He’s a quitter. I was in chinnin’ with him last night an’ he’s lost his nerve. Says he’s through, an’ is goin’ to take his time the minute he’s fit to back a horse. Still an’ all,” he added, forehead wrinkling thoughtfully, “he’s right in a way. There is somethin’ doin’ beside rustling, but I’m hanged if I can find out what. The only thing I’m dead sure of is that it’s crooked. Look at the way they’re tryin’ to get rid of us—Rick an’ me an’ you. Whatever they’re up to they want the ranch to themselves before they go any further. Now Rick’s out of the way, I s’pose I’ll be next. They’re tryin’ their best to make me quit, but when they find out that won’t work, I reckon they’ll try somethin’—worse.”
“Why don’t Lynch just up an’ fire you?” Buck asked curiously. “He’s foreman.”
Bud’s young jaw tightened stubbornly. “He can’t98get nothin’ on me,” he stated. “It’s this way. When help begun to get shy a couple of months ago—that’s when he started his business of gittin’ rid of the men one way or another—Tex must of hinted around to Miss Mary that I was goin’ to quit, for she up an’ asked me one day if it was true, an’ said she hoped me an’ Rick wasn’t goin’ to leave like the rest of ’em.”
He paused, a faint flush darkening his tan. “I dunno as you’ve noticed it,” he went on, plucking a long spear of grass and twisting it between his brown fingers, “but Miss Mary’s got a way about her that—that sort of gets a man. She’s so awful young, an’—an’—earnest, an’ though she don’t know one thing hardly about ranchin’, she’s dead crazy about this place, an’ mighty anxious to make it pay. When she asks yuh to do somethin’, yuh jest natu’ally feel like yuh wanted to oblige. I felt like that, anyhow, an’ I was hot under the collar at Tex for lyin’ about me like he must of done. So I tells her straight off I wasn’t thinkin’ of anythin’ of the sort. ‘Fu’thermore,’ I says, ‘I’ll stick to the job as long as yuh like if you’ll do one thing.’ She asks what’s that, an’ I told her that some folks, namin’ no names, was tryin’ to make out to her I wasn’t doin’ my work good, an’ doin’ their best to get me in bad.
“‘Oh, but I think you’re mistaken,’ she says, catchin’ on right away who I meant. ‘Tex wouldn’t99do anythin’ like that. He needs help too bad, for one thing.’
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘let it go at that. Only, if yuh hear anythin’ against me, I’d like for yuh not to take anybody else’s word for it. It’s got to be proved I ain’t capable, or I’ve done somethin’ I oughta be fired for. An’ if things gets so I got to go, I’ll come to yuh an’ ask for my time myself. Fu’thermore, I’ll get Rick to promise the same thing.’
“Well, to make a long story short, she said she’d do it, though I could see she was still thinkin’ me mistaken about Tex doin’ anythin’ out of the way. He’s a rotten skunk, but you’d better believe he don’t let her see it. He’s got her so she believes every darn word he says is gospel.”
He finished in an angry key. Stratton’s face was thoughtful.
“How long has he been here?” he asked.
“Who? Tex? Oh, long before I come. The old man made him foreman pretty near a year ago in place of Bloss, who run the outfit for Stratton, that fellow who was killed in the war that old Thorne bought the ranch off from.”
“What sort of a man was this Thorne?” Buck presently inquired.
“Pretty decent, though kinda stand-offish with us fellows. He was awful thick with Tex, though, an’100mebbe that’s the reason Miss Mary thinks so much of him. She took his death mighty hard, believe me!”
With a mind groping after hidden clues, Stratton subconsciously disentangled the various “hes” and “hims” of Jessup’s slightly involved remark.
“Pop Daggett told me about his being thrown and breaking his neck,” he said presently. “You were here then, weren’t you? Was there anything queer about it? I mean, like the two punchers who were killed later on?”
Jessup’s eyes widened. “Queer?” he repeated. “Why, I—I never thought about it that way. I wasn’t around when it happened. Nobody was with him but—but—Tex.” He stared at Buck. “Yuh don’t mean to say—”
“I don’t say anything,” returned Stratton, as he paused. “How can I, without knowing the facts? Was the horse a bad one?”
“He was new—jest been put in theremuda. I never saw him rid except by Doc Peters, who’s a shark. I did notice, afterward, he was sorta mean, though I’ve seen worse. We was on the spring round-up, jest startin’ to brand over in the middle pasture.” Bud spoke slowly with thoughtfully wrinkled brows. “It was right after dinner when the old man rode up on Socks, the horse he gen’ally used. He seemed pretty excited for him. He got hold of101Tex right away, an’ the two of them went off to one side an’ chinned consid’able. Then they changed the saddle onto this here paint horse, Socks bein’ sorta tuckered out, an’ rode off together. It was near three hours before Tex came gallopin’ back alone with word that the old man’s horse had stepped in a hole an’ throwed him, breakin’ his neck.”
“Was that part of it true?” asked Buck, who had been listening intently.
“About his neck? Sure. They had Doc Blanchard over right away. He’d been throwed, all right, too, from the scratches on his face.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Yuh got me. I wasn’t one of the bunch that brought him in. I never thought to ask afterwards, neither. It must of been somewhere up to the north end of the ranch, though, if they kep’ on goin’ the way they started.”
For a moment or two Stratton sat silent, staring absently at the sloping bank below him. Was there anything back of the ranch-owner’s tragic death save simple accident? The story was plausible enough. Holes were plentiful, and it wouldn’t be the first time a horse’s stumble had resulted fatally to the rider. On the other hand, it is quite possible, by an abrupt though seemingly accidental thrust or collision, to stir a horse of uncertain temper into sudden, vehement action.102At length Buck sighed and abandoned his cogitations as fruitless. Short of a miracle, that phase of the problem was never likely to be answered.
“I wonder what took him off like that?” he pondered aloud. “Have you any notion? Is there anything particular up that way?”
“Why, no. Nobody hardly ever goes there. They call it the north pasture, but it’s never used. There’s nothin’ there but sand an’ cactus an’ all that; a goat couldn’t hardly keep body an’ soul together. Except once lookin’ for strays that got through the fence, I never set foot in it myself.”
Down in the shallow gully where they sat, the shadows were gathering, showing that dusk was rapidly approaching. With a shake of his head and a movement of his wide shoulders, Buck mentally dismissed that subject.
“It’s getting dark,” he said briskly. “We’ll have to hustle, or there’ll be a searching party out after us. Have you noticed anything else particularly—about Lynch, I mean, or any of the others?”
“Nothin’ I can make sense of,” returned Jessup. “Tex has been off the ranch a lot. Two or three times he’s stayed away over night. It might of been reg’lar business, I s’pose, but once Bill Harris, over to the Rockin’-R, said he’d seen him in Tucson with some guys in a big automobile. That rustlin’, of course, yuh know about. On the evidence, I dunno103as yuh could swear he was in it, but it’s a sure thing that any foreman worth his salt would of stopped the business before now, or else get the sheriff on the job if he couldn’t handle it himself.”
“That’s one thing I’ve wondered,” commented Buck. “Why doesn’t he? What’s his excuse for holding off?”
Bud gave a short, brittle laugh. “I’ll tell yuh. He says the sheriff’s a crook! What do you know about that? I heard him tellin’ it to Miss Mary the other day when he come in from Paloma about dinner-time. She was askin’ him the same question, an’ he up an’ tells her it wouldn’t be worth while; tells her the man is a half-breed an’ always plays in with the greasers, so he wouldn’t be no use. I never met up with Jim Hardenberg, but he sure ain’t a breed, an’ he’s got a darn good rep as sheriff.” He groaned. “Wimmin sure is queer. Think of anybody believin’ that sort of rot.”
“Did Lynch know you were listening?”
Jessup reddened a little. “No. They were talkin’ in the big room, an’ I was standin’ to one side of the open window. I don’t call it sneakin’ to try an’ get the drop on a coyote like him.”
“I don’t either,” smiled Stratton, getting on his feet. The swift, southern darkness had fallen so quickly that they could barely see each other’s faces. “It’s one of their own little tricks, and turn about is104fair play. Our job, I reckon, is to keep our eyes open every minute and not let anything slip. We’ll find a way to get together again if anything should turn up. I’ll be going back.”
He turned away and took a few steps along the bank. Then all at once he stopped and walked back.
“Say, Bud, how big is that north pasture place you were telling about?” he asked. “I don’t seem to remember going over it when I was—”
He broke off abruptly, and a sudden flush burned into his cheeks at the realization that he had almost betrayed himself. Fortunately Jessup did not seem to notice the slip.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied the youngster. “About two miles square, maybe. Why?”
“Oh, I just wondered,” shrugged Stratton. “Well, so-long.”
Again they parted, Bud returning to the harness-room, where he would have to finish his work by lantern-light.
“Gee, but that was close!” murmured Bud, feeling his way through the darkness. “Just about one more word and I’d have given away the show completely.”
He paused under a cottonwood as a gleam of light from the open bunk-house door showed through the leaves.
“I wonder?” he mused thoughtfully.105
A waste of sand, cactus, and scanty desert growth! In Arizona nothing is more ordinary or commonplace, more utterly lacking in interest and significance. Yet Stratton’s mind returned to it persistently as he considered one by one the scanty details of Jessup’s brief narrative.
What was there about a spot like that to rouse excitement in the breast of the usually phlegmatic Andrew Thorne? Why had he been in such haste to drag Lynch thither, and what had passed between the two before the older man came to his sudden and tragic end? Was it possible that somewhere within that four square miles of desolate wilderness might lie the key to the puzzling mystery Buck had set himself to solve?
“I wonder?” he murmured again, and leaving the margin of the creek, he moved slowly toward the open bunk-house door.