106CHAPTER XIDANGER
As Buck appeared in the doorway, blinking a little at the lamp-light, the five card-players stared at him in astonishment.
“Where the devil have you been?” inquired Kreeger, surprised out of his accustomed taciturnity.
“I thought yuh was asleep,” added Peters, casting a bewildered glance at the shadowy bunk.
Buck, who had scarcely hoped his little stratagem would succeed so well, refrained with difficulty from showing the pleasure he felt.
“So I have,” he drawled.
“But I thought yuh was in yore bunk,” commented McCabe, his light-blue eyes narrowing slightly.
“No, I was outside,” explained Stratton carelessly. “It was too hot in here, so I went out and sat down by the creek. I must have dropped off pretty soon, and when I came to it was dark.”
As he spoke he glanced casually at Tex Lynch, and despite himself a little shiver flickered on his spine. The foreman, who had not spoken, sat motionless on the further side of the table regarding Stratton steadily.107His lids drooped slightly and his face was almost expressionless. But in spite of that Buck got a momentary impression of baffled fury and a deadly, murderous hate, the more startling because of its very repression. Coupling it with what he knew or suspected of the man, Stratton felt there was some excuse for that momentary mental shrinking.
“He’d as soon put me out of the way as shoot a coyote,” he said to himself, as he walked over to his bunk. “All he wants is a chance to do it without getting caught.”
But with ordinary care and caution he did not see just how Tex was going to get the chance. Buck never went anywhere without his gun, and he flattered himself he was as quick on the draw as the average. Besides, he knew better now than to trust himself alone with Lynch or any of the others on some outlying part of the range where a fatal accident could plausibly be laid to marauding greasers, or to some similar agency.
“I’m not saying any one of ’em couldn’t pick me off a dozen times a day and make an easy get-away across the border,” he thought, stretching himself out on the husk mattress. “But Lynch don’t want to have to make a get-away. There’s something right here on the Shoe-Bar that interests him a whole lot too much.”
Presently Bud came in, parried with some success108the half-questioning comments of the men, and went to bed. Buck lay awake a while longer, trying to patch together into some semblance of pattern the isolated scraps of information he had gained, but without any measure of success.
There followed four surprising days of calm, during which the Shoe-Bar, to every outward seeming, might have been the most ordinary and humdrum of outfits, with not a hint of anything sinister or mysterious beneath the surface.
Each morning the men sallied forth to work, returned for noon dinner, and rode off again soon afterward. Lynch was neither grouchy nor over-jovial. He seemed the typical ranch-boss, whose chief thought is to get the work done, and his berating was entirely impartial. Bud had spent most of his time around the ranch, but once or twice he rode out with the others, and there was no attempt on their part to keep him and Buck from talking together as privately as they pleased. Only where Miss Thorne was concerned was Stratton conscious of the old unobtrusive surveillance. He saw her several times during his brief visits to Bemis, who was improving daily and fretting to be gone, but always Lynch, McCabe, or some one just “happened” to be along.
The effect of this unexpected peace and quiet on Stratton, however, was precisely opposite from the one he presumed was intended. He had a feeling that it109was a calm before the storm, and became more alert than ever. The unnatural placidity weighed on him, and as day followed day serenely his nerves grew edgy.
After supper on the fourth day Lynch went up to the ranch-house and was closeted for more than an hour with Miss Thorne. On his return to the bunk-house, Stratton, who had now come to speculate on his every move, studied him covertly but found his manner quite as usual.
In the morning they started off for the middle pasture, where they were engaged in repairing a fence which had all but fallen flat. Quite by accident, and without any inkling of what was to come of his carelessness, Buck left his hammer and pliers beside the corral gate instead of sticking them into his saddle-pockets. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile he discovered the omission and pulled up, explaining what had happened.
“It won’t take me five minutes to go back for them,” he added, gathering up his reins.
“I’ll go with yuh,” said McCabe promptly. “With a little hustlin’, we can easy catch up with the gang before they get to the pasture.”
“Well, speed up, both of yuh,” admonished Lynch. “We want to finish that job to-day.”
Slightly amused and wondering whether they thought for an instant he was too blind to see through110their game, Stratton put spurs to his horse and the two rode back together, McCabe apparently making a special effort to be amusing. The tools were found where Buck had left them, and the latter was on the point of remounting, when Mary Thorne came suddenly around the corner of the house.
“Good morning,” she greeted them both pleasantly, but with a slight undercurrent of preoccupation in her manner. “I was afraid you’d gone.” Her eyes met Stratton’s. “Could I speak to you a moment?” she asked.
“Certainly, ma’am.”
Buck dropped his bridle-reins and moved forward. For an instant McCabe sat motionless; then he swung himself out of the saddle.
“If it’s anythin’ I can help about—” he began, awkwardly, yet ingratiatingly.
“Thank you very much, Slim, but it isn’t,” the girl answered quietly.
“We ain’t got much time,” protested McCabe uneasily. “We jest came back to get them tools Buck forgot. Tex is in a hurry to finish up the job.”
“I don’t believe five minutes’ delay will matter very much,” returned Miss Thorne, with a touch of that unexpected decision Stratton had noticed once or twice before. “I sha’n’t be any longer.”
She moved away from the corral and Buck, walking111beside her, was conscious of a curious tension in the air. For a moment he thought McCabe meant to persist and force his presence on them. But evidently the stocky cow-puncher found the situation too difficult for him to cope with, for he remained standing beside his horse, though his glance followed them intently, and throughout the brief interview his eyes searched their faces, as if he strove to read from their expression or the movement of their lips some inkling of what it was all about.
“I won’t keep you but a moment,” the girl began, her color slightly heightened. “I only thought that perhaps I might persuade you to—to change your mind, and—and stay. If the work’s too hard, we might be able to—”
She paused. Buck stared at her in astonishment. “I don’t understand,” he said briefly.
Her flush deepened. “I meant about your going. I understood you weren’t satisfied, and wanted to—to leave.”
“Who told you that?”
“Why—Tex. Isn’t it—”
Buck frowned, and then, conscious of the watching McCabe, his face cleared and he laughed.
“He must have got me wrong, Miss Ma—er—Thorne,” he returned lightly. “Perhaps he’s heard me grumbling a bit; cow-men do that from force of112habit sometimes, you know. But I’ve nothing to complain of about the work, and certainly I had no idea of quitting.”
Her face cleared amazingly. “I’m so glad,” she said in a relieved tone. “I suppose I seem fussy, but now and then the problem of help gets to be a regular nightmare. Once or twice lately I’ve been afraid I was making a terrible mess of things, and might, after all, have to accept one of the offers I’ve had for the ranch. I should hate dreadfully to leave here, but if I can’t make it pay—”
She finished with a shrug. Stratton regarded her thoughtfully. “You’ve had several offers?” he asked hesitatingly, wondering whether she would think the question an impertinence.
Apparently she didn’t. “Two; really most awfully good ones. Indeed, Tex strongly advised me to sell out and buy another outfit if I still wanted to ranch. But I don’t want another one. It’s the Shoe-Bar I’m so keen about because of— But I really mustn’t keep you. Thank you so much for relieving my mind. When Tex comes in I’ll tell him he was mistaken.”
Buck hesitated for an instant. “It might be better not to say anything about it,” he suggested. “Some foremen don’t like the least bit of interference, you know. Suppose we just let it go, and if he brings up the subject to me, I’ll tell him he got me wrong.”113
“Very well. It doesn’t make any difference so long as you’re staying. Good-by.”
With a little gesture of farewell, she walked away toward the ranch-house, leaving Stratton to return to where McCabe fidgeted beside the horses. There was no time for deliberate reasoning or planning. Buck only felt sure that Lynch was up to something underhand, and when Slim, with almost too great a casualness, inquired what it was all about, he obeyed a strong impulse and lied.
“Oh, it’s Bemis,” he shrugged, as they rode off together. “He’s fretting to get away. Lost his nerve, I reckon, and wants to pull out. She wanted to know how long I thought it would be before he could back a horse. I s’pose he might chance it in about a week, but I’m hanged if I can see why he’s in such a rush. He’s sure got it soft enough here.”
While he talked he was busy rolling a cigarette, but this did not prevent him from being aware of Slim’s intent, sidelong scrutiny. He could not be quite certain whether or not he succeeded in deceiving the fellow, but from the character of McCabe’s comments, he rather thought he had. Certainly he hoped so. Slim was sure to tell Lynch about the incident, but if he himself believed it harmless, the foreman was likely to take the same point of view, and continue to carry out the scheme he had in mind.114Whatever this was, Stratton, in his present frame of mind, preferred that it should be brought to a head rather than continue any longer in suspense.
Throughout the day he could get no hint of what was going on. Once the thought occurred to him that it might be a variation of the trick Lynch had tried to play on Bud. By preparing Miss Thorne beforehand for the departure of the new hand, he could discharge Stratton and then represent to the girl that he had quit of his own accord. But somehow this didn’t altogether fit. It assumed that Buck would take his dismissal quietly without attempting a personal appeal to the ranch-owner; also it took no account of Bud Jessup. By this time Tex must realize that there had been more or less intimate communication between the two, and Bud was not the sort to stand by quietly and see his friend turned out without stirring vehemently in his behalf.
Considering all this, Buck could not see that there was much to fear in Lynch’s present manœuvering; and it was something of a shock to find Bud absent from the supper-table.
“Gone to Paloma to fetch those wagon-bolts,” explained Tex, who had come in about an hour ahead of the others, in answer to Peters’ query. “They’d ought to of come in by mail yesterday or the day before, an’ we need ’em bad. He’ll get supper in town an’ be back before dark.”115
Somewhat thoughtful, Buck accompanied the others to the bunk-house, where he was cordially invited to join the evening game of draw, but declined on the plea of having a couple of letters to write. It was a subterfuge, of course; he had nobody to write to. But in his mind had risen a strong preference for being in a position where he could overlook the whole group, rather than be seated in their very midst.
There had come to him a sudden, vivid conviction that he had underestimated the foreman’s resources and his own possible danger. As he sat there mechanically scribbling random sentences, it was brought home to him for the first time how unpleasantly alone he was. Save for a helpless girl and an even more helpless old woman, there wasn’t a soul within a dozen miles on whom he could count for help in an emergency. Of course when Bud returned—
But Bud didn’t return. Nine o’clock brought no sign of him. Another hour passed and still he failed to show up. It began to look very much as if the youngster had met with some accident or was being purposely kept out of the way.
When the men finished their game and began to turn in, Stratton reluctantly followed their example. As long as there was any light he felt perfectly able to take care of himself. It was the darkness he feared—that inky, suffocating darkness which masks everything like a pall. He dreaded, too, the increased chances116bed would bring of yielding for a single fatal instant to treacherous sleep; but he couldn’t well sit up all night, so he undressed leisurely with the rest and stretched his long length between the blankets.
When the lamp was out, he cautiously flung aside his coverings, drew himself into a reclining position, and with gun in one hand and some matches close beside the other, began his vigil.
For a long time—it must have been an hour at least—there was no need to fight off sleep. His mind was far too active. But his thoughts were not altogether cheering, for he began to see clearly how Lynch might hope to accomplish the impossible.
So far there had been reassurance in the feeling that the foreman would not dare proceed to open violence because of the almost certain consequences to himself. Buck realized now that, under the conditions of the moment, those consequences might become almost negligible. Suppose, for instance, that by next morning Stratton had disappeared. Lynch and his confederates would tell a plausible story of his having demanded his time the night before and ridden off early in the morning. It was a story Tex had carefully prepared Miss Thorne to hear, and whether or not, after Buck’s talk with her during the morning, she might be suspicious, that would make no difference in the foreman’s actions now. He would see that a horse was gone, and attend to all the other necessary117details. He had the better part of the night and miles of desert waste in which to dispose of every trace of Stratton and his belongings. Bud would be suspicious, but between suspicion and proof there is a great gulf fixed. And though Lynch might not know it, one of his strongest cards was the fact that if Stratton should vanish off the earth, there was not a soul who would ever come around asking awkward questions.
“But I’m not going to be bumped off just now, thank you,” Buck said to himself with a grim straightening of the lips. “They won’t dare fire a gun, and they don’t know I’m ready for them and waiting.”
Another hour passed, a tortured, harrowing hour in which he fought sleep desperately with all the limited resources at his command. In spite of his determination to keep his eyes open at any cost, his lids drooped and lifted, drooped and lifted, drooped and were dragged open by sheer will-power. Each time it was more difficult. Just as the water laps inexorably at length over the face of an exhausted swimmer, so these waves of sleep, smothering, clutching, dulled his senses and strove to wrap him in their soft, treacherous embrace.
There came at last a complete wiping out of consciousness, how long or short he never knew, from which he was jarred into sudden wakefulness by a sound. He had no idea what it was nor whence it118came. He merely found himself abruptly in full possession of his senses, nerves tingling, moisture dewing his forehead, his whole being concentrated in the one act of—listening!
For what seemed an eternity he could hear nothing save the heavy breathing of sleeping men. Then it came again, a slow, faint, dragging sound that ceased almost as soon as it began.
Some one was creeping stealthily toward him across the cabin floor!
119CHAPTER XIITHWARTED
Instantly a sense of elation, tingling as an electric shock, surged over Stratton, and his grip on the Colt tightened. At last he was face to face with something definite and concrete, and in a moment all the little doubts and nagging nervous qualms which had assailed him from time to time during his long vigil were swept away. Cautiously drawing his gun into position, he felt for a match with the other hand and prepared to scratch it against the side of the bunk.
Slowly, stealthily, with many a cautious pause, the crawling body drew steadily nearer. Though the intense darkness prevented him from seeing anything, Buck felt at last that he had correctly gaged the position of the unknown plotter. Trying to continue that easy, steady breathing, which had been no easy matter, he slightly raised his weapon and then, with a sudden, lightning movement, he drew the match firmly across the rough board.
To his anger and chagrin the head broke off. Before he could snatch up another and strike it viciously, there came from close at hand a sudden rustle, a creak,120the clatter of something on the floor, followed by dead silence. When the light flared up, illumining dimly almost the whole length of the room, there was nothing in the least suspicious to be seen.
Nevertheless, with inward cursing, Stratton sprang up and lit the lamp he had used early in the evening and which he had purposely left within reach. With this added illumination he made a discovery that brought his lips together in a grim line.
Someone lay stretched out in the bunk next to his own—Jessup’s bunk, which had been empty when he went to bed.
For a fleeting instant Buck wondered whether Bud could possibly have returned and crawled in there unheard. Then, as the wick flared up, he not only realized that this couldn’t have happened, but recognized lying on the youngster’s rolled-up blankets the stout figure and round, unshaven face of—Slim McCabe.
As he stood staring at the fellow, there was a stir from further down the room and a sleepy voice growled:
“What’s the matter? It ain’t time to get up yet, is it?”
Buck, who had just caught a glint of steel on the floor at the edge of the bunk, pulled himself together.
“No; I—I must have had a—nightmare,” he121returned in a realistically dazed tone. “I was dreaming about—rustlers, and thought I heard somebody walking around.”
Still watching McCabe surreptitiously, he saw the fellow’s lids lift sleepily.
“W’a’s matter?” murmured Slim, blinking at the lamp.
“Nothing. I was dreaming. What the devil are you doing in that bunk?”
McCabe appeared to rouse himself with an effort and partly sat up, yawning prodigiously.
“It was hot in my own, so I come over here to get the air from the window,” he mumbled. “What’s the idea of waking a guy up in the middle of the night?”
Buck did not answer for a moment but, stepping back, trod as if by accident on the end of his trailing blanket. As he intended, the movement sent his holster and belt tumbling to the floor, and with perfect naturalness he stooped to pick them up. When he straightened, his face betrayed nothing of the grim satisfaction he felt at having proved his point. The bit of steel was a hunting-knife with a seven-inch blade, sharp as a razor, and with a distinctive stag-horn handle, which Tex Lynch had used only a few evenings before to remove the skin from a coyote he had brought down.122
“Sorry, but I was dreaming,” drawled Stratton. “No harm done, though, is there? You ain’t likely to stay awake long.”
Without further comment he blew out the light and crawled into bed again. He found no difficulty now in keeping awake for the remainder of the night; there was too much to think about and decide. Now that he had measured the lengths to which Lynch seemed willing to go, he realized that a continuance of present conditions was impossible. An exact repetition of this particular attempt was unlikely, but there were plenty of variations against which no single individual could hope to guard. He must bring things to a head at once, either by quitting the ranch, by playing the important card of his own identity he had so far held back, or else by finding some other way of tying Lynch’s hands effectually. He was equally reluctant to take either of the two former steps, and so it pleased him greatly when at last he began to see his way toward working things out in another fashion.
“I’m blessed if that won’t put a spoke in his wheel,” he thought jubilantly, considering details. “He won’t dare to touch me.”
When dawn came filtering through the windows, and one thing after another slowly emerged from the obscurity, Buck’s eyes swiftly sought the floor below Bud’s bunk. But though McCabe lay there snoring loudly, the knife had disappeared.123
Though outwardly everything seemed normal, Buck noticed a slight restlessness and laxing tension about the men that morning. There was delay in getting to work, which might have been accounted for by the cessation of one job and the starting of another. But knowing what he did, Stratton felt that the flat failure of their plot had much to do with it.
He himself took advantage of the lull to slip away to the harness-room on the plea of mending a rip in the stitching of his chaps. Pulling a box over by the window where he could see anyone approaching, he produced pencil and paper and proceeded to write out a rather voluminous document, which he afterward read over and corrected carefully. He sealed it up in an envelope, wrote a much briefer note, and enclosed both in a second envelope which he addressed to Sheriff J. Hardenberg. Finally he felt around in his pocket and pulled forth the scrawl he had composed the night before.
“They look about the same,” he murmured, comparing them. “Nobody will notice the difference.”
Buck was on the point of sealing the envelope containing the scrawl when it occurred to him to read the contents over and see what he had written.
The letter was headed “Dear Friend,” and proved to be a curious composition. With a mind intent on other things, Stratton had written almost mechanically, intending merely to give an air of reality to his124occupation. In the beginning the scrawl read very much as if the “friend” were masculine. Bits of ranch happenings and descriptions were jotted down as one would in writing to a cow-boy friend located on a distant outfit. But gradually, imperceptibly almost, the tone shifted. Buck himself had been totally unaware of any change until he read over the last few pages. And then, as he took in the subtle undercurrent of meaning which lay beneath the penciled lines, a slow flush crept up into his face, and he frowned.
It was all rot, of course! He had merely written for the sake of writing something—anything. She was a nice little thing, of course, with an attractive feminine manner and an unexpected lot of nerve. He was sorry for her, naturally, and would like to help her out of what he felt to be a most disagreeable, if not hazardous situation. But as for anything further—
Still frowning, he thrust the sheets back into the envelope and licked the flap. He was on the point of stubbornly scrawling a man’s name on the outside when he realized how foolish he would be not to carry out his first and much more sensible intention.
He wanted an excuse for asking permission to ride to town to post a letter. This, in itself, was an extremely nervy request and under ordinary conditions almost certain to be profanely refused. But Buck had a shrewd notion that after the failure of Lynch’s125plans, the foreman might welcome the chance of talking things over with his confederates without danger of being observed or overheard. On the other hand, if there should be the least suspicion that his letter was not of the most innocent and harmless sort, he would never in the world be allowed to get away with it.
The result was that when he strolled out of the harness-room a little later the envelope bearing the name of Sheriff Hardenberg reposed within his shirt, while the other, addressed now to a mythical “Miss Florence Denby,” at an equally mythical street number in Dallas, Texas, protruded from a pocket of his chaps.
“I don’t s’pose you’ve got a stamp you’ll sell me,” he inquired of Lynch, whom he found in the bunk-house with McCabe. “I’d like to get this letter off as soon as I can.”
Balancing the envelope in his hand, he held it so that the foreman could easily read the address.
“I might have,” returned Lynch briefly. “Looks like that letter was heavy enough to need two.”
Buck allowed him to weigh it in his hand for an instant, and then, in simulated confusion, he snatched it back.
“Must be writin’ to yore girl,” grinned McCabe, who had also been regarding the address curiously.
Stratton retorted in a convincingly embarrassed fashion, received his stamps and then proffered his126request, which was finally granted with an air of reluctance and much grumbling.
“I wouldn’t let yuh go, only I don’t know what the devil’s keepin’ that fool Bud,” growled Lynch. “Yuh tell the son-of-a-gun I ain’t expectin’ him to stop in town the rest of his natural life. If them wagon-bolts ain’t come, we’ll have to do without ’em. Yuh bring him back with yuh, an’ see yuh both get here by dinner time without fail.”
Buck gave the desired promise and, hastily saddling up, departed. About three miles from the ranch, he rode off to the side of the trail and dismounted beside a stunted mesquite. Under its twisting branches, he dug a hole with the toe of his boot and interred therein Miss Florence Denby’s letter, torn into small fragments.
This done he swung himself into the saddle and headed again for Paloma Springs, and as he rode he began to whistle blithely.
127CHAPTER XIIICOUNTERPLOT
“The low-down, ornery liar!” sputtered Bud Jessup, face flushed and eyes snapping. “He told me to wait for them bolts if I had to stay here all day. I thought it was kinda funny he’d let me waste all this time, but I didn’t have no idea at all he’d got me out of the way a-purpose to put across that dirty deal. Why, the rotten son-of-a—”
“Easy, kid,” cautioned Buck, glancing at the open door of the store. “You’ll have Pop comin’ out to see what all the excitement’s about, and that isn’t our game—yet.”
He had found Bud alone on the rickety porch, kicking his heels against the railing and fretting at his enforced idleness; and having hitched his horse, he lost no time in giving the youngster a brief account of the happenings of the night before.
“Not him,” shrugged Jessup, though he did lower his voice a trifle. “The up train’s due in less than half an hour, an’ Pop’s gettin’ the mail-bag ready. That means readin’ all the post-cards twice at least, an’ makin’ out all he can through the envelopes, if the128paper’s thin enough. I often wondered why he didn’t go the whole hog an’ have a kettle ready to steam the flaps open, he seems to get so much pleasure out of other people’s business.”
Stratton chuckled. This suited him perfectly up to a certain point. He pulled the letter out of his shirt and was pleased to see that none of the writing was visible. Then he displayed the face of the envelope to his companion.
Bud’s eyes widened. “Whew!” he whistled. “That sure looks like business. What’s up, Buck? Can’t yuh tell a man?”
“I will on the way back; no time just now. Let’s go in.”
He led the way into the store and walked down to where Daggett was slowly sorting a small pile of letters and post-cards.
“Hello, Pop!” he greeted. “Looks like I was just in time.”
The old man peered over the tops of his spectacles. “Yuh be, if yuh want to catch the up-mail,” he nodded. “Where’s it to?”
He took the letter from Stratton’s extended hand and studied it with frank interest.
“Jim Hardenberg!” he commented. “Wal! Wal! Friend of yores, eh?”
“Oh, I don’t know as you’d hardly call him that,”129evaded Stratton. “Haven’t seen him in over two years, I reckon.”
Pop waited expectantly, but no further information was forthcoming. He eyed the letter curiously, manœuvering as if by accident to hold it up against the light. He even tried, by obvious methods, to get rid of the two punchers, but they persisted in hanging around until at length the near approach of the train-hour forced the old man to drop the letter into the mail-bag with the others and snap the lock. On the plea of seeing whether their package had come, both Stratton and Jessup escorted him over to the station platform and did not quit his side until the train had departed, carrying the mail-sack with it.
There were a few odds and ends of mail for the Shoe-Bar, but no parcel. When this became certain, Bud got his horse and the two mounted in front of the store.
“By gee!” exclaimed Pop suddenly as they were on the point of riding off. “I clean forgot to tell yuh. They got blackleg over to the T-T’s.”
Both men turned abruptly in their saddles and stared at him in dismay. To the bred-in-the-bone rancher the mention of blackleg, that deadly contagious and most fatal of cattle diseases, is almost as startling as bubonic plague would be to the average human.130
“Hell!” ejaculated Bud forcefully. “Yuh sure about that, Pop?”
“Sartain sure,” nodded the old man. “One of their men, Bronc Tippets, was over here last night an’ told me. Said their yearlings is dyin’ off like flies.”
“That sure is mighty hard luck,” remarked Jessup as they rode out of town. “I’m glad this outfit ain’t any nearer.”
“Somewhere off to the west of the Shoe-Bar, isn’t it?” asked Stratton.
“Yeah. ’Way the other side of the mountains. There’s a short cut through the hills that comes out around the north end of middle pasture, but there ain’t one steer in a thousand could find his way through. Well, let’s hear what you’re up to, old man. I’m plumb interested.”
Buck’s serious expression relaxed and he promptly launched into a detailed explanation of his scheme. When he had made everything clear Bud’s face lit up and he regarded his friend admiringly.
“By cripes, Buck!” he exclaimed delightedly. “That sure oughta work. When are yuh goin’ to spring it on ’em?”
“First good chance I get,” returned Buck. “The sooner the better, so they won’t have time to try any more dirty work.”
The opportunity was not long in coming. They reached the ranch just before dinner and when131the meal was over learned that the afternoon was to be devoted to repairing the telephone leading from the ranch-house to Las Vegas camp, which had been out of order for several weeks. As certain fence wires were utilized for line purposes, this meant considerable work, if Stratton could judge by the ruinous condition of most of those he had seen. He wondered not a little at the meaning of the move, but did not allow his curiosity to interfere with the project he had in mind.
They had left the ranch in a bunch, Kreeger and Siegrist alone remaining behind for some other purpose. They had not gone more than two miles when a remark of McCabe’s on mining claims gave Buck his cue.
“A fellow who goes into that game with a bunch takes a lot of chances,” he commented. “I knew a chap once who came mighty near being croaked, to say nothing of losing a valuable claim, by being too confiding with a gang he thought could be trusted.”
“How was that?” inquired Slim amiably, as Stratton paused.
“They wanted the whole hog instead of being contented with their share, and tried two or three times to get this fellow—er—Brown. When Brown wised up to what was going on he thought at first he’d have to pull out to save his hide. But just in time132he doped out a scheme to stop their dirty work, and it sure was a slick one, all right.”
Buck chuckled retrospectively. Though the pause was unbroken by any questions, he saw that he had the complete and undivided attention of his audience.
“What he did,” resumed Stratton, “was to write out a detailed account of all the things they’d tried to put across, one of which was an attempt to—a—shoot him in his bunk while he was asleep. He sealed that up in an envelope and sent it to the sheriff with a note asking him to keep it safe, but not to open it unless the writer, Brown, got bumped off in some violent way or disappeared, in which case the sheriff was to act on the information in it and nab the crooks. After he’d got word of its receipt, he up and told the others what he’d done. Pretty cute, wasn’t it?”
The brief pause that followed was tense and fraught with suppressed emotion.
“Did it work?” McCabe at length inquired, with elaborate casualness.
“Sure. The gang didn’t dare raise a finger to him. They might have put a bullet through him any time, or a knife, and made a safe get-away, but then they’d have had to desert the claims, which wasn’t their game at all. Darn good stunt to remember, ain’t it, if a person ever got up against that sort of thing?”
There was no direct reply to the half-question, and133Buck shot a glance at his companions. Lynch rode slightly behind him and was out of the line of vision. McCabe, with face averted, bent over fussing with his saddle-strings. The sight of Doc Peters’s face, however, pale, strained, with wide, frightened eyes and sagging jaw, told Stratton that his thrust had penetrated as deeply as he could have hoped.
“We’ll start here.”
It was Lynch’s voice, curt and harsh, that broke the odd silence as he jerked his horse up and dismounted. “Get yore tools out an’ don’t waste any time.”
There was no mistaking his mood, and in the hours that followed he was a far from agreeable taskmaster. He snapped and growled and swore at them impartially, acting generally like a bear with a sore ear whom nothing can please. If he could be said to be less disagreeable to anyone, it was, curiously enough, Bud Jessup, whom he kept down at one end of the line most of the afternoon. Later Stratton discovered the reason.
“It worked fine,” Bud whispered to him jubilantly, when they were alone together for a few minutes after supper. “Did yuh see him hangin’ around me this afternoon? He was grouchin’ around and pretendin’ to be mad because he’d let yuh go to town this mornin’ just to mail a letter to some fool girl.”
“Of course I pulled the baby stare an’ told him I134didn’t see no letter to no girl. Yuh sure didn’t mail one while I was with yuh, I says.
“‘Didn’t mail no letter at all?’ he wants to know, scowlin’.”
“‘Sure,’ I says. ‘Only it went to Jim Hardenberg over to Perilla. I seen him hand it to old Pop Daggett, who was peevish as a wet hen ’cause he couldn’t find out nothin’ about what was in it, ’count of Buck hangin’ around till it got on the train. That’s the only letter I seen.’
“He didn’t have no more to say, but walked off, scowlin’ fierce. I’ll bet yuh my new Stetson to a two-bit piece, Buck, he rides in to town mighty quick to find out what Pop knows about it.”
Stratton did not take him up, for it had already occurred to him that such a move on Lynch’s part was almost certain. As a matter of fact the foreman did leave the ranch early the next morning, driving a pair of blacks harnessed to the buckboard. Buck and Jessup were both surprised at this unwonted method of locomotion, which usually indicated a passenger to be brought back, or, more rarely, a piece of freight or express, too large or heavy to be carried on horseback, yet not bulky enough for the lumbering freight-wagon.
“An’ if it was freight, he’d have sent one of us,” commented Bud, as they saddled up preparatory to resuming operations on the fences. “Still an’ all,135I reckon he wants to see Pop himself and get a line on what that old he-gossip knows. He’ll have his ear full, all right,” he finished in a tone of vindictive satisfaction.
To make up for the day before, the whole gang took life very easily, and knocked off work rather earlier than usual. They had loafed ten or fifteen minutes in the bunk-house and were straggling up the slope in answer to Pedro’s summons to dinner when, with a clatter of hoofs, the blacks whirled through the further gate and galloped toward the house.
Buck, among the others, glanced curiously in that direction and observed with much interest that a woman occupied the front seat of the buckboard with Tex, while a young man and two small trunks more than filled the rear.
“Some dame!” he heard Bud mutter under his breath.
A moment later Lynch pulled up the snorting team and called Jessup to hold them. Buck was just turning away from a lightning appraisal of the new-comers, when, to his amazement, the young woman smiled at him from her seat.
“Why, Mr. Green!” she called out in surprise. “To think of finding you here!”
Buck stared at her, wide-eyed and bewildered. With her crisp, dark hair, fresh color, and regular features, she was very good to look at. But he had never consciously set eyes on her before in all his life!
136CHAPTER XIVTHE LADY FROM THE PAST
Stratton’s first feeling was that the girl must have made a mistake. In a dazed fashion he stepped forward and helped her out of the buckboard, but this was a more or less mechanical action and because she so evidently expected it. As he took her hand she pressed it warmly and did not at once relinquish it after she had reached the ground.
“I’m awfully glad to see you again,” she said, her color heightened a little. “But how on earth do you come to be away off here?”
With an effort Buck pulled himself together. He could see that the men were regarding him curiously, and felt that he must say something.
“That’s simple enough,” he answered briefly. “I’ve got a job on this ranch.”
She looked slightly puzzled. “Really? But I thought—I had no idea you knew—Mary.”
“I didn’t. I needed a job and drifted in here thinking I’d find a friend of mine who used to work on the same outfit in Texas. He was gone, but Miss Thorne took me on.”137
“You mean you’re a regular cow-boy?” the girl asked in surprise. “Why, you never told me that aboard ship?”
A sudden chill swept over Stratton, and for a moment he was stricken speechless. Aboard ship! Was it possible that this girl had been part of that uncanny, vanished year, the very thought of which troubled and oppressed him. His glance desperately evaded her charming, questioning eyes and rested suddenly with a curious cool sense of relief on the face of Mary Thorne, who had come up unperceived from behind.
But as their eyes met Buck was conscious of an odd veiled expression in their clear depths which vaguely troubled him. It vanished quickly as Miss Thorne moved quickly forward to embrace her friend.
“Stella!” she cried. “I’m so awfully glad to see you.”
There were kisses and renewed embracings; the young man was greeted more decorously but with almost equal warmth, and then suddenly Miss Thorne turned to Stratton, who stood back a little, struggling between a longing to escape and an equally strong desire to find out a little more about this attractive but startling reminder of his unknown past.
“I had no idea you knew Miss Manning,” she said, with the faintest hint of stiffness in her manner.138
Buck swallowed hard but was saved from further embarrassment by the girl.
“Oh, yes!” she said brightly. “We came home on the same ship. Mr. Green had been wounded, you know, and was under my care. We got to be—great friends.”
Was there a touch of meaning in the last two words? Stratton preferred to lay it to his imagination, and was glad of the diversion caused by the introduction of the young man, who proved to be Miss Manning’s brother. Buck was not at all impressed by the fellow’s handsome face, athletic figure, and immaculate clothes. The clothes especially seemed ridiculously out of place for even a visitor on a ranch, and he had always detested those dinky half-shaved mustaches.
Meanwhile the trunks had been carried in and the team led away, and Pedro was peevishly complaining from the kitchen door that dinner was getting cold. Buck learned that the visitors were from Chicago, where they had been close friends of the Thorne family for years, and then he managed to break away and join the fellows in the kitchen.
During the meal there was a lot of more or less quiet joking on the subject of Stratton’s acquaintance with the lady, which he managed to parry rather cleverly. As a matter of fact the acute horror he felt at the very thought of the truth about himself getting out, quickened his wits and kept him constantly139on his guard. He kept his temper and his head, explaining calmly that Miss Manning had been one of the nurses detailed to look after the batch of wounded men of whom he had been one. Naturally he had seen considerable of her during the long and tedious voyage, but there were one or two others he liked equally well.
His careless manner seemed to convince the men that there was no particular amusement to be extracted from the situation, and to Buck’s relief they passed on to a general discussion of strangers on a ranch, the bother they were, and the extra amount of work they made.
“Always wantin’ to ride around with yuh an’ see what’s goin’ on,” declared Butch Siegrist sourly. “If they’re wimmin, yuh can’t even give a cuss without lookin’ first to see if they’re near enough to hear.”
Stratton made a mental resolution that if anything of that sort came up, he would do his best to duck the job of playing cicerone to Miss Stella Manning, attractive as she was. So far his bluff seemed to have worked, but with a mind so entirely blank of the slightest detail of their acquaintance, he knew that at any moment the most casual remark might serve to rouse her suspicion.
Fortunately, his desire to remain in the background was abetted by Tex Lynch. Whether or not the foreman wanted to keep him away from the ranch-owner’s140friends as well as from Miss Thorne herself, Buck could not quite determine. But while the fence-repairing progressed, Stratton was never by any chance detailed to other duties which might keep him in the neighborhood of the ranch-house, and on the one occasion when Miss Thorne and her guests rode out to where the men were working, Lynch saw to it that there was no opportunity for anything like private conversation between them and the object of his solicitude.
Buck watched his manœuvering with secret amusement.
“Wouldn’t he be wild if he knew he was playing right into my hands?” he thought.
His face darkened as he glanced thoughtfully at the departing figure of Miss Manning. She had greeted him warmly and betrayed a very evident inclination to linger in his vicinity. There had been a slight touch of pique in her treatment of Lynch, who hung around so persistently.
“I wish to thunder I had an idea of how much she knows,” he muttered. “Did I act like a brainless idiot when I was—was that way, or not?”
He had asked the same question of the hospital surgeon and got an unsatisfactory answer. It all depended, the doctor told him non-committally. He might easily have shown evidences of lost memory; on the other hand, it was quite possible, especially141with chance acquaintances, that his manner had been entirely normal.
There was nothing to be gained, however, by racking his brain for something that wasn’t there, and Buck soon gave up the attempt. He could only trust to luck and his own inventiveness, and hope that Lynch’s delightfully unconscious easing of the situation would continue.
The work was finished toward noon on the third day after the arrival of the Mannings, and all the connections hooked up. There remained nothing to do but test the line, and Tex, after making sure everything was in order, glanced over his men, who lounged in front of the Las Vegas shack.
“Yuh may as well stay down at this end,” he remarked, looking at Buck, “while the rest of us go back. Stick around where yuh can hear the bell, an’ if it don’t ring in, say, an hour, try to get the house yourself. If that don’t work, come along in an’ report. I reckon everything’s all right, though.”
Stratton was conscious of a sudden sense of alertness. He had grown so used to suspecting and analyzing everything the foreman said or did that for a moment he forgot the precautions he had taken and wondered whether Lynch was up to some new crooked work. Then he remembered and relaxed mentally. Considering the consequences, Tex would hardly dare try any fresh violence against him, especially quite142so soon. Besides, in broad daylight and in this open country, Buck couldn’t imagine any form of danger he wouldn’t be able to meet successfully alone.
So he acquiesced indifferently, and from the open doorway of the hut watched the others mount and ride away. There were only four of them, for Kreeger and Butch Siegrist had been dispatched early that morning to ride fence on the other side of the ranch-house. When they were well on their way, Buck untied his lunch from the saddle and went into the shack to eat it.
In spite of the feeling that he had nothing to fear, he took a position which gave him a good outlook from both door and window, and saw that his gun was loose in the holster. After he had eaten, he went down and got a drink from the creek. He had not been back in the shack a great while before the telephone bell jangled, and taking down the receiver he heard Lynch’s voice at the other end.
Owing to the rather crude nature of the contrivance there was a good deal of buzzing on the line. But this was to be expected, and when Tex had talked a few minutes and decided that the system was working as well as could be hoped, he told Stratton to come in to the ranch, and hung up.
Buck had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile across the prairie, when all at once he pulled his horse to a standstill. The thought had suddenly come to143him that this was the chance he had wanted so long to take a look at that mysterious stretch of desert known as the north pasture. He would be delayed, of course, but explanations were easy and that did not disturb him. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and without delay he turned his horse and spurred forward.
An instinct of caution made him keep as close as possible to the rough, broken country that edged the western extremity of the ranch, where he would run less chance of being seen than on the flat, open plain. He pushed his horse as much as was wise, and presently observed with satisfaction—though it was still a good way off—the line of fence that marked the northern boundary of middle pasture.
A few hundred yards ahead lay a shallow draw, and beyond it a weather-worn ridge thrust its blunt nose out into the plain considerably further than any Buck had yet passed. He turned the horse out, intending to ride around it, but a couple of minutes later jerked him to a standstill and sat motionless in the saddle, eyes narrowing with a sudden, keen surprise.
He had reached a point where, for the first time, he could make out, over the obstruction ahead, the extreme northwest corner of the pasture. Almost at the spot where the two lines of fence made a right angle were two horsemen in the typical cow-man144attire. At first they stood close together, but as Stratton stared intently, rising a little in his stirrups to get a clearer view through the scanty fringe of vegetation that topped the ridge, one of them rode forward and, dismounting, began to manipulate the fence wires with quick, jerky movements of his hands.