186CHAPTER XIXTHE MYSTERIOUS MOTOR-CAR
Buck took to Jim Tenny at once. There was something about this long, lean, brown-faced foreman of the Rocking-R, with his clear gray eyes and that half-humorous twist to his thin lips, which inspired not only confidence but liking as well. He listened without comment to Buck’s story, which included practically everything save the revelation of his own identity; but once or twice, especially at the brief mention of the fight in the bunk-house, his eyes gleamed with momentary approval. When Buck told about the blackleg incident his face darkened and he spoke for the first time.
“Seems like yuh had him there,” he said briefly. “That job alone ought to land him in the pen.”
Buck nodded. “I know; but I’m afraid he couldn’t be convicted on my evidence alone. Kreeger and Siegrist fixed up a pretty decent alibi, you see, and it would only be my word against theirs. Even the carcass of the beast wouldn’t help much. They’d say it wandered through the pass by itself, and I187suppose there’s one chance in a thousand it could have.”
“Damned unlikely, though,” shrugged Tenny.
“Sure; but the law’s that way. You’ve got to be dead certain. Besides, if he was pulled in for that we might never find out just what’s at the bottom of it all. That’s the important thing, and if I can only get a line on what he’s up to, we’ll land him swift enough, believe me!”
Warned by Bud’s unexpected question the evening before that he must have a more plausible motive for following up the case, Buck had coolly appointed himself one of Jim Hardenberg’s deputies. He hinted that rumors of the cattle-stealing had reached the sheriff, who, debarred from taking up the matter openly by the absence of any complaint from the owner of the Shoe-Bar, had dispatched Stratton on a secret investigation. The process of that investigation having disclosed evidences of rascality of which the rustling was but a minor feature, Stratton’s desire to probe the mystery to the bottom seemed perfectly natural, and the need for secrecy was also accounted for. The only risk Buck ran was of Tenny’s mentioning the matter to Hardenberg himself, and that seemed slight enough. At the worst it would merely mean anticipating a little; for if he did succeed in solving the problem of Tex Lynch’s motives, the next and final step would naturally be up to the sheriff.188
“I get yuh,” said Tenny, nodding. “That’s true enough. Well, what do you want me to do?”
Buck told him briefly, and the foreman’s eyes twinkled.
“That’s some order,” he commented.
“I’d pay you for the stock and grub, of course,” Stratton assured him; “and at least put up a deposit for the cayuses.”
“Oh, that part ain’t frettin’ me none. I reckon I can trust yuh. I was thinkin’ about how I could stall off Lynch in case he comes around askin’ questions. Yuh want he should get the idea I hired yuh?”
“I thought it would ease his mind and give him the notion I was safe for a while,” smiled Stratton. “Of course you could say I tried for a job but you were full up.”
“That would be easier,” agreed Tenny. “I could keep my mouth shut, but I couldn’t guarantee about the boys. They wouldn’t say nothin’ a-purpose, but like as not if they should meet up with one of that slick crowd at the Shoe-Bar they’d let somethin’ slip without thinkin’. On the other hand, it sure would make him a mite careless if he thought yuh was tied down here on a reg’lar job.”
He paused reflectively; then suddenly his eyes brightened.
“I got it,” he chuckled. “I’ll send you down to help Gabby Smith at Red Butte camp. That’s ’way189to hell and gone down at the south end of the outfit, where nobody goes from here more’n about once in six months. Gabby’s one of these here solitary guys that’s sorta soured on the world in gen’al, an’ don’t hardly open his face except to take in grub, but yuh can trust him. Jest tell him what yuh want and he’ll do it, providin’ yuh don’t hang around the camp too long. Gabby does hate company worse’n a dose of poison.”
Tenny lost no time in carrying out his plans. He hunted out a few simple cooking-utensils and enough canned goods and other stores to last two weeks, picked a pack-animal and a riding horse, and by dinner-time had everything ready for Buck to start immediately afterward.
The six or seven cow-punchers who responded to the gong presented a marked and pleasant contrast to the Shoe-Bar outfit. They greeted Stratton with some brevity, but after the first pangs of hunger had been assuaged and they learned where he was bound for, they expanded, and Buck was the object of much joking commiseration on the prospect before him.
“You’ll sure have one wild time,” grinned a dark-haired, blue-eyed youngster called Broncho. “Gabby’s about as sociable as a rattler. I wouldn’t change places with yuh for no money.”
No one seemed to suspect any ulterior motive beneath the plan, and when Buck rode off about one190o’clock, leading his pack-horse, his spirits rose insensibly at the ease with which things seemed to be working out.
He reached Red Butte camp in a little more than three hours and found the adobe shack deserted. It was similar in size and construction to Las Vegas, but there all likeness ceased, for the interior was surprisingly comfortable and as spick-and-span as the Shoe-Bar line camp was cluttered and dirty. Everything was so immaculate, in fact, that Buck had a moment of hesitation about flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor, and banished his scruples mainly because he had never heard of a cow-man dropping them anywhere else.
Gabby appeared about an hour later, a tall, stooping man of uncertain middle age, with a cold eye and a perpetual, sour droop to his lids. At the sight of Buck the sourness became accentuated and increased still more when he observed the ashes on the floor. His only reply to Stratton’s introduction of himself was a grunt and Buck lost no time in easing the fellow’s mind of any fear of a prolonged spell of company.
Even then Gabby’s gloom scarcely lightened. He listened, however, to Stratton’s brief explanation and in a few gruff words agreed that in the unlikely event of any inquiry he would say that the new hand was off riding fence or something of the sort. Then he191swept out the offending ashes and proceeded methodically to get supper, declining any assistance from his visitor.
His manner was so dispiriting that Buck was thankful when the silent meal was over, and even more so an hour later to spread his blankets in one of the spare bunks and turn in. His relief at getting away early the next morning was almost as great as Gabby’s could be to see him go.
It was late in the afternoon, after a careful circuit of the southern end of the Shoe-Bar, that Buck reached the foothills. Bud had told him of a spring to the northwest of Las Vegas camp, but the rough traveling decided him to camp that night on the further side of the creek. In the morning he went on through a wilderness of arroyos, cañons, and gullies that twisted endlessly between the barren hills, and made him realize how simple it would be for any number of men and cattle to evade pursuit in this wild country.
Fortunately Jessup’s directions had been explicit, and toward noon Buck found the spring at the bottom of a small cañon and proceeded to unpack and settle down. Bud himself had discovered the place by accident, and as far as Stratton could judge it was not a likely spot to be visited either by the Shoe-Bar hands or their Mexican confederates. A wide, overhanging ledge provided shelter for himself, and there was plenty of forage in sight for the two horses.192Taken all in all, it was as snug a retreat as any one could wish, and Buck congratulated himself on having such safe and secluded headquarters from which to carry on his investigations.
These first took him southward, and for five days he rode through the hills, traversing gullies and cañons, and spying out the whole country generally, in a systematic effort to find the route taken by the rustlers in driving off their booty.
Once he found the spot where they had taken to the hills, the rest was comparatively simple. There were a number of signs to guide him, including the bodies of two animals bearing the familiar brand, and he succeeded in tracing the thieves to a point on the edge of a stretch of desert twenty miles or more below the Shoe-Bar land. About twelve miles beyond lay another range of hills, which would give them cover until they were within a short distance of the border.
“A dozen good fellows stationed here,” thought Stratton, critically surveying the gully behind him, “would catch them without any trouble. There’s no other way I’ve seen of getting out with a bunch of cattle.”
Having settled this point to his satisfaction, Buck’s mind veered swiftly—with an odd sense of relief that now at last he could investigate the matter seriously—to193the other problem which had stirred his curiosity so long.
When his attention was first attracted to the north pasture by Bud’s account of Andrew Thorne’s tragic death, its connection with the mystery of the ranch seemed trivial. But for some reason the thing stuck in his mind, returning again and again with a teasing persistence and gaining each time in significance. From much thinking about it, Buck could almost reconstruct the scene, with its familiar, humdrum background of bawling calves, lowing mothers, dust, hot irons, swearing, sweating men, and all the other accompaniments of the spring branding. That was the picture into which Thorne had suddenly ridden, his face stamped with an excitement in marked contrast to his usual phlegmatic calm. In his mind’s eye Stratton could see him clutch Tex Lynch and draw him hastily to one side, could imagine vividly the low-voiced conversation that followed, the hurried saddling of a fresh horse, and the swift departure of the two northward—to what?
Buck had asked himself that question a hundred times. Three hours had passed before the return of Lynch alone, with the shocking news—time enough to ride twice the distance to north pasture and back again. Where had the interval been passed, and how?194
Stratton realized that they might easily have changed their direction, once they were out of sight of the men. They might have gone eastward toward the ranch-house—which they had not—or westward into the mountains. Once or twice Buck considered the possibility of the old man’s having stumbled on a rich lode of precious metal. But as far as he knew no trace of gold had ever been found in these mountains. Moreover, though Lynch was perfectly capable of murdering his employer for that knowledge, his next logical move would have been an immediate taking up of the claims, instead of which he remained quietly on the ranch to carry on his slow and secret plotting.
Stratton long ago dismissed that possibility. There remained only the north pasture, and the longer he considered it the more he became convinced that Thorne had met his death there, and that the chances were strong that somewhere in those wastes of worthless desert land lay the key to the whole enthralling mystery.
Buck was so eager to start his investigations that it irked him to have to spend the few remaining hours of the afternoon in idleness. But as he knew that the undertaking would take a full day or even longer, he possessed his soul with patience and made arrangements for an early start next morning.
The dawn was just breaking when he left camp195mounted on Pete, the Rocking-R horse that he had found so reliable in the rough country. The simplest and most direct way would have been to descend to level ground and ride along the edge of the Shoe-Bar land. But he dared not take any chances of being observed by Lynch or his gang, and was forced to make a long detour through the hills.
The way was difficult and roundabout. Frequently he was turned back by blind cañons or gullies which had no outlet, and there were few places where the horse could go faster than a walk. To Buck’s impatient spirit it was all tiresome and exasperating, and he had moments of wondering whether he was ever going to get anywhere.
Finally, about the middle of the afternoon, he was cheered for the first time by an unexpected glimpse of his goal. For several miles he had been following a rough trail which wound around the side of a steep, irregular hill. Coming out abruptly on a little plateau, with the tumbled rocks rising at his back, there spread out suddenly before him to the east a wide, extended sweep of level country.
At first he could scarcely believe that the sandy stretch below him was the north pasture he was seeking. But swiftly he realized that the threadlike line a little to the south must be the fence dividing the desert from the fertile portions of the Shoe-Bar, and he even thought he recognized the corner where the196infected steer had been driven through. With an exclamation of satisfaction he was reaching for his field-glasses when of a sudden a strange, slowly-moving shape out in the desert caught his attention and riveted it instantly.
For a few seconds Buck thought his eyes were playing tricks. Amazed, incredulous, forgetting for an instant the field-glasses in his hand, he stared blankly from under squinting lids at the incredible object that crawled lurchingly through the shimmering, glittering desert atmosphere.
“I’m dotty!” he muttered at length. “It can’t be!”
Then, remembering the glasses, he raised them hastily to his eyes and focused them with a twist or two of practised fingers.
He was neither crazy nor mistaken. Drawn suddenly out of its blurred obscurity by the powerful lenses, there sprang up before Buck’s eyes, sharp and clear in every detail, a big gray motor-car that moved slowly but steadily, with many a bump and sidewise lurch, diagonally across the cactus-sprinkled desert below him.
197CHAPTER XXCATASTROPHE
The discovery galvanized Stratton into instant, alert attention. Motor-cars were rare in this remote range country and confined almost solely to the sort of “flivver” which is not entirely dependent on roads. The presence in the north pasture of this powerful gray machine, which certainly did not belong in the neighborhood, was more than significant, and Buck tried at once to get a view of the occupants.
In this he was not successful. There were three of them, one in the driver’s seat and two others in the tonneau. But the top prevented more than a glimpse of the latter, while the cap and goggles of the chauffeur left visible only a wedge of brick-red, dust-coated skin, a thin, prominent nose and a wisp of wiry black mustache.
One thing was certain—the fellow knew his job. Under his masterly guidance the big car plowed steadily through the clogging sand, avoiding obstructions or surmounting them with the least possible expenditure of power, never once stalled, and, except for a198necessary slight divergence now and then, held closely to its northwesterly course across the desert.
Buck, who had driven under the worst possible battle-front conditions, fully appreciated the coaxing, the general manœuvering, the constant delicate manipulation of brake and throttle necessary to produce this result. But his admiration of the fellow’s skill was swiftly swallowed up in eager curiosity and speculation.
Who were they? What were they doing here? Where were they going? At first he had a momentary fear lest they should see him perched up here on his point of vantage. Then he realized that the backing of rocks prevented his figure from showing against the skyline, which, together with the distance and the clouds of dust stirred up by the car itself, made the danger almost negligible. So he merely dismounted and, leaning against his horse, kept the glasses riveted on the slowly moving machine.
The car advanced steadily until it reached a point about a quarter of a mile from the rough ground and a little distance north of where Buck stood. Then it stopped, and a capped and goggled head was thrust out of the tonneau. Buck could make out nothing definite about the face save that it was smooth-shaven and rather heavy-jowled. He was hoping that the fellow would alight from the car and show himself more plainly but to his disappointment the head was199presently drawn back and the machine crept on, swerving a little so that it headed almost due north.
Ten minutes later it halted again, and this time the two men got out and walked slowly over the sand. Both were clad in long dust-coats, and one seemed stouter and heavier than the other. Unfortunately they were too far beyond the carrying power of the binoculars to get anything more clearly, and Buck swore and fretted and strained his eyes in vain. After a delay of nearly an hour, he saw the car start again, and followed its blurred image until it finally disappeared beyond an out-thrust spur well to the northward.
Stratton lowered his glasses and stood for a moment or two rubbing his cramped arm absently. His face was thoughtful, with a glint of excitement in his eyes. Presently his shoulders straightened resolutely.
“Anyhow, I can follow the tracks of the tires and find out what they’ve been up to,” he muttered.
The difficulty was to descend from his rocky perch, and it proved to be no small one. He might have clambered down the face of the cliff, but that would mean abandoning his horse. In the end he was forced to retrace his steps along the twisting ledge by which he had come.
From his knowledge of the country to the south, Buck had started out with the idea that it would be simple enough to reach the flats through one of the200many gullies and cañons that fringed the margin of the hills further down. He had not counted on the fact that as the range widened it split into two distinct ridges, steep and declivitous on the outer edges, with the space between them broken up into a network of water-worn gullies and arroyos.
“I ought to have known from the look of the north pasture that all the water goes the other way,” he grumbled. “Best thing I can do is to head for that trail Bud spoke of that cuts through to the T-T ranch. It can’t be so very far north.”
It wasn’t, as the crow flies, but Buck was no aviator. He was forced to take a most tortuous, roundabout route, and when he finally emerged on the first passable track heading approximately in the right direction, the sun was low and there seemed little chance of his accomplishing his purpose in the few hours of daylight remaining.
Still, he kept on. At least he was mapping out a route which would be easily and swiftly followed another time. And if darkness threatened, he could return to his little camp through the open Shoe-Bar pastures, where neither Lynch nor his men were at all likely to linger after dusk.
The trail followed a natural break in the hills and, though not especially difficult under foot, was twisting and irregular, full of sharp descents and equally steep upward slopes. Buck had covered about two201miles and was growing impatient when he came to the hardest climb he had yet encountered and swung himself out of the saddle.
“No use killing you, Pete, to save a little time,” he commented, giving the horse’s sweaty neck a slap. “I’d like to know how the devil those two ever drove a steer through here.”
It did seem as if this must have been uncommonly difficult. The trail curved steeply around the side of a hill, following a ledge similar to the one Buck had taken earlier in the afternoon with such interesting results. There was width enough for safety, but on one side the rocks rose sharply to the summit of the hill, while on the other there was a sheer drop into a gulch below, which, at the crown of the slope, must have been fifty or sixty feet at least.
Leading the horse, Buck plodded on in a rather discouraged fashion until he had covered about three-quarters of the distance to the top. Then of a sudden his pace quickened, as a bend in the trail revealed hopeful glimpses of open spaces ahead. It was nothing really definite—merely a falling away of the hills on either side and a wide expanse of unobstructed sky beyond, but it made him feel that he was at last coming out of this rocky wilderness. A moment or two later he gained the summit of the slope and his eyes brightened as they rested on the section of sandy, cactus-dotted country spread out below him.202
A dozen feet ahead the trail curved sharply around a rocky buttress, which hid the remainder of it from view. In his eagerness to see what lay beyond, Stratton did not mount but led his horse over the short stretch of level rock. But as he turned the corner, he caught his breath and jerked back on Pete’s reins.
By one of those freaks of nature that are often so surprising, the trail led straight down to level ground with almost the regularity of some work of engineering. At the foot of it stood the gray motor-car—empty!
The sight of it, and especially that unnatural air of complete desertion, instantly aroused in Buck a sense of acute danger. He turned swiftly to retreat, and caught a glimpse of a figure crouching in a little rocky niche almost at his elbow.
There was no time to leap back or forward; no time even to stir. Already the man’s arm was lifted, and though Stratton’s hand jerked automatically to his gun, he was too late.
An instant later something struck his head with crushing force and crumpled him to the ground.
When Buck began to struggle out of that black, bottomless abyss of complete oblivion, he thought at first—as soon as he could think at all—that he was lying in his bunk back at the Shoe-Bar. What gave him the idea he could not tell. His head throbbed203painfully, and his brain seemed to swim in a vague, uncertain mist. A deadly lassitude gripped him, making all movement, even to the lifting of his eyelids, an exertion too great to be considered.
But presently, when his brain had cleared a little, he became aware of voices. One in particular seemed, even in his dreamlike state, to sting into his consciousness with a peculiar, bitter instinct of hatred. When at length he realized that it was the voice of Tex Lynch, the discovery had a curiously reviving effect upon his dazed senses. He could not yet remember what had happened, but intuitively he associated his helplessness with the foreman’s presence, and that same instinct caused him to make a desperate attempt to understand what the man was saying. At first the fellow’s words seemed blurred and broken, but little by little their meaning grew clearer to the injured man.
“... ain’t safe ... suspects somethin’ ... snoopin’ around ever since ... thought he was up to somethin’ ... saw him up on that ledge watchin’ yuh ... dead sure. I had a notion he’d ride around to this trail, ’cause it’s the only way down to north pasture. I tell yuh, Paul, he’s wise, an’ he’ll spill the beans sure. We got to do it.”
“I don’t like it, I tell you!” protested a shrill, high-pitched voice querulously. “I can’t stand blood.”
“Wal, all yuh got to do is go back to the car an’204wait,” retorted Lynch. “I ain’t so partic’lar. Besides,” his tone changed subtly, “his head’s smashed in an’ he’s sure to croak, anyhow. It would be an act of kindness, yuh might say.”
“I don’t like it,” came again in the shrill voice. “I’d—hear the shot. I’d know what you were doing. It would be on my—my conscience. I’d dream— If he’s going to—to die, as you say, why not just—leave him here?”
An involuntary shudder passed over Stratton. It had all come back, and with a thrill of horror he realized that they were talking about him. They were discussing his fate as calmly and callously as if he had been a steer with a broken leg. A feeble protest trembled on his lips, but was choked back unuttered. He knew how futile any protest would be with Tex Lynch.
“Yeah!” the latter snarled. “An’ have somebody come along an’ find him! Like as not he’d hang on long enough to blab all he knows, an’ then where would we be? Where would we be even if somebody run acrost his body? I ain’t takin’ no chances like that, I’ll tell the world!”
“But isn’t there some other way?” faltered the high-pitched voice.
In the brief pause that followed, Stratton dragged his lids open. He was lying where he had fallen at the curve in the trail. Tex Lynch stood close beside205him. A little beyond, leaning against the rocky cliff, was a bulky figure in a long dust-coat. He had pushed up his motor-goggles and was wiping his forehead with a limp handkerchief. His round, fat face, with pursed-up lips and wide-open light-blue eyes, bore the expression of a fretful child. On his left was a lean, thin-faced fellow with a black mustache who looked scared and nervous. There was no sign of the third person who had been in the car, and even at this crucial moment Buck found time to observe the absence of his horse, Pete, and wondered momentarily what had become of him.
“Yuh an’ Hurd go back to the car.” Lynch broke the silence in a tone of sudden decision. “I’ll tend to this business, an’ there won’t be no shootin’ neither. Hustle, now! We ain’t got any time to lose.”
Again Buck shuddered, and there pulsed through him that tremendous and passionate instinct for self-preservation which comes to every man at such a time. What Tex meant to do he could not guess, but he knew that if he were left alone with the fellow he might as well give up all hope. He was weak as a cat, and felt sure that no appeal from him would move Lynch a particle. His only chance lay with the fat man and his companion, and as the two turned away, Buck tried his best to call out after them.
The only result was an inarticulate croak. Lynch heard it, and instantly dropping on his knees, he206clapped one hand over Stratton’s mouth. In spite of Buck’s futile struggles, he held it there firmly while the two men moved out of sight down the trail. His face, which still bore the fading marks of Buck’s fists, was a trifle pale, but hard and determined, and in his eyes triumph and a curious, nervous shrinking struggled for mastery.
But as the moments dragged on leaden wings, not a word passed his tight lips. Presently he glanced swiftly over one shoulder. An instant later Buck’s lips were freed, and he felt the foreman’s hands slipping under his body.
“You hellion!” he gasped, as Lynch’s purpose flashed on him in all its horror. “You damned cowardly hound!”
As he felt himself thrust helplessly toward the precipice, Buck made a tremendous, despairing effort and managed to catch Lynch by the belt and clung there for a moment. When one hand was torn loose, he even struck Tex wildly in the face. But there was no strength in his arm, and Lynch, with a growl of rage, jerked himself free and sprang to his feet.
For an instant he towered over his helpless enemy, white-faced and hesitating. Then Stratton caught the hard impact of his boot against his side, and felt the edge of the rock slipping horribly beneath him. Powerless to help himself, his clutching fingers slid despairingly across the smooth surface. A blinding207ray of sunlight dazzled him for an instant and vanished; the mountain trail flashed out of sight. His heart leaped, then sank, with a tremendous, poignant agony that seemed to tear him into shreds. Then blackness seemed to rush out of the gulch to enfold him in an impenetrable cloud of merciful oblivion.
208CHAPTER XXIWHAT MARY THORNE FOUND
A few hundred yards away from the fence strung along the western side of middle pasture, Mary Thorne pulled her horse down to a walk and straightened her hat mechanically. Her cheeks were flushed becomingly and her eyes shone, but at the end of that sharp little canter much of the brightness faded and her face clouded.
For the last week or more it had grown increasingly difficult to keep up a cheerful front and prevent the doubts and troubles which harassed her from causing comment. This morning she had reached the limit of suppression. Stella got on her nerves more than usual; Alf annoyed her with his superior air and those frequent little intimate mannerisms which, though unnoticed during all the years of their friendship, had lately grown curiously irksome to the girl. Even Mrs. Archer’s calm placidity weighed on her spirits, and when that happened Mary knew that it was high time for her to get away by herself for a few hours and make a vigorous effort to recover her wonted serenity of mind.209
She told herself that she was tired and jaded, and that a solitary ride would soothe her ragged nerves. And so, at the first opportunity after breakfast, she slipped quietly away, saddled her favorite horse, Freckles, and leaving word with Pedro that she would be back by dinner-time, departed hastily.
It was rather curious behavior in a girl usually so frank and open, and free from even a suspicion of guile, but she deliberately gave the Mexican an impression that she was going to join the men down in south pasture, and as long as she remained within sight of the ranch-house she kept her horse headed in that direction. Furthermore, before abruptly changing her course to the northwest, she pulled up and glanced sharply around to make certain she was not observed.
As a matter of fact one of the things which had lately puzzled and troubled her was a growing impression of surveillance. Several times she had surprised Pedro or his wife in attitudes which seemed suspiciously as if they had been spying. McCabe, too, and some of the other men were inclined to pop up when she least expected them. Indeed, looking back on the last two weeks she realized how very little she had been alone except in the close confines of the ranch-house. If she rode forth to inspect the work or merely to take a little canter, Tex or one of the punchers was almost sure to join her. They always had210a good excuse, but equally always they were there; and though Mary Thorne had not the remotest notion of the meaning of it all, she had grown convinced that there must be some hidden motive beneath their actions, and the thought troubled her.
Tex Lynch’s altered manner gave her even greater cause for anxiety. It would have been difficult to put into words exactly where the change lay, but she was sure that there was a difference. Up to a short time ago she had regarded him impersonally as merely an efficient foreman whom she had inherited from her father along with the ranch. She did so still, but she could not remain blind to the fact that the man himself was deliberately striving to inject a more intimate note into their intercourse. His methods were subtle enough, but Mary Thorne was far from dull, and the alteration in his manner made her at once indignant and a little frightened.
“I suppose it’s silly to feel that way, especially with Alf here,” she murmured as she reached the fence and swung herself out of the saddle. “But I do wish I hadn’t taken his word about—Buck Green.”
She took a small pair of pliers from her saddle-pocket and deftly untwisted the strands of wire from one of the posts, while Freckles looked on with an expression of intelligent interest. When the gap was opened in the fence, he walked through and waited211quietly on the other side until the wire had been replaced. It was not the first time he had done this trick, for the trail through the mountains was a favorite retreat of the girl’s. She had discovered it long ago, and returned to it frequently, through her own private break in the fence, especially on occasions like this when she wanted to get away from everybody and be quite alone.
Having remounted and headed northward along the edge of the hills, her thoughts flashed back to the discharged cow-puncher, and her brow puckered. The whole subject affected her in a curiously complicated fashion. From the first she had been conscious of having done the young man an injustice. And yet, as often as she went over their final interview in her mind—which was not seldom—she did not see how she could have done otherwise. Her woman’s intuition told her over and over again that he could not possibly be a common thief; but if this was so, why had he refused her the simple assurance she asked for?
That was the stumbling-block. If he had only been frank and open, she felt that she would have believed him, even in the face of Lynch’s conviction of his guilt, though she was frank enough to admit that the foreman’s attitude would probably have influenced her much more strongly a week ago than it did at present.212It was this thought which brought her mind around to another of her worries.
Not only did she intensely dislike Lynch’s present manner toward herself, but there had lately grown up in her mind a vague distrust of the man generally. She could not put her finger on anything really definite. There were moments, indeed, when she wondered if she was not a silly little fool making bogies out of shadows. But the feeling persisted, growing on unconsidered trifles, that Tex was playing at some subtle, secret game, of the character of which she had not even the most remote conception.
“But if that’s so—if he can’t be trusted any longer,” she said aloud, stung by a sudden, sharp realization of the gravity of such a situation, “what am I to do?”
Of his own accord Freckles had turned aside into the little curved depression in the cliffs and was plodding slowly up the trail. Staring blindly at the rough, ragged cliffs and peaks ahead of her, the girl was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. If Lynch failed her, what could she do? Whom could she turn to for help or even for counsel? There was Alf Manning, but Alf knew nothing whatever of range conditions, and besides neither he nor Stella expected to stay on indefinitely. Her mind ranged swiftly over other more or less remote possibilities, but save for a few distant cousins with whom they had213never been on intimate terms, she could think of no one. She even considered for a moment Jim Tenny of the Rocking-R, whom she had met and liked, or Dr. Blanchard, but a sudden reviving burst of spirit caused her quickly to dismiss the thought.
“They’d think I was a silly, hysterical idiot,” she murmured. “Why, I couldn’t even tell them what I was afraid of. I wonder if it can possibly be just nerves? It doesn’t seem as if—”
She broke off abruptly and tightened on her reins. Freckles had carried her over the summit of the trail and had almost reached the hollow on the other side, formed by the bottom of a gully that crossed the path. Mary had once explored it and knew that to the left it deepened into a gloomy gulch that hugged the cliff for some distance and then curved abruptly to the south. So far as she knew, it led nowhere, and yet, to her astonishment, not a hundred feet away a saddled horse, with bridle-reins trailing, stood cropping the leaves of a stunted mesquite.
“That’s funny,” she said aloud in a low tone.
As she spoke the horse threw up his head and stared at her, ears pointed inquiringly. When Freckles nickered, the strange animal gave an answering whinny, but did not move.
Puzzled and a little nervous, Mary glanced sharply to right and left amongst the scattered rocks. In her experience a saddled horse meant that the owner was214not far away; but she could see no signs of any one, and at length, taking courage from the silence, she rode slowly forward.
As she came closer the horse backed away a foot or two and half turned, exposing a brand on his shoulder. The girl stared at it with a puckered frown, wondering what on earth any one from the Rocking-R was doing here. Then her glance strayed to the saddle, flittered indifferently over cantle and skirts, to pause abruptly, with a sudden keen attention, on the flap of the right-hand pocket, which bore the initials “R. S.” cut with some skill on the smooth leather.
With eyes widening, the girl bent forward, studying the flap intently. She was not mistaken; the initialswereR. S., and in a flash there came back to her a memory of that afternoon, which seemed so long ago, when she and Buck Green rode out together to the south pasture. She had noticed those initials then on his saddle-pocket, and knowing how unusual it was for a cow-man to touch his precious saddle with a knife, she made some casual comment, and learned how it had come into Buck’s possession.
What did it mean? What washedoing here on a Rocking-R horse? Above all, where was he?
Suddenly her heart began to beat unevenly and her frightened eyes stared down the gulch to where an out-thrust buttress provokingly hid the greater part of it from view. Her glance shifted again to the215horse, who stood motionless, regarding her with liquid, intelligent eyes, and for the first time she noticed that the ends of the trailing reins were scratched and torn and ragged.
How still the place was! She fumbled in her blouse, and drawing forth a handkerchief, passed it mechanically over her damp forehead. Then abruptly her slight figure straightened, and tightening the reins she urged Freckles along the rock-strewn bottom of the gulch.
The distance to the rocky buttress seemed at once interminable and incredibly short. As she reached it she held her breath and her teeth dug into her colorless lips. But when another section of the winding gorge lay before her, silent, empty save for scattered boulders and a few scanty bits of stunted vegetation, one small, gloved hand fluttered to her breast, then dropped, clenched, against the saddle-horn.
A rounded mass of rock, fallen in ages past from the cliffs above, blocked her path, and mechanically the girl reined Freckles around it. An instant later the horse stopped of his own accord, and the girl found herself staring down with horror-stricken eyes at the body of a man stretched out on the further side of the boulders. Motionless he lay there, a long length of brown chaps and torn, disordered shirt. His face was hidden in his crooked arms; the tumbled mass of brown hair was matted with ominous dark216clots. But in that single, stricken second Mary Thorne knew whom she had found.
“Oh!” she choked, fighting desperately against a wave of faintness that threatened to overwhelm her. “O-h!”
Slowly the man’s face lifted, and two bloodshot eyes regarded her dully through a matted lock of hair that lay stiffly plastered against his forehead. With a curious, stealthy movement, one hand twisted back to his side and fumbled there for an instant. Then the man groaned softly.
“I forgot,” he mumbled. “It’s gone. You—you’ve got me this time, I reckon.”
Face drained to paper-white and lips quivering, Mary Thorne slid out of her saddle, steadied herself against the horse for a second, and then dropped on her knees beside him.
“Buck!” she cried in a shaking voice. “You—you’re hurt! What—what is it?”
A puzzled look came into his face, and as he stared into the wide, frightened hazel eyes so close to his, recognition slowly dawned.
“You!” he muttered. “What—How—”
She twined her fingers together to stop their trembling. “I was riding through the pass,” she told him briefly. “I saw your horse and I—I was—afraid—”
A faint gleam came into the bloodshot eyes. “My—my horse? You mean a—a Rocking-R cayuse?”217
“Yes.”
He tried to sit up, but the effort turned him so white that the girl cried out protestingly.
“You mustn’t. You’re badly hurt. I—I’ll ride back for help.” She sprang to her feet. “But first I must get you water.”
He stared at her as one regards a desert mirage. “Water!” he repeated unbelievingly. “You know where—If you could—”
A sudden moisture dimmed her eyes, but she winked it resolutely back. “There’s a little spring the other side of the trail,” she explained. “You lie quietly and I’ll be back in just a minute.”
Stumbling in her haste, she turned and ran past the buttress and on toward the trail. Not a hundred feet beyond, a tiny spring bubbled up in the rocks, and dropping down beside it, the girl jerked the pins from her hat and let the cool water trickle into the capacious crown of the Stetson. It seemed to take an eternity to fill, but at length the water ran over the brim, and carefully guarding her precious burden, she hurried back again.
The man was watching for her—eagerly, longingly, with an underlying touch of apprehensive doubt, as if he half feared to find her merely one of those dreamlike phantoms that had haunted him through the long, painful hours. As the girl sank down beside him, there was a look in his eyes that sent a strange thrill218through her and caused her hands to tremble, sending a little stream of water trickling over the soggy hat-brim to the ground.
She steadied herself resolutely and bending forward held the hat against Buck’s lips. As he plunged his face into it and began to suck up the water in great, famished gulps, the girl’s lips quivered, and her eyes, resting on the matted tangle of dark hair, filled with sudden tears.
219CHAPTER XXIINERVE
With a deep sigh, Buck lifted his face from the water and regarded her gratefully.
“That just about saved my life,” he murmured.
Mary Thorne carefully set down the improvised water-bucket, its contents much depleted, and taking out her handkerchief, soaked it thoroughly.
“I’m awfully stupid about first aid,” she said. “But your head must be badly cut, and—”
“Don’t,” he protested, as the moist bit of cambric touched his hair. “You’ll spoil it.”
“As if that mattered!” she retorted. “Just rest your head on your arms; it’ll be easier.”
With deft, gentle touches, she cleaned away the blood and grime, parting his thick hair now and then with delicate care. Her hands were steady now, and having steeled herself for anything, the sight of a jagged, ugly-looking cut on his scalp did not make her flinch. She even bent forward a little to examine it more closely, and saw that a ridge of clotted blood had temporarily stopped its oozing.
“I think I’d better let it alone,” she said aloud. “I220might start it bleeding again. How—how did it happen?”
Buck raised his head and regarded her with a slow, thoughtful stare.
“I fell off the cliff back there,” he replied at length.
Her eyes widened. “You—fell off the cliff!” she gasped. “It’s a wonder— But is this the only place you’re hurt?”
His lips twisted in a grim smile. “Oh, no! I’ve got a sprained ankle and what feels like a broken rib, though it may be only bruises. But as you’re thinking, I’m darned lucky to get off alive. I must have struck a ledge or something part way down, but how I managed from there I haven’t the least idea.”
Hands clenched together in her lap, she stared at him in dismay.
“I thought perhaps you might be strong enough in a little while to ride back with me to the ranch. I—I could help you mount, and we could go very slowly. But of course that’s impossible. I’d better start at once and bring back some of the men.”
She made a move to rise, but he stopped her with a quick, imperative gesture. “No, you mustn’t,” he said firmly. “That won’t do at all. I can’t go to the ranch.” He paused, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “You may not have guessed it, but Lynch and I don’t pull together at all,” he finished, with a whimsical intonation.221
“But surely that wouldn’t make any difference—now!” she protested.
“Only the difference that he’d have me just where he wanted me,” he retorted. He was regarding her with a steady, questioning stare, and presently he gave a little sigh. “I’ll have to tell you something I didn’t mean to,” he said. “In my opinion Tex Lynch is pretty much of a scoundrel. He knows I know it, and there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to shut my mouth—for good.”
To his amazement, instead of showing the indignation he expected, the girl merely stared at him in surprise.
“What!” she cried. “You believe that, too?”
“I’m sure of it. But I thought you trusted—”
“I don’t any longer.” She was surprised at the immensity of the relief that surged over her at this chance to unburden her soul of the load of perplexity and trouble which harassed her. “For a long time I haven’t—There’ve been a number of things. I still haven’t an idea of what it’s all about, but—”
“I’m mighty glad you feel that way,” Buck said, as she paused. “I’m not quite sure myself just what he’s up to, but I believe I’m on the right trail.” Very briefly he told her of the steps he had taken since leaving the Shoe-Bar. “You see how impossible it would be to trust myself in his power again,” he concluded.222
For a moment or two Mary Thorne sat silent, regarding him with a curious expression.
“So that was the reason,” she murmured at length.
His eyes questioned her mutely, and a slow flush crept into her face.
“The reason you—you couldn’t say you had no—special object in being on the Shoe-Bar,” she explained haltingly. “I’m—sorry I didn’t understand.”
“I couldn’t very well tell you without running the risk of Lynch’s finding out. As it happened, I was trying my best to think up a reasonable excuse for leaving the outfit to do some investigating from this end, so you really did me a good turn.”
“Investigating what? Haven’t you any idea what he’s up to?”
Buck hesitated. “A very little, but it’s too indefinite to put into words just yet. I’ve a feeling I’ll get at the bottom of it soon, though, and then I’ll tell you. In the meantime, when you go back, don’t breathe a word of having seen me, and on no account let any one persuade you to—sell the outfit.”
She stared at him with crinkled brows. “But what are you going to do now?” she asked suddenly, her mind flashing back to the present difficulty.
He dragged himself into a sitting posture. He was evidently feeling stronger and looked much more like himself.
“Try and get back to that camp of mine I told you223of,” he explained. “I reckon I’ll have to lay up there a while, but there’s food a-plenty, and a good spring, so—”
“But I don’t believe you can even stand,” she protested. “And if your ribs are broken—”
“Likely it’s only one and I can strap that good and tight with a piece of my shirt or something. Then if you could catch Pete and bring him over here, I’ll manage to climb into the saddle some way. It’s only three or four miles, and the going’s not so very bad.”
She made no further protest, but her lips straightened firmly and there was a look of decision in her girlish face as she set about helping him with his preparations.
It was she who tore a broad band from his flannel shirt, roughly fringed the ends with Buck’s knife and tied it so tightly about his body that he had hard work to keep from wincing. She insisted on bandaging his head, and while he rested in the shade went back into the gulch to look for his hat and the Colt that had fallen from his holster.
She finally found them both under a narrow ledge that thrust out a dozen feet below the edge of the trail. A stunted bush, rooted deep in some hidden crevice, grew up before it, and, staring upward at it, the girl guessed that to this little bush alone Buck owed his life. He had been able to give her no further details of his descent, but she saw that it would224be possible for a man to crawl along the narrow ledge to where another crossed it at a descending angle, and thence gain the bottom of the gulch.
“I wonder how he ever came to fall,” she murmured, remembering how wide the trail was at the summit.
Returning, however, she asked no questions. In the face of what lay before her, the matter seemed trivial and unimportant. She caught the Rocking-R horse without much trouble and led him back to a broad, flat boulder on which Buck had managed to crawl. Obliged to hold the animal, whose slightest movement might prove disastrous, she could give no further aid, but was forced to stand helpless, watching with troubled, sympathetic eyes the man’s painful struggles to gain the saddle. When at last he succeeded and slumped there, mouth twisted and face bathed in perspiration, her knees were shaking and she felt limp and nerveless.
“We’ll stop at the spring first for more water,” she said, pulling herself together with an effort.
Too exhausted for speech, Buck merely nodded, and the girl, gathering up Freckles’s bridle in her other hand, led the two horses slowly toward the trail. At the spring Buck drank deeply of the water she handed him, and seemed much refreshed.
“That’s good,” he murmured, with an effort to straighten his bent body. “Well, I reckon I’d better be starting. I—I can’t thank you enough for all225you’ve done, Miss—Thorne. It was mighty plucky—”
“You mustn’t waste your strength talking,” she interrupted quietly. “Just tell me which way to go, and we’ll start.”
“We?” he repeated sharply. “But you’re not going.”
“Of course I am. Did you think for a moment I’d let you take that ride alone?” She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. “You’d be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don’t make difficulties. I’m going with you, and that’s an end of it.”
Perhaps the firmness of her manner made Buck realize the futility of further protest, or possibly he was in no condition to argue. At all events he gave in, and when the girl swung herself into the saddle, the slow journey began.
To Mary Thorne the memory of it remained ever afterward in her mind a chaotic medley of strange emotions and impressions, vague yet vivid. At first, where the width of the trail permitted it, she rode beside him, making an effort to talk casually and lightly, yet not too constantly, but continually keeping a watchful eye on the drooping figure at her right, whose hands presently sought and gripped the saddle-horn.
When they left the trail for rougher ground, she226dismounted in spite of Buck’s protest, and walked beside him, and it was well she did. Once when the horse slipped or stumbled on a loose stone and the man’s body swayed perilously in the saddle, she put up both hands swiftly and held him there.
Before they had gone a mile her boots began to hurt her, but the pain was so trifling in comparison with what Buck must be suffering that she scarcely noticed it. He was putting up a brave front, but there were signs that were difficult to conceal, and toward the end of that toilsome journey it was evident that he could not possibly have kept his seat much longer. Indeed, when they had ridden the short length of the little cañon and stopped before the overhanging shelf of rocks, he toppled suddenly sidewise, and only the girl’s frail body prevented him from crashing roughly to the ground.
She brought him water from the spring, and searching through his belongings found a flask of brandy and forced some between his teeth. When he had recovered from his momentary faintness, she managed somehow to get him over to the blankets spread beneath the ledge. Then she built a fire and set some coffee on it to boil, unsaddled Pete, fed and watered the three horses, finally returning with a cup of steaming liquid to where Buck lay exhausted with closed eyes.
His face was drawn and haggard, and his lashes,227long and soft and thick, lay against a skin drained of every particle of color. A sudden choking sob rose to the girl’s lips, but she managed to force it back, and when the man’s lids slowly lifted, she smiled tremulously.
“Here’s some coffee,” she said, kneeling down and holding the rim of the cup to his lips.
Buck drank obediently in slow gulps.
“You’re all nerve,” he murmured when the cup was empty. He lay silent for a few moments. “Don’t you think you’d better be starting back?” he asked at length.
“How can I go and leave you like this?” she protested. “You’re so weak. You might get fever. Anything might happen.”
“But you certainly can’t stay,” he retorted with unexpected decision. “Let alone a whole lot of other reasons,” he went on, watching her mutinous face, “if you did, Tex would have a posse out hunting for you in no time. Sooner or later they’d find this place, and you know what that would mean. I’m feeling better every minute—honest. By to-morrow I’ll be able to hobble around and look after myself fine.”
His logic was irresistible, and for a time she sat silent, torn by a conflict of emotions. Then all at once her face brightened.
“I’ve got it!” she cried. “Why can’t I send Bud out? He’s to be trusted surely?”228
Buck’s eyes lit up in a way that brought to the girl a curious, jealous pang.
“Bud? Sure, he’s all right. That’s one fine idea. You’ll have to be careful Lynch doesn’t know where he’s going, though.”
“I’ll manage that all right.”
Reluctant to go, yet feeling that she ought to make haste, the girl got out some crackers and placed them, with a pail of water, within his reach. Then she listened while Stratton told her of a short cut out to the middle pasture.
“I understand,” she nodded. “You’ll promise to be careful, won’t you? Bud ought to be here in a couple of hours, though he may be delayed a little longer. You’d better not try and move until he comes.”
“I won’t,” Buck answered. “I’m too darn comfortable.”
“Well, good-by, then,” she said briefly, moving over to her horse.
“Good-by; and—thank you a thousand times!”
She made no answer, but a faint, enigmatic smile quivered for an instant on her lips as she turned the stirrup and swung herself into the saddle. When Freckles had reached a little distance, she glanced back and waved her hand. From where he lay Stratton could see almost the whole length of the little cañon,229and as long as the slight figure on the big gray horse remained in sight, his eyes followed her intently, a sort of wistful hunger in their depths. But when she disappeared, the man’s head fell back limply on the blankets and his eyes closed.