145CHAPTER XV“BLACKLEG”
More than once during the next ten minutes Buck cursed himself inwardly for not having brought along the small but powerful pair of field-glasses that were tucked away in his bag. He had picked them up at the Divisional Headquarters only a week or two before the Belleau Woods business, and how they had stuck to him until his arrival in America remained one of the minor mysteries of that vanished year. He would have given anything for them now, for though he could make out fairly well the movements of the two men, he was too far away to distinguish their faces.
Watching closely, he saw that the first fellow was taking down a short section of the fence, either by cutting or by pulling out the staples. When this lay flat he remounted and, joining his companion, the two proceeded to drive through the gap nothing more significant than a solitary steer.
It was a yearling, Buck could easily see even at that distance, and he almost laughed aloud at the sudden let-down of suspense. By this time a little146individual trick of carriage made him suspect that the foremost puncher was Butch Siegrist, and when the men came into clearer view, he recognized scarcely without question the big sorrel with white trimmings on which Kreeger had ridden off that morning. The two men had found a Shoe-Bar stray; that was all. And yet, on second thought, how did they come to be here when they were supposed to be working at the very opposite extremity of the ranch?
It was this query which made Stratton refrain from showing himself. With considerable annoyance, for time was passing, he waited where he was until the two men had gone back through the gap in the fence and restored the wires. He watched them turn northward and ride rapidly across the sandy waste until at length their diminishing figures disappeared into the distance. Even then it was ten or fifteen minutes before he emerged from his seclusion, and when he finally did he headed straight for the young steer, who had been the cause of so much exertion on the part of the two men who ordinarily shirked work whenever they could.
Under the lash of a rope, the animal had lumbered across the pasture for several hundred yards, where he paused languidly to crunch some bunch-grass. There was an air of lassitude and weakness about the creature which made Buck, as he approached, eye it with anxious intentness. A dozen feet or so away147he jerked his horse to a standstill and caught his breath with an odd whistling sound.
“Great Godfrey!” he breathed.
Bending slightly forward in the saddle, he stared at the creature’s badly-swollen off hind leg, but there was no need whatever for a prolonged inspection. Having been through one blackleg epidemic back in Texas, he knew the signs only too well.
“That’s it, sure enough,” he muttered, straightening up.
His gaze swept across the prairie to where, half a mile away, a bunch of Shoe-Bar cattle grazed peacefully. If this sick beast should get amongst them, the yearlings at least, to whom the disease is fatal, would be dying like flies in twenty-four hours. Buck glanced back at the steer again, and as he noted the T-T brand, his face hardened and he began taking down his rope.
“The hellions!” he grated, an angry flush darkening his tan. “They ought to be strung up.”
The animal started to move away, and Buck lost no time in roping him. Then he turned his horse and urged him toward the fence, dragging the reluctant brute behind. Fortunately he had his pliers in the saddle-pocket, and, taking down the wires, he forced the creature through and headed for a deep gully the mouth of which lay a few hundred yards to the left. Penetrating into this as far as he was able, he took148out his Colt and deliberately shot the steer through the head. And if Kreeger or Siegrist had been present at that moment, he was furious enough to treat either of them in the same way without a particle of compunction.
“Hanging would be too good for them, the dirty beasts!” he grated.
The thing had been so fiendishly cold-blooded and calculating that it made his blood boil, for it was perfectly evident now to Buck that he had thwarted a deliberate plot to introduce the blackleg scourge among the Shoe-Bar cattle. Instead of riding fence, the two punchers must have made their roundabout way immediately to the stricken T-T ranch, secured in some manner an infected yearling and brought it back through the twisting mountain trail Bud had spoken of a few days before.
Lynch’s was the directing spirit, of course; for none of the others would dare act save under his orders. But what was his object? What could he possibly hope to gain by such a thing? Buck could understand a man allowing rustlers to loot a ranch, if the same individual were in with them secretly and shared the plunder. But there was no profit in this for anyone—only an infinite amount of trouble and worry and extra work for them all, to say nothing of great financial loss to—Mary Thorne.
When Stratton had secured his rope and rode back149to the Shoe-Bar pasture, his face was thoughtful. He was thinking of those excellent offers for the outfit Miss Thorne had lately spoken of, which Lynch was so anxious for her to accept. Could the foreman’s plotting be for the purpose of forcing her to sell? From something she had let fall, Buck guessed that she was more or less dependent on the income from the ranch, and if this failed she might no longer be able to hold the property.
But even supposing this was true, it all still failed to make sense. The land itself was good enough, as Stratton knew from his former careful inspections, but it would be of little use for any purpose save ranching; and since the value of a cattle-ranch consists largely in the cattle themselves, it followed logically that by reducing the number, by theft, by disease, or any other means, the value would be very much less to a prospective purchaser.
Unable to make head or tail of the problem, Buck finally gave it up for the time being. He put back the fence with care and then headed straight for the ranch. There was no time left for the desired inspection of the north pasture. To undertake it now would mean a much longer delay than he could plausibly explain, and he was particularly anxious to avoid the need of any explanation which might arouse suspicion that the criminal action of the two men had been overseen.150
“If they guessed, they’d be likely to try it again,” he thought, “and another time they might succeed.”
Stratton managed his route so that for the last two miles it took exactly the course he would have followed in returning directly from Las Vegas camp. His plan was further favored by the discovery that none of the men save Bud were anywhere about the ranch-house.
“Gone off to ride fence along with Flint an’ Butch,” Jessup informed him, when Buck located him in the wagon-shed. “Wonder why he’s so awful interested in fences all of a sudden,” he went on thoughtfully. “They’ve been let go all over the ranch till they’re plumb fallin’ to pieces.”
“You’ve got me,” shrugged Stratton. He had been cogitating whether or not to confide in Bud, and finally decided in the negative. It would do no particular good, and the youngster might impulsively let out something to the others. “Why didn’t they take you along, too?”
“I sure wish they had,” Bud answered shortly. “Then I wouldn’t of had to be lookin’ at that all afternoon.”
He straightened from the wagon-body he was tinkering and waved a wrench toward the window behind Stratton. Turning quickly, the latter saw that it looked out on the rear of the ranch-house, where there were a few stunted trees and a not altogether151successful attempt at a small flower-garden. On a rough, rustic bench under one of the trees sat young Manning and Mary Thorne, in earnest conversation.
“Sickening, ain’t it?” commented Bud, taking encouragement from Stratton’s involuntary frown. “I been expectin’ ’em to hold hands any minute.”
Buck laughed, mainly because he was annoyed with himself for feeling any emotion whatever. “You don’t seem to like Mr. Alfred Manning,” he remarked.
“Who would?” snorted Jessup. “He sure gets my goat, with them dude clothes, an’ that misplaced piece of eyebrow on his lip, an’ his superior airs. I wouldn’t of thought Miss Mary was the kind to—”
“Where’s—er—Miss Manning?” broke in Buck, reluctant to continue the discussion.
“Gone in with Mrs. Archer,” Bud explained, “They was both out there a while ago, but I reckon they got tired hangin’ around.”
Stratton turned his back on the dingy window and fell to work on the wagon with Bud.
“Seen Bemis lately?” he asked presently, realizing of a sudden that he had not visited the invalid for several days.
Bud sniffed. “Sure. I was in there this mornin’. He’s outa bed now moochin’ around the room an’ countin’ the hours till he can back a horse.”
“Still got that notion the outfit isn’t safe?”
“I’ll tell the world! He says life’s too short to152take any more chances of bein’ bumped off. Tried to make me believe my turn’ll come next.”
Stratton shrugged his shoulders. “I reckon there isn’t much chance of that. They’re not keen to get the sheriff down on their trail. Well, if he feels like that he wouldn’t be much use here even if we could persuade him to stick.”
About half-past five they decided to call it a day and went down to the bunk-house, through the open door of which Buck presently observed the arrival of the remainder of the outfit. They came from the east, and Kreeger and Siegrist were with them. As Buck expected, the former rode the sorrel with distinctive white markings, while the latter bestrode a nondescript bay. The second of the two riders he had watched that afternoon had been mounted on just such a bay, and if there had been a lingering touch of doubt in Stratton’s mind as to the identity of the two criminals, it remained no longer.
153CHAPTER XVITHE UNEXPECTED
More than once during the following few days, Stratton was forced to a grudging admiration, of Tex Lynch’s cleverness. Even knowing what he did, he failed to detect the slightest sign in either the foreman or his men that they were waiting expectantly for something to happen. The only significant feature was their marked avoidance of the middle pasture. This might readily be accounted for by the fact that the work now lay on the other side of the outfit, but Buck was convinced that their real purpose was to allow the blackleg scourge to gain as great a hold as possible on Shoe-Bar cattle before its discovery.
The cold-blooded brutality of that quiescence made Stratton furious, but it also brought home more effectually than ever the nature of the men he had to deal with. They were evidently the sort to stop at nothing, and Buck had moments of wondering whether or not he was proceeding in the right way to uncover the mystery of their motive.
So far he had really accomplished very little. The154unabated watchfulness of the crowd so hedged in and hampered him that it was quite impossible to do any extended investigating. He still had the power of ending the whole affair at any moment and clearing the ranch of the entire gang. But aside from his unwillingness to humiliate Mary Thorne, he realized that this would not necessarily accomplish what he wanted.
“It would stop their deviltry all right,” he thought “but I might never find out what they’re after. About the only way is to give ’em enough rope to hang themselves, and I’m blowed if I don’t believe I could do that better by leaving the outfit and doing a little sleuthing on my own.”
Yet somehow that did not altogether appeal to him, either. The presence of handsome Alf Manning may have had something to do with Buck’s reluctance to quit the ranch just now, but he would never have admitted it, even to himself. He simply made up his mind to wait a while, at least until he could see what happened when Lynch discovered the failure of his latest plot, and then be governed by circumstances.
In the meantime the situation, so far as Miss Manning, was concerned, grew daily more complicated. She showed a decided inclination for Stratton’s society, and when he came to know her better he found her frank, breezy, and delightfully companionable. He knew perfectly well that unless he wanted to take a155chance of making some tremendous blunder he ought to avoid any prolonged conversation with the lady. But she was so charming that every now and then he flung prudence to the winds—and usually regretted it.
It was not that she said anything definitely disconcerting, but there were occasional hints and innuendoes, and now and then a question which seemed innocent enough but which Stratton found difficult to parry. He couldn’t quite make up his mind whether or not she suspected the truth about his former mental condition, but he had an uncomfortable notion that she sensed a difference and was trying to find out just where it lay.
Time and again he told himself that at the worst there was nothing disgraceful in that vanished past. But he had the ordinary healthy man’s horror for the abnormal, and the very fact that it had vanished so utterly beyond recall made him willing, in order to avoid having it dragged back into the light and made public property, to do almost anything, even to being almost rude to a pretty girl.
Thus between escaping Miss Manning and trying to keep an eye on Lynch, Stratton had his work cut out for him. He knew that sooner or later some one would be sent out to take a look through the middle pasture, and he wanted very much to be on hand when the report came back to Lynch that his plot had156miscarried. It was consequently with very bad grace that Buck received an order to ride in to Paloma one morning for the long-delayed wagon-bolts and a few necessary supplies from the store.
He felt at once that it was a put-up job to get him out of the way. Only yesterday Rick Bemis, able at length to ride that distance, had quit the ranch escorted by Slim McCabe. If anything was really needed the latter could have brought it back and saved the expense of sending another man twenty-four hours later.
But there was no reasonable excuse for Buck’s protesting, and he held his tongue. He wished that he had taken Jessup into his confidence about the blackleg plot, but there was no time for that now. He did manage, on his way to the corral, to whisper a word or two in passing, urging the youngster to take particular note of anything that went on during his absence, but he would have much preferred giving Bud some definite idea of what to look for, and his humor, as he saddled up and left the ranch, was far from amiable.
But gradually, as he rode rapidly along the trail, the crisp, clean air brushing his face and the early morning sun caressing him with a pleasant warmth, his mood changed. After all, it was really of very little moment whether or not he was present when Lynch first learned that things had failed to go his157way. At best he might have had a momentary vindictive thrill at glimpsing the fellow’s thwarted rage; perhaps not even that, for Tex was uncommonly good at hiding his emotions. It was much more important for him to decide definitely and soon about his own future plans, and this solitary ride over an easy, familiar trail gave him as good a chance as he was ever likely to have.
A little straight thinking made him realize—with a half-guilty feeling of having deliberately shut his eyes to it before—that he could not hope to get much further under present conditions. Tied down as he was, a dozen promising clues might pop up, which he would have no chance whatever of investigating. Indeed, looking at the situation in this light, he felt a wonder that Lynch should ever have tried to oust him from the ranch, where he could be kept under constant observation and followed up in every move. Working from the outside, with freedom to come and go as he liked, he could accomplish a vast deal more than in this present hampered fashion. There still remained traces of his vague, underlying reluctance to leave the place at this particular time, but Buck crushed it down firmly, even a little angrily.
“It’s up to me to quit,” he muttered. “I’d be a blooming jackass to waste any more time here. I’ll have to work it naturally, though, or Lynch will smell a rat.”158
At that moment the trail dipped down into a gully—the very one, in fact, where he had passed Tex that first day he had ridden out to the ranch. Thinking of the encounter, Buck recalled his own emotions with a curious feeling of remoteness. The grotesque mental picture he had formed of Mary Thorne contrasted so amusingly with the reality that he grinned and might have broken into a laugh had he not caught sight at that moment of a figure riding toward him from the other end of the gully.
The high-crowned sombrero, abnormally broad of brim, the gaudy saddle-trappings and touches of bright color about the stranger’s equipment, brought a slight frown to Stratton’s face. Apart even from is recent unpleasant associations with them, he had never had any great fondness for Mexicans, whom he considered slick and slippery beyond the average. He watched this one’s approach warily, and when the fellow pulled up with a glistening smile and a polite “Buenas tardes,” Stratton responded with some curtness.
“Fine day, señor,” remarked the stranger pleasantly.
“You’ve said it,” returned Buck drily. “We haven’t had rain in as much as three weeks.”
“Tha’s right,” agreed the other. His glance strayed to the brand on Buck’s cayuse, and his swarthy face took on an expression of pleased surprise. “You come from Shoe-Bar?” he questioned.159
“You’re some mind-reader,” commented Stratton briefly. “What of it?”
“Mebbe yo’ do me favor,” pursued the Mexican eagerly. “Save me plenty hot ride.” He pulled an envelope from the pocket of his elaborately silver-conchoed chaps. “Rocking-R boss, he tell me take thees to Mister Leench at Shoe-Bar. Eef yo’ take heem, I am save mooch trouble, eh?”
Buck eyed the extended envelope doubtfully. Then, ashamed of his momentary hesitation to perform this simple service, he took it and tucked it away in one pocket.
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll take it over for you. I’ve got to go in to town first, though.”
“No matter,” shrugged the Mexican. “There is no hurry.”
With reiterated and profuse thanks, he pulled his horse around and rode back with Stratton as far as the Rocking-R trail, where he turned off.
“He’ll find some corner where he can curl up and snooze for the couple of hours he’s saved,” thought Buck, watching the departing figure. “Those fellows, are so dog-gone lazy they’d sit and let grasshoppers, eat holes in their breeches.”
As he rode on he wondered a little what Jim Tenny, the Rocking-R foreman, could have to do with Lynch, who seemed to be on the outs with everybody, but Presently he dismissed the subject with a shrug.160
“I’ll be getting as bad as Pop if I’m not careful” he thought. “Likely it’s some perfectly ordinary range business.”
He found Daggett in a garrulous mood but was in no humor to waste time listening to his flood of talk and questions. The bolts had come at last, and when he had secured them and the other things from the store, Buck promptly mounted and set out on his return.
Tex met him just outside the corral and received the letter without comment, thrusting it into his pocket unread. He seemed much more interested in the arrival of the bolts, and after dinner set Stratton and McCabe to work in the wagon-shed replacing the broken ones. It was not until late in the afternoon that Buck managed a few words in private with Jessup, and was surprised to learn that the gang had been working all day to the southeast of the ranch. Tex himself had been absent from the party for an hour or two in the morning, but when he joined them he came from the direction of the Paloma trail, and Stratton did not believe he could have had time thoroughly to inspect the middle pasture and return so soon by so roundabout a course.
“He’ll do it to-morrow, sure,” decided Buck. “It isn’t human nature to hold off much longer.”
He was right. After breakfast Stratton and McCabe were ordered to resume work on the wagons,161while the others sallied forth with Lynch, ostensibly to ride fence along the southern side of middle pasture. Buck awaited their return with interest and curiosity. He thought he might possibly detect some signs of glumness in the faces of the foreman and his confederates, but he was quite unprepared for the open anger and excitement which stamped every face, Bud Jessup’s included.
“Rustlers were out again last night,” Bud explained, the moment he had a chance.
Buck stared at him in amazement, the totally unexpected nature of the thing taking him completely by surprise.
“Why I thought—”
“So did I,” interrupted Bud curtly. “I didn’t believe they’d dare break into middle pasture, but they have. There’s a gap a hundred yards wide in the fence, and they’ve got away with a couple of hundred head at least.”
“You’re sure it happened last night?”
“Dead certain. The tracks are too fresh. Buck, if Tex Lynch don’t get Hardenberg on the job now, we’llknowhe’s crooked.”
“We’d pretty near decided that anyhow, hadn’t we?” returned Stratton absently.
He was wondering how this new move had been managed and what it meant. If it had been merely part of a scheme to loot the Shoe-Bar for his own162benefit, Tex would never have allowed his rustler accomplices to touch a steer from that middle pasture herd, which he must feel by this time to be thoroughly and completely infected. Even if he had managed during his brief absence yesterday to make a hurried inspection, and suspected that the blackleg’ plot had failed, he couldn’t be certain enough to take a chance like this.
The foreman’s manner gave Buck no clue. At dinner he was unusually silent and morose, taking no part in the discussion of this latest outrage, which the others kept up with such a convincing semblance of indignation. To Stratton he acted like a man who has come to some new and not altogether agreeable decision, which in any other person would probably mean that he had at last made up his mind to call in the sheriff. But Buck was convinced that this was the last thing Lynch intended to do, and gradually there grew up in his mind, fostered by one or two trifling particulars in Tex’s manner toward himself, a curious, instinctive feeling of premonitory caution.
This increased during the afternoon, when the men were sent out to repair the broken fence, while Lynch remained behind. It fed on little details, such as a chance side glance from one of the men, or the sight of two of them in low-voiced conversation when he was not supposed to be looking—details he would scarcely have noticed ordinarily. Toward the end of163the day Buck had grown almost certain that some fresh move was being directed against himself, and when the blow fell only its nature came as a surprise.
The foreman was standing near the corral when they returned, and as soon as Stratton had unsaddled and turned his horse loose, Lynch drew him to one side.
“Here’s your time up to to-night,” he said curtly, holding out a handful of crumpled bills and silver. “Miss Thorne’s decided she don’t want yuh on the outfit any longer.”
For a moment Stratton regarded the foreman in silence, observing the glint of veiled triumph in his eyes and the malicious curve of the full red lips. The thought flashed through his mind that Lynch would hardly be quite so pleased if he knew how much time Buck himself had given lately to thinking up some scheme of plausibly bringing about this very situation.
“Isthat so?” he drawled presently. “How did you work it?” he added, in the casual tone of one seeking to gratify a trifling curiosity.
Lynch scowled. “Work it?” he snapped. “I didn’t have to work it. Yuh know damn well why you’re sacked. Why should I waste time tellin’ yuh?”
Stratton smiled blandly. “In that case I reckon I’ll have to ask Miss Thorne,” he remarked, standing with legs slightly apart and thumbs hooked loosely in his chap-belt. “I’m rather curious, you know.”164
“Like hell yuh will!” rasped Lynch, as Buck took a step or two toward the house.
Impulsively Lynch’s right hand dropped to his gun but as his fingers touched the stock he found himself staring at the uptilted end of Stratton’s holster frayed a little at the end so that the glint of a blued steel barrel showed through the leather.
“Just move your hand a mite,” Buck suggested in a quiet, level tone, which was nevertheless obeyed promptly. “Now, listen here. I want you to get this. I ain’t longing to stick around any outfit when the boss don’t want me. If the lady says I’m to go, I’ll get outpronto; but I don’t trust you, and she’s got to tell me that face to face before I move a step.Sabe?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and Lynch, crumpling the unheeded money in his hand, stepped aside with an expression of baffled fury and watched him stride along the side of the house and disappear around the corner.
He was far from lacking nerve, but he had suddenly remembered that letter to Sheriff Hardenberg, regarding which he had long ago obtained confirmation from Pop Daggett. If he could rely on the meaning of Stratton’s little anecdote—and he had an uncomfortable conviction that he could—the letter would be opened in case Buck met his death by violence. And once it was opened by the sheriff, only Tex Lynch165how very much the fat would be in the fire.
So, though his fingers twitched, he held his hand, and presently, hearing voices in the living-room, he crept over to an open window and, standing close to one side of it, bent his head to listen.
166CHAPTER XVIITHE PRIMEVAL INSTINCT
On the other side of the house Buck found the mistress of the ranch and her two guests standing in a little group beside one of the dusty, discouraged-looking flower-beds. As he appeared they all glanced toward him, and a troubled, almost frightened expression flashed across Mary Thorne’s face.
“Could I speak to you a moment, ma’am?” asked Stratton, doffing his Stetson.
That expression, and her marked hesitation in coming forward, were both significant, and Buck felt a sudden little stab of anger. Was she afraid of him? he wondered; and tried to imagine what beastly lies Lynch must have told her to bring about such an extraordinary state of mind.
But as she moved slowly toward him, the anger ebbed as swiftly as it had come. She looked so slight and frail and girlish, and he observed that her lips were pressed almost as tightly together as the fingers of those small, brown hands hanging straight at her sides. At the edge of the porch she paused and looked up at him, and though the startled look had gone, he167could see that she was still nervous and apprehensive.
“Should you rather go inside?” she murmured.
Buck flashed a glance at the two Mannings, still within hearing. “If you don’t mind,” he answered briefly.
In the living-room she turned and faced him, her back against the table, on which she rested the tips of her outspread fingers. She was so evidently nerving herself for an interview she dreaded that Buck almost regretted having forced it.
“I won’t keep you a minute,” he began hurriedly. “Tex tells me you have no more use for me here.”
“I’m—sorry,” fell almost mechanically from her set lips.
“But he didn’t tell me why.”
Her eyes, which from the first had scarcely left his face, widened, and a puzzled look came into them.
“But you must know,” she returned a trifle stiffly.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” he assured her.
“Oh—duties!” She spoke with a touch of soft impatience. “It’s what you’ve done, not what you haven’t done that—. But surely this is a waste of time? It’s not particularly—pleasant; and I don’t see what will be gained by going into all the—the details.”
Something in her tone stung him. “Still, it doesn’t seem quite fair to condemn even a common168cow-puncher unheard,” he retorted with a touch of sarcasm.
She stiffened, and a faint flush crept into her face. Then her chin went up determinedly.
“You rode to Paloma yesterday morning.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
“In the gully this side of the Rocking-R trail you met a Mexican on a sorrel horse?”
Again Buck acquiesced, but inwardly he wondered. So far as he knew there had been no witness to that meeting.
“He handed you a letter?”
Buck nodded, a sudden feeling of puzzled wariness surging over him. For an instant the girl hesitated. Then she went on in a soft rush of indignation:
“And so last night those Mexican thieves, warned that the middle pasture would be unguarded, broke in there and carried off nearly two hundred head of cattle!”
As he caught her meaning, which he did almost instantly, Buck flushed crimson and his eyes flashed. For a moment or so he was too furious to speak; and though most of his rage was directed against the man who, with such brazen effrontery, had sought to shift the blame of his own criminal plotting, he could not help feeling resentment that the girl should so readily believe the worst against him. A vehement denial trembled on his lips, but in time he remembered that169he could not utter it without giving away more than he was willing to at the present moment. With an effort he got a grip on himself, but though his voice was quiet enough, his eyes still smoldered and his lips were hard.
“I see,” he commented briefly. “You believe it all, of course?”
She had been watching him closely, and now a touch of troubled uncertainty crept into her face.
“What else can I do?” she countered. “You admit getting the letter from that Mexican, and I saw Tex take it out of your bag.”
This information brought Buck’s lips tightly together and he frowned. “Could I see it—the letter, I mean?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment, and then, reaching across the table, took up the shabby account-book he had seen before and drew from it a single sheet of paper. The note was short and written in Spanish. It was headed, “Amigo Green,” and as Buck swiftly translated the few lines in which the writer gave thanks for information purported to have been given about the middle pasture and stated that the raid would take place that night according to arrangement, his lips curled. From his point of view it seemed incredible that anyone could be deceived by such a clumsy fraud. But he was forced to admit that up to a few weeks ago the girl had never set eyes on him, and knew nothing of170his antecedents, whereas she trusted Lynch implicitly. So he refrained from any comment as he handed back the letter.
“You don’t—deny it?” asked the girl, an undertone of disappointment in her voice.
“What’s the use?” shrugged Stratton. “You evidently believe Lynch.”
She did not answer at once, but stood silent, searching his face with a troubled, wistful scrutiny.
“I don’t know quite what to believe,” she told him presently. “You—you don’t seem like a person who would—who would— And yet some one must have given information.” Her chin suddenly tilted and her lips grew firm. “If you’ll tell me straight out that you’re nothing but an ordinary cow-puncher, that you have no special object in being here on the ranch, that you’re exactly what you seem and nothing more, then I—I’ll believe you.”
Her words banished the last part of resentment lingering in Stratton’s mind. She was a good sort, after all. He found himself of a sudden regarding her with a feeling that was almost tenderness, and wishing very much that he might tell her everything. But that, of course, was impossible.
“I can’t quite do that,” he answered slowly.
The hopeful gleam died out of her eyes, and she made an eloquent, discouraged gesture with both hands.171
“You see? What else can I do but let you go? Unless I take every possible precaution I’ll be ruined by these dreadful thieves.”
Buck moved his shoulders slightly. “I understand. I’m not kicking. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you very much for telling me what you have.”
Abruptly he turned away and in the doorway came face to face with Alfred Manning, who seemed to expect the cow-puncher to step obsequiously aside and let him pass. But Buck was in no humor to step aside for any one, and for a silent instant their glances clashed. In the end it was Manning, flushed and looking daggers, who gave way, and as Stratton passed the open window a moment later he heard the other’s voice raised in an angry pitch.
“Perfectly intolerable! I tell you, Mary, you ought to have that fellow arrested.”
“I don’t mean to do anything of the sort,” retorted Miss Thorne.
“But it’s your duty. He’ll get clean away, and go right on stealing—”
“Please, Alf!” There was a tired break in the girl’s voice. “I don’t want to talk any more about it. I’ve had enough—”
Stratton’s lips tightened and he passed on out of hearing. The encounter with Manning had irritated him, and a glimpse of Lynch he caught through the kitchen door fanned into a fresh glow his smoldering172anger against the foreman. It was not that he minded in the least the result of the fellow’s plotting. But the method of it, the effrontery of that cowardly, insolent attempt to blacken and besmirch him with Mary Thorne, made him more furious each time he thought of it. When he reached the bunk-house his rage was white hot.
He found Jessup the sole occupant. It was still rather early for quitting, and Tex must have set the other men to doing odd jobs around the barns and near-by places.
“What’s happened?” demanded Bud, as Buck appeared. “Tex put me to work oiling harness, but I sneaked off as soon as he was out of sight. I heard Slim say yuh were fired.”
Flinging his belongings together as he talked, Stratton briefly retailed the essentials of the situation.
“I’m going to saddle up and start for town right away,” he concluded. “If I hang around here much longer I don’t know as I can keep my hands off that double-faced crook.”
He added some more man-sized adjectives, to which Bud listened with complete approval.
“Yuh ain’t said half enough,” he growled, from where he stood to the left of the closed door. “I wish yuh would stay an’ give him one almighty173good beating up. He thinks there ain’t a man on the range can stand up against him.”
Buck’s eyes narrowed. “I’d sure like to try,” he said regretfully. “I don’t say I could knock him out, but I’d guarantee to give him something to think about. Trouble is, there’s nothing gained by starting a mess like that except letting off steam, and there might be a whole lot—”
He broke off abruptly as the door swung open to admit Lynch and McCabe. The foreman, pausing just inside the room, eyed Stratton’s preparations for departure with curling lips. As a matter of fact, what he had overheard of the interview between Buck and Mary Thorne had given him the impression that Stratton was an easy mark, whose courage and ability had been greatly overestimated. A more sagacious person would have been content to let well enough alone. But Tex had a disposition which impelled him to rub things in.
“There’s yore dough,” he said sneeringly, flinging the little handful of money on the table with such force that several coins fell to the floor and rolled into remote corners. “Yuh better put it away safe, ’cause after this there ain’t nobody around these parts’ll hire yuh, I’ll tell a man!”
His tone was indescribably taunting, and of a sudden Buck saw red. Dominated by the single-minded174impulse of primeval man to use the weapons nature gave him, he forgot momentarily that he carried a gun. When the two men entered, he had been bending over, rolling his blankets. Since then, save to raise his head, he had scarcely altered his position, and yet, as he poised there motionless, fists clenched, muscles tense, eyes narrowed to mere slits, Lynch suddenly realized that he had blundered, and reached swiftly for his Colt.
But another hand was ahead of his. Standing just behind him, Bud Jessup had sized up the situation a fraction of a second before Tex, and like a flash he bent forward and snatched the foreman’s weapon from its holster.
“Cut that out, Slim!” he shrilled, forestalling a sudden downward jerk of McCabe’s right hand. “No horning in, now. Give it here.”
An instant later he had slammed the door and shot the bolt, and stood with back against it, a Colt in each hand. His freckled face was flushed and his eyes gleamed with excitement.
“Go to it, Buck!” he yelled jubilantly. “My money’s up on yuh, old man. Give him hell!”
Lynch darted out into the middle of the room, thrusting aside the table with a single powerful sweep of one arm. There was no hint of reluctance in his manner, nor lack of efficiency in the lowering droop175of his big shoulders or the way his fists fell automatically into position. His face had hardened into a fierce mask, out of which savage eyes blazed fearlessly.
An instant later, like the spring of a panther, Stratton’s lean, lithe body launched forward.
176CHAPTER XVIIIA CHANGE OF BASE
Stratton staggered back against the wall and leaned there, panting. All his strength had gone out in that last terrific blow, and for a space he seemed incapable of movement. At length, conscious of a warm, moist trickle on his chin, he raised one hand mechanically to his face and brought it away, dabbled with bright crimson. For a moment or two he regarded the stiff, crooked fingers and bruised knuckles in a dazed, impersonal fashion as if the hand belonged to some one else. Then he became aware that Bud was speaking.
“Sure,” he mumbled, when the meaning of the reiterated question penetrated to his consciousness. “I’m—all—right.”
Then his head began to clear, and, slowly straightening his sagging shoulders, he glanced down at the hulking figure sprawling motionless amidst the debris of the wrecked table.
“Is—he—” he began slowly.
“He’s out, that’s all,” stated Jessup crisply.177“Golly, Buck! That was some punch.” He paused, regarding his friend eagerly. “What are yuh goin’ to do now?” he asked.
A tiny trickle of blood from Stratton’s cut lip ran down his chin and splashed on the front of his torn, disordered shirt.
“Wash, I reckon,” he answered, with a twisted twitch of his stiff lips that was meant to be a smile. “I sure need it bad.”
“But I mean after that,” explained Bud. “Don’t yuh want me to saddle up while you’re gettin’ ready? There ain’t no point in hangin’ around till he comes to.”
Buck took a step or two away from the wall and regarded the prostrate Lynch briefly, his glance also taking in McCabe, who bent over him.
“I reckon not,” he agreed briefly. “Likewise, if I don’t get astride a cayuse mighty soon, I won’t be able to climb onto him at all. Go ahead and saddle up, kid, and I’ll be with youpronto. You’d better ride to town with me and bring back the horse.”
Bud nodded and, breaking the Colts one after another, pocketed the shells and dropped the weapons into a near-by bunk.
“Yuh needn’t bother to do that,” commented McCabe sourly. “Nobody ain’t goin’ to drill no holes in yuh; we’re only too tickled to see yuh get out. If you’re wise, kid, you’ll stay away, likewise. I178wouldn’t be in yore shoes for no money when Tex comes around an’ remembers what yuh done?”
“I reckon I can take care of m’self,” retorted Jessup. “It ain’t Tex’s game to be took up for no murder yet awhile.”
Without further comment he gathered up most of Stratton’s belongings and departed for the corral. Buck took his hand-bag and, leaving the cabin, limped slowly down to the creek. He was surprised to note that the encounter seemed to have attracted no attention up at the ranch-house. Then he realized that with the door and windows closed, what little noise there had been might well have passed unnoticed, especially as the men were at work back in the barns.
At the creek he washed the blood from his face and hands, changed his shirt, put a strip of plaster on his cut lip, and decided that any further repairs could wait until he reached Paloma.
When he arrived at the corral Bud had just finished saddling the second horse, and they lost no time making fast Buck’s belongings. The animals were then led out, and Stratton was on the point of mounting when the sound of light footsteps made him turn quickly to find Miss Manning almost at his elbow.
“But you’re not leaving now, without waiting to say good-by?” she expostulated.
Buck’s lips straightened grimly, with a grotesque twisted effect caused by the plaster at the corner.179
“After what’s happened I hardly supposed anybody’d want any farewell words,” he commented with a touch of sarcasm.
Miss Manning stamped her shapely, well-shod foot petulantly. “Rubbish!” she exclaimed. “You don’t suppose I believe that nonsense, do you?”
“I reckon you’re about the only one who doesn’t, then.”
“I’m not. Mrs. Archer agrees with me. She says you couldn’t be a—a thief if you tried. And down in her heart even Mary— But whatever has happened to your face?”
Stratton flushed faintly. “Oh, I just—cut myself against something,” he shrugged. “It’s nothing serious.”
“I’m glad of that,” she commented, dimpling a little. “It certainly doesn’t add to your beauty.”
She was bare-headed, and the slanting sunlight, caressing the crisp waves of hair, revealed an unsuspected reddish glint amongst the dark tresses. As he looked down into her clear, friendly eyes, Buck realized, and not the first time, how very attractive she really was. If things had only been different, if only the barrier of that hateful mental lapse of his had not existed, he had a feeling that they might have been very good friends indeed.
His lips had parted for a farewell word or two when suddenly he caught the flutter of skirts over by the180corner of the ranch-house. It was Mary Thorne, and Buck wondered with an odd, unexpected little thrill, whether by any chance she too might be coming to say good-by. Whatever may have been her intention, however, it changed abruptly. Catching sight of the group beside the corral fence, she stopped short, hesitated an instant, and then, turning square about, disappeared in the direction she had come. As he glanced back to Stella Manning, Buck’s face was a little clouded.
“We’ll have to be getting started, I reckon,” he said briefly. “Thank you very much for—for seeing me off.”
“But where are you going?”
“Paloma for to-night; after that I’ll be hunting another job.”
The girl put out her hand and Stratton took it, hoping that she wouldn’t notice his raw, bruised knuckles. He might have spared himself the momentary anxiety. She wasn’t looking at his fingers.
“Well, it’s good-by, then,” she said, a note of regret underlying the surface brightness of her tone. “But when you’re settled you must send me a line. We were such good pals aboard ship, and I haven’t enough friends to want to lose even one of them. Send a letter here to the ranch, and if we’re gone, Mary will forward it.”181
Buck promised, and swung himself stiffly into the saddle. As he and Bud rode briskly down the slope, he turned and glanced back for an instant. Miss Manning stood where they had left her, handkerchief fluttering from her upraised hand, but Stratton scarcely saw her. His gaze swept the front of the ranch-house, scrutinizing each gaping, empty window and the deserted porch. Finally, with a faint sigh and a little shrug of his shoulders, he mentally dismissed the past and fell to considering the future.
There was a good deal yet to be talked over and decided, and when he had briefly detailed to Bud the various happenings he was still ignorant of, Buck went on to outline his plans.
“There are several things I want to look into, and to do it I’ve got to be on the loose,” he explained. “At the same time I don’t want Lynch to get the idea I’m snooping around. What sort of a fellow is this Tenny, over at the Rocking-R?”
“He’s white,” returned Bud promptly. “No squarer ranch-boss around the country. I’d of gone there instead of the Shoe-Bar, only they was full up. What was yuh thinkin’ of—bracin’ him for a job?”
“Not exactly, though I’d like Lynch to think I’d been taken on there. Do you suppose, if I put Tenny wise to what I was after, that he’d let me have a cayuse and pack-horse, and stake me to enough grub182to keep me a week or two in the mountains back of the Shoe-Bar?”
“He might, especially when he knows you’re buckin’ Tex; he never was much in love with Lynch.” Jessup paused, eyeing his companion curiously. “Say, Buck,” he went on quickly, “What makes yuh so keen about this, anyhow? Yuh ain’t no deputy sheriff, or anythin’ like that, are yuh?”
For a moment Stratton was taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question. He had come to regard Jessup and himself so completely at one in their desire to penetrate the mystery of Lynch’s shady doings that it had never occurred to him that his intense absorption in the situation might strike Bud as peculiar. It was one thing to behave as Bud was doing, especially as he frankly had the interest of Mary Thorne at heart, and quite another to throw up a job and plan to carry on an unproductive investigation from a theoretical desire to bring to justice a crooked foreman whom he had never seen until a few weeks ago.
“Why, of course not,” parried Buck. “What gave you that notion?”
“I dunno exactly. I s’pose mebbe it’s the way you’re plannin’ to give yore time to it without pay or nothin’. There won’t be a darn cent in it for yuh, even if yuh do land Tex in the pen.”183
“I know that,” and Buck smiled; “but I’m a stubborn cuss when I get started on anything. Besides, I love Tex Lynch well enough to want to see him get every mite that’s comin’ to him. I’ve got a little money saved up, and I’ll get more fun spending it this way than any other I can think of.”
“There’s somethin’ in that,” agreed Jessup. “Golly, Buck! I wisht I could go along with yuh. I never was much on savin’, but I could manage a couple of weeks without a job.”
Stratton hesitated. “I’d sure like it, kid,” he answered. “It would be a whole lot pleasanter for me, but I’m wondering if you wouldn’t do more good there on the Shoe-Bar. With nobody at all to cross him, there’s no tellin’ what Lynch might try and pull off. Besides, it seems to me somebody ought to be there to sort of look after Miss—” He broke off, struck by a sudden possibility. “You don’t suppose he’ll get really nasty about what you—”
“Hell!” broke in Bud sharply. “I wasn’t thinking about that. He’ll be nasty, of course, but he can’t go more than so far. I reckon you’re right, Buck. Miss Mary oughtn’t to be left there by herself.”
“Of course, there’s Manning—”
Bud disposed of the aristocratic Alfred with a forceable epithet which ought to have made his ears burn.184“Besides, that bird ain’t goin’ to stay forever, I hope,” he added.
This settled, they passed on to other details, and by the time they reached Paloma, everything had been threshed out and decided, including a possible means of communication in case of emergency.
Ravenously hungry, they sought the ramshackle hotel at once, and though it was long after the regular supper hour, they succeeded in getting a fair meal cooked and served. Concluding that it would be pleasanter all around to give Lynch as much time as possible to recover from his spleen, Bud decided to defer his return to the ranch until early morning. So when they had finished eating, they walked down to the store to arrange for hiring one of Daggett’s horses again. Here they were forced to spend half an hour listening to old Pop’s garrulous comments and the repeated “I told you so,” which greeted the news of Stratton’s move before they could tear themselves away and turn in.
They were up at dawn, ate a hurried breakfast, and then set out along the trail. Where the Rocking-R track branched off they paused for a few casual words of farewell, and then each went his way. A few hundred yards beyond, Buck turned in his saddle just in time to see Jessup, leading Stratton’s old mount, ride briskly into a shallow draw and disappear.185
He had a feeling that he was going to miss the youngster, with his cheerful optimism and dependable ways; but he felt that at the most a few weeks would see them together again. Fortunately for his peace of mind, he had not the least suspicion of the circumstances which were to bring about their next meeting.