CHAPTER XIV
THE LADY FROM THE PAST
Stratton's first feeling was that the girl must have made a mistake. In adazed fashion he stepped forward and helped her out of the buckboard, butthis was a more or less mechanical action and because she so evidentlyexpected it. As he took her hand she pressed it warmly and did not at oncerelinquish it after she had reached the ground.
"I'm awfully glad to see you again," she said, her color heightened alittle. "But how on earth do you come to be away off here?"
With an effort Buck pulled himself together. He could see that the menwere regarding him curiously, and felt that he must say something.
"That's simple enough," he answered briefly. "I've got a job on thisranch."
She looked slightly puzzled. "Really? But I thought--I had no idea youknew--Mary."
"I didn't. I needed a job and drifted in here thinking I'd find a friendof mine who used to work on the same outfit in Texas. He was gone, butMiss Thorne took me on."
"You mean you're a regular cow-boy?" the girl asked in surprise. "Why, younever told me that aboard ship?"
A sudden chill swept over Stratton, and for a moment he was strickenspeechless. Aboard ship! Was it possible that this girl had been part ofthat uncanny, vanished year, the very thought of which troubled andoppressed him. His glance desperately evaded her charming, questioningeyes and rested suddenly with a curious cool sense of relief on the faceof Mary Thorne, who had come up unperceived from behind.
But as their eyes met Buck was conscious of an odd veiled expression intheir clear depths which vaguely troubled him. It vanished quickly as MissThorne moved quickly forward to embrace her friend.
"Stella!" she cried. "I'm so awfully glad to see you."
There were kisses and renewed embracings; the young man was greeted moredecorously but with almost equal warmth, and then suddenly Miss Thorneturned to Stratton, who stood back a little, struggling between a longingto escape and an equally strong desire to find out a little more aboutthis attractive but startling reminder of his unknown past.
"I had no idea you knew Miss Manning," she said, with the faintest hint ofstiffness in her manner.
Buck swallowed hard but was saved from further embarrassment by the girl.
"Oh, yes!" she said brightly. "We came home on the same ship. Mr. Greenhad been wounded, you know, and was under my care. We got to be--greatfriends."
Was there a touch of meaning in the last two words? Stratton preferred tolay it to his imagination, and was glad of the diversion caused by theintroduction of the young man, who proved to be Miss Manning's brother.Buck was not at all impressed by the fellow's handsome face, athleticfigure, and immaculate clothes. The clothes especially seemed ridiculouslyout of place for even a visitor on a ranch, and he had always detestedthose dinky half-shaved mustaches.
Meanwhile the trunks had been carried in and the team led away, and Pedrowas peevishly complaining from the kitchen door that dinner was gettingcold. Buck learned that the visitors were from Chicago, where they hadbeen close friends of the Thorne family for years, and then he managed tobreak away and join the fellows in the kitchen.
During the meal there was a lot of more or less quiet joking on thesubject of Stratton's acquaintance with the lady, which he managed toparry rather cleverly. As a matter of fact the acute horror he felt at thevery thought of the truth about himself getting out, quickened his witsand kept him constantly on his guard. He kept his temper and his head,explaining calmly that Miss Manning had been one of the nurses detailed tolook after the batch of wounded men of whom he had been one. Naturally hehad seen considerable of her during the long and tedious voyage, but therewere one or two others he liked equally well.
His careless manner seemed to convince the men that there was noparticular amusement to be extracted from the situation, and to Buck'srelief they passed on to a general discussion of strangers on a ranch, thebother they were, and the extra amount of work they made.
"Always wantin' to ride around with yuh an' see what's goin' on," declaredButch Siegrist sourly. "If they're wimmin, yuh can't even give a cusswithout lookin' first to see if they're near enough to hear."
Stratton made a mental resolution that if anything of that sort came up,he would do his best to duck the job of playing cicerone to Miss StellaManning, attractive as she was. So far his bluff seemed to have worked,but with a mind so entirely blank of the slightest detail of theiracquaintance, he knew that at any moment the most casual remark mightserve to rouse her suspicion.
Fortunately, his desire to remain in the background was abetted by TexLynch. Whether or not the foreman wanted to keep him away from theranch-owner's friends as well as from Miss Thorne herself, Buck could notquite determine. But while the fence-repairing progressed, Stratton wasnever by any chance detailed to other duties which might keep him in theneighborhood of the ranch-house, and on the one occasion when Miss Thorneand her guests rode out to where the men were working, Lynch saw to itthat there was no opportunity for anything like private conversationbetween them and the object of his solicitude.
Buck watched his manoeuvering with secret amusement.
"Wouldn't he be wild if he knew he was playing right into my hands?" hethought.
His face darkened as he glanced thoughtfully at the departing figure ofMiss Manning. She had greeted him warmly and betrayed a very evidentinclination to linger in his vicinity. There had been a slight touch ofpique in her treatment of Lynch, who hung around so persistently.
"I wish to thunder I had an idea of how much she knows," he muttered. "DidI act like a brainless idiot when I was--was that way, or not?"
He had asked the same question of the hospital surgeon and got anunsatisfactory answer. It all depended, the doctor told himnon-committally. He might easily have shown evidences of lost memory; onthe other hand, it was quite possible, especially with chanceacquaintances, that his manner had been entirely normal.
There was nothing to be gained, however, by racking his brain forsomething that wasn't there, and Buck soon gave up the attempt. He couldonly trust to luck and his own inventiveness, and hope that Lynch'sdelightfully unconscious easing of the situation would continue.
The work was finished toward noon on the third day after the arrival ofthe Mannings, and all the connections hooked up. There remained nothing todo but test the line, and Tex, after making sure everything was in order,glanced over his men, who lounged in front of the Las Vegas shack.
"Yuh may as well stay down at this end," he remarked, looking at Buck,"while the rest of us go back. Stick around where yuh can hear the bell,an' if it don't ring in, say, an hour, try to get the house yourself. Ifthat don't work, come along in an' report. I reckon everything's allright, though."
Stratton was conscious of a sudden sense of alertness. He had grown soused to suspecting and analyzing everything the foreman said or did thatfor a moment he forgot the precautions he had taken and wondered whetherLynch was up to some new crooked work. Then he remembered and relaxedmentally. Considering the consequences, Tex would hardly dare try anyfresh violence against him, especially quite so soon. Besides, in broaddaylight and in this open country, Buck couldn't imagine any form ofdanger he wouldn't be able to meet successfully alone.
So he acquiesced indifferently, and from the open doorway of the hutwatched the others mount and ride away. There were only four of them, forKreeger and Butch Siegrist had been dispatched early that morning to ridefence on the other side of the ranch-house. When they were well on theirway, Buck untied his lunch from the saddle and went into the shack to eatit.
In spite of the feeling that he had nothing to fear, he took a positionwhich gave him a good outlook from both door and window, and saw that hisgun was loose in the holster. After he had eaten, he went down and got adrink from the creek. He had not been back in the shack a great whilebefore the telephone bell jangled, and taking down the receiver he heardLynch's voice at the other end.
Owing to the rather crude nature of the contrivan
ce there was a good dealof buzzing on the line. But this was to be expected, and when Tex hadtalked a few minutes and decided that the system was working as well ascould be hoped, he told Stratton to come in to the ranch, and hung up.
Buck had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile across the prairie, whenall at once he pulled his horse to a standstill. The thought had suddenlycome to him that this was the chance he had wanted so long to take a lookat that mysterious stretch of desert known as the north pasture. He wouldbe delayed, of course, but explanations were easy and that did not disturbhim. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and without delay he turnedhis horse and spurred forward.
An instinct of caution made him keep as close as possible to the rough,broken country that edged the western extremity of the ranch, where hewould run less chance of being seen than on the flat, open plain. Hepushed his horse as much as was wise, and presently observed withsatisfaction--though it was still a good way off--the line of fence thatmarked the northern boundary of middle pasture.
A few hundred yards ahead lay a shallow draw, and beyond it a weather-wornridge thrust its blunt nose out into the plain considerably further thanany Buck had yet passed. He turned the horse out, intending to ride aroundit, but a couple of minutes later jerked him to a standstill and satmotionless in the saddle, eyes narrowing with a sudden, keen surprise.
He had reached a point where, for the first time, he could make out, overthe obstruction ahead, the extreme northwest corner of the pasture. Almostat the spot where the two lines of fence made a right angle were twohorsemen in the typical cow-man attire. At first they stood closetogether, but as Stratton stared intently, rising a little in his stirrupsto get a clearer view through the scanty fringe of vegetation that toppedthe ridge, one of them rode forward and, dismounting, began to manipulatethe fence wires with quick, jerky movements of his hands.
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