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.
“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 altogether successful 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 to take 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.
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
THE 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. The unabated 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 a chance 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 had miscarried. It was consequently with very bad gra
ce 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 his way. 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.”
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.
“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.
“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, while 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’ll know he’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 own benefit, 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 si
lent 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 of the 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.
“Is that 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?”
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