Shoe-Bar Stratton

by Ames, Joseph Bushnell

  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, she dismounted 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, long 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?”

  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, and 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.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXIII

  WHERE THE WHEEL TRACKS LED

  Bud Jessup removed a battered stew-pan from the fire and set it aside to cool a little.

  “Well, by this time I reckon friend Tex is all worked up over what’s become of me,” he remarked in a tone of satisfaction, deftly shifting the coffee-pot to a bed of deeper coals. “He’s sure tried often enough to get rid of me, but I don’t guess he quite relishes my droppin’ out of sight like this.”

  Buck Stratton, his back resting comfortably against a rock a little way from the fire, nodded absently.

  “You’re sure you didn’t leave any trace they could pick up?” he asked with a touch of anxiety.

  “Certain sure,” returned Jessup confidently. “When Miss Mary came in around four, I was in the wagon-shed, the rest of the crowd bein’ down in south pasture. Like I told yuh before, she had a good-sized package all done up nice in her hand, an’ it didn’t take her long to tell me what was up. Then we walks out together an’ stops by the kitchen door.

  “‘Yuh better get yore supper at the hotel,’ she says, an’ ride back afterwards. ‘I meant to send in right after dinner to mail the package, but I got held up out on the range.’

  “Then she seems to catch sight of the greaser for the first time jest inside the door, though I noticed him snoopin’ there when we first come up.

  “‘I hope yuh got somethin’ left from dinner, Pedro,’ she says, with one of them careless natural smiles of hers, like as if she hadn’t a care on her mind except food. ‘I’m half starved.’”

  Bud sighed and finished with a note of admiration. “Some girl, all right!”

  “You’ve said it,” agreed Buck fervently.

  His appearance had improved surprisingly in the ten days that had passed since his accident. The head-bandage was gone, and his swollen ankle, though still tender at times, had been reduced to almost normal size by constant applications of cold water. His body was still tightly strapped up with yards and yards of bandage, which Mary Thorne had thoughtfully packed, with a number of other first-aid necessities, in the parcel which was Bud’s excuse for making a trip to town.

  Stratton was not certain that a rib had been broken after all. When Jessup came to examine him he found the flesh terribly bruised and refrained from any unnecessary prodding. It was still somewhat painful to the touch, but from the ease with which he could get about, Buck had a notion that at the worst the bone was merely cracked.

  “They wouldn’t be likely to notice where you left the Paloma trail, would they?” Buck asked, after a brief retrospective silence.

  “Not unless they’re a whole lot better trackers than I think for,” Jessup assured him. “I picked a rocky place this side of the gully, an’ cut around the north end of middle pasture, where the land slopes down a bit, an’ yuh can’t be seen from the south more ’n a quarter of a mile. I kept my eyes peeled, believe me! an’ didn’t glimpse a soul all the way. I wouldn’t fret none about their followin’ me here.”

  “I reckon it is foolish,” admitted Stratton. “But lying around not able to do anything makes a fellow think up all kinds of trouble. Lynch isn’t a fool, and there’s no doubt when you didn’t come back that night he’d begin to smell a rat right off.”

  “Sure. An’ next day he likely sent in to town, where he’
d find out from old Pop that I never showed up there at all. After that, accordin’ to my figgerin’, he’d be up against it hard. Yuh can bank on Miss Mary playin’ the game, an’ registerin’ surprise an’ worry an’ all the rest of it. There ain’t a chance in the world of his thinkin’ to look for me here.”

  “I reckon that’s true. Of course we’ve got to remember that so far as he knows I’m out of the way for good.”

  Bud took up coffee-pot and stew-pan and set them down beside Stratton, where the rest of the meal was spread.

  “Sure,” he chuckled, dropping down against the ledge. “Officially, you’re a corpse. That’s yore strong point, old-timer. By golly!” he added, with a sudden, fierce revulsion of spirit. “I only hope I’ll be on hand when he gets what’s comin’ to him, the damn’, cowardly skunk!”

  “Maybe you will,” commented Buck grimly. “Well, let’s eat. Seems like I do nothing but eat and sleep and loaf around. I’ve a good notion to bust up the monotony,” he added, after a few minutes had passed in the silent consumption of food, “and take that trip to north pasture to-morrow.”

  “Don’t be loco,” Bud told him hastily. “Yuh ain’t fit for nothin’ like that yet.”

  “I did it a few days ago,” Stratton reminded him, “and I’m feeling a hundred per cent. better now.”

  “Mebbe so; but what’s the use in takin’ chances? We got plenty of time.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” Buck said seriously. “You say that Lynch thinks I’m dead and out of the way. Well, maybe he does; but unless he’s a lot bigger fool than I think for, he’s not going to leave a body around in plain sight for anybody to find. He’ll be slipping down into that gulch one of these days to get rid of it, and when he finds there ain’t any body—then what?”

  “He’ll begin to see he’s got into one hell of a mess, I reckon,” commented Jessup.

  “Right. And he’ll be willing to do anything on earth to crawl out safe. Like enough he’ll connect your disappearance with the business, and that would worry him more than ever. He might even get scared enough to throw up the whole game and beat it; and believe me, that wouldn’t suit me at all.”

  “Yuh said a mouthful!” snarled Jessup. “If that hellion should get away—Say, Buck, why couldn’t yuh get him for attempted murder?”

  “I might, but the witnesses are all on his side, and there’d be a good chance of his slipping out. Besides, I’m set on finding out first what his game is. I’m dead certain now it’s connected somehow with the north pasture, and I’ve an idea it’s something big. That car I told you about, and everything—Well, there’s no sense guessing any longer when we can make a stab at finding out. We’ll start the first thing to-morrow.”

  Bud made no further protest, and at dawn next morning they left camp and set out northward through the hills. It was a slow journey, and toward the end of it Buck felt rather seedy. But this was only natural, he told himself, after lying around and doing nothing; and he even wished he had made the move sooner.

  Both he and Jessup were conscious of a growing excitement as they neared the goal from which circumstances had held them back so long. Were they going to find out something definite at last? Or would fate thrust another unexpected obstacle in their way? Above all, if fortune proved kind, what would be the character of their discovery?

  Immensely intrigued and curious, Bud chattered constantly throughout the ride, suggesting all sorts of solutions of the problem, some of which were rather far-fetched. Gold was his favorite—as it has been the favorite lure for adventurers all down the ages—and he drew an entrancing picture of desert sands sprinkled with the yellow dust. He thought of other precious metals, too, and even gave a passing consideration to a deposit of diamonds or some other precious or semi-precious stones. Once he switched off oddly on the subject of prehistoric remains, and Stratton’s surprised inquiry revealed the fact that three years ago he had worked for a party of scientific excavators in Montana.

  “Them bones and skeletons as big as houses bring a pile of money, believe me!” he assured his companion. “The country up there ain’t a mite different from this, neither.”

  Buck himself was unusually silent and abstracted. During the last ten days of enforced idleness he had considered the subject for hours at a time and from every conceivable angle, with the result that a certain possibility occurred to him and persisted in lingering in his mind, in spite of its seeming improbability. It was so vague and unlikely that he said nothing about it to Bud; but now, mounting the steep trail, the thought of it came back with gathering strength, and he wondered whether it could possibly be true.

  Advancing with every possible precaution, they gained the summit and passed on down the other side. Before them lay the desert, glittering and glowing in the morning sun, without a sign of alien presence. Keeping a sharp lookout, they reached the little, half-circular recess in the cliffs that formed the end of the trail, and paused.

  No rain had fallen in the last ten days and the print of motor-tires was almost as clear and unmistakable as the day it had been made. They could make out easily where the car had been driven in, the footprints about it, and the marks left by its turning; and with equal lack of difficulty they picked out the track made as it departed.

  The latter headed north, but Stratton was not interested in it. Without hesitation he selected the incoming trail, and the two followed it out into the desert. For a few hundred yards they rode almost due east. Then the wheel-marks turned abruptly to the south, and a little further on Buck noted the prints of a galloping horse beside them.

  “Lynch, I reckon,” he commented, pointing them out to his companion. “When he saw me up on the cliffs down yonder, he must have hustled to catch up with the car.”

  Neither of them spoke again until they reached the spot where Buck had seen the car stop and the men get out and walk about. Here they dismounted and followed the footprints with careful scrutiny. Bud saw nothing significant, and when they had covered the ground thoroughly, he expressed his disappointment freely. Stratton merely shrugged his shoulders.

  “We’ll follow the back track and see where else they stopped,” he said curtly.

  His voice was a little hoarse, and there was an odd gleam in his eyes. When they were in the saddle again, he urged his horse forward at a speed which presently brought a protest from Jessup.

  “Yuh better take it easy, old man,” he cautioned. “If that cayuse steps in a hole, you’re apt to get a jolt that’ll put you out of business.”

  “I don’t guess it’ll hurt me,” returned Stratton with preoccupied brevity.

  Bud gave a resigned shrug, and for ten minutes the silence remained unbroken. Then all at once Buck gave a muttered exclamation and pulled his horse up with a jerk.

  They were on the rim of a wide, shallow depression in the sand. There was nothing remarkable about it at first sight, save, perhaps, the total absence of desert vegetation for some distance all around. But Stratton slid hastily out of his saddle, flung the reins over Pete’s head, and walked swiftly forward. Thrilled with a sudden excitement and suspense, Bud followed.

  “What is it?” he questioned eagerly, as Buck bent down to scoop up a handful of the trampled sand. “What have yuh—”

  He broke off abruptly as Stratton turned suddenly on him, eyes dilated and a spot of vivid color glowing on each cheek-bone.

  “Don’t you see?” he demanded, thrusting his hand toward the boy. “Don’t you understand?”

  Staring at the open palm, Jessup’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

  “Good Lord!” he gasped. “You don’t mean that it—it’s—”

  He paused incredulously, and Buck nodded.

  “I’m sure of it,” he stated crisply.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE SECRET OF NORTH PASTURE

  Jessup swallowed hard. “But—but—” he faltered, “there ain’t never been any found around here. The nearest fields are hundreds of miles away, ai
n’t they?”

  Stratton dropped the lump of sand. A number of particles still clung to his palm, and over the skin there spread an oily, slightly iridescent film. His manner had suddenly grown composed, though his eyes still shone with suppressed excitement.

  “Just the same, it’s—oil!” he returned quietly. “There’s no doubt at all about it. Look at the ground there.”

  Mechanically Bud’s glance shifted to the wide, shallow depression in the desert. The sand was noticeably darker, and here and there under the sun’s rays, it held that faintly iridescent glint that was unmistakable. At a distance he would have said there was a spring somewhere beneath the surface. But no water ever had that look, and now that he was prepared for it he even noticed a faint, distinctive odor in the air.

  “By golly!” he cried excitedly. “You mean to say the whole pasture’s full of it?”

  “Not likely, but it looks to me as if there was a-plenty. There were traces back there where we stopped, and there’s no telling how many more—”

  “But I didn’t see nothin’,” interrupted Bud in surprise.

  “You weren’t looking for it, that’s why,” shrugged Stratton. “I was. Thinking it all over this past week, I got to wondering if oil might not just possibly be what we ought to look for. I was so doubtful I didn’t say anything about it. Like you said, nobody’s ever struck it anywhere around these parts, but I reckon you never can tell.”

  “Wough!” Bud suddenly exploded in a tremendous exhalation of breath. “I can’t seem to get it through my nut. Why, it means a fortune for Miss Mary! No wonder that skunk tried his best to do her out of it.”

  Buck stared at him oddly. A fortune for Mary Thorne! Somehow, until this moment he had not realized that this must seem to every one to be the object of his efforts—to rid Mary Thorne of all her cares and troubles and bring her measureless prosperity. Ignorant of Stratton’s identity and of all the circumstances of her father’s treachery and double-dealing, she must hold that view herself. The thought disturbed Buck, and he wondered uncomfortably what her feelings would be when she learned the truth.