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 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 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, senor," 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 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 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?"

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."

"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 out pronto; 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 Lynch how 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.



CHAPTER XVII

THE 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, he could 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 common cow-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 that he 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 of his 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.

"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 smoldering anger 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 almighty good 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-minded impulse 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 droop of 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.



CHAPTER XVIII

A 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. "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 you pronto. 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. I wouldn'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.

"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 the corner 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."

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 grub to 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."

"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. "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.

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.



CHAPTER XIX

THE MYSTERIOUS MOTOR-CAR

Buck took to Jim Tenny at once. There was something about this long, lean, brown-faced foreman of the Rocking-R, with his clear gray eyes and that half-humorous twist to his thin lips, which inspired not only confidence but liking as well. He listened without comment to Buck's story, which included practically everything save the revelation of his own identity; but once or twice, especially at the brief mention of the fight in the bunk-house, his eyes gleamed with momentary approval. When Buck told about the blackleg incident his face darkened and he spoke for the first time.

"Seems like yuh had him there," he said briefly. "That job alone ought to land him in the pen."

Buck nodded. "I know; but I'm afraid he couldn't be convicted on my evidence alone. Kreeger and Siegrist fixed up a pretty decent alibi, you see, and it would only be my word against theirs. Even the carcass of the beast wouldn't help much. They'd say it wandered through the pass by itself, and I suppose there's one chance in a thousand it could have."

"Damned unlikely, though," shrugged Tenny.

"Sure; but the law's that way. You've got to be dead certain. Besides, if he was pulled in for that we might never find out just what's at the bottom of it all. That's the important thing, and if I can only get a line on what he's up to, we'll land him swift enough, believe me!"

Warned by Bud's unexpected question the evening before that he must have a more plausible motive for following up the case, Buck had coolly appointed himself one of Jim Hardenberg's deputies. He hinted that rumors of the cattle-stealing had reached the sheriff, who, debarred from taking up the matter openly by the absence of any complaint from the owner of the Shoe-Bar, had dispatched Stratton on a secret investigation. The process of that investigation having disclosed evidences of rascality of which the rustling was but a minor feature, Stratton's desire to probe the mystery to the bottom seemed perfectly natural, and the need for secrecy was also accounted for. The only risk Buck ran was of Tenny's mentioning the matter to Hardenberg himself, and that seemed slight enough. At the worst it would merely mean anticipating a little; for if he did succeed in solving the problem of Tex Lynch's motives, the next and final step would naturally be up to the sheriff.

"I get yuh," said Tenny, nodding. "That's true enough. Well, what do you want me to do?"

Buck told him briefly, and the foreman's eyes twinkled.

"That's some order," he commented.

"I'd pay you for the stock and grub, of course," Stratton assured him; "and at least put up a deposit for the cayuses."

"Oh, that part ain't frettin' me none. I reckon I can trust yuh. I was thinkin' about how I could stall off Lynch in case he comes around askin' questions. Yuh want he should get the idea I hired yuh?"

"I thought it would ease his mind and give him the notion I was safe for a while," smiled Stratton. "Of course you could say I tried for a job but you were full up."

"That would be easier," agreed Tenny. "I could keep my mouth shut, but I couldn't guarantee about the boys. They wouldn't say nothin' a-purpose, but like as not if they should meet up with one of that slick crowd at the Shoe-Bar they'd let somethin' slip without thinkin'. On the other hand, it sure would make him a mite careless if he thought yuh was tied down here on a reg'lar job."

He paused reflectively; then suddenly his eyes brightened.

"I got it," he chuckled. "I'll send you down to help Gabby Smith at Red Butte camp. That's 'way to hell and gone down at the south end of the outfit, where nobody goes from here more'n about once in six months. Gabby's one of these here solitary guys that's sorta soured on the world in gen'al, an' don't hardly open his face except to take in grub, but yuh can trust him. Jest tell him what yuh want and he'll do it, providin' yuh don't hang around the camp too long. Gabby does hate company worse'n a dose of poison."

Tenny lost no time in carrying out his plans. He hunted out a few simple cooking-utensils and enough canned goods and other stores to last two weeks, picked a pack-animal and a riding horse, and by dinner-time had everything ready for Buck to start immediately afterward.

The six or seven cow-punchers who responded to the gong presented a marked and pleasant contrast to the Shoe-Bar outfit. They greeted Stratton with some brevity, but after the first pangs of hunger had been assuaged and they learned where he was bound for, they expanded, and Buck was the object of much joking commiseration on the prospect before him.

"You'll sure have one wild time," grinned a dark-haired, blue-eyed youngster called Broncho. "Gabby's about as sociable as a rattler. I wouldn't change places with yuh for no money."

No one seemed to suspect any ulterior motive beneath the plan, and when Buck rode off about one o'clock, leading his pack-horse, his spirits rose insensibly at the ease with which things seemed to be working out.

He reached Red Butte camp in a little more than three hours and found the adobe shack deserted. It was similar in size and construction to Las Vegas, but there all likeness ceased, for the interior was surprisingly comfortable and as spick-and-span as the Shoe-Bar line camp was cluttered and dirty. Everything was so immaculate, in fact, that Buck had a moment of hesitation about flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor, and banished his scruples mainly because he had never heard of a cow-man dropping them anywhere else.

Gabby appeared about an hour later, a tall, stooping man of uncertain middle age, with a cold eye and a perpetual, sour droop to his lids. At the sight of Buck the sourness became accentuated and increased still more when he observed the ashes on the floor. His only reply to Stratton's introduction of himself was a grunt and Buck lost no time in easing the fellow's mind of any fear of a prolonged spell of company.

Even then Gabby's gloom scarcely lightened. He listened, however, to Stratton's brief explanation and in a few gruff words agreed that in the unlikely event of any inquiry he would say that the new hand was off riding fence or something of the sort. Then he swept out the offending ashes and proceeded methodically to get supper, declining any assistance from his visitor.

His manner was so dispiriting that Buck was thankful when the silent meal was over, and even more so an hour later to spread his blankets in one of the spare bunks and turn in. His relief at getting away early the next morning was almost as great as Gabby's could be to see him go.

It was late in the afternoon, after a careful circuit of the southern end of the Shoe-Bar, that Buck reached the foothills. Bud had told him of a spring to the northwest of Las Vegas camp, but the rough traveling decided him to camp that night on the further side of the creek. In the morning he went on through a wilderness of arroyos, canyons, and gullies that twisted endlessly between the barren hills, and made him realize how simple it would be for any number of men and cattle to evade pursuit in this wild country.

Fortunately Jessup's directions had been explicit, and toward noon Buck found the spring at the bottom of a small canyon and proceeded to unpack and settle down. Bud himself had discovered the place by accident, and as far as Stratton could judge it was not a likely spot to be visited either by the Shoe-Bar hands or their Mexican confederates. A wide, overhanging ledge provided shelter for himself, and there was plenty of forage in sight for the two horses. Taken all in all, it was as snug a retreat as any one could wish, and Buck congratulated himself on having such safe and secluded headquarters from which to carry on his investigations.

These first took him southward, and for five days he rode through the hills, traversing gullies and canyons, and spying out the whole country generally, in a systematic effort to find the route taken by the rustlers in driving off their booty.

Once he found the spot where they had taken to the hills, the rest was comparatively simple. There were a number of signs to guide him, including the bodies of two animals bearing the familiar brand, and he succeeded in tracing the thieves to a point on the edge of a stretch of desert twenty miles or more below the Shoe-Bar land. About twelve miles beyond lay another range of hills, which would give them cover until they were within a short distance of the border.

"A dozen good fellows stationed here," thought Stratton, critically surveying the gully behind him, "would catch them without any trouble. There's no other way I've seen of getting out with a bunch of cattle."

Having settled this point to his satisfaction, Buck's mind veered swiftly—with an odd sense of relief that now at last he could investigate the matter seriously—to the other problem which had stirred his curiosity so long.

When his attention was first attracted to the north pasture by Bud's account of Andrew Thorne's tragic death, its connection with the mystery of the ranch seemed trivial. But for some reason the thing stuck in his mind, returning again and again with a teasing persistence and gaining each time in significance. From much thinking about it, Buck could almost reconstruct the scene, with its familiar, humdrum background of bawling calves, lowing mothers, dust, hot irons, swearing, sweating men, and all the other accompaniments of the spring branding. That was the picture into which Thorne had suddenly ridden, his face stamped with an excitement in marked contrast to his usual phlegmatic calm. In his mind's eye Stratton could see him clutch Tex Lynch and draw him hastily to one side, could imagine vividly the low-voiced conversation that followed, the hurried saddling of a fresh horse, and the swift departure of the two northward—to what?

Buck had asked himself that question a hundred times. Three hours had passed before the return of Lynch alone, with the shocking news—time enough to ride twice the distance to north pasture and back again. Where had the interval been passed, and how?

Stratton realized that they might easily have changed their direction, once they were out of sight of the men. They might have gone eastward toward the ranch-house—which they had not—or westward into the mountains. Once or twice Buck considered the possibility of the old man's having stumbled on a rich lode of precious metal. But as far as he knew no trace of gold had ever been found in these mountains. Moreover, though Lynch was perfectly capable of murdering his employer for that knowledge, his next logical move would have been an immediate taking up of the claims, instead of which he remained quietly on the ranch to carry on his slow and secret plotting.

Stratton long ago dismissed that possibility. There remained only the north pasture, and the longer he considered it the more he became convinced that Thorne had met his death there, and that the chances were strong that somewhere in those wastes of worthless desert land lay the key to the whole enthralling mystery.

Buck was so eager to start his investigations that it irked him to have to spend the few remaining hours of the afternoon in idleness. But as he knew that the undertaking would take a full day or even longer, he possessed his soul with patience and made arrangements for an early start next morning.

The dawn was just breaking when he left camp mounted on Pete, the Rocking-R horse that he had found so reliable in the rough country. The simplest and most direct way would have been to descend to level ground and ride along the edge of the Shoe-Bar land. But he dared not take any chances of being observed by Lynch or his gang, and was forced to make a long detour through the hills.

The way was difficult and roundabout. Frequently he was turned back by blind canyons or gullies which had no outlet, and there were few places where the horse could go faster than a walk. To Buck's impatient spirit it was all tiresome and exasperating, and he had moments of wondering whether he was ever going to get anywhere.

Finally, about the middle of the afternoon, he was cheered for the first time by an unexpected glimpse of his goal. For several miles he had been following a rough trail which wound around the side of a steep, irregular hill. Coming out abruptly on a little plateau, with the tumbled rocks rising at his back, there spread out suddenly before him to the east a wide, extended sweep of level country.

At first he could scarcely believe that the sandy stretch below him was the north pasture he was seeking. But swiftly he realized that the threadlike line a little to the south must be the fence dividing the desert from the fertile portions of the Shoe-Bar, and he even thought he recognized the corner where the infected steer had been driven through. With an exclamation of satisfaction he was reaching for his field-glasses when of a sudden a strange, slowly-moving shape out in the desert caught his attention and riveted it instantly.

For a few seconds Buck thought his eyes were playing tricks. Amazed, incredulous, forgetting for an instant the field-glasses in his hand, he stared blankly from under squinting lids at the incredible object that crawled lurchingly through the shimmering, glittering desert atmosphere.

"I'm dotty!" he muttered at length. "It can't be!"

Then, remembering the glasses, he raised them hastily to his eyes and focused them with a twist or two of practised fingers.

He was neither crazy nor mistaken. Drawn suddenly out of its blurred obscurity by the powerful lenses, there sprang up before Buck's eyes, sharp and clear in every detail, a big gray motor-car that moved slowly but steadily, with many a bump and sidewise lurch, diagonally across the cactus-sprinkled desert below him.



CHAPTER XX

CATASTROPHE

The discovery galvanized Stratton into instant, alert attention. Motor-cars were rare in this remote range country and confined almost solely to the sort of "flivver" which is not entirely dependent on roads. The presence in the north pasture of this powerful gray machine, which certainly did not belong in the neighborhood, was more than significant, and Buck tried at once to get a view of the occupants.

In this he was not successful. There were three of them, one in the driver's seat and two others in the tonneau. But the top prevented more than a glimpse of the latter, while the cap and goggles of the chauffeur left visible only a wedge of brick-red, dust-coated skin, a thin, prominent nose and a wisp of wiry black mustache.

One thing was certain—the fellow knew his job. Under his masterly guidance the big car plowed steadily through the clogging sand, avoiding obstructions or surmounting them with the least possible expenditure of power, never once stalled, and, except for a necessary slight divergence now and then, held closely to its northwesterly course across the desert.

Buck, who had driven under the worst possible battle-front conditions, fully appreciated the coaxing, the general manoeuvering, the constant delicate manipulation of brake and throttle necessary to produce this result. But his admiration of the fellow's skill was swiftly swallowed up in eager curiosity and speculation.

Who were they? What were they doing here? Where were they going? At first he had a momentary fear lest they should see him perched up here on his point of vantage. Then he realized that the backing of rocks prevented his figure from showing against the skyline, which, together with the distance and the clouds of dust stirred up by the car itself, made the danger almost negligible. So he merely dismounted and, leaning against his horse, kept the glasses riveted on the slowly moving machine.

The car advanced steadily until it reached a point about a quarter of a mile from the rough ground and a little distance north of where Buck stood. Then it stopped, and a capped and goggled head was thrust out of the tonneau. Buck could make out nothing definite about the face save that it was smooth-shaven and rather heavy-jowled. He was hoping that the fellow would alight from the car and show himself more plainly but to his disappointment the head was presently drawn back and the machine crept on, swerving a little so that it headed almost due north.

Ten minutes later it halted again, and this time the two men got out and walked slowly over the sand. Both were clad in long dust-coats, and one seemed stouter and heavier than the other. Unfortunately they were too far beyond the carrying power of the binoculars to get anything more clearly, and Buck swore and fretted and strained his eyes in vain. After a delay of nearly an hour, he saw the car start again, and followed its blurred image until it finally disappeared beyond an out-thrust spur well to the northward.

Stratton lowered his glasses and stood for a moment or two rubbing his cramped arm absently. His face was thoughtful, with a glint of excitement in his eyes. Presently his shoulders straightened resolutely.

"Anyhow, I can follow the tracks of the tires and find out what they've been up to," he muttered.

The difficulty was to descend from his rocky perch, and it proved to be no small one. He might have clambered down the face of the cliff, but that would mean abandoning his horse. In the end he was forced to retrace his steps along the twisting ledge by which he had come.

From his knowledge of the country to the south, Buck had started out with the idea that it would be simple enough to reach the flats through one of the many gullies and canyons that fringed the margin of the hills further down. He had not counted on the fact that as the range widened it split into two distinct ridges, steep and declivitous on the outer edges, with the space between them broken up into a network of water-worn gullies and arroyos.

"I ought to have known from the look of the north pasture that all the water goes the other way," he grumbled. "Best thing I can do is to head for that trail Bud spoke of that cuts through to the T-T ranch. It can't be so very far north."

It wasn't, as the crow flies, but Buck was no aviator. He was forced to take a most tortuous, roundabout route, and when he finally emerged on the first passable track heading approximately in the right direction, the sun was low and there seemed little chance of his accomplishing his purpose in the few hours of daylight remaining.

Still, he kept on. At least he was mapping out a route which would be easily and swiftly followed another time. And if darkness threatened, he could return to his little camp through the open Shoe-Bar pastures, where neither Lynch nor his men were at all likely to linger after dusk.

The trail followed a natural break in the hills and, though not especially difficult under foot, was twisting and irregular, full of sharp descents and equally steep upward slopes. Buck had covered about two miles and was growing impatient when he came to the hardest climb he had yet encountered and swung himself out of the saddle.

"No use killing you, Pete, to save a little time," he commented, giving the horse's sweaty neck a slap. "I'd like to know how the devil those two ever drove a steer through here."

It did seem as if this must have been uncommonly difficult. The trail curved steeply around the side of a hill, following a ledge similar to the one Buck had taken earlier in the afternoon with such interesting results. There was width enough for safety, but on one side the rocks rose sharply to the summit of the hill, while on the other there was a sheer drop into a gulch below, which, at the crown of the slope, must have been fifty or sixty feet at least.

Leading the horse, Buck plodded on in a rather discouraged fashion until he had covered about three-quarters of the distance to the top. Then of a sudden his pace quickened, as a bend in the trail revealed hopeful glimpses of open spaces ahead. It was nothing really definite—merely a falling away of the hills on either side and a wide expanse of unobstructed sky beyond, but it made him feel that he was at last coming out of this rocky wilderness. A moment or two later he gained the summit of the slope and his eyes brightened as they rested on the section of sandy, cactus-dotted country spread out below him.

A dozen feet ahead the trail curved sharply around a rocky buttress, which hid the remainder of it from view. In his eagerness to see what lay beyond, Stratton did not mount but led his horse over the short stretch of level rock. But as he turned the corner, he caught his breath and jerked back on Pete's reins.

By one of those freaks of nature that are often so surprising, the trail led straight down to level ground with almost the regularity of some work of engineering. At the foot of it stood the gray motor-car—empty!

The sight of it, and especially that unnatural air of complete desertion, instantly aroused in Buck a sense of acute danger. He turned swiftly to retreat, and caught a glimpse of a figure crouching in a little rocky niche almost at his elbow.

There was no time to leap back or forward; no time even to stir. Already the man's arm was lifted, and though Stratton's hand jerked automatically to his gun, he was too late.

An instant later something struck his head with crushing force and crumpled him to the ground.

* * * * *

When Buck began to struggle out of that black, bottomless abyss of complete oblivion, he thought at first—as soon as he could think at all—that he was lying in his bunk back at the Shoe-Bar. What gave him the idea he could not tell. His head throbbed painfully, and his brain seemed to swim in a vague, uncertain mist. A deadly lassitude gripped him, making all movement, even to the lifting of his eyelids, an exertion too great to be considered.

But presently, when his brain had cleared a little, he became aware of voices. One in particular seemed, even in his dreamlike state, to sting into his consciousness with a peculiar, bitter instinct of hatred. When at length he realized that it was the voice of Tex Lynch, the discovery had a curiously reviving effect upon his dazed senses. He could not yet remember what had happened, but intuitively he associated his helplessness with the foreman's presence, and that same instinct caused him to make a desperate attempt to understand what the man was saying. At first the fellow's words seemed blurred and broken, but little by little their meaning grew clearer to the injured man.

"... ain't safe ... suspects somethin' ... snoopin' around ever since ... thought he was up to somethin' ... saw him up on that ledge watchin' yuh ... dead sure. I had a notion he'd ride around to this trail, 'cause it's the only way down to north pasture. I tell yuh, Paul, he's wise, an' he'll spill the beans sure. We got to do it."

"I don't like it, I tell you!" protested a shrill, high-pitched voice querulously. "I can't stand blood."

"Wal, all yuh got to do is go back to the car an' wait," retorted Lynch. "I ain't so partic'lar. Besides," his tone changed subtly, "his head's smashed in an' he's sure to croak, anyhow. It would be an act of kindness, yuh might say."

"I don't like it," came again in the shrill voice. "I'd—hear the shot. I'd know what you were doing. It would be on my—my conscience. I'd dream— If he's going to—to die, as you say, why not just—leave him here?"

An involuntary shudder passed over Stratton. It had all come back, and with a thrill of horror he realized that they were talking about him. They were discussing his fate as calmly and callously as if he had been a steer with a broken leg. A feeble protest trembled on his lips, but was choked back unuttered. He knew how futile any protest would be with Tex Lynch.

"Yeah!" the latter snarled. "An' have somebody come along an' find him! Like as not he'd hang on long enough to blab all he knows, an' then where would we be? Where would we be even if somebody run acrost his body? I ain't takin' no chances like that, I'll tell the world!"

"But isn't there some other way?" faltered the high-pitched voice.

In the brief pause that followed, Stratton dragged his lids open. He was lying where he had fallen at the curve in the trail. Tex Lynch stood close beside him. A little beyond, leaning against the rocky cliff, was a bulky figure in a long dust-coat. He had pushed up his motor-goggles and was wiping his forehead with a limp handkerchief. His round, fat face, with pursed-up lips and wide-open light-blue eyes, bore the expression of a fretful child. On his left was a lean, thin-faced fellow with a black mustache who looked scared and nervous. There was no sign of the third person who had been in the car, and even at this crucial moment Buck found time to observe the absence of his horse, Pete, and wondered momentarily what had become of him.

"Yuh an' Hurd go back to the car." Lynch broke the silence in a tone of sudden decision. "I'll tend to this business, an' there won't be no shootin' neither. Hustle, now! We ain't got any time to lose."

Again Buck shuddered, and there pulsed through him that tremendous and passionate instinct for self-preservation which comes to every man at such a time. What Tex meant to do he could not guess, but he knew that if he were left alone with the fellow he might as well give up all hope. He was weak as a cat, and felt sure that no appeal from him would move Lynch a particle. His only chance lay with the fat man and his companion, and as the two turned away, Buck tried his best to call out after them.

The only result was an inarticulate croak. Lynch heard it, and instantly dropping on his knees, he clapped one hand over Stratton's mouth. In spite of Buck's futile struggles, he held it there firmly while the two men moved out of sight down the trail. His face, which still bore the fading marks of Buck's fists, was a trifle pale, but hard and determined, and in his eyes triumph and a curious, nervous shrinking struggled for mastery.

But as the moments dragged on leaden wings, not a word passed his tight lips. Presently he glanced swiftly over one shoulder. An instant later Buck's lips were freed, and he felt the foreman's hands slipping under his body.

"You hellion!" he gasped, as Lynch's purpose flashed on him in all its horror. "You damned cowardly hound!"

As he felt himself thrust helplessly toward the precipice, Buck made a tremendous, despairing effort and managed to catch Lynch by the belt and clung there for a moment. When one hand was torn loose, he even struck Tex wildly in the face. But there was no strength in his arm, and Lynch, with a growl of rage, jerked himself free and sprang to his feet.

For an instant he towered over his helpless enemy, white-faced and hesitating. Then Stratton caught the hard impact of his boot against his side, and felt the edge of the rock slipping horribly beneath him. Powerless to help himself, his clutching fingers slid despairingly across the smooth surface. A blinding ray of sunlight dazzled him for an instant and vanished; the mountain trail flashed out of sight. His heart leaped, then sank, with a tremendous, poignant agony that seemed to tear him into shreds. Then blackness seemed to rush out of the gulch to enfold him in an impenetrable cloud of merciful oblivion.



CHAPTER XXI

WHAT MARY THORNE FOUND

A few hundred yards away from the fence strung along the western side of middle pasture, Mary Thorne pulled her horse down to a walk and straightened her hat mechanically. Her cheeks were flushed becomingly and her eyes shone, but at the end of that sharp little canter much of the brightness faded and her face clouded.

For the last week or more it had grown increasingly difficult to keep up a cheerful front and prevent the doubts and troubles which harassed her from causing comment. This morning she had reached the limit of suppression. Stella got on her nerves more than usual; Alf annoyed her with his superior air and those frequent little intimate mannerisms which, though unnoticed during all the years of their friendship, had lately grown curiously irksome to the girl. Even Mrs. Archer's calm placidity weighed on her spirits, and when that happened Mary knew that it was high time for her to get away by herself for a few hours and make a vigorous effort to recover her wonted serenity of mind.

She told herself that she was tired and jaded, and that a solitary ride would soothe her ragged nerves. And so, at the first opportunity after breakfast, she slipped quietly away, saddled her favorite horse, Freckles, and leaving word with Pedro that she would be back by dinner-time, departed hastily.

It was rather curious behavior in a girl usually so frank and open, and free from even a suspicion of guile, but she deliberately gave the Mexican an impression that she was going to join the men down in south pasture, and as long as she remained within sight of the ranch-house she kept her horse headed in that direction. Furthermore, before abruptly changing her course to the northwest, she pulled up and glanced sharply around to make certain she was not observed.

As a matter of fact one of the things which had lately puzzled and troubled her was a growing impression of surveillance. Several times she had surprised Pedro or his wife in attitudes which seemed suspiciously as if they had been spying. McCabe, too, and some of the other men were inclined to pop up when she least expected them. Indeed, looking back on the last two weeks she realized how very little she had been alone except in the close confines of the ranch-house. If she rode forth to inspect the work or merely to take a little canter, Tex or one of the punchers was almost sure to join her. They always had a good excuse, but equally always they were there; and though Mary Thorne had not the remotest notion of the meaning of it all, she had grown convinced that there must be some hidden motive beneath their actions, and the thought troubled her.

Tex Lynch's altered manner gave her even greater cause for anxiety. It would have been difficult to put into words exactly where the change lay, but she was sure that there was a difference. Up to a short time ago she had regarded him impersonally as merely an efficient foreman whom she had inherited from her father along with the ranch. She did so still, but she could not remain blind to the fact that the man himself was deliberately striving to inject a more intimate note into their intercourse. His methods were subtle enough, but Mary Thorne was far from dull, and the alteration in his manner made her at once indignant and a little frightened.

"I suppose it's silly to feel that way, especially with Alf here," she murmured as she reached the fence and swung herself out of the saddle. "But I do wish I hadn't taken his word about—Buck Green."

She took a small pair of pliers from her saddle-pocket and deftly untwisted the strands of wire from one of the posts, while Freckles looked on with an expression of intelligent interest. When the gap was opened in the fence, he walked through and waited quietly on the other side until the wire had been replaced. It was not the first time he had done this trick, for the trail through the mountains was a favorite retreat of the girl's. She had discovered it long ago, and returned to it frequently, through her own private break in the fence, especially on occasions like this when she wanted to get away from everybody and be quite alone.

Having remounted and headed northward along the edge of the hills, her thoughts flashed back to the discharged cow-puncher, and her brow puckered. The whole subject affected her in a curiously complicated fashion. From the first she had been conscious of having done the young man an injustice. And yet, as often as she went over their final interview in her mind—which was not seldom—she did not see how she could have done otherwise. Her woman's intuition told her over and over again that he could not possibly be a common thief; but if this was so, why had he refused her the simple assurance she asked for?

That was the stumbling-block. If he had only been frank and open, she felt that she would have believed him, even in the face of Lynch's conviction of his guilt, though she was frank enough to admit that the foreman's attitude would probably have influenced her much more strongly a week ago than it did at present. It was this thought which brought her mind around to another of her worries.

Not only did she intensely dislike Lynch's present manner toward herself, but there had lately grown up in her mind a vague distrust of the man generally. She could not put her finger on anything really definite. There were moments, indeed, when she wondered if she was not a silly little fool making bogies out of shadows. But the feeling persisted, growing on unconsidered trifles, that Tex was playing at some subtle, secret game, of the character of which she had not even the most remote conception.

"But if that's so—if he can't be trusted any longer," she said aloud, stung by a sudden, sharp realization of the gravity of such a situation, "what am I to do?"

Of his own accord Freckles had turned aside into the little curved depression in the cliffs and was plodding slowly up the trail. Staring blindly at the rough, ragged cliffs and peaks ahead of her, the girl was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. If Lynch failed her, what could she do? Whom could she turn to for help or even for counsel? There was Alf Manning, but Alf knew nothing whatever of range conditions, and besides neither he nor Stella expected to stay on indefinitely. Her mind ranged swiftly over other more or less remote possibilities, but save for a few distant cousins with whom they had never been on intimate terms, she could think of no one. She even considered for a moment Jim Tenny of the Rocking-R, whom she had met and liked, or Dr. Blanchard, but a sudden reviving burst of spirit caused her quickly to dismiss the thought.

"They'd think I was a silly, hysterical idiot," she murmured. "Why, I couldn't even tell them what I was afraid of. I wonder if it can possibly be just nerves? It doesn't seem as if—"

She broke off abruptly and tightened on her reins. Freckles had carried her over the summit of the trail and had almost reached the hollow on the other side, formed by the bottom of a gully that crossed the path. Mary had once explored it and knew that to the left it deepened into a gloomy gulch that hugged the cliff for some distance and then curved abruptly to the south. So far as she knew, it led nowhere, and yet, to her astonishment, not a hundred feet away a saddled horse, with bridle-reins trailing, stood cropping the leaves of a stunted mesquite.

"That's funny," she said aloud in a low tone.

As she spoke the horse threw up his head and stared at her, ears pointed inquiringly. When Freckles nickered, the strange animal gave an answering whinny, but did not move.

Puzzled and a little nervous, Mary glanced sharply to right and left amongst the scattered rocks. In her experience a saddled horse meant that the owner was not far away; but she could see no signs of any one, and at length, taking courage from the silence, she rode slowly forward.

As she came closer the horse backed away a foot or two and half turned, exposing a brand on his shoulder. The girl stared at it with a puckered frown, wondering what on earth any one from the Rocking-R was doing here. Then her glance strayed to the saddle, flittered indifferently over cantle and skirts, to pause abruptly, with a sudden keen attention, on the flap of the right-hand pocket, which bore the initials "R. S." cut with some skill on the smooth leather.

With eyes widening, the girl bent forward, studying the flap intently. She was not mistaken; the initials were R. S., and in a flash there came back to her a memory of that afternoon, which seemed so long ago, when she and Buck Green rode out together to the south pasture. She had noticed those initials then on his saddle-pocket, and knowing how unusual it was for a cow-man to touch his precious saddle with a knife, she made some casual comment, and learned how it had come into Buck's possession.

What did it mean? What was he doing here on a Rocking-R horse? Above all, where was he?

Suddenly her heart began to beat unevenly and her frightened eyes stared down the gulch to where an out-thrust buttress provokingly hid the greater part of it from view. Her glance shifted again to the horse, who stood motionless, regarding her with liquid, intelligent eyes, and for the first time she noticed that the ends of the trailing reins were scratched and torn and ragged.

How still the place was! She fumbled in her blouse, and drawing forth a handkerchief, passed it mechanically over her damp forehead. Then abruptly her slight figure straightened, and tightening the reins she urged Freckles along the rock-strewn bottom of the gulch.

The distance to the rocky buttress seemed at once interminable and incredibly short. As she reached it she held her breath and her teeth dug into her colorless lips. But when another section of the winding gorge lay before her, silent, empty save for scattered boulders and a few scanty bits of stunted vegetation, one small, gloved hand fluttered to her breast, then dropped, clenched, against the saddle-horn.

A rounded mass of rock, fallen in ages past from the cliffs above, blocked her path, and mechanically the girl reined Freckles around it. An instant later the horse stopped of his own accord, and the girl found herself staring down with horror-stricken eyes at the body of a man stretched out on the further side of the boulders. Motionless he lay there, a long length of brown chaps and torn, disordered shirt. His face was hidden in his crooked arms; the tumbled mass of brown hair was matted with ominous dark clots. But in that single, stricken second Mary Thorne knew whom she had found.

"Oh!" she choked, fighting desperately against a wave of faintness that threatened to overwhelm her. "O-h!"

Slowly the man's face lifted, and two bloodshot eyes regarded her dully through a matted lock of hair that lay stiffly plastered against his forehead. With a curious, stealthy movement, one hand twisted back to his side and fumbled there for an instant. Then the man groaned softly.

"I forgot," he mumbled. "It's gone. You—you've got me this time, I reckon."

Face drained to paper-white and lips quivering, Mary Thorne slid out of her saddle, steadied herself against the horse for a second, and then dropped on her knees beside him.

"Buck!" she cried in a shaking voice. "You—you're hurt! What—what is it?"

A puzzled look came into his face, and as he stared into the wide, frightened hazel eyes so close to his, recognition slowly dawned.

"You!" he muttered. "What—How—"

She twined her fingers together to stop their trembling. "I was riding through the pass," she told him briefly. "I saw your horse and I—I was—afraid—"

A faint gleam came into the bloodshot eyes. "My—my horse? You mean a—a Rocking-R cayuse?"

"Yes."

He tried to sit up, but the effort turned him so white that the girl cried out protestingly.

"You mustn't. You're badly hurt. I—I'll ride back for help." She sprang to her feet. "But first I must get you water."

He stared at her as one regards a desert mirage. "Water!" he repeated unbelievingly. "You know where—If you could—"

A sudden moisture dimmed her eyes, but she winked it resolutely back. "There's a little spring the other side of the trail," she explained. "You lie quietly and I'll be back in just a minute."

Stumbling in her haste, she turned and ran past the buttress and on toward the trail. Not a hundred feet beyond, a tiny spring bubbled up in the rocks, and dropping down beside it, the girl jerked the pins from her hat and let the cool water trickle into the capacious crown of the Stetson. It seemed to take an eternity to fill, but at length the water ran over the brim, and carefully guarding her precious burden, she hurried back again.

The man was watching for her—eagerly, longingly, with an underlying touch of apprehensive doubt, as if he half feared to find her merely one of those dreamlike phantoms that had haunted him through the long, painful hours. As the girl sank down beside him, there was a look in his eyes that sent a strange thrill through her and caused her hands to tremble, sending a little stream of water trickling over the soggy hat-brim to the ground.

She steadied herself resolutely and bending forward held the hat against Buck's lips. As he plunged his face into it and began to suck up the water in great, famished gulps, the girl's lips quivered, and her eyes, resting on the matted tangle of dark hair, filled with sudden tears.



CHAPTER XXII

NERVE

With a deep sigh, Buck lifted his face from the water and regarded her gratefully.

"That just about saved my life," he murmured.

Mary Thorne carefully set down the improvised water-bucket, its contents much depleted, and taking out her handkerchief, soaked it thoroughly.

"I'm awfully stupid about first aid," she said. "But your head must be badly cut, and—"

"Don't," he protested, as the moist bit of cambric touched his hair. "You'll spoil it."

"As if that mattered!" she retorted. "Just rest your head on your arms; it'll be easier."

With deft, gentle touches, she cleaned away the blood and grime, parting his thick hair now and then with delicate care. Her hands were steady now, and having steeled herself for anything, the sight of a jagged, ugly-looking cut on his scalp did not make her flinch. She even bent forward a little to examine it more closely, and saw that a ridge of clotted blood had temporarily stopped its oozing.

"I think I'd better let it alone," she said aloud. "I might start it bleeding again. How—how did it happen?"

Buck raised his head and regarded her with a slow, thoughtful stare.

"I fell off the cliff back there," he replied at length.

Her eyes widened. "You—fell off the cliff!" she gasped. "It's a wonder— But is this the only place you're hurt?"

His lips twisted in a grim smile. "Oh, no! I've got a sprained ankle and what feels like a broken rib, though it may be only bruises. But as you're thinking, I'm darned lucky to get off alive. I must have struck a ledge or something part way down, but how I managed from there I haven't the least idea."

Hands clenched together in her lap, she stared at him in dismay.

"I thought perhaps you might be strong enough in a little while to ride back with me to the ranch. I—I could help you mount, and we could go very slowly. But of course that's impossible. I'd better start at once and bring back some of the men."

She made a move to rise, but he stopped her with a quick, imperative gesture. "No, you mustn't," he said firmly. "That won't do at all. I can't go to the ranch." He paused, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. "You may not have guessed it, but Lynch and I don't pull together at all," he finished, with a whimsical intonation.

"But surely that wouldn't make any difference—now!" she protested.

"Only the difference that he'd have me just where he wanted me," he retorted. He was regarding her with a steady, questioning stare, and presently he gave a little sigh. "I'll have to tell you something I didn't mean to," he said. "In my opinion Tex Lynch is pretty much of a scoundrel. He knows I know it, and there isn't anything he wouldn't do to shut my mouth—for good."

To his amazement, instead of showing the indignation he expected, the girl merely stared at him in surprise.

"What!" she cried. "You believe that, too?"

"I'm sure of it. But I thought you trusted—"

"I don't any longer." She was surprised at the immensity of the relief that surged over her at this chance to unburden her soul of the load of perplexity and trouble which harassed her. "For a long time I haven't—There've been a number of things. I still haven't an idea of what it's all about, but—"

"I'm mighty glad you feel that way," Buck said, as she paused. "I'm not quite sure myself just what he's up to, but I believe I'm on the right trail." Very briefly he told her of the steps he had taken since leaving the Shoe-Bar. "You see how impossible it would be to trust myself in his power again," he concluded.

For a moment or two Mary Thorne sat silent, regarding him with a curious expression.

"So that was the reason," she murmured at length.

His eyes questioned her mutely, and a slow flush crept into her face.

"The reason you—you couldn't say you had no—special object in being on the Shoe-Bar," she explained haltingly. "I'm—sorry I didn't understand."

"I couldn't very well tell you without running the risk of Lynch's finding out. As it happened, I was trying my best to think up a reasonable excuse for leaving the outfit to do some investigating from this end, so you really did me a good turn."

"Investigating what? Haven't you any idea what he's up to?"

Buck hesitated. "A very little, but it's too indefinite to put into words just yet. I've a feeling I'll get at the bottom of it soon, though, and then I'll tell you. In the meantime, when you go back, don't breathe a word of having seen me, and on no account let any one persuade you to—sell the outfit."

She stared at him with crinkled brows. "But what are you going to do now?" she asked suddenly, her mind flashing back to the present difficulty.

He dragged himself into a sitting posture. He was evidently feeling stronger and looked much more like himself.

"Try and get back to that camp of mine I told you of," he explained. "I reckon I'll have to lay up there a while, but there's food a-plenty, and a good spring, so—"

"But I don't believe you can even stand," she protested. "And if your ribs are broken—"

"Likely it's only one and I can strap that good and tight with a piece of my shirt or something. Then if you could catch Pete and bring him over here, I'll manage to climb into the saddle some way. It's only three or four miles, and the going's not so very bad."

She made no further protest, but her lips straightened firmly and there was a look of decision in her girlish face as she set about helping him with his preparations.

It was she who tore a broad band from his flannel shirt, roughly fringed the ends with Buck's knife and tied it so tightly about his body that he had hard work to keep from wincing. She insisted on bandaging his head, and while he rested in the shade went back into the gulch to look for his hat and the Colt that had fallen from his holster.

She finally found them both under a narrow ledge that thrust out a dozen feet below the edge of the trail. A stunted bush, rooted deep in some hidden crevice, grew up before it, and, staring upward at it, the girl guessed that to this little bush alone Buck owed his life. He had been able to give her no further details of his descent, but she saw that it would be possible for a man to crawl along the narrow ledge to where another crossed it at a descending angle, and thence gain the bottom of the gulch.

"I wonder how he ever came to fall," she murmured, remembering how wide the trail was at the summit.

Returning, however, she asked no questions. In the face of what lay before her, the matter seemed trivial and unimportant. She caught the Rocking-R horse without much trouble and led him back to a broad, flat boulder on which Buck had managed to crawl. Obliged to hold the animal, whose slightest movement might prove disastrous, she could give no further aid, but was forced to stand helpless, watching with troubled, sympathetic eyes the man's painful struggles to gain the saddle. When at last he succeeded and slumped there, mouth twisted and face bathed in perspiration, her knees were shaking and she felt limp and nerveless.

"We'll stop at the spring first for more water," she said, pulling herself together with an effort.

Too exhausted for speech, Buck merely nodded, and the girl, gathering up Freckles's bridle in her other hand, led the two horses slowly toward the trail. At the spring Buck drank deeply of the water she handed him, and seemed much refreshed.

"That's good," he murmured, with an effort to straighten his bent body. "Well, I reckon I'd better be starting. I—I can't thank you enough for all you've done, Miss—Thorne. It was mighty plucky—"

"You mustn't waste your strength talking," she interrupted quietly. "Just tell me which way to go, and we'll start."

"We?" he repeated sharply. "But you're not going."

"Of course I am. Did you think for a moment I'd let you take that ride alone?" She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. "You'd be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don't make difficulties. I'm going with you, and that's an end of it."

Perhaps the firmness of her manner made Buck realize the futility of further protest, or possibly he was in no condition to argue. At all events he gave in, and when the girl swung herself into the saddle, the slow journey began.

To Mary Thorne the memory of it remained ever afterward in her mind a chaotic medley of strange emotions and impressions, vague yet vivid. At first, where the width of the trail permitted it, she rode beside him, making an effort to talk casually and lightly, yet not too constantly, but continually keeping a watchful eye on the drooping figure at her right, whose hands presently sought and gripped the saddle-horn.

When they left the trail for rougher ground, 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 canyon 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 canyon, 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."