Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 18

"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 gra.s.shoppers, 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 d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.l 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 _p.r.o.nto_; 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 a.s.sured her.