Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 23

"You h.e.l.lion!" he gasped, as Lynch's purpose flashed on him in all its horror. "You d.a.m.ned 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 hara.s.sed 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 att.i.tudes 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 a.s.surance 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 att.i.tude 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 b.u.t.tress 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, pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.tress 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s," 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 b.u.t.tress 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.