Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 26

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

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

"Don't be loco," Bud told him hastily. "Yuh ain't fit for nothin' like that yet."

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

"Mebbe so; but what's the use in takin' chances? We got plenty of time."

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

"He'll begin to see he's got into one h.e.l.l of a mess, I reckon," commented Jessup.

"Right. And he'll be willing to do anything on earth to crawl out safe.

Like enough he'll connect your disappearance with the business, and that would worry him more than ever. He might even get scared enough to throw up the whole game and beat it; and believe me, that wouldn't suit me at all."

"Yuh said a mouthful!" snarled Jessup. "If that h.e.l.lion should get away--Say, Buck, why couldn't yuh get him for attempted murder?"

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

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

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

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

"Them bones and skeletons as big as houses bring a pile of money, believe me!" he a.s.sured his companion. "The country up there ain't a mite different from this, neither."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We'll follow the back track and see where else they stopped," he said curtly.

His voice was a little hoa.r.s.e, and there was an odd gleam in his eyes.

When they were in the saddle again, he urged his horse forward at a speed which presently brought a protest from Jessup.

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

"I don't guess it'll hurt me," returned Stratton with preoccupied brevity.

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

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

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

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

"Don't you see?" he demanded, thrusting his hand toward the boy. "Don't you understand?"

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

"Good Lord!" he gasped. "You don't mean that it--it's--"

He paused incredulously, and Buck nodded.

"I'm sure of it," he stated crisply.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SECRET OF NORTH PASTURE

Jessup swallowed hard. "But--but--" he faltered, "there ain't never been any found around here. The nearest fields are hundreds of miles away, ain't they?"

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

"Just the same, it's--oil!" he returned quietly. "There's no doubt at all about it. Look at the ground there."

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

"By golly!" he cried excitedly. "You mean to say the whole pasture's full of it?"

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

"But I didn't see nothin'," interrupted Bud in surprise.

"You weren't looking for it, that's why," shrugged Stratton. "I was.

Thinking it all over this past week, I got to wondering if oil might not just possibly be what we ought to look for. I was so doubtful I didn't say anything about it. Like you said, n.o.body's ever struck it anywhere around these parts, but I reckon you never can tell."

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

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

"What's the matter?" inquired Bud suddenly. "What yuh scowlin' that way for?"