"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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.body 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 h.e.l.l!"
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.