CHAPTER IX
REVELATIONS
It was the Mexican woman, Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one entering for the first time.
"Mees T'orne, she ask me see if Reek, he wan' somet'ing," she explained, with a flash of her white teeth.
"He doesn't," returned Buck shortly, eyeing the woman intently. "If he does, he'll ring the bell."
"Ver' good," she nodded. "I leave the door open to 'ear."
With a nod and another smile she departed, and Buck heard her moving away along the passage. For a moment he was tempted to close and lock the door. Then he realized that even if she dared return to her eavesdropping, he would have ample warning by keeping an eye on the mirror, and so returned to Bemis.
"I hate that woman," said Rick, when informed of her departure. "She's always snoopin' around, an' so is her greaser husband. Down at the bunk-house it's the same way, with Slim, an' Flint Kreeger an' the rest. I tell yuh, I'm dead sick of being spied on, an' plotted against, an' never knowin' when yuh may get a knife in the back, or stop a bullet. I hate to leave Bud, but he's so plumb set on--"
"But what's it all about?" put in Buck impatiently. "Can't you tell a fellow, or don't you know?"
Bemis flushed slightly at his tone. "I can tell yuh this much," he retorted. "Tex don't want them rustlers caught. He throws a clever bluff, an' he's pulled the wool over Miss Mary's eyes, but for all that, he's workin' on their side. What kind of a foreman is it who'll lose over a thousand head without stoppin' the stealin'? It ain't lack of brains, neither; Tex has got them a-plenty."
"But Miss Thorne--" protested Stratton, half-incredulously.
"I tell yuh, he's got her buffaloed. She won't believe a word against him. He was here in her dad's time, an' he's played his cards mighty slick since then. She's told yuh he can't get men, mebbe? All rot, of course. He could get plenty of hands, but he don't want 'em. What's more, he's done his best to get rid of me an' Bud, an' would of long ago, only Miss Mary won't let him fire us."
"But what in thunder's his object?"
"So's to have the place to himself, I reckon. He an' those greasers in the kitchen, and the rest of the bunch, are as thick as thieves."
"You mean he'd find it easier to get away with cattle if there wasn't anybody around to keep tabs on him?"
Bemis hesitated. "I--I'm not sure," he replied slowly. "Partly that, mebbe, but there's somethin' else. I've overheard things now an' then I couldn't make head or tail of, but they're up to somethin'--Yuh ain't goin', are yuh?"
Buck had risen. "Got to," he shrugged. "Miss Thorne's waiting for me to go down to the south pasture."
Bemis raised up on his pillows. "Well, listen; keep what I said under yore hat, will yuh?"
"Sure," nodded Stratton reassuringly. "You needn't worry about that. Anything else you want before I go?"
"Yes. Jest reach me my six-gun outer the holster there in the chair. If I'm goin' to be left alone with that greaser, Pedro, I'd feel more comfortable, someway, with that under my pillow."
Buck did as he requested and then departed. Something else! That was the very feeling which had assailed him vaguely at times, that some deviltry which he couldn't understand was going on beneath the surface. As he made for the corral, a sudden possibility flashed into his mind. With her title so precarious, might not Mary Thorne be at the bottom of a systematic attempt to loot the Shoe-Bar of its movable value against the time of discovery? But when he met her face to face the idea vanished and he even felt ashamed of having considered it for a moment. Whatever crookedness was going on, this sweet-faced, clear-eyed girl was much more likely to be a victim than one of the perpetrators. The feeling was vastly strengthened when he had saddled up and they rode off together.
"There's something I've been meaning to--to tell you," the girl said suddenly, breaking a brief silence.
Buck glanced at her to find her eyes fixed on the ears of her horse and a faint flush staining her cheeks.
"That room--" she went on determinedly, but with an evident effort. "A man's room-- You must have thought it strange. Indeed, I saw you thought it strange--"
Again she paused, and in his turn Buck felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
"I didn't mean to--" he began awkwardly. "It just seemed funny to find a regular man's room in a household of women. I suppose it was your--your father's," he added.
"No, it wasn't," she returned briefly. She glanced at him for an instant and then looked away again. "You probably don't know the history of the Shoe-Bar," she went on more firmly. "Two years ago it was bought by a young man named Stratton. I never met him, but he was a business acquaintance of my father's and naturally I heard a good deal of him from time to time. He was a ranchman all his life and very keen about it, and the moment he saw the Shoe-Bar he fell in love with it. But the war came, and he had scarcely taken title to the place before he went off and enlisted. Just before he sailed for France he sold the ranch to my father, with the understanding that if he came back safely, Dad would turn it over to him again. He felt, I suppose, how uncertain it all was and that money in the bank would be easier for his--his heirs, than property."
She paused for an instant, her lips pressed tightly together. "He never came back," she went on in a lower, slightly unsteady voice. "He--gave up his life for those of us who stayed behind. After a little we left Chicago and came here. I loved the place at once, and I've gone on caring for it increasingly ever since. But back of everything there's always been a sense of the tragedy, the injustice of it all. They never even found his body. He was just--missing. And yet, when I came into that room, with his things about just as he had left them when he went away, he seemed so _real_,--I--I couldn't touch it. Somehow, it was all that was left of him. And even though I'd never seen him, I felt as if I wanted to keep it that way always in memory of a--a brave soldier, and a--man."
Her low voice ceased. With face averted, she stared in silence across the brown, scorched prairie. Stratton, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and his cheeks tinged with unwonted color, found it quite impossible to speak, and for a space the stillness was broken only by the creak of saddle-leather and the dull thud of horses' hoofs.
"It's mighty fine of you to feel like that," he said at length. "I'm sorry if I gave you the idea I--I was--curious."
"But you would be, naturally. You see, the other boys all know." She turned her head and looked at him. "I think we're all curious at times about things which really don't concern us. I've even wondered once or twice about you. You know you don't talk like the regulation cow-puncher--quite."
Stratton laughed. "Oh, but I am," he assured her. "I suppose the war rubbed off some of the accents, and of course I had a pretty good education to start with. But I'm too keen about the country and the life to ever want to do anything else."
Her face glowed. "It is wonderful," she agreed. "When I think of the years I've wasted in cities! I couldn't ever go back. Even with all the worries, this is a thousand times better. Ah! There they are ahead. They're turning the herd into this pasture, you see."
Half a mile or more to the southward a spreading dust-cloud hugged the earth, through which, indistinctly, Stratton could make out the moving figures of men and cattle. The two spurred forward, reaching the wide opening in the fence ahead of the vanguard of steers. Passing through, they circled to the right to avoid turning back any of the cattle, and joined the sweating, hard-worked cow-punchers.
As they rode up together, Buck found Lynch's eyes fixed on him with an expression of angry surprise, which was suppressed with evident difficulty.
"How'd yuh get back so quick?" he inquired curtly.
"Nothing