"Looks like the poor rube's goin' to tear off some more sleep," commented Kreeger in a suppressed tone, evidently not thinking Stratton was near enough to hear.
But Buck's ears were sharp, and his lips twitched in a grim smile as he moved steadily on, shoulders purposely sagging. When he had passed through the doorway his head went up abruptly and his whole manner changed. Darting to his bunk, he snatched the blankets out and unrolled them with a jerk. Scrambling his clothes and other belongings into a rough mound, he swiftly spread the blankets over them, patted down a place or two to increase the likeness to a human body, dropped his hat on the floor beside the bunk, and then made a lightning exit through a window at the rear.
It was all accomplished with such celerity that before the dawdling punchers had entered the bunk-house, Buck was out of sight among the bushes which thickly lined the creek. From here he had no difficulty in making his way unseen around to the back of the barns and other out-buildings, one of which he entered through a rear door. A moment or two later he found Jessup, as he expected, squatting on the floor of the harness-room, busily mending his broken saddle-girth.
"Hello, Bud," he grinned, as the youngster looked up in surprise. "Thought I'd come up and have a chin with you."
"But how the deuce--I thought they--yuh--"
"You thought right," replied Stratton, as Jessup hesitated. "Tex and his friends have been sticking around pretty close for the past week or so, but I gave 'em the slip just now."
Briefly he explained what he had done, and then paused, eying the young fellow speculatively.
"There's something queer going on here, old man," he began presently. "You'll say it's none of my business, maybe, and I reckon it isn't. But unless I've sized 'em up wrong, Lynch and his gang are a bunch of crooks, and I'm not the sort to sit back quietly and leave a lady like Miss Thorne to their mercy."
Jessup's eyes widened. "What do yuh know?" he demanded. "What have yuh found out?"
Buck shrugged his shoulders. "Found out? Why, nothing, really. But I've seen enough to know that bunch is up to some deviltry, and naturally the owner of the outfit is the one who'll suffer, in pocket, if not something worse. It's a dirty deal, taking advantage of a girl's ignorance and inexperience, as that gang sure is doing some way--specially a girl who's as decent and white as she is. I thought maybe you and me might get together and work out something. You don't act like you were for 'em any more than I am."
"I'll tell a man I ain't!" declared Jessup emphatically. "They're a rotten bunch. Yuh can go as far's you like, an' I'll stick with yuh. Have yuh got anything on 'em?"
"Not exactly, but we may have if we put our heads together and talk it over." He glanced questioningly around the dusty room. "They'll likely find out the trick I played on 'em, and come snooping around here before long. Suppose we slip out and go down by the creek where we can talk without being interrupted."
Jessup agreed readily and followed Buck into the barn and out through the back door, where they sought a secluded spot down by the stream, well shielded by bushes.
"You've been here longer than I have and noticed a lot more," Stratton remarked when they were settled. "I wish you'd tell me what you think that bunch is up to. They haven't let me out of their sight for over a week. What's the idea, anyhow?"
"They don't want yuh should find out anythin'," returned Bud promptly.
"That's what I s'posed, but what's there to find out? That's what I can't seem to get at. Bemis says they're in with the rustlers, but even he seems to think there's something else in the wind besides that."
Jessup snorted contemptuously. "Bemis--huh! I'm through with him. He's a quitter. I was in chinnin' with him last night an' he's lost his nerve. Says he's through, an' is goin' to take his time the minute he's fit to back a horse. Still an' all," he added, forehead wrinkling thoughtfully, "he's right in a way. There is somethin' doin' beside rustling, but I'm hanged if I can find out what. The only thing I'm dead sure of is that it's crooked. Look at the way they're tryin' to get rid of us--Rick an' me an' you. Whatever they're up to they want the ranch to themselves before they go any further. Now Rick's out of the way, I s'pose I'll be next. They're tryin' their best to make me quit, but when they find out that won't work, I reckon they'll try somethin'--worse."
"Why don't Lynch just up an' fire you?" Buck asked curiously. "He's foreman."
Bud's young jaw tightened stubbornly. "He can't get nothin' on me," he stated. "It's this way. When help begun to get shy a couple of months ago--that's when he started his business of gittin' rid of the men one way or another--Tex must of hinted around to Miss Mary that I was goin' to quit, for she up an' asked me one day if it was true, an' said she hoped me an' Rick wasn't goin' to leave like the rest of 'em."
He paused, a faint flush darkening his tan. "I dunno as you've noticed it," he went on, plucking a long spear of grass and twisting it between his brown fingers, "but Miss Mary's got a way about her that--that sort of gets a man. She's so awful young, an'--an'--earnest, an' though she don't know one thing hardly about ranchin', she's dead crazy about this place, an' mighty anxious to make it pay. When she asks yuh to do somethin', yuh jest natu'ally feel like yuh wanted to oblige. I felt like that, anyhow, an' I was hot under the collar at Tex for lyin' about me like he must of done. So I tells her straight off I wasn't thinkin' of anythin' of the sort. 'Fu'thermore,' I says, 'I'll stick to the job as long as yuh like if you'll do one thing.' She asks what's that, an' I told her that some folks, namin' no names, was tryin' to make out to her I wasn't doin' my work good, an' doin' their best to get me in bad.
"'Oh, but I think you're mistaken,' she says, catchin' on right away who I meant. 'Tex wouldn't do anythin' like that. He needs help too bad, for one thing.'
"'Well,' I says, 'let it go at that. Only, if yuh hear anythin' against me, I'd like for yuh not to take anybody else's word for it. It's got to be proved I ain't capable, or I've done somethin' I oughta be fired for. An' if things gets so I got to go, I'll come to yuh an' ask for my time myself. Fu'thermore, I'll get Rick to promise the same thing.'
"Well, to make a long story short, she said she'd do it, though I could see she was still thinkin' me mistaken about Tex doin' anythin' out of the way. He's a rotten skunk, but you'd better believe he don't let her see it. He's got her so she believes every darn word he says is gospel."
He finished in an angry key. Stratton's face was thoughtful.
"How long has he been here?" he asked.
"Who? Tex? Oh, long before I come. The old man made him foreman pretty near a year ago in place of Bloss, who run the outfit for Stratton, that fellow who was killed in the war that old Thorne bought the ranch off from."
"What sort of a man was this Thorne?" Buck presently inquired.
"Pretty decent, though kinda stand-offish with us fellows. He was awful thick with Tex, though, an' mebbe that's the reason Miss Mary thinks so much of him. She took his death mighty hard, believe me!"
With a mind groping after hidden clues, Stratton subconsciously disentangled the various "hes" and "hims" of Jessup's slightly involved remark.
"Pop Daggett told me about his being thrown and breaking his neck," he said presently. "You were here then, weren't you? Was there anything queer about it? I mean, like the two punchers who were killed later on?"
Jessup's eyes widened. "Queer?" he repeated. "Why, I--I never thought about it that way. I wasn't around when it happened. Nobody was with him but--but--Tex." He stared at Buck. "Yuh don't mean to say--"
"I don't say anything," returned Stratton, as he paused. "How can I, without knowing the facts? Was the horse a bad one?"
"He was new--jest been put in the _remuda_. I never saw him rid except by Doc Peters, who's a shark. I did notice, afterward, he was sorta mean, though I've seen worse. We was on the spring round-up, jest startin' to brand over in the middle pasture." Bud spoke slowly with thoughtfully wrinkled brows. "It was right after dinner when the old man rode up on Socks, the horse he gen'ally used. He seemed pretty excited for him. He got hold of Tex right away, an' the two of them