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When the fact is chronicled that no less than three times in the succeeding eight days Buck Stratton was strongly tempted to put an end to the whole puzzling business by the simple expedient of declaring his identity and taking possession of the Shoe-Bar as his own, something may be guessed of the ingenuity of Tex Lynch in making life unpleasant for the new hand.
For a space he had forgotten what his position was at the Shoe-Bar. He must keep a better guard over himself, or he would certainly arouse suspicion. Averting his eyes, but still continuing to frown a little as if lack of tobacco was responsible for his annoyance, he searched through his pockets. "Got the makin's?" he asked McCabe. "Darned if I haven't left mine in the bunk-house."
Fortunately Jessup's directions had been explicit, and toward noon Buck found the spring at the bottom of a small cañon and proceeded to unpack and settle down. Bud himself had discovered the place by accident, and as far as Stratton could judge it was not a likely spot to be visited either by the Shoe-Bar hands or their Mexican confederates.
When Stratton had secured his rope and rode back to the Shoe-Bar pasture, his face was thoughtful. He was thinking of those excellent offers for the outfit Miss Thorne had lately spoken of, which Lynch was so anxious for her to accept. Could the foreman's plotting be for the purpose of forcing her to sell?
Already the man's arm was lifted, and though Stratton's hand jerked automatically to his gun, he was too late. An instant later something struck his head with crushing force and crumpled him to the ground. When Buck began to struggle out of that black, bottomless abyss of complete oblivion, he thought at first as soon as he could think at all that he was lying in his bunk back at the Shoe-Bar.
There was a faint twinkle in his eyes as he glanced toward Stratton for an instant, his belief confirmed as to the principal reason for Buck's desire to keep the secret of the Shoe-Bar ownership. Then he became businesslike. "Where's Lynch and the rest of 'em?" he asked briskly. The girl's face grew suddenly serious. "I don't know," she answered quickly.
"Yuh wouldn't like it," he mumbled, glancing down the trail. "It it ain't like it was in Joe's time. That there Tex Lynch he he don't get on with the boys." "Who's he? The foreman?" "Yeah. Beauty Lynch, some calls him 'count uh his looks. I ain't denyin' he's han'some, with them black eyes an' red cheeks uh his, but somethin' queer Like I said, there ain't nobody stays long at the Shoe-Bar.
As a matter of fact he felt that doing so would only further complicate an already sufficiently difficult situation. The Shoe-Bar outfit, in western Arizona, had been his property barely a week before he left it for the recruiting-office. Born and bred in the Texas Panhandle, he inherited his father's ranch when barely twenty-one.
"You've had several offers?" he asked hesitatingly, wondering whether she would think the question an impertinence. Apparently she didn't. "Two; really most awfully good ones. Indeed, Tex strongly advised me to sell out and buy another outfit if I still wanted to ranch. But I don't want another one. It's the Shoe-Bar I'm so keen about because of But I really mustn't keep you.
"The reason you you couldn't say you had no special object in being on the Shoe-Bar," she explained haltingly. "I'm sorry I didn't understand." "I couldn't very well tell you without running the risk of Lynch's finding out. As it happened, I was trying my best to think up a reasonable excuse for leaving the outfit to do some investigating from this end, so you really did me a good turn."
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