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Updated: June 21, 2025
She was on Mesa Verde, headed for Blue Cañon looked like." "Close enough to speak to her?" Sam asked. "Yes. We passed the time of day." "And then?" Luck cut back into the conversation with a voice like a file. "She went on toward the gulch and I kept on to the ranch. The last I saw of her she was going straight on." "And you haven't seen her since?" The manner of the questioner startled Fendrick.
You haven't proved Fendrick caused your father's disappearance by foul play, and you haven't proved he committed the robbery. Point of fact I don't think he did either one. But it certainly looks like he may possibly have manufactured evidence." Curly snorted scornfully. "You're letting your friend down easy, Mr. Bolt. By his own story he was on the ground a minute after the robbery took place.
Almost at once he added: "O'Connor of the rangers is speaking. I've heard your father is home again. Is that true?" An interval followed during which the ranger officer was put into the role of a listener. His occasional "Yes Yes Yes" punctuated the rapid murmur that reached Fendrick. Presently Bucky asked a question. "On his way to town now?" Again the rapid murmur.
Nor did Luck confine his efforts to self-defense. He knew that to convict Fendrick of the robbery he must first lay hands upon Blackwell. It was, however, Bucky that caught the convict. The two men met at the top of a mountain pass. Blackwell, headed south, was slipping down toward Stone's horse ranch when they came face to face.
"Back again, Bucky," Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. "I hear I'm suspected of being a bad hold-up." "There's a matter that needs explaining, Cass. According to Blackwell's story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with it?" "Blackwell told you that, did he?" "Yes."
He had come to Papago County a few years before, and had bought the place from an earlier settler. In the disagreement that had fallen between the two men, she was wholly on the side of her father. Sometimes she had wondered what manner of man this Cass Fendrick might be; disagreeable, of course, but after precisely what fashion. "Your property, I believe, Miss Cullison."
As the street had been quite deserted at the time this detail could be plausibly introduced with no chance of a denial. Fendrick, who had heard the shouting of the men locked in the express office, stopped the robber, but Blackwell broke away and ran down the alley. The sheepman followed and caught him.
"Don't doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking I'd like to hear him say so. I'll not round on him until I know he's given himself away." The convict was sent for. He substantiated the ranger reluctantly. He was so hemmed in that he did not know how to play his cards so as to make the most of them. He hated Fendrick.
"Morning, Curly," answered Fendrick. "Didn't know you were riding for the Circle C." "He's my foreman," Luck explained. Cass observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.
"My little girl," he cried in a voice that rang with love. Luck had found his ewe lamb that was lost. It was Curly who first saw the man approaching from the gulch. "Hello, Cass! Did you get him?" Fendrick nodded wearily. "Dead sure?" "Yep. He's up there." The sheepman's hand swept toward the bluff. "You're wounded." "Got me in the shoulder. Nothing serious, I judge." Cullison swung around.
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