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Updated: June 8, 2025
Though there had been no further signs of the Shoe-Bar men, their vigilance did not relax. Pushing on with all possible speed, they covered the distance to the little camp in very much less time than it had taken in the morning. Here the horses had a brief rest while the two men collected their few belongings and loaded them on the pack-horse, for they had decided to go on at once.
"Lead Pete around the corner," he urged Jessup sharply. "Get out of sight as quick as you can." Bud obeyed without question, and Stratton hastily took out his field-glasses and focused them on the three figures he had glimpsed riding along the northern extremity of the Shoe-Bar pasture.
Having endowed the lady with a few other disagreeable qualities which pleased him mightily, Buck awoke to the realization that he was approaching the eastern extremity of the Shoe-Bar ranch. His eyes brightened, and, dismissing all thoughts of Miss Thorne, he began to cast interested, appraising glances to right and left as he rode.
"For a long time I haven't There've been a number of things. I still haven't an idea of what it's all about, but " "I'm mighty glad you feel that way," Buck said, as she paused. "I'm not quite sure myself just what he's up to, but I believe I'm on the right trail." Very briefly he told her of the steps he had taken since leaving the Shoe-Bar.
"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.
It was late in the afternoon, after a careful circuit of the southern end of the Shoe-Bar, that Buck reached the foothills. Bud had told him of a spring to the northwest of Las Vegas camp, but the rough traveling decided him to camp that night on the further side of the creek.
"I warned yuh, didn't I, the Shoe-Bar was a hoodoo outfit?" he evaded. Stratton shook some tobacco into a cigarette-paper and jerked the draw-string with his teeth. "Sure you did, but that's not the question," he persisted. "I asked you if any other punchers had met up with accidents out there lately." The old man continued to cock an eye on the store entrance.
There were a number of signs to guide him, including the bodies of two animals bearing the familiar brand, and he succeeded in tracing the thieves to a point on the edge of a stretch of desert twenty miles or more below the Shoe-Bar land. About twelve miles beyond lay another range of hills, which would give them cover until they were within a short distance of the border.
Pop Daggett's jaw sagged, betraying a cavernous expanse of sparsely-toothed gums. "Joe Bloss!" he ejaculated. "My land! I hope you ain't traveled far fur that. If so, yuh sure got yore trouble for yore pains. Why, man alive! Joe Bloss ain't been nigh the Shoe-Bar for close on to a year." Stratton's eyes narrowed. "A year?" he repeated curtly. "Where's he gone?" "You got me.
The grazing hereabouts was poor, and at this time of year particularly the Shoe-Bar cattle were more likely to be confined to the richer fenced-in pastures belonging to the ranch. The scenery thus presenting no points of interest, Buck's thoughts turned to the interview ahead of him.
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