had failed to see his name amongst the missing, what must he have
thought of his interminable silence? All through Buck's brief training and
the longer interval overseas, the foreman's letters had come with fair
regularity and been answered promptly and in detail. What had Bloss done
when the break came? What had he been doing ever since?

A fresh wave of troubled curiosity sent Stratton swinging briskly across
the street. Keeping inside the long hitching-rack, he crossed the sagging
porch and stepped through the open door into the store. For a moment he
thought it empty. Then a chair scraped, and over in one corner a short,
stout, grizzled man dropped his feet from the window-sill and shuffled
forward, yawning.

"Wal! Wal!" he mumbled, his faded, sleep-dazed eyes taking in Buck's bag.
"Train come in? Reckon I must of been dozin' a mite."

"Looks to me like the whole place was taking an afternoon nap," smiled
Stratton. "Not much doing this time of day, I expect."

"You said it," yawned the stout man, supporting himself against the rough
pine counter. "Things is liable to brisk up in a hour or two, though, when
the boys begin to drift in. Stranger around these parts, ain't yuh?" he
added curiously.

For a tiny space Buck hesitated. Then, moved by an involuntary impulse he
did not even pause to analyze, he shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"I was out at the Shoe-Bar a couple of times about two years ago," he
answered. "Haven't been around here since."

"The Shoe-Bar? Huh?" Pop Daggett looked interested. "You don't say so!
Funny I don't recollect yore face."

"Not so very. I only passed through here to take the train."

"That was it, eh? Two years ago must of been about the time the outfit was
bought by that Stratton feller from Texas. Yuh know him well?"

"Joe Bloss, the foreman, was a friend of mine," evaded Stratton. "He's the
one I stopped off now to see."

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. I did hear he'd signed up with the Flying-V's over to New
Mexico, but that might have been jest talk." He sniffed disapprovingly.
"There ain't no doubt about it; the old Shoe-Ba