sly. "It was too hot in
here, so I went out and sat down by the creek. I must have dropped off
pretty soon, and when I came to it was dark."

As he spoke he glanced casually at Tex Lynch, and despite himself a little
shiver flickered on his spine. The foreman, who had not spoken, sat
motionless on the further side of the table regarding Stratton steadily.
His lids drooped slightly and his face was almost expressionless. But in
spite of that Buck got a momentary impression of baffled fury and a
deadly, murderous hate, the more startling because of its very repression.
Coupling it with what he knew or suspected of the man, Stratton felt there
was some excuse for that momentary mental shrinking.

"He'd as soon put me out of the way as shoot a coyote," he said to
himself, as he walked over to his bunk. "All he wants is a chance to do it
without getting caught."

But with ordinary care and caution he did not see just how Tex was going
to get the chance. Buck never went anywhere without his gun, and he
flattered himself he was as quick on the draw as the average. Besides, he
knew better now than to trust himself alone with Lynch or any of the
others on some outlying part of the range where a fatal accident could
plausibly be laid to marauding greasers, or to some similar agency.

"I'm not saying any one of 'em couldn't pick me off a dozen times a day
and make an easy get-away across the border," he thought, stretching
himself out on the husk mattress. "But Lynch don't want to have to make a
get-away. There's something right here on the Shoe-Bar that interests him
a whole lot too much."

Presently Bud came in, parried with some success the half-questioning
comments of the men, and went to bed. Buck lay awake a while longer,
trying to patch together into some semblance of pattern the isolated
scraps of information he had gained, but without any measure of success.

There followed four surprising days of calm, during which the Shoe-Bar, to
every outward seeming, might have been the most ordinary and humdrum of
outfits, with not a hint of anything sinister or mysterious beneath the
surface.

Each morning the men sallied forth to work, returned for noon dinner, and
rode off again soon afterward. Lynch was neither grouchy nor over-jovial.
He seemed the typical ranch-boss, whose chief thought is to get the work
done, and his berating was entirely impartial. Bud had spent most of his
time around the ranch, but once or twice he