n the blankets.

When the lamp was out, he cautiously flung aside his coverings, drew
himself into a reclining position, and with gun in one hand and some
matches close beside the other, began his vigil.

For a long time--it must have been an hour at least--there was no need to
fight off sleep. His mind was far too active. But his thoughts were not
altogether cheering, for he began to see clearly how Lynch might hope to
accomplish the impossible.

So far there had been reassurance in the feeling that the foreman would
not dare proceed to open violence because of the almost certain
consequences to himself. Buck realized now that, under the conditions of
the moment, those consequences might become almost negligible. Suppose,
for instance, that by next morning Stratton had disappeared. Lynch and his
confederates would tell a plausible story of his having demanded his time
the night before and ridden off early in the morning. It was a story Tex
had carefully prepared Miss Thorne to hear, and whether or not, after
Buck's talk with her during the morning, she might be suspicious, that
would make no difference in the foreman's actions now. He would see that a
horse was gone, and attend to all the other necessary details. He had the
better part of the night and miles of desert waste in which to dispose of
every trace of Stratton and his belongings. Bud would be suspicious, but
between suspicion and proof there is a great gulf fixed. And though Lynch
might not know it, one of his strongest cards was the fact that if
Stratton should vanish off the earth, there was not a soul who would ever
come around asking awkward questions.

"But I'm not going to be bumped off just now, thank you," Buck said to
himself with a grim straightening of the lips. "They won't dare fire a
gun, and they don't know I'm ready for them and waiting."

Another hour passed, a tortured, harrowing hour in which he fought sleep
desperately with all the limited resources at his command. In spite of his
determination to keep his eyes open at any cost, his lids drooped and
lifted, drooped and lifted, drooped and were dragged open by sheer
will-power. Each time it was more difficult. Just as the water laps
inexorably at length over the face of an exhausted swimmer, so these waves
of sleep, smothering, clutching, dulled his senses and strove to wrap him
in their soft, treacherous embrace.

There came at last a complete wiping out of consciousness, how long or