e approached, eye it with anxious intentness. A dozen
feet or so away he jerked his horse to a standstill and caught his breath
with an odd whistling sound.

"Great Godfrey!" he breathed.

Bending slightly forward in the saddle, he stared at the creature's
badly-swollen off hind leg, but there was no need whatever for a prolonged
inspection. Having been through one blackleg epidemic back in Texas, he
knew the signs only too well.

"That's it, sure enough," he muttered, straightening up.

His gaze swept across the prairie to where, half a mile away, a bunch of
Shoe-Bar cattle grazed peacefully. If this sick beast should get amongst
them, the yearlings at least, to whom the disease is fatal, would be dying
like flies in twenty-four hours. Buck glanced back at the steer again, and
as he noted the T-T brand, his face hardened and he began taking down his
rope.

"The hellions!" he grated, an angry flush darkening his tan. "They ought
to be strung up."

The animal started to move away, and Buck lost no time in roping him. Then
he turned his horse and urged him toward the fence, dragging the reluctant
brute behind. Fortunately he had his pliers in the saddle-pocket, and,
taking down the wires, he forced the creature through and headed for a
deep gully the mouth of which lay a few hundred yards to the left.
Penetrating into this as far as he was able, he took out his Colt and
deliberately shot the steer through the head. And if Kreeger or Siegrist
had been present at that moment, he was furious enough to treat either of
them in the same way without a particle of compunction.

"Hanging would be too good for them, the dirty beasts!" he grated.

The thing had been so fiendishly cold-blooded and calculating that it made
his blood boil, for it was perfectly evident now to Buck that he had
thwarted a deliberate plot to introduce the blackleg scourge among the
Shoe-Bar cattle. Instead of riding fence, the two punchers must have made
their roundabout way immediately to the stricken T-T ranch, secured in
some manner an infected yearling and brought it back through the twisting
mountain trail Bud had spoken of a few days before.

Lynch's was the directing spirit, of course; for none of the others would
dare act save under his orders. But what was his object? What could he
possibly hope to gain by such a thing? Buck could understand a man
allowing rustlers to loot a ranch, if the same individual were in with
them secretly and sh