of the two riders he had watched that
afternoon had been mounted on just such a bay, and if there had been a
lingering touch of doubt in Stratton's mind as to the identity of the two
criminals, it remained no longer.

CHAPTER XVI

THE UNEXPECTED

More than once during the following few days, Stratton was forced to a
grudging admiration, of Tex Lynch's cleverness. Even knowing what he did,
he failed to detect the slightest sign in either the foreman or his men
that they were waiting expectantly for something to happen. The only
significant feature was their marked avoidance of the middle pasture. This
might readily be accounted for by the fact that the work now lay on the
other side of the outfit, but Buck was convinced that their real purpose
was to allow the blackleg scourge to gain as great a hold as possible on
Shoe-Bar cattle before its discovery.

The cold-blooded brutality of that quiescence made Stratton furious, but
it also brought home more effectually than ever the nature of the men he
had to deal with. They were evidently the sort to stop at nothing, and
Buck had moments of wondering whether or not he was proceeding in the
right way to uncover the mystery of their motive.

So far he had really accomplished very little. The unabated watchfulness
of the crowd so hedged in and hampered him that it was quite impossible to
do any extended investigating. He still had the power of ending the whole
affair at any moment and clearing the ranch of the entire gang. But aside
from his unwillingness to humiliate Mary Thorne, he realized that this
would not necessarily accomplish what he wanted.

"It would stop their deviltry all right," he thought "but I might never
find out what they're after. About the only way is to give 'em enough rope
to hang themselves, and I'm blowed if I don't believe I could do that
better by leaving the outfit and doing a little sleuthing on my own."

Yet somehow that did not altogether appeal to him, either. The presence of
handsome Alf Manning may have had something to do with Buck's reluctance
to quit the ranch just now, but he would never have admitted it, even to
himself. He simply made up his mind to wait a while, at least until he
could see what happened when Lynch discovered the failure of his latest
plot, and then be governed by circumstances.

In the meantime the situation, so far as Miss Manning, was concerned, grew
daily more complicated. She showed a decided inclinat