in him, dyeing his face a deep crimson and etching hard lines on his
forehead and about his straight-lipped mouth.

"Thought they'd put it over easy," he growled behind set teeth, one
clenched, gloved hand thumping the saddle-horn. "Saw the notice in the
papers, of course, and decided it would be a cinch to rob a dead man.
Well, there's a surprise coming to somebody that'll make mine look like
thirty cents."

His lips relaxed in a grim smile, which presently merged into an
expression of puzzled wonder. Thorne, of all people, to try and put across
a crooked deal like this! Stratton had never known the man really
intimately, but during the several years of their business relationship
the Chicago lawyer struck him as being scrupulously honest and upright.
Indeed, when Buck came to enlist, it seemed a perfectly safe and natural
thing to leave his deeds and other important papers in Andrew Thorne's
keeping.

"Shows how you can be fooled in a man," murmured Stratton, as he followed
the trail down into a shallow draw. "I sure played into his hands nice. He
had the deeds and everything, and it would be simple enough to fake a
transfer when he thought I was dead and knew I hadn't any kin to make
trouble. I wonder what the daughter's like. A holy terror, I'll bet, and
tarred with the same brush. Well, she'll get hers in about two hours'
time, and get it good."

The grim smile flickered again on his lips for a moment, to vanish as he
saw the head and shoulders of a horseman appear over the further edge of
the draw. An instant later the bulk of a big sorrel flashed into view and
thudded toward him.

On the open range men usually stop for a word or two when they meet, but
this one did not. As he approached Stratton at a rapid speed there was a
brief, involuntary movement as if he meant to pull up and then changed his
mind. The next moment he had whirled past with a careless, negligent
gesture of one hand and a keen, penetrating, questioning stare from a pair
of hard black eyes.

Buck glanced over one shoulder at the flying dust-cloud and pursed his
lips.

"Wonder if that's the mysterious Tex?" he pondered, urging his horse
forward. "Black eyes and red cheeks, all right. He's a good looking
scoundrel--too darn good looking for a man. All the same, I can't say it
was a case of love at first sight."

Unconsciously his right hand dropped to the holster at his side, the
fingers caressing for an instant the butt of his Colt. He