“I’ll get a court order for my sheep your cur run off!” flared Bayne in a last rally; and he turned to his shepherds, commanding:
“Here, boys, go and get them sheep he run into that bunch. Get ’em!”
“Speaking of court orders,” said Trent, still in the same cool, slow tones of indifference and interposing his own lithe body beside the bristling Buff’s to the hesitant advance of the shepherds—“speaking of court orders, Mr. Bayne, when you get yours, be sure to tell the judge that I’m ready to show him the secret mark on each and every one of my sheep, to prove they’re mine. Now, if your men care to keep on edging toward my flock, Buff and I will try to entertain them as best we can till the police come up.”
Bayne glowered horribly into the smilingly level eyes that met his glare so tranquilly. Then, with a grunt, he turned back to his own corner, the three shepherds trailing after him.
Behind his calm exterior Michael Trent drew a long breath of relief. These forty sheep of his were culled from the two new flocks he had so recently purchased. None of them bore a mark. The only “secret mark” on them was Buff’s unerring knowledge of their identity. Trent stooped and petted the collie lovingly on the head and stroked the massive ruff.
“That’s how Mr. Bayne makes money, old man,” he whispered. “One of his several hundred ways. We couldn’t have proved he didn’t have six fat merinos in that mangy bunch of sheep. And his shepherds would have sworn to them. Figure out the price-difference between six of our best sheep and six of Bayne’s scarecrows, and you’ll know to a penny how much cash you’ve saved me to-day, Buff.”
The collie did not get the sense of one word in five. But he realised he had somehow made Trent very proud of him and that he was being praised. So for a moment he forgot to be stately and aloof. He wagged his tail wildly and caught Trent’s caressing hand between his mighty jaws in well-simulated savageness, pretending to bite it ferociously, while not exerting the pressure of a fraction of an ounce. Which was one of Buff’s many modes of showing affection for the pleasant-voiced man who was his master and his god.
Dusk had fallen when Trent and Buff turned in at the gate of the silent farmhouse. The day had been prosperous. The merinos had brought a well-nigh record price—the whole forty having been bought by an up-country stock farm man. Thus, Trent’s investment in them had turned into an unexpectedly quick and large profit.
Also, he had been congratulated by a dozen fellow sheep raisers on his victory over Bayne. He had banked his market cheque—the Boone Lake Bank remaining open until seven in the evening on market days—and had spent a blissful half-hour on the Hammerton porch with Ruth on the way home. Now, comfortably tired and buoyed by an equally comfortable sense of well-being, he lounged up the short path leading from the road to his house. As he reached the fence gate he had bidden Buff fetch the cows from their upland pasturage and drive them to the barn. He himself went around to the side door, for the milk pails that were kept in the kitchen during the day.
He unlocked and opened the door and stepped in. As he did so a bag was thrown over his head, and the upper part of his body—a bag whose bottom was soaked in something that smelt like crushed apples. A rope was flung about his arms at the same moment and its noose ran tight.