“We’re shy about a hundred head of beef this fall,” Rock told him.
Charlie didn’t need the significance of that explained to him. He was a range rider, born to the business. He recalled those sun-dried hides in the grass. The Seventy-seven was losing cattle—beef cattle, too.
“Gosh!” he murmured. “I wonder if we got another ‘Buck’ Walters among us again.”
“I don’t know.” Rock frowned. “That is to be found out. I know we are out that many because the bulk of the beef is shipped. There will be only a few picked up on the outskirts of the range before the Maltese Cross round-up quits for the season. I have been with them all fall, so I know nothing was overlooked. That’s about forty-five hundred dollars in cold cash, Charlie—more than a small outfit like us can afford to lose.”
“Got any idea?” Charlie asked.
“None worth shouting,” Rock admitted. “It’s so long since we had anything like this to deal with that it seems impossible such a thing could happen. Yet these cattle are gone. I have no reason to suspect anybody. But I am going to scout with my eyes and ears open, you can bet your life on that.”
“There is always some feller ready to bust the Eighth Commandment wide open if he sees a chance,” Charlie observed. “Has it struck you that all this railroad-construction work offers a chance for somebody to butcher beef on the range and sell it to them camps?”
“Sure,” Rock declared. “But nobody has showed signs of that, that I know of.”
“I’m not so sure. The Seventy-seven has lost beef, too.”
He went on to tell Rock of finding those dried and wrinkled hides and Elmer Duffy’s explosion, which had led to Charlie’s parting with the outfit.