“Nothin’ to find out. The only two outfits that ever touches those hills is the Cross an’ the Seventy Seven. Neither outfit ever used those pens.”
“But they have been used?”
“I rise to remark they been used,” Charlie declared. “Used plenty—used recent. I have a hunch they’re goin’ to be used again pretty pronto.”
“Why?” Rock demanded.
“Well,” Charlie grinned, “Buck an’ six of his pet snakes are camped on a creek about five miles from them corrals—layin’ low and doin’ nothin’. An’ there’s heaps of cattle in their vicinity. An’ five riders with pack outfits an’ about forty loose horses joined ’em from the North yesterday afternoon.”
“Yesterday afternoon?” Rock took quick reckoning of the distance and the hour. “How do you know?”
“I seen ’em,” Charlie murmured. “I lay low, lookin’ at ’em. I rode all night to get home. I was out of grub, an’ between you an’ me an’ the gatepost, I didn’t want none of that outfit to catch me circulatin’ there alone. I don’t hanker to get caught in no lonely coulee all by my lonesome.”
“You couldn’t see what brand was on the horses those fellows rode in from the North?” Rock went on.
“Uh-uh. Too chancy. I pulled my freight. That bunch wasn’t there on no picnic.”
“Well, I’m going up there with these boys on a picnic party.” Rock smiled sardonically. “If you’re fond of picnics, you can come along. You’ll be welcome as the flowers in May. I may go farther North—plumb up into Canada. But first I would like to look at these mysterious corrals on the Sweet Grass. And I would like to know what Buck Walters is doing there.”