"Mebby I—" suggested Ned, nervously.
"No, yo 're goin' to help me most by curing th' evil on th' table; never mind th' dealer, nor th' game. We 've got as many cards as we 're goin' to get—use 'em, Ned. Help me lick th' itch first—th' hows an' whys can wait."
"Yo 're right, Peters; an' we will lick it! But it makes me fightin' mad, a thing like this. I 'll get everything all ready to-night an' th' round-up starts with th' comin' of th' sun to-morrow. Good-night."
Buck ate slowly, his thoughts far more occupied with the problem than with the food. This was the firing of the first cannon in the fight Monroe had predicted. Who was responsible? His suspicions, guided by Monroe's warning, were directed towards Schatz, but in his present absence of knowledge they could advance no farther than suspicions. Dave's half-closed eyes sneered at him as he recalled the ambiguous threat made that first night in the Sweet-Echo: still remained suspicion only. McReady, of the Cyclone, might have designs for the Double Y, but he doubted it. They had yet free grass a-plenty, though the time was not far distant when the private ownership of the Double Y would be an invaluable asset. Still, it might be any other cowman in that part of the country—or none of them. Well, he had met problems as great as this one on the Texan range—but he had fought them with an outfit loyal to the last man, every unit of it willing and eager to face all kinds of odds for him. He now recalled those men to his mind's eye, and he never loved them more than he did now, when he realized how really precious unswerving loyalty is. Hopalong, Red, Johnny and the others of the old Bar-20 outfit, made an honor roll that held his thoughts even to the temporary exclusion of the bitterness of his present situation. If only he had that outfit with him now! Even his neighbors and acquaintances on that southern range were to be trusted and depended upon more than his present outfit. His vision, knocking patiently at first upon the door of his abstraction, at this point kicked its way in and demanded attention. Buck became aware that for some time he had been staring unseeingly at a folded paper, tucked partly under his bunk blanket. With a smothered oath he sprang from his seat, strode to the bunk and snatched up the paper. The warning it contained was better founded than the first. It read:
"Buck Peters: Itch on the YY. Crossed the Jack at the Rocking Horse. A Friend."
"If you told me who sent it across, you 'd be more of a friend," muttered Buck—in which he was less wise than Tex, who did not see the sense in having the servant removed while the master remained.
Hoofbeats rolled up in the darkness and stopped at the door of the house and a moment later Whitby entered the room, his pink, English complexion aglow with the exercise and wind-beating of his ride.
Buck was glad to see him; he needed a little of the other's cheerful optimism and after a few minutes of random conversation, Buck told him of the latest developments. Whitby's surprise was genuine, and the practicability of his nature asserted itself. This was ground upon which he was thoroughly at home.
"I say, Buck, we can show these swine a thing or two they don't know," he began. "They don't know it in the States, I 'll lay, nor north of the line either, for that matter. My Governor is a cattle man, you might say; on the other side of the pond, of course. And I 've knocked about farm land a good bit, you know. Now a chap in the same county had a lot of sheep with this what-d'you-call it—scab, they said. He used a preparation of arsenic but a lot of the beggars died, poisoned, you know. He had tried a number of other things and he got jolly well tired of the game; so he wrote to a cousin, chemist or something, and told him about it; and this chap sent him a recipe, after a bit, that killed off the parasites like winking, without injuring a single sheep."
"That ain't goin' to help us none, Whit. You ain't got th' receipt an' you don't know how to make th' stuff."