"You can't never trust assassins," chuckled Dailey, laying down three tens.
"An' three tens ain't no good tonight," said Fanning, revealing an eight-full. "Two pair ain't no good to bet on hard, but they're plumb fine to draw to. What you got, Fraser?" he demanded.
"A headache," grunted Fraser, throwing down his hand.
"Deal 'em up, Fanning," said Dailey. "Where did they go to?" he asked Johnny.
"I've gone over everythin' I can think of," replied Johnny, leaning back. "I've figgered hard winters, wolves, fever—there wasn't none of them. Strayed off? Where to? Would they leave Clear River for an arid stretch forty miles wide—an' stay away? They have to drink, don't they? Quicksands? Those that wandered in wouldn't be many, an' them that was drove in we'll count part of that nine seventy. Where did they go?"
"Mebby they heard them angel voices callin'," said Fanning, grinning.
"I'm sayin' somethin' is plumb wrong down here," replied Johnny. "Somebody has been ridin' th' line careless, an' a lot of mavericks has got across. Fraser, how many riders has Big Tom kept on his northwest lines?"
Fraser looked serious and pretended to ponder deeply. "Only one—Wolf. An' he was allus payin' more attention to th' west line, facin' th' Snake Buttes country than he was to th' north line, though. All he could think of was rustlers. Cussed if he didn't near sleep with 'em, he had 'em in his mind so strong." He did not see Slim's sneering smile or the look he exchanged with Arch. Slim was beginning to regard that outfit very much in that light.
"That's what I thought," replied Johnny, triumphantly. "He wasn't ridin' sign at all—he was only lookin' for rustlers. An' while he was prancin' along that west line lookin' for Nevada, them mavericks was driftin' off th' SV to get in that brush where th' flies wouldn't bother 'em so much. That accounts for a lot of them unmarked cows you was speakin' about."
"Does look like mebby there's somethin' in that," cogitated Fraser. "As I said, we never paid much attention to th' cattle out there; but it don't sound reasonable that all them SV mavericks would drift over onto us. An' why only mavericks?" He thought for a moment. "I'm sayin' nothin', but there's somethin' plumb wrong, somewhere. Want me to ask Big Tom about it? Mebby it was rustlers—they're plumb active."