The other shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't do anything rash, Red. I preëmpted that right first. And my claim's been bearing interest ever since."
CHAPTER IX
IN PART PAYMENT
The temporary loss of the horses was a twofold source of irritation to Douglass. They had been gathered with much labor for the forthcoming round-up and that work would all have to be done over again at quite an expenditure of time, patience and money; for this he deemed himself also responsible, and it added materially to the already large pecuniary obligation which he had assumed.
Then, he also regarded the malicious scattering of his horses as a stigma on his care and watchfulness of his employer's interests, as well as a personal affront and challenge to himself. It would be a sorry reflection on his professional ability, as well as on his courage, and he writhed in the shock to his really abnormal vanity. By established code he should have "got" Matlock long ago; and now he would have to defer the wiping out of that blot on his escutcheon until after the season's work was over. In the cold fury of his bitter self-revilement, he actually forgot the woman who had stirred his blood almost as strongly a short half-hour ago.
The mischief had been made possible only by the fact that the day after the horse round-up was ended he had indulgently granted a four days' leave of absence to his entire force, excepting only McVey, who had professed a lack of interest, to enable them to participate in a roping and riding tournament over in South Park. His own and Red's temporary absence to-day had given the perpetrator, of whose identity he had not even a momentary doubt, the chance to do the contemptible trick, the undoing of which would take a whole week's furious work with the entailed strain on both men and horses. His provocation was very great.
The next day, working over the ground, he found the freshly-cast shoe of the marauder's mount; it was a peculiarly constructed "blind-bar" affair, and Matlock's horse, his own private property, taken with him when he left the ranch, had a bad frog on his left hind hoof. His conviction was made a certainty later when the blacksmith at Gunnison identified the shoe as one that he had made for and attached to the left hind foot of the deposed foreman's horse. The chain of evidence was complete and conclusive.
By a rare bit of good fortune he discovered quite a large band of his best horses quietly feeding in a little valley some three miles from the house, and he quickly returned to the ranch, where he discussed with Red the likelihood of their being able to corral it; it was a big contract for two men, this particular band being a notoriously wild one and hard to handle, and now the animals would especially resent a return to durance vile after their previous week's confinement. But it meant an indispensable factor to the ultimate recovery of the other horses, without which, the outfit would be practically afoot. Red was logically pessimistic.
"Three might do it, but two ain't got any more chanct than a snowball in hell," was his opinion, and Douglass knew that he was right. It had taken four of his best riders to turn the trick a week before. But the other men were absolutely unavailable and long before their earliest possible return this band of horses would be off to their favorite range twenty miles or more away.