The riders scattered to their horses and a few minutes later were stringing along the east range of the Double O and the Box B. East of them lay the Diamond Dot. Slim and Chuck rode south together. They were to patrol near the trail which led from the Box B to Dirty Water.
“Think we’ll get anything by this night riding?” asked Chuck.
“We may not get anything, but neither will the rustlers,” replied Slim. “I’ve got a hunch that the key to the whole mystery is somewhere around the Diamond Dot. I saw Hal Titzell there this afternoon. He was watching us from a second story window.”
“You mean that the Diamond Dot is rustling the stuff from the Double O and the Box B and then Titzell steps in and buys the cattle?” asked Chuck.
“It might be something like that,” admitted Slim, “but I’m not going to advance too many theories. We’ve got to be careful they don’t spot us as cattle detectives.”
They parted near the trail to Dirty Water, Chuck riding further south along the east line of the Box B.
Midnight passed, and up and down the long line of riders there was nothing reported out of the way. Pat Beals was on one side of Slim and Chuck on the other. He contacted them at intervals and they talked briefly before starting the return ride down their section of the line. It was lonely work, riding the range at night, with the feeling that rustlers might be encountered at any minute. Slim fingered the six gun at his side and made sure that it was free in the holster. Then he slipped his rifle in and out of the scabbard to satisfy himself that it was ready for instant action.
The thin moonlight faded and the night became doubly black. Another hour and the sky over the Cajons would brighten, but in the interval before that Slim had the feeling that many things might happen.
He was riding north when trouble started. Behind him and from Chuck’s section of the range came three shots, one after another. Slim wheeled and listened. There was a sharp, terrible fusillade. Then silence.
Whipping his own gun from his holster he fired three times in the air and urged Lightning into a mad gallop. From behind him he could hear the alarm signal echoing up the line as other riders repeated the warning shots and he knew that they were pounding along in his wake. The rustlers were riding somewhere before him and he knew they had already silenced Chuck’s guns. With black anger in his heart, he leaned over Lightning and urged the great sorrel to even greater speed.