"It's not just that Trevors has crippled me by taking all of my milkers away; not just that he has come near doing I don't know how much harm in having Crowdy turn those calves with the lung-worm out into the fields with the others; not just that during the last few months, he has lost money for us right and left; not just that Benny, the cook, has tried to fire the range."
"What's that last?" said Tripp quickly. "Tried to smoke you out, huh?"
She told him briefly. How she had first seen the smoke as she came back to the ranch-house; how she had sent José on the run to get some of the other hands to see that the fire did not spread; how, a little while ago, Carson, the cattle foreman, had come in and assured her that the damage was negligible.
"It was just a brush fire," said Judith. "Thank Heaven, things are pretty green yet. Carson says it might have been lighted by Benny, who, it seems, is one of Trevors's hirelings and not above this sort of thing; or it might have been accidentally started by some careless hunter. Anyway, and that's enough for me, the fire broke out close to the trail that Benny travelled on his way to the Western Lumber camp. But it isn't just these things which have set me to wondering, Doc. What I want to know is this: in how many other, still undiscovered ways, has Trevors been knifing us? And what else will he have ready to spring on us now?"
"Just what do you mean?" Tripp looked a her keenly.
"This case of lung-worm, to begin with: where did it come from?"
"Imported," said Tripp. "Trevors bought those calves, or at least four of the sick ones, last month. Brought them in from somewhere down the river. Smuggled 'em in, so far as I am concerned. Never gave me a chance to look them over." He paused a second. "Specially imported, I might say."
"I knew it!" cried Judith. "That's the sort of thing I am afraid of. If he has gone to the limit of introducing one disease among our cattle, what other plagues has he brought to the ranch? Has he imported any other outside stock?"
"No. He's been busier selling at a sacrifice than buying, just as I wrote you. Never another head has he bought lately—unless," and Tripp's eyes twinkled at her, "you count pigeons!"
"Pigeons!" repeated Judith.