Since the night of Bemis’s accident, Buck had scarcely had a word with Bud Jessup, who he felt could give him some information, though he was not counting much on the importance of what the youngster 94 was likely to know. Through the day there was no chance of getting the fellow apart. But Buck kept his eyes and ears open, and at supper-time Bud’s casual remark to Lynch that he “s’posed he’d have to fix that busted saddle-girth before he hit the hay” did not escape him.
The meal over, Stratton left the kitchen and headed for the bunk-house with a purposeful air, soon leaving the others well in the rear. Presently one of them snickered.
“Looks like the poor rube’s goin’ to tear off some more sleep,” commented Kreeger in a suppressed tone, evidently not thinking Stratton was near enough to hear.
But Buck’s ears were sharp, and his lips twitched in a grim smile as he moved steadily on, shoulders purposely sagging. When he had passed through the doorway his head went up abruptly and his whole manner changed. Darting to his bunk, he snatched the blankets out and unrolled them with a jerk. Scrambling his clothes and other belongings into a rough mound, he swiftly spread the blankets over them, patted down a place or two to increase the likeness to a human body, dropped his hat on the floor beside the bunk, and then made a lightning exit through a window at the rear.
It was all accomplished with such celerity that before the dawdling punchers had entered the bunk-house, 95 Buck was out of sight among the bushes which thickly lined the creek. From here he had no difficulty in making his way unseen around to the back of the barns and other out-buildings, one of which he entered through a rear door. A moment or two later he found Jessup, as he expected, squatting on the floor of the harness-room, busily mending his broken saddle-girth.
“Hello, Bud,” he grinned, as the youngster looked up in surprise. “Thought I’d come up and have a chin with you.”
“But how the deuce—I thought they—yuh—”
“You thought right,” replied Stratton, as Jessup hesitated. “Tex and his friends have been sticking around pretty close for the past week or so, but I gave ’em the slip just now.”
Briefly he explained what he had done, and then paused, eying the young fellow speculatively.
“There’s something queer going on here, old man,” he began presently. “You’ll say it’s none of my business, maybe, and I reckon it isn’t. But unless I’ve sized ’em up wrong, Lynch and his gang are a bunch of crooks, and I’m not the sort to sit back quietly and leave a lady like Miss Thorne to their mercy.”