His face darkened as he glanced thoughtfully at the departing figure of Miss Manning. She had greeted him warmly and betrayed a very evident inclination to linger in his vicinity. There had been a slight touch of pique in her treatment of Lynch, who hung around so persistently.
“I wish to thunder I had an idea of how much she knows,” he muttered. “Did I act like a brainless idiot when I was—was that way, or not?”
He had asked the same question of the hospital surgeon and got an unsatisfactory answer. It all depended, the doctor told him non-committally. He might easily have shown evidences of lost memory; on the other hand, it was quite possible, especially 141 with chance acquaintances, that his manner had been entirely normal.
There was nothing to be gained, however, by racking his brain for something that wasn’t there, and Buck soon gave up the attempt. He could only trust to luck and his own inventiveness, and hope that Lynch’s delightfully unconscious easing of the situation would continue.
The work was finished toward noon on the third day after the arrival of the Mannings, and all the connections hooked up. There remained nothing to do but test the line, and Tex, after making sure everything was in order, glanced over his men, who lounged in front of the Las Vegas shack.
“Yuh may as well stay down at this end,” he remarked, looking at Buck, “while the rest of us go back. Stick around where yuh can hear the bell, an’ if it don’t ring in, say, an hour, try to get the house yourself. If that don’t work, come along in an’ report. I reckon everything’s all right, though.”
Stratton was conscious of a sudden sense of alertness. He had grown so used to suspecting and analyzing everything the foreman said or did that for a moment he forgot the precautions he had taken and wondered whether Lynch was up to some new crooked work. Then he remembered and relaxed mentally. Considering the consequences, Tex would hardly dare try any fresh violence against him, especially quite 142 so soon. Besides, in broad daylight and in this open country, Buck couldn’t imagine any form of danger he wouldn’t be able to meet successfully alone.
So he acquiesced indifferently, and from the open doorway of the hut watched the others mount and ride away. There were only four of them, for Kreeger and Butch Siegrist had been dispatched early that morning to ride fence on the other side of the ranch-house. When they were well on their way, Buck untied his lunch from the saddle and went into the shack to eat it.
In spite of the feeling that he had nothing to fear, he took a position which gave him a good outlook from both door and window, and saw that his gun was loose in the holster. After he had eaten, he went down and got a drink from the creek. He had not been back in the shack a great while before the telephone bell jangled, and taking down the receiver he heard Lynch’s voice at the other end.
Owing to the rather crude nature of the contrivance there was a good deal of buzzing on the line. But this was to be expected, and when Tex had talked a few minutes and decided that the system was working as well as could be hoped, he told Stratton to come in to the ranch, and hung up.