“No matter,” shrugged the Mexican. “There is no hurry.”
With reiterated and profuse thanks, he pulled his horse around and rode back with Stratton as far as the Rocking-R trail, where he turned off.
“He’ll find some corner where he can curl up and snooze for the couple of hours he’s saved,” thought Buck, watching the departing figure. “Those fellows, are so dog-gone lazy they’d sit and let grasshoppers, eat holes in their breeches.”
As he rode on he wondered a little what Jim Tenny, the Rocking-R foreman, could have to do with Lynch, who seemed to be on the outs with everybody, but Presently he dismissed the subject with a shrug. 160
“I’ll be getting as bad as Pop if I’m not careful” he thought. “Likely it’s some perfectly ordinary range business.”
He found Daggett in a garrulous mood but was in no humor to waste time listening to his flood of talk and questions. The bolts had come at last, and when he had secured them and the other things from the store, Buck promptly mounted and set out on his return.
Tex met him just outside the corral and received the letter without comment, thrusting it into his pocket unread. He seemed much more interested in the arrival of the bolts, and after dinner set Stratton and McCabe to work in the wagon-shed replacing the broken ones. It was not until late in the afternoon that Buck managed a few words in private with Jessup, and was surprised to learn that the gang had been working all day to the southeast of the ranch. Tex himself had been absent from the party for an hour or two in the morning, but when he joined them he came from the direction of the Paloma trail, and Stratton did not believe he could have had time thoroughly to inspect the middle pasture and return so soon by so roundabout a course.
“He’ll do it to-morrow, sure,” decided Buck. “It isn’t human nature to hold off much longer.”
He was right. After breakfast Stratton and McCabe were ordered to resume work on the wagons, 161 while the others sallied forth with Lynch, ostensibly to ride fence along the southern side of middle pasture. Buck awaited their return with interest and curiosity. He thought he might possibly detect some signs of glumness in the faces of the foreman and his confederates, but he was quite unprepared for the open anger and excitement which stamped every face, Bud Jessup’s included.
“Rustlers were out again last night,” Bud explained, the moment he had a chance.