Buck stared at him in amazement, the totally unexpected nature of the thing taking him completely by surprise.
“Why I thought—”
“So did I,” interrupted Bud curtly. “I didn’t believe they’d dare break into middle pasture, but they have. There’s a gap a hundred yards wide in the fence, and they’ve got away with a couple of hundred head at least.”
“You’re sure it happened last night?”
“Dead certain. The tracks are too fresh. Buck, if Tex Lynch don’t get Hardenberg on the job now, we’ll know he’s crooked.”
“We’d pretty near decided that anyhow, hadn’t we?” returned Stratton absently.
He was wondering how this new move had been managed and what it meant. If it had been merely part of a scheme to loot the Shoe-Bar for his own 162 benefit, Tex would never have allowed his rustler accomplices to touch a steer from that middle pasture herd, which he must feel by this time to be thoroughly and completely infected. Even if he had managed during his brief absence yesterday to make a hurried inspection, and suspected that the blackleg’ plot had failed, he couldn’t be certain enough to take a chance like this.
The foreman’s manner gave Buck no clue. At dinner he was unusually silent and morose, taking no part in the discussion of this latest outrage, which the others kept up with such a convincing semblance of indignation. To Stratton he acted like a man who has come to some new and not altogether agreeable decision, which in any other person would probably mean that he had at last made up his mind to call in the sheriff. But Buck was convinced that this was the last thing Lynch intended to do, and gradually there grew up in his mind, fostered by one or two trifling particulars in Tex’s manner toward himself, a curious, instinctive feeling of premonitory caution.
This increased during the afternoon, when the men were sent out to repair the broken fence, while Lynch remained behind. It fed on little details, such as a chance side glance from one of the men, or the sight of two of them in low-voiced conversation when he was not supposed to be looking—details he would scarcely have noticed ordinarily. Toward the end of 163 the day Buck had grown almost certain that some fresh move was being directed against himself, and when the blow fell only its nature came as a surprise.
The foreman was standing near the corral when they returned, and as soon as Stratton had unsaddled and turned his horse loose, Lynch drew him to one side.