Hobson complied, and allowed Walton to relieve him of his weapon.
"We won't do anything over this," said Ted, as he prepared to take his departure. "But we'll watch things a bit for the next few weeks. Perhaps you'll see that the chicken-hearted tenderfoot isn't such a fool as you take him for." He could not resist the temptation of dealing this thrust.
For the next few days a careful watch was kept on Jake Hobson. The sheriff had come to share Ted's suspicions, which were briefly that the foreman had more than a little to do with horse thieving. But no proof could be brought forward; the only thing to do was to wait for another haul to be made, catch the thief or thieves, and drag them before a judge.
A visit was paid to the lonely shack where Ted had found the gold on the occasion of his dismissal. No search could discover any evidence, and, though the money was seized by Walton, they had to return baffled.
In spite of Ted's suspicions, the sheriff soon began to lose faith in the idea that Hobson was the culprit, and, as nothing showed itself, Ted found himself wondering if he were not mistaken, after all.
Inquiries told him, at the very commencement of the fall round-up, that several mares that were known to have had colts in the earlier part of the spring, were now without. It was discovered that the Cup and Spur Ranch had not lost any; a further proof, in Ted's mind, that Hobson knew more than he would tell.
But there was something else, of which Ted never dreamed. A plot was in the making for a wholesale theft and stampede of colts and horses.
It was by mere chance that Ted and Walton paid a visit to the Cup and Spur one evening, when all the stock of that ranch were rounded up and safe in the corrals. Walton found out that Knowles was away at Butte, seeing about the sale of a bunch of four-year olds. This gave Ted an idea that something might happen, and, though they took pains to show that they had left the ranch, they took good care not to let Hobson see that they had returned on their tracks. They waited in the shelter of a bluff until evening fell—waited for they hardly knew what.
They did not wait long after dark. Soon they heard the rumble of hoofs coming from the ranch.
"By gosh! He's done it, after all!" yelled the sheriff delightedly. "Bully for you, kid! You've got brains!"