Find out what——
Just the three words. For a long time he studied them, before the full import of them struck him. He walked to the front door, but found it locked. Then he went back, mounted his horse and rode back toward the Arrow. It was growing dark now, and he felt sure that the stranger would not come back. He was in need of medical attention, and Jack felt that he would lose no time in getting back to his own crowd.
Jack took the tiny piece of paper from his pocket and looked it over again.
“It’s from her father,” he told himself. “Find out what? Find out somethin’ about the cattlemen, I wonder? My ——, is my wife a spy?”
He straightened in his saddle, as past events flashed through his mind. Molly had known that there was a lookout in Kiopo Cañon. He remembered that Honey Wier had spoken in her presence of old Ed Barber, the keeper of the Kiopo Pass, who drew a salary for sitting up there, watching for sheep.
She also knew that the fall roundup was to be held at this time. Had she written this to her father, he wondered? She had plenty of chances, when she went for the mail. And she had intimated that her father knew she was going to marry him.
“Is she standin’ all this for her father?” he asked himself. “Did she marry me just to give her father a chance to get even with the Arrow?”
He tried to argue himself out of the idea, but the tiny, triangular piece of paper, with the three written words, was something that he could not deny. It was after dark when he rode in at the Arrow. There were twelve horses tied to the low fence in front of the ranch house. A yellow glow showed through the heavy window curtains of the living room.
Jack did not stop to knock on the front door, but walked right in. The room was full of men, hazy with smoke. They had been arguing angrily as he entered, but now they were still.
His father was sitting at the back of the room, in the center, while the others were facing him. There were Cliff Vane, owner of the Circle V, and his two cowboys, Bert Allen and “Skinner” Close; Sam Hodges, the crippled owner of the Bar 77, with Jimmy Healey, Paul Dazey and Gene Hill; Old Frank Hall, who owned the 404, his son Tom and three punchers.