Shoe-Bar Stratton

by Ames, Joseph Bushnell

  Stratton smiled blandly. “In that case I reckon I’ll have to ask Miss Thorne,” he remarked, standing with legs slightly apart and thumbs hooked loosely in his chap-belt. “I’m rather curious, you know.”

  “Like hell yuh will!” rasped Lynch, as Buck took a step or two toward the house.

  Impulsively Lynch’s right hand dropped to his gun but as his fingers touched the stock he found himself staring at the uptilted end of Stratton’s holster frayed a little at the end so that the glint of a blued steel barrel showed through the leather.

  “Just move your hand a mite,” Buck suggested in a quiet, level tone, which was nevertheless obeyed promptly. “Now, listen here. I want you to get this. I ain’t longing to stick around any outfit when the boss don’t want me. If the lady says I’m to go, I’ll get out pronto; but I don’t trust you, and she’s got to tell me that face to face before I move a step. Sabe?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, and Lynch, crumpling the unheeded money in his hand, stepped aside with an expression of baffled fury and watched him stride along the side of the house and disappear around the corner.

  He was far from lacking nerve, but he had suddenly remembered that letter to Sheriff Hardenberg, regarding which he had long ago obtained confirmation from Pop Daggett. If he could rely on the meaning of Stratton’s little anecdote—and he had an uncomfortable conviction that he could—the letter would be opened in case Buck met his death by violence. And once it was opened by the sheriff, only Tex Lynch how very much the fat would be in the fire.

  So, though his fingers twitched, he held his hand, and presently, hearing voices in the living-room, he crept over to an open window and, standing close to one side of it, bent his head to listen.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE PRIMEVAL INSTINCT

  On the other side of the house Buck found the mistress of the ranch and her two guests standing in a little group beside one of the dusty, discouraged-looking flower-beds. As he appeared they all glanced toward him, and a troubled, almost frightened expression flashed across Mary Thorne’s face.

  “Could I speak to you a moment, ma’am?” asked Stratton, doffing his Stetson.

  That expression, and her marked hesitation in coming forward, were both significant, and Buck felt a sudden little stab of anger. Was she afraid of him? he wondered; and tried to imagine what beastly lies Lynch must have told her to bring about such an extraordinary state of mind.

  But as she moved slowly toward him, the anger ebbed as swiftly as it had come. She looked so slight and frail and girlish, and he observed that her lips were pressed almost as tightly together as the fingers of those small, brown hands hanging straight at her sides. At the edge of the porch she paused and looked up at him, and though the startled look had gone, he could see that she was still nervous and apprehensive.

  “Should you rather go inside?” she murmured.

  Buck flashed a glance at the two Mannings, still within hearing. “If you don’t mind,” he answered briefly.

  In the living-room she turned and faced him, her back against the table, on which she rested the tips of her outspread fingers. She was so evidently nerving herself for an interview she dreaded that Buck almost regretted having forced it.

  “I won’t keep you a minute,” he began hurriedly. “Tex tells me you have no more use for me here.”

  “I’m—sorry,” fell almost mechanically from her set lips.

  “But he didn’t tell me why.”

  Her eyes, which from the first had scarcely left his face, widened, and a puzzled look came into them.

  “But you must know,” she returned a trifle stiffly.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t,” he assured her.

  “Oh—duties!” She spoke with a touch of soft impatience. “It’s what you’ve done, not what you haven’t done that—. But surely this is a waste of time? It’s not particularly—pleasant; and I don’t see what will be gained by going into all the—the details.”

  Something in her tone stung him. “Still, it doesn’t seem quite fair to condemn even a common cow-puncher unheard,” he retorted with a touch of sarcasm.

  She stiffened, and a faint flush crept into her face. Then her chin went up determinedly.

  “You rode to Paloma yesterday morning.” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Yes.”

  “In the gully this side of the Rocking-R trail you met a Mexican on a sorrel horse?”

  Again Buck acquiesced, but inwardly he wondered. So far as he knew there had been no witness to that meeting.

  “He handed you a letter?”

  Buck nodded, a sudden feeling of puzzled wariness surging over him. For an instant the girl hesitated. Then she went on in a soft rush of indignation:

  “And so last night those Mexican thieves, warned that the middle pasture would be unguarded, broke in there and carried off nearly two hundred head of cattle!”

  As he caught her meaning, which he did almost instantly, Buck flushed crimson and his eyes flashed. For a moment or so he was too furious to speak; and though most of his rage was directed against the man who, with such brazen effrontery, had sought to shift the blame of his own criminal plotting, he could not help feeling resentment that the girl should so readily believe the worst against him. A vehement denial trembled on his lips, but in time he remembered that he could not utter it without giving away more than he was willing to at the present moment. With an effort he got a grip on himself, but though his voice was quiet enough, his eyes still smoldered and his lips were hard.

  “I see,” he commented briefly. “You believe it all, of course?”

  She had been watching him closely, and now a touch of troubled uncertainty crept into her face.

  “What else can I do?” she countered. “You admit getting the letter from that Mexican, and I saw Tex take it out of your bag.”

  This information brought Buck’s lips tightly together and he frowned. “Could I see it—the letter, I mean?” he asked.

  She hesitated a moment, and then, reaching across the table, took up the shabby account-book he had seen before and drew from it a single sheet of paper. The note was short and written in Spanish. It was headed, “Amigo Green,” and as Buck swiftly translated the few lines in which the writer gave thanks for information purported to have been given about the middle pasture and stated that the raid would take place that night according to arrangement, his lips curled. From his point of view it seemed incredible that anyone could be deceived by such a clumsy fraud. But he was forced to admit that up to a few weeks ago the girl had never set eyes on him, and knew nothing of his antecedents, whereas she trusted Lynch implicitly. So he refrained from any comment as he handed back the letter.

  “You don’t—deny it?” asked the girl, an undertone of disappointment in her voice.

  “What’s the use?” shrugged Stratton. “You evidently believe Lynch.”

  She did not answer at once, but stood silent, searching his face with a troubled, wistful scrutiny.

  “I don’t know quite what to believe,” she told him presently. “You—you don’t seem like a person who would—who would— And yet some one must have given information.” Her chin suddenly tilted and her lips grew firm. “If you’ll tell me straight out that you’re nothing but an ordinary cow-puncher, that you have no special object in being here on the ranch, that you’re exactly what you seem and nothing more, then I—I’ll believe you.”

  Her words banished the last part of resentment lingering in Stratton’s mind. She was a good sort, after all. He found himself of a sudden regarding her with a feeling that was almost tenderness, and wishing very much that he might tell her everything. But that, of course, was impossible.

  “I can’t quite do that,” he answered slowly.

  The hopeful gleam died out of her eyes, and she made an eloquent, discouraged gesture with both hands.

  “You see? What else can I do but let you go? Unless I take every possible precaution I
’ll be ruined by these dreadful thieves.”

  Buck moved his shoulders slightly. “I understand. I’m not kicking. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you very much for telling me what you have.”

  Abruptly he turned away and in the doorway came face to face with Alfred Manning, who seemed to expect the cow-puncher to step obsequiously aside and let him pass. But Buck was in no humor to step aside for any one, and for a silent instant their glances clashed. In the end it was Manning, flushed and looking daggers, who gave way, and as Stratton passed the open window a moment later he heard the other’s voice raised in an angry pitch.

  “Perfectly intolerable! I tell you, Mary, you ought to have that fellow arrested.”

  “I don’t mean to do anything of the sort,” retorted Miss Thorne.

  “But it’s your duty. He’ll get clean away, and go right on stealing—”

  “Please, Alf!” There was a tired break in the girl’s voice. “I don’t want to talk any more about it. I’ve had enough—”

  Stratton’s lips tightened and he passed on out of hearing. The encounter with Manning had irritated him, and a glimpse of Lynch he caught through the kitchen door fanned into a fresh glow his smoldering anger against the foreman. It was not that he minded in the least the result of the fellow’s plotting. But the method of it, the effrontery of that cowardly, insolent attempt to blacken and besmirch him with Mary Thorne, made him more furious each time he thought of it. When he reached the bunk-house his rage was white hot.

  He found Jessup the sole occupant. It was still rather early for quitting, and Tex must have set the other men to doing odd jobs around the barns and near-by places.

  “What’s happened?” demanded Bud, as Buck appeared. “Tex put me to work oiling harness, but I sneaked off as soon as he was out of sight. I heard Slim say yuh were fired.”

  Flinging his belongings together as he talked, Stratton briefly retailed the essentials of the situation.

  “I’m going to saddle up and start for town right away,” he concluded. “If I hang around here much longer I don’t know as I can keep my hands off that double-faced crook.”

  He added some more man-sized adjectives, to which Bud listened with complete approval.

  “Yuh ain’t said half enough,” he growled, from where he stood to the left of the closed door. “I wish yuh would stay an’ give him one almighty good beating up. He thinks there ain’t a man on the range can stand up against him.”

  Buck’s eyes narrowed. “I’d sure like to try,” he said regretfully. “I don’t say I could knock him out, but I’d guarantee to give him something to think about. Trouble is, there’s nothing gained by starting a mess like that except letting off steam, and there might be a whole lot—”

  He broke off abruptly as the door swung open to admit Lynch and McCabe. The foreman, pausing just inside the room, eyed Stratton’s preparations for departure with curling lips. As a matter of fact, what he had overheard of the interview between Buck and Mary Thorne had given him the impression that Stratton was an easy mark, whose courage and ability had been greatly overestimated. A more sagacious person would have been content to let well enough alone. But Tex had a disposition which impelled him to rub things in.

  “There’s yore dough,” he said sneeringly, flinging the little handful of money on the table with such force that several coins fell to the floor and rolled into remote corners. “Yuh better put it away safe, ’cause after this there ain’t nobody around these parts’ll hire yuh, I’ll tell a man!”

  His tone was indescribably taunting, and of a sudden Buck saw red. Dominated by the single-minded impulse of primeval man to use the weapons nature gave him, he forgot momentarily that he carried a gun. When the two men entered, he had been bending over, rolling his blankets. Since then, save to raise his head, he had scarcely altered his position, and yet, as he poised there motionless, fists clenched, muscles tense, eyes narrowed to mere slits, Lynch suddenly realized that he had blundered, and reached swiftly for his Colt.

  But another hand was ahead of his. Standing just behind him, Bud Jessup had sized up the situation a fraction of a second before Tex, and like a flash he bent forward and snatched the foreman’s weapon from its holster.

  “Cut that out, Slim!” he shrilled, forestalling a sudden downward jerk of McCabe’s right hand. “No horning in, now. Give it here.”

  An instant later he had slammed the door and shot the bolt, and stood with back against it, a Colt in each hand. His freckled face was flushed and his eyes gleamed with excitement.

  “Go to it, Buck!” he yelled jubilantly. “My money’s up on yuh, old man. Give him hell!”

  Lynch darted out into the middle of the room, thrusting aside the table with a single powerful sweep of one arm. There was no hint of reluctance in his manner, nor lack of efficiency in the lowering droop of his big shoulders or the way his fists fell automatically into position. His face had hardened into a fierce mask, out of which savage eyes blazed fearlessly.

  An instant later, like the spring of a panther, Stratton’s lean, lithe body launched forward.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A CHANGE OF BASE

  Stratton staggered back against the wall and leaned there, panting. All his strength had gone out in that last terrific blow, and for a space he seemed incapable of movement. At length, conscious of a warm, moist trickle on his chin, he raised one hand mechanically to his face and brought it away, dabbled with bright crimson. For a moment or two he regarded the stiff, crooked fingers and bruised knuckles in a dazed, impersonal fashion as if the hand belonged to some one else. Then he became aware that Bud was speaking.

  “Sure,” he mumbled, when the meaning of the reiterated question penetrated to his consciousness. “I’m—all—right.”

  Then his head began to clear, and, slowly straightening his sagging shoulders, he glanced down at the hulking figure sprawling motionless amidst the debris of the wrecked table.

  “Is—he—” he began slowly.

  “He’s out, that’s all,” stated Jessup crisply. “Golly, Buck! That was some punch.” He paused, regarding his friend eagerly. “What are yuh goin’ to do now?” he asked.

  A tiny trickle of blood from Stratton’s cut lip ran down his chin and splashed on the front of his torn, disordered shirt.

  “Wash, I reckon,” he answered, with a twisted twitch of his stiff lips that was meant to be a smile. “I sure need it bad.”

  “But I mean after that,” explained Bud. “Don’t yuh want me to saddle up while you’re gettin’ ready? There ain’t no point in hangin’ around till he comes to.”

  Buck took a step or two away from the wall and regarded the prostrate Lynch briefly, his glance also taking in McCabe, who bent over him.

  “I reckon not,” he agreed briefly. “Likewise, if I don’t get astride a cayuse mighty soon, I won’t be able to climb onto him at all. Go ahead and saddle up, kid, and I’ll be with you pronto. You’d better ride to town with me and bring back the horse.”

  Bud nodded and, breaking the Colts one after another, pocketed the shells and dropped the weapons into a near-by bunk.

  “Yuh needn’t bother to do that,” commented McCabe sourly. “Nobody ain’t goin’ to drill no holes in yuh; we’re only too tickled to see yuh get out. If you’re wise, kid, you’ll stay away, likewise. I wouldn’t be in yore shoes for no money when Tex comes around an’ remembers what yuh done?”

  “I reckon I can take care of m’self,” retorted Jessup. “It ain’t Tex’s game to be took up for no murder yet awhile.”

  Without further comment he gathered up most of Stratton’s belongings and departed for the corral. Buck took his hand-bag and, leaving the cabin, limped slowly down to the creek. He was surprised to note that the encounter seemed to have attracted no attention up at the ranch-house. Then he realized that with the door and windows closed, what little noise there had been might well have passed unnoticed, especially as the men were at work back in the bar
ns.

  At the creek he washed the blood from his face and hands, changed his shirt, put a strip of plaster on his cut lip, and decided that any further repairs could wait until he reached Paloma.

  When he arrived at the corral Bud had just finished saddling the second horse, and they lost no time making fast Buck’s belongings. The animals were then led out, and Stratton was on the point of mounting when the sound of light footsteps made him turn quickly to find Miss Manning almost at his elbow.

  “But you’re not leaving now, without waiting to say good-by?” she expostulated.

  Buck’s lips straightened grimly, with a grotesque twisted effect caused by the plaster at the corner.

  “After what’s happened I hardly supposed anybody’d want any farewell words,” he commented with a touch of sarcasm.

  Miss Manning stamped her shapely, well-shod foot petulantly. “Rubbish!” she exclaimed. “You don’t suppose I believe that nonsense, do you?”

  “I reckon you’re about the only one who doesn’t, then.”

  “I’m not. Mrs. Archer agrees with me. She says you couldn’t be a—a thief if you tried. And down in her heart even Mary— But whatever has happened to your face?”

  Stratton flushed faintly. “Oh, I just—cut myself against something,” he shrugged. “It’s nothing serious.”

  “I’m glad of that,” she commented, dimpling a little. “It certainly doesn’t add to your beauty.”

  She was bare-headed, and the slanting sunlight, caressing the crisp waves of hair, revealed an unsuspected reddish glint amongst the dark tresses. As he looked down into her clear, friendly eyes, Buck realized, and not the first time, how very attractive she really was. If things had only been different, if only the barrier of that hateful mental lapse of his had not existed, he had a feeling that they might have been very good friends indeed.

  His lips had parted for a farewell word or two when suddenly he caught the flutter of skirts over by the corner of the ranch-house. It was Mary Thorne, and Buck wondered with an odd, unexpected little thrill, whether by any chance she too might be coming to say good-by. Whatever may have been her intention, however, it changed abruptly. Catching sight of the group beside the corral fence, she stopped short, hesitated an instant, and then, turning square about, disappeared in the direction she had come. As he glanced back to Stella Manning, Buck’s face was a little clouded.