The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine

WORK

      Stratton suddenly turned his back and stared blankly through the open door. With the same unconscious instinct which had moved him to conceal his face from the old man, he fumbled in one pocket and drew forth papers and tobacco sack. It spoke well for his self-control that his fingers were almost steady as he deliberately fashioned a cigarette and thrust it between his lips. When he had lighted it and inhaled a puff or two, he turned slowly to Pop Daggett again.

      "You sure know how to shoot a surprise into a fellow, old-timer," he drawled. "A woman rancher, eh? That's going some around this country, I'll say. How long has she--er--owned the Shoe-Bar?"

      "Only since her pa died about four months back." Pop Daggett assumed an easier pose; his tone had softened to one of garrulous satisfaction at having a new listener to a tale he had worn threadbare. "It's consid'able of a story, but if yuh ain't pressed for time--"

      "Go to it," invited Buck, leaning back against the counter. "I've got all the time there is."

      Daggett's small, faded blue eyes regarded him curiously.

      "Did yuh ever meet up with this here Stratton?" he asked abruptly.

      "I--a--know what he looks like."

      "It's more'n I do," grumbled Pop regretfully. "The only two times he was here I was laid up with a mean attack of rheumatiz, an' never sot eyes on him. Still an' all, there ain't hardly anybody else around Paloma that more 'n glimpsed him passin' through. He bought the outfit in a terrible hurry, an' I thinks to m'self at the time he must be awful trustin', or else a mighty right smart jedge uh land an' cattle. He couldn't of hardly rid over it even once real thorough before he plunks down his money, gets him a proper title, an' hikes off to the war, leavin' Joe Bloss in charge."

      He paused, fished in his pocket, and, producing a plug, carefully bit off one corner. Stratton watched him impatiently, a faint flush staining his clear, curiously white skin.

      "Well?" he prodded presently. "What happened then? From what I know of Joe, I'll say he made good all right."

      "Sure he did." Pop spoke with emphasis, though somewhat thickly. "There ain't nobody can tell Joe Bloss much about cattle. He whirled in right capable and got things runnin' good. For a while he was so danged busy he'd hardly ever get to town, but come winter the work eased up an' I used to see him right frequent. He'd set there alongside the stove evenings an' tell me what he was doin', or how he'd jest had a letter from Stratton, who was by now in France, an' all the rest of it. Wal, to make a long story short, a year last month the letters stopped comin'. Joe begun to get worried, but I told him likely Stratton was too busy fightin' to write, or he might even of got wounded. Yuh could have knocked me down with a wisp uh bunch-grass when one uh the boys come in one night with a Phoenix paper, an' showed me Stratton's name on a list uh killed or missin'!"

      "When was that?" asked Buck briefly, seeing that Daggett evidently expected some comment. If only the man would get on!

      "'Round the middle of September. Joe was jest naturally shot to pieces, him knowin' young Stratton from a kid an' likin' him fine, besides bein' consid'able worried about what was goin' to happen to the ranch an' him. Still an' all, there wasn't nothin' he could do but go on holdin' down his job, which he done until the big bust along the end of October."

      He paused again expectantly. Buck ground the butt of his cigarette under one heel and reached for the makings. He had an almost irresistible desire to take the garrulous old man by the shoulders and shake him till his teeth rattled.

      "It was this here Thorne from Chicago," resumed Daggett, a trifle disappointed. Usually at this point of the story, his listener broke in with exclamation or interested question. "He showed up one morning with the sheriff an' claimed the ranch was his. Said Stratton had sold it to him an' produced the deed, signed, sealed, an' witnessed all right an' proper."

      Match in one hand and cigarette in the other, Buck stared at him, the picture of arrested motion. For a moment or two his brain whirled. Could he possibly have done such a thing and not remember? With a ghastly sinking of his heart he realized that anything might have been possible during that hateful vanished year. Mechanically he lit his cigarette and of a sudden he grew calmer. According to the hospital records he had not left France until well into November of the preceding year. Tossing the match into the stove, he met Pop Daggett's glance.

      "How could that be?" he asked briefly. "Didn't you say this Stratton was in France for months before he was killed?"

      Pop nodded hearty agreement. "That's jest what I said, an' so did Bloss. But according to Thorne this here transfer was made a couple uh weeks before Stratton went over to France."

      "But that's impossible!" exclaimed Buck hotly. "How could he have----"

      He ceased abruptly and bit his lip. Daggett chuckled.

      "Gettin' kinda interested, ain't yuh?" he remarked in a satisfied tone. "I thought you would 'fore I was done. I don't say as it's impossible, but it shore looked queer to me. As Joe says, why would he go an' sell the outfit jest after buyin' it without a word to him. Not only that but he kept on writin' about how Joe was to do this an' that an' the other thing like he was mighty interested in havin' it run good. Joe, he even got suspicions uh somethin' crooked an' hired a lawyer to look into it, Stratton not havin' any folks. But that's all the good it done him. He couldn't pick no flaw in it at all. Seems Stratton was in Chicago on one of these here furloughs jest before he took ship. One uh the witnesses had gone to war, but they hunted out the other one an' he swore he'd seen the deed signed."

      "Did this Thorne-- What did you say his name was?"

      "I don't recolleck sayin', but it was Andrew J."

      Buck's lids narrowed; a curious gleam flashed for an instant in his gray eyes and was gone.

      "Well, did Thorne explain why he let it go so long before making his claim?"

      "Oh, shore! He was right there when it come to explainin'. Seems he had some important war business on his hands an' wanted to get shed uh that before he took up ranchin'. Knowed it was in good hands, 'count uh Bloss bein' on the job, an' Stratton havin' promised to write frequent an' keep Joe toein' the mark. Stratton, it seems, had sold out because he didn't know what might happen to him across the water. Oh, Andrew J. was a right smooth talker, believe me, but still an' all he didn't make no great hit with folks around the country even after he settled down on the Shoe-Bar and brung his daughter there to live. There weren't no tears shed, neither, when an ornery paint horse throwed him last May an' broke his neck."

      "What about Bloss?" Stratton asked briefly.

      "Oh, he got his time along with all the other cow-men. There shore was a clean sweep when Thorne whirled in an' took hold. Joe hung around here a week or two an' then drifted down to Phoenix. Last I heard he was goin' to try the Flyin'-V's, but that was six months or more ago."

      Buck's shoulders straightened and his chin went up with a sudden touch of swift decision.

      "Got a horse I can hire?" he asked abruptly.

      Pop hesitated, his shrewd gaze traveling swiftly over Stratton's straight, tall figure to rest reflectively on the lean, square-jawed, level-eyed young face.

      "I dunno but I have," he answered slowly. "Uh course I don't know yore name even, an' a man's got to be careful how he--"

      "Oh, that'll be all right," interrupted Stratton, his white teeth showing briefly in a smile. "I'll leave you a deposit. My name's Bob Green, though folks mostly call me Buck. I've got a notion to ride over to the Shoe-Bar and see if they know anything about--Joe."

      "'T ain't likely they will," shrugged Daggett. "Still, it won't do no harm to try. Yuh can't ride in them things, though," he added, surveying Stratton's well-cut suit of gray.

      "I don't specially want to, but they're all I've got," smiled Buck. "When I quit ranching to show 'em how to run the war, I left my outfit behind, and I haven't been back yet to get it."

      "Cow-man eh?" Pop nodded approvingly. "I thought so; yuh got the look, someway. Wal, yore welcome to some duds I bought off 'n Dick Sanders about a month ago. He