about her that--that sort of
gets a man. She's so awful young, an'--an'--earnest, an' though she don't
know one thing hardly about ranchin', she's dead crazy about this place,
an' mighty anxious to make it pay. When she asks yuh to do somethin', yuh
jest natu'ally feel like yuh wanted to oblige. I felt like that, anyhow,
an' I was hot under the collar at Tex for lyin' about me like he must of
done. So I tells her straight off I wasn't thinkin' of anythin' of the
sort. 'Fu'thermore,' I says, 'I'll stick to the job as long as yuh like if
you'll do one thing.' She asks what's that, an' I told her that some
folks, namin' no names, was tryin' to make out to her I wasn't doin' my
work good, an' doin' their best to get me in bad.

"'Oh, but I think you're mistaken,' she says, catchin' on right away who I
meant. 'Tex wouldn't do anythin' like that. He needs help too bad, for
one thing.'

"'Well,' I says, 'let it go at that. Only, if yuh hear anythin' against
me, I'd like for yuh not to take anybody else's word for it. It's got to
be proved I ain't capable, or I've done somethin' I oughta be fired for.
An' if things gets so I got to go, I'll come to yuh an' ask for my time
myself. Fu'thermore, I'll get Rick to promise the same thing.'

"Well, to make a long story short, she said she'd do it, though I could
see she was still thinkin' me mistaken about Tex doin' anythin' out of the
way. He's a rotten skunk, but you'd better believe he don't let her see
it. He's got her so she believes every darn word he says is gospel."

He finished in an angry key. Stratton's face was thoughtful.

"How long has he been here?" he asked.

"Who? Tex? Oh, long before I come. The old man made him foreman pretty
near a year ago in place of Bloss, who run the outfit for Stratton, that
fellow who was killed in the war that old Thorne bought the ranch off
from."

"What sort of a man was this Thorne?" Buck presently inquired.

"Pretty decent, though kinda stand-offish with us fellows. He was awful
thick with Tex, though, an' mebbe that's the reason Miss Mary thinks so
much of him. She took his death mighty hard, believe me!"

With a mind groping after hidden clues, Stratton subconsciously
disentangled the various "hes" and "hims" of Jessup's slightly involved
remark.

"Pop Daggett told me about his being thrown and breaking his neck," he
said presently. "You were here then, weren't you? Was there anything queer
about it? I mean, like the two pu