his lunch from the saddle and went into the shack to eat
it.

In spite of the feeling that he had nothing to fear, he took a position
which gave him a good outlook from both door and window, and saw that his
gun was loose in the holster. After he had eaten, he went down and got a
drink from the creek. He had not been back in the shack a great while
before the telephone bell jangled, and taking down the receiver he heard
Lynch's voice at the other end.

Owing to the rather crude nature of the contrivance there was a good deal
of buzzing on the line. But this was to be expected, and when Tex had
talked a few minutes and decided that the system was working as well as
could be hoped, he told Stratton to come in to the ranch, and hung up.

Buck had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile across the prairie, when
all at once he pulled his horse to a standstill. The thought had suddenly
come to him that this was the chance he had wanted so long to take a look
at that mysterious stretch of desert known as the north pasture. He would
be delayed, of course, but explanations were easy and that did not disturb
him. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and without delay he turned
his horse and spurred forward.

An instinct of caution made him keep as close as possible to the rough,
broken country that edged the western extremity of the ranch, where he
would run less chance of being seen than on the flat, open plain. He
pushed his horse as much as was wise, and presently observed with
satisfaction--though it was still a good way off--the line of fence that
marked the northern boundary of middle pasture.

A few hundred yards ahead lay a shallow draw, and beyond it a weather-worn
ridge thrust its blunt nose out into the plain considerably further than
any Buck had yet passed. He turned the horse out, intending to ride around
it, but a couple of minutes later jerked him to a standstill and sat
motionless in the saddle, eyes narrowing with a sudden, keen surprise.

He had reached a point where, for the first time, he could make out, over
the obstruction ahead, the extreme northwest corner of the pasture. Almost
at the spot where the two lines of fence made a right angle were two
horsemen in the typical cow-man attire. At first they stood close
together, but as Stratton stared intently, rising a little in his stirrups
to get a clearer view through the scanty fringe of vegetation that topped
the ridge, one of them rode forward an