"Say, young feller! Yuh ain't thinkin' of gettin a
job out there, are yuh?"

Stratton hesitated for an instant. "Well, I don't know," he shrugged
presently. "I've got to get to work right soon at something."

Daggett took a swift step or two across the sagging porch, his face grown
oddly serious. "Wal, I wouldn't try the Shoe-Bar, nohow. There's the
Rockin'-R. They're short a man or two. Yuh go see Jim Tenny an' tell
him--"

"What's the matter with the Shoe-Bar?" persisted Buck.

Pop's glance avoided Stratton's. "Yuh--wouldn't like it," he mumbled,
glancing down the trail. "It--it ain't like it was in Joe's time. That
there Tex Lynch--he--he don't get on with the boys."

"Who's he? The foreman?"

"Yeah. Beauty Lynch, some calls him 'count uh his looks. I ain't denyin'
he's han'some, with them black eyes an' red cheeks uh his, but somethin'
queer--Like I said, there ain't nobody stays long at the Shoe-Bar. Yuh
take my advice, Buck, an' try the Rockin'-R. They's a nice bunch there."

Buck swung himself easily into the saddle; "I'll think about it," he
smiled, gathering up the reins. "Well, so-long; see you in a day or so,
anyway. Thanks for helping me out, old-timer."

He loosened the reins, and the roan took the trail at a canter. Well
beyond the last adobe house, Stratton glanced back to see old Pop Daggett
still standing on the store porch and staring after him. Buck flung up
one arm in a careless gesture of farewell; then a gentle downward slope in
the prairie carried him out of sight of the little settlement.

"Acts to me like he was holding back something," he thought as he rode
briskly on through the wide, rolling solitudes. "Now, I wonder what sort
of a guy is this Tex Lynch, and what's going on at the Shoe-Bar that an
old he-gossip like Pop Daggett is afraid to talk about?"

CHAPTER III

MISTRESS MARY--QUITE CONTRARY

But Stratton's mind was too full of the amazing information he had gleaned
from the old storekeeper to leave much room for minor reflections. He had
been stunned at first--so completely floored that anyone save the
garrulous old man intent on making the most of his shop-worn story could
not have helped seeing that something was seriously wrong. Then anger
came--a hot, raging fury against the authors of this barefaced, impudent
attempt at swindle. From motives of policy he had done his best to conceal
that, too, from Pop Daggett; but now that he was alone it surged up again
with