uietly he swung his stockinged feet to the floor and was reaching for the
holster and cartridge-belt he had laid beside him, when, from the
adjoining bunk, Bud Jessup's voice came in a cautious whisper.

"They're gone. The whole bunch of 'em just rode off."

CHAPTER VI

THE BLOOD-STAINED SADDLE

"Hello, kid!" said Stratton quietly. "You awake? What's up, anyhow?"

There was a rustle in the adjoining bunk, the thud of bare feet on the
floor, and Jessup's face loomed, wedge-shaped and oddly white, through the
shadows.

"They're gone," he repeated, with a curious, nervous hesitancy of manner.

"I know. You said that before. What the devil are they doing out this time
of night?"

In drawing his weapon to him, Buck's eyes had fallen on his wrist-watch,
the radiolite hands of which indicated twenty minutes after twelve. He
awaited Jessup's reply with interest, and it struck him as unnaturally
long in coming.

"I don't rightly know," the youngster said at length. "I s'pose they must
have gone out after--the rustlers."

Buck straightened abruptly. "What!" he exclaimed. "You mean to say there's
been rustling on the Shoe-Bar?"

Again Jessup hesitated, but more briefly. "I don't know why I shouldn't
tell yuh. Everybody's wise to it, or suspects somethin'. They've got away
with quite a bunch--mostly from the pastures around Las Vegas, over near
the hills. Tex says they're greasers, but I think--" He broke off to add a
moment later in a troubled tone, "I wish to thunder he hadn't gone an'
left Rick out there all alone."

Stratton remembered Las Vegas as the name of a camp down at the
southwesterly extremity of the ranch. It consisted of a one-room adobe
shack, which was occupied at certain seasons of the year by one or two
punchers, who from there could more easily look after the near-by cattle,
or ride fence, than by going back and forth every day from the ranch
headquarters.

"Who's Rick?" he asked briefly.

"Rick Bemis. He--he's one dandy fellow. We've worked together over two
years."

"H'm. How long's this rustling been going on?"

"Three or four months."

"Lost many head, have they?"

"Quite a bunch, I'd say, but I don't know. They never tell me or Rick
anythin'."

Bud's tone was bitter, and Stratton noticed it in spite of his
preoccupation. Rustling! That would account for several of the things that
had puzzled him. Rustling was possible, too, with the border-line
comparatively near, and that