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 within him, dyeing his face a deep crimson and etching hard lines on his forehead and about his straight-lipped mouth. "Thought they'd put it over easy," he growled behind set teeth, one clenched, gloved hand thumping the saddle-horn. "Saw the notice in the papers, of course, and decided it would be a cinch to rob a dead man. Well, there's a surprise coming to somebody that'll make mine look like thirty cents." His lips relaxed in a grim smile, which presently merged into an expression of puzzled wonder. Thorne, of all people, to try and put across a crooked deal like this! Stratton had never known the man really intimately, but during the several years of their business relationship the Chicago lawyer struck him as being scrupulously honest and upright. Indeed, when Buck came to enlist, it seemed a perfectly safe and natural thing to leave his deeds and other important papers in Andrew Thorne's keeping. "Shows how you can be fooled in a man," murmured Stratton, as he followed the trail down into a shallow draw. "I sure played into his hands nice. He had the deeds and everything, and it would be simple enough to fake a transfer when he thought I was dead and knew I hadn't any kin to make trouble. I wonder what the daughter's like. A holy terror, I'll bet, and tarred with the same brush. Well, she'll get hers in about two hours' time, and get it good." The grim smile flickered again on his lips for a moment, to vanish as he saw the head and shoulders of a horseman appear over the further edge of the draw. An instant later the bulk of a big sorrel flashed into view and thudded toward him.