There was no direct reply to the half-question, and Buck shot a glance at his companions. Lynch rode slightly behind him and was out of the line of vision. McCabe, with face averted, bent over fussing with his saddle-strings. The sight of Doc Peters's face, however, pale, strained, with wide, frightened eyes and sagging jaw, told Stratton that his thrust had penetrated as deeply as he could have hoped. "We'll start here." It was Lynch's voice, curt and harsh, that broke the odd silence as he jerked his horse up and dismounted. "Get yore tools out an' don't waste any time." There was no mistaking his mood, and in the hours that followed he was a far from agreeable taskmaster. He snapped and growled and swore at them impartially, acting generally like a bear with a sore ear whom nothing can please. If he could be said to be less disagreeable to anyone, it was, curiously enough, Bud Jessup, whom he kept down at one end of the line most of the afternoon. Later Stratton discovered the reason. "It worked fine," Bud whispered to him jubilantly, when they were alone together for a few minutes after supper. "Did yuh see him hangin' around me this afternoon? He was grouchin' around and pretendin' to be mad because he'd let yuh go to town this mornin' just to mail a letter to some fool girl." "Of course I pulled the baby stare an' told him I didn't see no letter to no girl. Yuh sure didn't mail one while I was with yuh, I says. "'Didn't mail no letter at all?' he wants to know, scowlin'." "'Sure,' I says. 'Only it went to Jim Hardenberg over to Perilla. I seen him hand it to old Pop Daggett, who was peevish as a wet hen 'cause he couldn't find out nothin' about what was in it, 'count of Buck hangin' around till it got on the train. That's the only letter I seen.' "He didn't have no more to say, but walked off, scowlin' fierce. I'll bet yuh my new Stetson to a two-bit piece, Buck, he rides in to town mighty quick to find out what Pop knows about it." Stratton did not take him up, for it had already occurred to him that such a move on Lynch's part was almost certain. As a matter of fact the foreman did leave the ranch early the next morning, driving a pair of blacks harnessed to the buckboard. Buck and Jessup were both surprised at this unwonted method of locomotion, which usually indicated a passenger to be brought back, or, more rarely, a piece of freight or express, too large or heavy to be carried on horseback, yet not bulky enough for the lumbering freight-wagon. "An' if it was freight, he'd have sent one of us," commented Bud, as they saddled up preparatory to resuming operations on the fences. "Still an' all, I reckon he wants to see Pop himself and get a line on what that old he-gossip knows. He'll have his ear full, all right," he finished in a tone of vindictive satisfaction.