It was not yet noon when Wolf swept up to his bunkhouse and rode in through the door, leaning forward in the saddle to clear the rafters, his gun freezing Big Tom and Dick Carson as stiff as statues.
"Don't you move till I says so!" he snarled. "Who was in town th' night Buffalo stopped there on his way home? Think quick; an' talk straight!"
"What are you doin'? Goin' _loco_?" demanded the foreman. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the look on his puncher's face.
"I'm askin' th' questions!" snapped Wolf, his rage climbing anew. "You answer 'em, an' _pronto_! Who was there that night?"
"Nobody left here at all that night?" demanded Wolf.
"How do you know? That was near a week ago. How do you know they was all here?"
"That was th' first night you went on Nelson's trail," answered the foreman somewhat angrily. "I told them to stay home, an' give you plenty of room. They did it."
"I reckon they was glad to do it," sneered Wolf. "Coyotes don't go cougar hunting less'n th' pack is big."
"They might as well stay home as go on a drunk in Highbank," retorted Big Tom, coldly.
For a moment Wolf was balanced on a narrow edge, but controlled himself because of genuine liking for his foreman. "Don't you ever come that close again," he said, almost in a whisper. "Do you know _why_ I went to Highbank? You ought to, for I reckon everybody does by _this_ time," he grated.
"I'm listenin' to you," answered Big Tom. "I don't know _why_ you went."
Wolf dismounted, drove the horse out of the house, and paced up and down the long room in a frenzy of energy.
"I was roped off my cayuse ridin' home that night. I must 'a' fell on my head, for I don't know nothin' about it till I got to town. When I came to my senses I was bound, blindfolded, an' gagged, an' my head was spinnin' an' near bustin' with pain. I was dumped into Buffalo's wagon, pushed in among a load of hides, an' staked out so I couldn't move. All that day I lay there under that tarp, joltin' over that long trail, near faintin' with th' pain of th' lashin's an' th' gag, swelterin' in th' heat an' stink, sick with th' pain in my head, parched an' burnin' with thirst, ragin' with my thoughts, mile after mile. There was times I must 'a' lost consciousness; but I can remember a-plenty!