Something in her tone stung him. "Still, it doesn't seem quite fair to condemn even a common cow-puncher unheard," he retorted with a touch of sarcasm.
She stiffened, and a faint flush crept into her face. Then her chin went up determinedly.
"You rode to Paloma yesterday morning." It was more of a statement than a question.
"In the gully this side of the Rocking-R trail you met a Mexican on a sorrel horse?"
Again Buck acquiesced, but inwardly he wondered. So far as he knew there had been no witness to that meeting.
Buck nodded, a sudden feeling of puzzled wariness surging over him. For an instant the girl hesitated. Then she went on in a soft rush of indignation:
"And so last night those Mexican thieves, warned that the middle pasture would be unguarded, broke in there and carried off nearly two hundred head of cattle!"
As he caught her meaning, which he did almost instantly, Buck flushed crimson and his eyes flashed. For a moment or so he was too furious to speak; and though most of his rage was directed against the man who, with such brazen effrontery, had sought to shift the blame of his own criminal plotting, he could not help feeling resentment that the girl should so readily believe the worst against him. A vehement denial trembled on his lips, but in time he remembered that he could not utter it without giving away more than he was willing to at the present moment. With an effort he got a grip on himself, but though his voice was quiet enough, his eyes still smoldered and his lips were hard.
"I see," he commented briefly. "You believe it all, of course?"
She had been watching him closely, and now a touch of troubled uncertainty crept into her face.
"What else can I do?" she countered. "You admit getting the letter from that Mexican, and I saw Tex take it out of your bag."
This information brought Buck's lips tightly together and he frowned. "Could I see it--the letter, I mean?" he asked.
She hesitated a moment, and then, reaching across the table, took up the shabby account-book he had seen before and drew from it a single sheet of paper. The note was short and written in Spanish. It was headed, "_Amigo Green_," and as Buck swiftly translated the few lines in which the writer gave thanks for information purported to have been given about the middle pasture and stated that the raid would take place that night according to arrangement, his lips curled. From his point of view it seemed incredible that anyone could be deceived by such a clumsy fraud. But he was forced to admit that up to a few weeks ago the girl had never set eyes on him, and knew nothing of his antecedents, whereas she trusted Lynch implicitly. So he refrained from any comment as he handed back the letter.