"I'll tell a man I ain't!" declared Jessup emphatically. "They're a rotten bunch. Yuh can go as far's you like, an' I'll stick with yuh. Have yuh got anything on 'em?"
"Not exactly, but we may have if we put our heads together and talk it over." He glanced questioningly around the dusty room. "They'll likely find out the trick I played on 'em, and come snooping around here before long. Suppose we slip out and go down by the creek where we can talk without being interrupted."
Jessup agreed readily and followed Buck into the barn and out through the back door, where they sought a secluded spot down by the stream, well shielded by bushes.
"You've been here longer than I have and noticed a lot more," Stratton remarked when they were settled. "I wish you'd tell me what you think that bunch is up to. They haven't let me out of their sight for over a week. What's the idea, anyhow?"
"They don't want yuh should find out anythin'," returned Bud promptly.
"That's what I s'posed, but what's there to find out? That's what I can't seem to get at. Bemis says they're in with the rustlers, but even he seems to think there's something else in the wind besides that."
Jessup snorted contemptuously. "Bemis--huh! I'm through with him. He's a quitter. I was in chinnin' with him last night an' he's lost his nerve. Says he's through, an' is goin' to take his time the minute he's fit to back a horse. Still an' all," he added, forehead wrinkling thoughtfully, "he's right in a way. There is somethin' doin' beside rustling, but I'm hanged if I can find out what. The only thing I'm dead sure of is that it's crooked. Look at the way they're tryin' to get rid of us--Rick an' me an' you. Whatever they're up to they want the ranch to themselves before they go any further. Now Rick's out of the way, I s'pose I'll be next. They're tryin' their best to make me quit, but when they find out that won't work, I reckon they'll try somethin'--worse."
"Why don't Lynch just up an' fire you?" Buck asked curiously. "He's foreman."
Bud's young jaw tightened stubbornly. "He can't get nothin' on me," he stated. "It's this way. When help begun to get shy a couple of months ago--that's when he started his business of gittin' rid of the men one way or another--Tex must of hinted around to Miss Mary that I was goin' to quit, for she up an' asked me one day if it was true, an' said she hoped me an' Rick wasn't goin' to leave like the rest of 'em."