Their behavior piqued Buck's curiosity tremendously. What were they talking about so continually? Where had the outlaws gone, and why hadn't they been pursued further? Had the whole pursuit been merely in the nature of a bluff? And if so, whom had it been intended to deceive? These and a score of other questions passed through his mind as he sat there waiting, but when the dull rumble of the wagon started them all into activity, he had not succeeded in finding any really plausible answers.
The return trip was necessarily slow, and dawn was just breaking as they forded the creek and drove up to the bunk-house. They had barely come to a standstill when, to Buck's surprise, the slim figure of Mary Thorne, bare-headed and clad in riding-clothes, appeared suddenly around the corner of the ranch-house and came swiftly toward them.
"Pedro told me," she said briefly, pausing beside the wagon. "How is he?"
"Doin' fine," responded Lynch promptly. "It's a clean wound an' ought to heal in no time. Our new hand Green tied him up like a regular professional."
His manner was almost fulsomely pleasant; Miss Thorne's expression of anxiety relaxed.
"I'm so glad. You'd better bring him right up to the house; he'll be more comfortable there."
"That ain't hardly necessary," objected Lynch. "He'll do all right here. We don't want him to be a bother to yuh."
"He won't be," retorted Miss Thorne with unexpected decision. "We've plenty of room, and Maria has a bed all ready. The bunk-house is no place for a sick man."
During the brief colloquy Bemis, though perfectly conscious, made no comment whatever. But Buck, glancing toward him as he lay on the husk mattress behind the driver, surprised a fleeting but unmistakable expression of relief in his tanned face.
"He don't want to stay in the bunk-house," thought Stratton. "I don't know as I blame him, neither. I wonder, though, if it's because he figures on being more comfortable up there, or--"
The unvoiced question ended with a shrug as Lynch, somewhat curt of manner, gave the order to move.
"Yuh don't all of yuh have to come, neither," he added quickly. "Butch an' Slim an' me can carry him in."
Miss Thorne, who had already started toward the house, glanced over one shoulder. "If Green knows something about first aid, as you say, he'd better come too, I think."