There was a rattling of loose stones down the cañon trail and the supervisor appeared. He greeted Scott cordially. “You seem to have rounded up these fellows in pretty quick time,” he remarked looking keenly at Scott.
“Yes,” Scott replied modestly, “I was lucky enough to stumble onto it.”
“I hope for your own sake and that of the service that you are not mistaken in your estimate. It takes a good deal of experience to estimate sheep accurately in the open.”
“That is the reason I had Baxter do it for me,” Scott replied.
“Oh,” exclaimed Mr. Ramsey, evidently relieved, “he knows if any one does. When did you get him to do it?”
“The day after the sheep came in. I tried to count them and could not do it, but when I saw the bands in his district they looked so much smaller than mine that I asked him to come over and estimate them.”
Just then Dawson rode up. “Well, Burton,” he said when the first greetings were over, “don’t you feel a little nervous?”
“Not in the least,” Scott replied confidently.
“I never knew before,” said the supervisor, “that it was possible to get sheep up those little cañons down there.”
“It isn’t,” Scott said quietly, looking straight at Dawson. He thought that he detected a slight start, but he was not sure.
“Then how did they get in?” persisted the supervisor.
“Here is something here that looks rather suspicious,” Scott said, leading the way to the trail through the fence.
Both Dawson and Ramsey examined it carefully. Scott called their attention to the loose post and the cut wires. He watched Dawson closely but could not detect even a trace of worry in his face. The ranger was such a good actor that if Scott had not been positive of his guilt he would have begun to worry himself.
“That is where they went, all right,” Dawson said, “probably ran them in at night.”
Scott was dumfounded for a minute. He had never thought of that. Then an idea occurred to him. “Why didn’t they take them through the chute if they did it at night?” Scott asked. He thought that he had him this time.
“Probably because they did it the night before the count and did not want you to see the tracks in the morning,” Dawson answered.
Scott knew that such was not the case but it was a clever argument. He decided to keep his information till later. He had shown the supervisor how the sheep went in and that was all he wanted to do just then. Already they could hear the sheep approaching and before they reached the chute Jed joined them. He was sullen and had very little to say to any one. He avoided Scott altogether.