The voices of the workers floated up to him and he could hear distinctly what they said. It was not long until he heard something which enlightened him on the purpose of the fence.
“This here cache was some idea, Dugan,” exclaimed one of the herders who was cutting some brush almost directly under Scott on the side of the cañon.
“You bet,” one of the others answered admiringly. “Old Jed couldn’t find his own sheep down in here.”
So that was the idea. That was the reason all the sheep had been driven down to the cliffs and why no attempt had been made to run them over into Baxter’s district or back out the chute. They were going to hide the extras in those cañons till the recount was over and then let them out to graze with the bunch once more. It was a clever idea and would undoubtedly have worked if Scott had not stumbled onto it.
“The question is now,” said one of the herders, “can we get enough of them in here? What do you think about it, Dugan?”
Heth answered the question. “Sure we can get them in here. We put twenty five hundred in the other pen and this one is a little larger.”
So they already had another cañon fenced and filled. And Heth was in charge of the work. There was no longer any question of how the sheep got into the forest. Heth had let them in. Slowly Scott began to piece together the evidence. How did they know that Heth and not himself was going to count those sheep? Then he remembered how Heth had delayed things that morning and how relieved he had seemed when the telephone rang reporting the fire. And Heth had sent him on the wrong trail purposely, so that he would have time to get in all the sheep and have them well away from the chute before Scott could get back.
There his train of evidence broke for a second. Who else was in the game? How did Heth know that fire would be so promptly reported? Then he recalled that it was one of Jed Clark’s men whom Baxter had caught setting an apparently purposeless fire on that very morning. He himself had seen the traces of it. It was certainly a deep laid plot. He saw now how the cards had been stacked against him by a cunning hand and he knew now why he had taken such a violent dislike to Heth.
He wondered if his hunch to distrust Dawson was as reliable. There was certainly no evidence against him as yet. The fire had been reported to him honestly enough by the lookout and he had simply given the necessary orders. It was perfectly natural that he should have sent Scott to look after the fire and left a sheep man to look after the sheep. Moreover, Dawson was in charge of Baxter’s district also. There never had been any trouble over there and Baxter thought he was all right. The ranger also stood very high in the judgment of the supervisor, who had had years of opportunity to size him up. No, he must have been mistaken about Dawson, but he chuckled to think how well he had judged Heth.