A hundred and fifty miles lay between the most widely removed of the
places where these things had happened, but no two of them had occurred
within a time too short for a man to ride from one to the other.
And now came the list of the bold crimes committed since the day, four
weeks ago, when Buck Thornton had ridden into Dry Town with the five
thousand dollars. Kemble, to the westward of the Poison Hole, told of
again losing cattle, seven big steers run off in a single night, nothing
left of them but their tracks and the tracks of a horse which
disappeared in the rocky mountain soil; Joe Lee, of the Figure Seven
Bar, to the north of the Poison Hole, reported the loss of nine cows and
two horses, all picked stock; Old Man King of the Bar X grew almost
speechless with trembling wrath at the loss of at least a score of
cattle. And Ben Broderick, the mining man who was working his claim to
the eastward of the Poison Hole, admitted quietly that a man, a big man
wearing a bandana handkerchief as a mask, had slipped into his camp one
night, covered him with a heavy calibre Colt, and had taken away with
him a six hundred dollar can of dust.
As yet no single loss had been noted by the Poison Hole outfit. But
Thornton believed that he saw the reason: now, there were few nights
that found him at the range cabin or his cowboys in the bunk house.
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