Judith of Blue Lake Ranch Part 22

"You've got to show some folks a man cutting their throats," she muttered to herself, "before they'll believe it. It is a carrier-pigeon and I know it. And that Black Spanish--ugh! He makes my blood curdle, just to look at him!"

"Carrier-pigeons!" laughed Judith, as she began a hurried dressing.

"The dear old goosie! And poor old Jose. She'll get something on him yet. I wonder why she----"

Suddenly Judith broke off. She was standing in front of a tall mirror, still only half-dressed. As she looked into the bright face of the smiling girl in the gla.s.s, a sudden change came. Pigeons! Doc Tripp had said that Trevors had got them; had remarked on the incongruity of a man like Trevors caring for little cooing birds. It was rather odd.

Carrier-pigeons--carrier----

Judith whipped on her dressing-gown again and, slipperless, her warm, bare feet pat-patting upon the cold surfaces of the polished floors, she ran to the office.

"Send Jose to me," she called to Mrs. Simpson. "In the office. I want him immediately."

A warm glow came into Mrs. Simpson's breast. With a big kitchen poker behind her broad back, she hastened out to call Jose. Judith, at the telephone, called for Doc Tripp.

"Come up immediately," she commanded, "prepared to make a test for hog-cholera germs, Doc. No, I am not sure of anything, but I think I begin to see where it came from and how. Hurry, will you?"

To Jose she said abruptly:

"Go down to the men's quarters, Jose. Tell Carson and Lee to come right up." And as Jose turned to go, she added carelessly: "Seen any of the men yet?"

"_Si, senorita_," answered Jose. "Poky Face is up."

"Poker Face? All right, Jose. The others will be about, then."

Jose took little more time for his errand than for his elaborate bow.

Carson and Lee came promptly, Carson a score of steps in advance, for Lee had tarried just long enough to wash his face and brush his hair; Carson had not.

"Tell me," demanded Judith, looking at her cattleman with intent eagerness, "what do you know about Poker Face?"

"One of the best men I've got," answered Carson heartily.

"Square, you think?"

"Yes. If I didn't think so he'd have been on his way a long time ago."

"How long has he been here? Who took him on?"

"Trevors hired him. About the same time he hired me."

Bud Lee, entering then, wondered what new thing was afoot. He glanced down and saw a bare foot peeping out from the hem of Judith's heavy red robe; he saw the hair tumbled in a glorious brown confusion over her shoulders. She was amazingly pretty this way.

"I want you two men to just stick around until I send for you again,"

said Judith, her eyes upon Carson alone, a little pink, naked foot suddenly withdrawn and tucked somewhere under her in her chair. "And keep your eyes on Poker Face. Keep him here, too, Carson. By the way, did any of you boys come in late last night? Or early this morning?"

"Why, no," answered Carson slowly. "An' yes. None of the reg'lar boys, but a man from down the river, looking for a job. Heard we was short-handed. Blew in early. Just got in a few moments ago, Poker Face said."

Quick new interest flew into Judith's eyes.

"Keep him here, too!" she cried. "And I'll give you something to do while you wait: bring me all the pigeons you can get your hands on--white ones. Shoot them if you have to. And be careful you don't rub the dust off their feet."

Carson's eyes went swiftly to Bud Lee's. In Carson's mind there was a quick suspicion: The strain of life on the ranch was proving too much for a girl, after all.

Judith, reading his thought, turned up her nose at him and, seeking to keep her feet hidden as she walked by sagging a little at the knees, went to the door. Turning there, she saw in Lee's eyes the hint of a smile, a very approving, admiring smile.

"Impudent!" she cried within herself. Looking very tiny, her knees bent so that her robe might sweep the floor, she continued with all possible dignity to the hallway. Once there, she ran for her room, her gown fluttering widely about her. In her room, though she dressed hurriedly, she still took time for a long and critical examination of two rows of little pink toes.

"Just the same," she said to the flushed Judith in the mirror, "they are very nice feet--Bud Lee, I'd just like to make you squirm one of these days. You're altogether too--too--oh, scat, Judy. What's the matter with you?"

In less than half an hour Doc Tripp, showing every sign of a hurried toilet, rode into the courtyard. He came swiftly into the office, bag in hand. Judith, waiting impatiently for him, lost no words in telling him her suspicions. And Doc Tripp, hearing her out, swore softly and fluently, briefly asking her pardon when he had done.

"I'm a jacka.s.s," he said fervently. "I always knew I was a fool, but I didn't know that I was an idiot! Why, Judy, those d.a.m.ned pigeons have been sailing all over the ranch, billing and cooing and picking up and toting cholera germs. Any fool can see it now. I might have known something was up when Trevors bought the infernal things. It's as simple as one, two, three. Now this other jasper, pretending to look for a job, brings on some more of them, so that the disease will spread the faster. Let me get my two hands on him, Judith. For the love of G.o.d, lead me to him."

But, instead, she led him to the dozen white pigeons which Carson brought in.

Tripp, all business again, improvised his laboratory, washed the pigeons' feet, made his test, with never another curse to tell of his progress. Judith left him and went into the courtyard, where, in a moment, Carson came to her.

"You better tell me what's up," he said sharply. "I know something is.

That new guy that just come in is darned hard to keep. Just as quick as I grab a shotgun an' go to shooting pigeons he moseys out to the corrals an' starts saddling his horse."

"Don't let him go!"

Carson smiled a dry, mirthless smile.

"Bud is looking out for him right now," he explained. "Don't you worry none about his going before we say so. But I want to know what the play is."

Judith told him. Carson shook his head.

"Think of that?" he muttered. "Why, a man that would do a trick like that oughtn't to be let live two seconds. Only," and he wrinkled his brows at her, "where does Poker Face come in? We ain't got no call to suspicion he's in on it."

"You watch him, just the same, Carson. We know that somebody here has been working against us. Some one who turned Shorty loose. Maybe it isn't Poker Face, and maybe it is."

"He plays a crib game like a sport an' a gentleman," muttered Carson.

"He beat me seven games out'n nine last night!" And, still with that puzzled frown in his eyes, he went to watch Poker Face and the new man.

To have one of the men for whom he was responsible suspected hurt old Carson sorely. And Poker Face, the man with whom he delighted to play a game of cards--it was almost as though Carson himself had come under suspicion.

"You're going to stick around just a little while, stranger," Bud Lee was saying quietly to a s.h.i.+fty-eyed man in the corral. "Just why, I don't know. Orders, you know."

"Orders be d.a.m.ned," snarled the newcomer. "I go where I please and when I please."

He set a foot to his stirrups. A lean, muscular hand fell lightly upon his shoulder and he was jerked back promptly. Lee smiled at him. And the s.h.i.+fty-eyed man, though he protested sharply, remained where he was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A lean, muscular hand fell lightly upon his shoulder and he was jerked back promptly.]

A thin, saturnine man whose lips never seemed to move, a man with dead-looking eyes into which no light of emotion ever came, watched them expressionlessly from where he stood with Carson. It was Poker Face.

"No," Poker Face answered, to a sharp question from the persistent Carson.

"Sure, are you?"