Just what had roused him he did not know; some noise, no doubt, either inside the bunk-house or without. Nerves attuned to battle-front conditions are likely to become sharp as razor-edges, and Buck, starting from deep slumber to complete wakefulness, was almost instantly aware of a sense of strangeness in his surroundings.
In a moment he knew what it was. Even though they may not snore, the breathing of seven sleeping men is unmistakable. Buck did not have to strain his ears to realize that not a sound came from any of the other bunks, and swiftly the utter, unnatural stillness became oppressive.
Quietly he swung his stockinged feet to the floor and was reaching for the holster and cartridge-belt he had laid beside him, when, from the adjoining bunk, Bud Jessup's voice came in a cautious whisper.
"They're gone. The whole bunch of 'em just rode off."
"Hello, kid!" said Stratton quietly. "You awake? What's up, anyhow?"
There was a rustle in the adjoining bunk, the thud of bare feet on the floor, and Jessup's face loomed, wedge-shaped and oddly white, through the shadows.
"They're gone," he repeated, with a curious, nervous hesitancy of manner.
"I know. You said that before. What the devil are they doing out this time of night?"
In drawing his weapon to him, Buck's eyes had fallen on his wrist-watch, the radiolite hands of which indicated twenty minutes after twelve. He awaited Jessup's reply with interest, and it struck him as unnaturally long in coming.
"I don't rightly know," the youngster said at length. "I s'pose they must have gone out after--the rustlers."
Buck straightened abruptly. "What!" he exclaimed. "You mean to say there's been rustling on the Shoe-Bar?"
Again Jessup hesitated, but more briefly. "I don't know why I shouldn't tell yuh. Everybody's wise to it, or suspects somethin'. They've got away with quite a bunch--mostly from the pastures around Las Vegas, over near the hills. Tex says they're greasers, but I think--" He broke off to add a moment later in a troubled tone, "I wish to thunder he hadn't gone an' left Rick out there all alone."
Stratton remembered Las Vegas as the name of a camp down at the southwesterly extremity of the ranch. It consisted of a one-room adobe shack, which was occupied at certain seasons of the year by one or two punchers, who from there could more easily look after the near-by cattle, or ride fence, than by going back and forth every day from the ranch headquarters.