Shoe-Bar Stratton - Chapter 16

More than once during the following few days, Stratton was forced to a grudging ¹ admiration ², of Tex Lynch's cleverness. Even knowing what he did, he failed to detect the slightest sign in either the foreman or his men that they were waiting expectantly for something to happen. The only significant feature was their marked avoidance of the middle pasture. This might readily be accounted for by the fact that the work now lay on the other side of the outfit ³, but Buck ⁴ was convinced that their real purpose was to allow the blackleg scourge ⁵ to gain as great a hold as possible on Shoe-Bar cattle before its discovery., ,The cold-blooded brutality ⁶ of that quiescence ⁷ made Stratton furious, but it also brought home more effectually than ever the nature of the men he had to deal with. They were evidently the sort to stop at nothing, and Buck had moments of wondering whether or not he was proceeding ⁸ in the right way to uncover the mystery of their motive ⁹., ,So far he had really accomplished ¹⁰ very little. The unabated watchfulness ¹¹ of the crowd so hedged in and hampered ¹² him that it was quite impossible to do any extended investigating. He still had the power of ending the whole affair at any moment and clearing the ranch ¹³ of the entire gang. But aside from his unwillingness ¹⁴ to humiliate ¹⁵ Mary Thorne, he realized that this would not necessarily accomplish what he wanted., , ,Yet somehow that did not altogether appeal to him, either. The presence of handsome Alf Manning may have had something to do with Buck's reluctance ¹⁶ to quit the ranch just now, but he would never have admitted it, even to himself. He simply made up his mind to wait a while, at least until he could see what happened when Lynch discovered the failure of his latest plot, and then be governed by circumstances., ,In the meantime the situation, so far as Miss Manning, was concerned, grew daily more complicated. She showed a decided ¹⁷ inclination ¹⁸ for Stratton's society, and when he came to know her better he found her frank, breezy, and delightfully ¹⁹ companionable. He knew perfectly ²⁰ well that unless he wanted to take a chance of making some tremendous blunder he ought to avoid any prolonged conversation with the lady. But she was so charming that every now and then he flung prudence ²¹ to the winds--and usually regretted it., ,After a pause he added"sir."in a dilatory,grudging way.停了一会他才慢吞吞地、勉勉强强地加了一声“先生
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。,He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。