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It was easier than it could have been. If the cattle were still in pens inside the yard, it would have been impossible to plant the poison, since the stock tanks wouldn’t be full and salt blocks wouldn’t be set out. The patrols at the Springs had increased in the last twenty-four hours, including guards at the end of the drive. The two hands who had taken this job, and done the others, knew it was because of the escaped convict, Rutgers. It had been blasted on the TV and radio for the last day and a half about Rutgers and the history with Samantha Tanner. None of that concerned them. They were here only to carry out orders, and the fact that the Springs stuck to their schedule of moving cattle to the summer pasture offered the opportunity to thin the herd. Fortunately for them, the hig
