Desert Conquest - A. M. Chisholm (all ebook reader txt) 📗

in well-appointed houses in eligible localities; and their subordinates kept the work in hand during their frequent home-goings. But the ruck—the rank and file—had to take such marital happiness as came their way on the quick-lunch system.

Now Farwell was a bachelor, rooted and confirmed. He had always shunned married men's quarters. When his day's work was done, he foregathered with other lone males, talking shop half the night in a blue haze of tobacco around a red-hot stove or stretched in comfortable undress in front of a tent. This was his life as he had lived it for years; as he had hoped to live it until he attained fame and became a consulting engineer, a man who passed on the work of other men.

His theory of his own capacity for domesticity, though sincere, was strictly academic. He had no more idea of putting it into practice than he had of proving in his own person, before his proper time, the doctrine of eternal life.

Now, into the familiar sum of existence, which he knew from divisor to quotient, was suddenly shot a new factor—a woman. He experienced a new sensation, vague, unaccountable, restless, like the first uneasy throbs that precede a toothache. He lit a cigar; but, though he drew in the smoke hungrily, it did not satisfy. He felt a vacancy, a want, a longing.

He became aware of a dust cloud approaching. Ahead of it loped a big, clean-limbed buckskin. In the straight, wiry figure in the saddle he recognized Casey Dunne. Dunne pulled up and nodded.

"Fine day, Mr. Farwell."

"Yes," said Farwell briefly.

"Work coming on all right?"

"Yes."

"That's good," Dunne commented, with every appearance of lively satisfaction. "Been to Talapus? See anything of Miss McCrae there?"

"She's at home, I believe," said Farwell stiffly.

"Thanks. Come around and see me some time. Morning." He lifted the buckskin into a lope again.

Farwell looking after him, experienced a second new sensation—jealousy.

CHAPTER X

Casey Dunne, busily engaged in strengthening a working harness with rivets, looked up as a shadow fell across the morning sunlight. The shadow belonged to Tom McHale.

McHale, like Dunne himself, had seen rough times. Older than his employer, he had wandered up and down the West in the good old days of cheap land and no barbed wire, engaged in the congenial, youthful occupation of seeing as much country as he could. In the process, he had turned his hand to almost everything which had fresh air as a collateral, from riding for a cattle outfit to killing meat for railway camps. He and Dunne had come into the Coldstream country at nearly the same time; but Dunne had some money and McHale none at all. Dunne bought land and hired McHale. They worked side by side to make the ranch. McHale bought forty acres from Dunne and worked out the price, bought more, and was still working it out. But apart from financial matters they were fast friends, and either would have trusted the other with anything he possessed.

"Say," said McHale, "there's something wrong. Our ditches ain't runnin' more'n half full."

Casey put down the hammer. "Maybe the ditch is plugged somewhere."

"She may be, but it ain't likely. I've followed her quite a piece. So I come to get me a cayuse to go the rest of the way."

"I'll go with you," said Casey, throwing the harness on a peg.

In five minutes they were loping easily along the ditch, with sharp eyes for possible obstructions. As McHale had said, it was running not half full, and seemed to be falling. The strong, deep, gurgling note of a full head of water was gone. Instead was a mere babble.

So far as they could see, the flow was unhindered by obstacles; there was no break in the banks. Even around the treacherous sidehill there was no more than the usual seepage. And so at last they rode down to the Coldstream itself, to the intake of the ditch, a rude wing dam of logs, brush, and sand bags, which, nevertheless, had served them excellently heretofore.

"I'm an Injun," McHale, ejaculated, "if the whole durn creek ain't lowered!" Because he came from a land of real rivers, he invariably referred to the Coldstream thus slightingly.

But unmistakably it had fallen. Half the dam appeared above the surface, slimy, weed-grown, darkly water-soaked. Naturally, with the falling of the water, the ditch had partially failed.

The two men looked at each other. The same thought was present in the mind of each. It was barely possible that a land or rock slide somewhere high upstream had dammed or diverted the current; but it was most improbable. The cause was nearer to seek, the agency extremely human.

McHale bit into fresh consolation and spat in the direction of the inadequate dam.

"I reckon they've started in on us," he observed.

"Looks like it," Casey agreed.

"We need water now the worst way. I was figurin' on shootin' a big head on to the clover, and after that on to the oats. They sure need it. What's runnin' now ain't no use to us. We got to have more."

"No doubt about that, Tom," said Casey. "We'll ride up to their infernal dam and see just what's doing."

"Good enough!" cried McHale, his eyes lighting up. "But say, Casey, them ditch-and-dam boys ain't no meek-and-lowly outfit. Some of 'em is plumb hard-faced. How'd it be if I scattered back to the ranch first. I ain't packed a gun steady since I got to be a hayseed, but——"

"What do you want of a gun? We're just going to look at things and have a talk with Farwell."

"You never know when you'll need a gun," McHale asserted, as an incontrovertible general proposition.

"You won't need it this time. Come along."

It was almost midday when they came in sight of the construction camp beside the dam. To their surprise, a barbed wire fence had been thrown around it, enclosing an area of some twenty acres. On the trail, a space had been left for a gate, but it had not yet been hung. Beside it stood a post bearing a notice board, and, sitting with his back against the post, a man rested, smoking. As they came up, he rose and sauntered into the trail between the gate-posts.

"Hey you, hold on there!" he said.

Dunne and McHale pulled up.

"Look a-here, friend," said the latter, "do you think you're one of them never-sag gates, or a mountain, or what? You want to see a doctor about them delusions. They'll sure get you into trouble some day."

"That'll be all right about me," the big guardian of the gate returned. "Just read that notice. This is private property."

They read it. It was of the "no-admittance" variety, and forbade entrance to all individuals not in the company's employ.

"We've got business here, and we're going in," said Casey, and began to walk his horse forward.

The man caught the bridle with one hand. The other he thrust into his pocket.

"You get back now," he ordered, "or you'll walk home."

Dunne stopped instantly. His companion's hand made one lightninglike motion, and perforce came up empty.

"And this," said Mr. McHale mournfully—"this was the time I didn't need a gun!"

"Well, you don't need it, do you?" said Casey. "Observe, the gentleman still keeps his sawed-off yeggman's delight in his pocket. Pull it, friend, pull it! Don't scorch the cloth by pressing the trigger where it is. Steady, Shiner, while the gentleman shoots you!"

The guardian smiled sardonically. "Amuse yourselves, boys, but don't crowd in on me."

"Just as you say," replied Casey. "By the way, you needn't tire your arm holding my horse. He'll stand. Besides, I don't like it."

The man released the bridle and stepped back. "Make this easy for me, boys, I don't want trouble, but I got my instructions."

"Now, you listen here," said McHale. "Lemme tell you something: It's just hell's tender mercy on you I ain't got a gun. If I'd 'a' had it, you'd been beef by the trail right now."

"There's always two chances to be the beef," the other returned, unmoved. "Go fill your hand before you talk to me."

McHale grinned at him. "I like you better than I did, partner. Next time you won't have no kick on what I hold."

"We want to see Farwell," said Casey.

"Why couldn't you say that before?" the guardian returned. "I'll take a chance on you. Go in."

They found Farwell at his quarters before a table covered with prints and tracings.

"What can I do for you?" he asked curtly.

"My ditch has gone half dry," Casey replied. "I observe, too, that the river is lower than usual; which, of course, accounts for the ditch. It occurred to me that perhaps you might account for the river."

"We have begun to take water for our lands," Farwell told him. "Possibly that has something to do with it."

"I shouldn't wonder," Casey agreed dryly. "Why are you taking water now?"

"That," said Farwell deliberately, "is entirely our own affair."

"It affects us. You can't possibly use the water, because your lands are not cultivated."

"The water benefits the land," Farwell rejoined coldly. "It shows intending purchasers that we are actually delivering a sufficient quantity of water. Our use of it is legitimate."

"It's a low-down, cultus trick, if you ask me!" McHale interjected forcefully.

"I didn't ask you," snapped Farwell; "but I'll tell you what I'll do. You make another remark like that, and I'll fire you out through that door."

McHale ignored Casey's significant glance.

"That door there?" he asked innocently. "That big, wide door leadin' right outside into all that fresh air? You don't mean that one?"

"That's the one," Farwell returned angrily.

"Well, well, well!" said McHale, in mock wonder. "You don't say? And it looks just like a common, ordinary door, too. Do you reckon you got time right now to show me how it works?"

"Quit it, Tom," said Casey. "Farwell, I want to get right down to case cards. This is a raw deal. I ask you not to take water that you can't use."

"Not to mince matters with you, Dunne," Farwell returned, "I may as well say that we intend to take as much as we like and when we like. There's plenty of water left in the river. It's merely a question of building your dams to catch it."

"Will you say that there will be plenty when your big dam is finished?"

Farwell lifted his big shoulders in a shrug which coupled utter indifference with an implication that the future was in the hands of Providence.

"Good Lord, Dunne, there's no use talking about that!" said he. "We will take what water we want. You get what is left. Is that plain?"

"Yes," said Casey quietly. "I won't bother you any more."

"But I will," said McHale. "I'll just bother you to make good that bluff of yours about firin' me out of here. Why, you durn, low-flung——"

"Quit it!" Casey interrupted. "Stay where you are, Farwell, I'm not going to have a scrap. Tom, you come with me."

"Oh, well, just as you say, Casey," grumbled McHale. "I ain't hostile, special. Only I don't want him to run no blazers on me. He——"

But Casey got him outside and administered a vitriolic lecture that had some effect.

"I'm sorry, Casey," McHale acknowledged, contritely. "I s'pose I ought to known better. But that gent with the gun and Farwell between them got me goin'. Honest, I never hunted trouble in my life. It just naturally tracks up on me when I'm lyin' all quiet in camp. Course, it has to be took care of when it comes."

"There'll be enough to keep you busy," said Casey grimly. And apparently in instant fulfilment of the prophecy came the short, decisive bark of a six-shooter. By the sound, the shot had been fired outside the camp, in the direction of the gate.

"It's that cuss that held us up!" snarled McHale, and swore viciously.

Both men went up into their saddles as if catapulted from the earth. McHale yelled as he hit the leather—a wild, ear-splitting screech, the old trouble cry of his kind in days gone by—and both horses leaped frantically into