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

"It's big Oscar!" cried McHale. "That feller downed his horse. Holy catamounts! Look at them mix it! And here's the whole camp a-boilin' after us! Casey, did I hear you say this was the day I didn't need a gun?"

Before they could pull up they almost ran over the fighting men. The two were locked in ferocious grips. The big guardian of the gate was fighting for his life, silently, with clenched teeth, every cord and muscle and vein standing out with the heartbreaking strain put upon them.

For the big Swede was the stronger man. Ordinarily mild and sweet-tempered, he was now a wild beast. Foam blew from his mouth and flecked his soft, golden beard, and he rumbled and snarled, beast-like, in his throat. He made no attempt to strike or to avoid the blows which beat against his face; but with one arm around his enemy's neck, the hand gripping the nearer side of the jaw, and the other hand pushing at it, he strove to break his neck. Little by little he twisted it. Gradually the chin pointed to the shoulder, almost past it. It seemed that with the fraction of an inch more the vertebral column must crack like a stick of candy. But the hand on the jaw slipped, and the chin, released, shot back again, to be tucked desperately down against the breastbone.

"Get in here and pull Oscar off!" cried Casey as he leaped from his horse.

"Not in a thousand years," McHale responded. "He can kill him. Let him do it. Serve the cuss right."

"You cursed fool!" snarled Casey. "That gang will be here in half a holy minute. They'll pound Oscar to death if he's fighting then. Here, you crazy Swede, let go! Let go, I say! It's me—Casey Dunne!"

But Oscar was past reason. Once more he had got the palm of his hand beneath that stubborn chin and was lifting it from its shelter. As he put forth his huge strength, he roared out a torrent of Scandinavian oaths, interspersed with the more hardy varieties of Anglo-Saxon epithets.

"Catch hold of him," Casey ordered. "Jam your arm into his windpipe while I break his grip." As he spoke, he kicked the big Swede sharply on the left biceps. For an instant that mighty arm was paralyzed. Casey grasped his wrists and dragged them loose, while McHale, his forearm across the huge, bull-like throat, heaved back.

Oscar came apart from his victim slowly and reluctantly, as a deeply rooted stump yields to the pull of a purchase.

"He kel my Olga! He kel my Olga!" he vociferated. "He shoot her yust like she ban von vulf! By the yumpin' Yudas, you let me go!"

"Keep quiet, keep quiet, I tell you!" cried Casey. "You can get him later. See this bunch coming? They'll kill you with their shovels in half a minute."

The rush of men was almost upon them. They carried the tools which were in their hands the moment the shots were fired—mixing shovels, hoes, axes, pinch bars, and odd bits of wood and iron caught up on the impulse of the instant. Behind, straining every muscle to reach the front, ran Farwell.

Meanwhile Oscar's opponent had risen unsteadily to his feet. His eyes searched the ground, and he made a sudden dive. But McHale was before him.

He swooped on the revolver half buried in the dust, and whirled on the first comers, holding the weapon jammed tightly in front of his right hip.

"Don't crowd in on us with them shovels and things," he advised grimly. "There's lots of room right where you are."

The rush stopped abruptly. An ugly, short-barrelled gun in the hand of a man who bore all the earmarks of a hip shot was not to be treated lightly. There were rough and tough men in the crowd who were quite ready for trouble; but their readiness did not extend to rushing a gunman unless an urgent necessity existed.

Farwell broke through them, breathless from a sprint at top speed. He paid no attention whatever to McHale's weapon.

"What's the matter here?" he demanded. "You, Lewis, speak up!"

"This batty Swede tried to ride over me," Lewis replied. "I give him fair warnin', and then I downed his horse. When he hits the dirt he goes on the prod. These fellers pulled him off of me. That one's got my gun."

"You bet I have!" McHale interjected. "You tried to plug Oscar. I seen you cut down on him at about ten feet—and miss. Looks like you ain't got the nerve to hit anything that's comin' for you. You sorter confines your slaughter to harmless cayuses and such."

"Guess again," said Lewis, unmoved. "I thought I could stand the Swede off, that's why. I shot two foot high on purpose."

"You kel my Olga!" shouted Oscar. "Yust wait, you faller. Ay gat my goose gun, and Ay blow you all to hal! By Yudas, Ay gat skvare kvick!"

"This is crowding things," said Casey. "Mr. Farwell, you really must not plant gunmen by the trails with instructions to shoot our horses."

"Nobody has any such instructions," said Farwell. "This man tried to ride Lewis down, and he protected himself. I'm sorry it occurred, but we are not to blame."

"Without arguing that point," said Casey, "I warn you that we won't stand this sort of thing."

"If you fellows will keep off our lands there will be no trouble," Farwell responded. "We don't want you, and we won't have you. If you come on business, of course, that's different. Otherwise keep away. Also we don't want your stock grazing on our property."

"We may as well have an understanding while we're about it," said Casey. "The next man who pulls a gun on me—this Lewis, or anybody else—will have to beat me to the shooting. If you don't want your lands used as part of the range, fence them off. Don't interfere with a single head of my stock, either. And, if I were in your place, I'd offer this man about two hundred dollars for his mare, and throw in an apology."

"But you're not in my place," snapped Farwell. "Nobody is going to pull a gun on you if you behave yourself. If this man puts in a claim for his horse, I'll consider it, but I won't promise anything." He turned to his men. "You get back to work, the lot of you." Without further words, he strode off to the camp.

Lewis stepped up to McHale. "I'll take my gun if you're through with it."

McHale handed him the weapon.

"I don't reckon she's accurate at much over ten yards," he observed. "If I was you, I'd fix myself with a good belt gun. It ain't unlikely I packs one myself after this, and we might meet up."

"Organize yourself the way you want to," said Lewis carelessly, slipping the weapon in his pocket. "And if you're a friend of that big Swede, tell him not to look for me too hard. I don't want to hurt him; but I ain't taking chances on no goose guns." He nodded and marched off after the others.

The three men, left alone, stood in silence for a moment. Then Oscar, with a rumbling curse, began to strip saddle and bridle from his dead pet mare, the tears running down his cheeks.

"And now what?" asked McHale.

"Now," Casey replied, "I guess we've got to make good."

CHAPTER XI

Some two miles distant from the construction camp at the dam, a little cavalcade moved slowly through the darkness of a moonless, cloudy night. A southeast wind was blowing, but it was a drying wind, with no promise of rain. It had blown for days steadily, until it had sucked every vestige of moisture from the top earth, leaving it merely powdery dust. Because of it, too, no dew had fallen; the nights were as dry as the days.

In the grain fields, the continued blast had stripped the surface soil away from the young plants, wrenching and twisting them, desiccating their roots, which, still too feeble to reach what dampness lay lower down, sucked ineffectually at the dry breast of the earth. The plants they could not feed took on the pale-green hue of starvation. There, among the young grain, the stronger gusts lifted dust clouds acres in extent. Low down along the surface, the soil sifted and shifted continually, piling in windrows in spots, burying the young plants, leaving others bare. Odd little devils of whirlwinds, marked by columnar pillars of dust, danced deviously across the fields and along the trails. From the standpoint of a disinterested person, the ceaseless wind would have been unpleasant in its monotony; but from the viewpoint of a rancher it was deadly in its persistence.

The moving figures were so strung out that it appeared almost as though they were riding in the same direction fortuitously, without relation to each other. First came two horsemen; then, at an interval of five hundred yards, came a buckboard, with two men and a led horse. In the rear, five hundred yards back, were two more riders.

This order, however, was not the result of accident, but of calculation. The buckboard held Oscar and the elder McCrae. Also it contained a quantity of dynamite. Naturally, it was drawn, not by McCrae's eager road team, but by a pair of less ambition. And the riders, front and rear, were in the nature of pickets; for, though it was unlikely that any one would be met at that time of night, it was just as well to take no chances.

The riders in the lead were Casey Dunne and Tom McHale. Each had a rifle beneath his leg. In addition, McHale wore two old, ivory-handled Colts at his belt, and Dunne's single holster held a long automatic, almost powerful as a rifle. They rode slowly, seldom faster than a walk, peering ahead watchfully, their ears tuned to catch the slightest suspicious sound.

"This here is like old times," said McHale. "Durn me if I hadn't about forgotten the feel of a gun under my leg. I wish we could have our photos took now. We sure look plenty warlike."

"I don't want any photo," said Casey. "If I can get home without meeting any one, it will suit me down to the ground. I wish we hadn't brought these guns. It's safer every way."

"It's safer for some people," McHale commented. "S'pose we struck hard luck to-night and got backed into a corner or followed up too close—how'd we look without guns? 'Course, I'd take awful long chances before I shot at anybody; but all the same a Winchester helps out a retirin' disposition a whole lot."

"No doubt about that. But the devil of packing a gun is the temptation to use it before you really have to. That accounts for a lot of trouble. Why, even in the old days, a man who didn't pack a gun was safe, unless