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

"JUST NOW I WOULDN'T TRADE PLACES WITH ANY MAN ON EARTH"<
"JUST NOW I WOULDN'T TRADE PLACES WITH ANY MAN ON EARTH"

She laughed in pure pleasure, bending toward him. "I appropriate that to myself. Don't dare to explain it. Do you come here often?"

"Not very often. That maze of coulée and butte you see is a good cattle range. I come this way looking for strays. The last time I was here Sheila McCrae was with me."

Suddenly, for Clyde, the sunlight lost its golden charm. In an altered tone she said:

"Indeed!" And she added deliberately: "I don't think I ever met a nicer girl than Miss McCrae."

"No nicer anywhere," he agreed heartily. "Well, perhaps we'd better be moving. We have a long ride yet."

Their way led by devious cattle trails along the coulées, over ridges, into other coulées. Clyde lost all idea of direction, but her companion was never at a loss, and finally they emerged upon a broad, well-travelled trail. Then Clyde, after much inward debate, told Casey of her presence that morning at the interview with Dade and Cross.

"Well, they're quite a pair," said Casey. "They came to run some sort of a bluff, but concluded not to push it to a show-down. They'll make trouble for us, I suppose. They're simply hired men, and that's their job."

"What kind of trouble?"

"I wish I knew," he replied, shaking his head.

"Is it all worth while?" she asked. "I haven't asked a question about the blown-up dam and the cut ditches. I'm not going to. But where will it end? You admit that there may be violence—even bloodshed. Why not avoid it?"

"How?"

"By letting the courts settle it."

"If we could have our water till then, that's what we'd do. As it is—well, I'm afraid we can't afford to."

"I've already offered——"

"I know, I know," he interrupted; "but that's out of the question."

That evening dragged. There were long silences. Nobody seemed inclined to talk. Wade went to sleep in his chair, his cigar dropping from his relaxing fingers. He grumbled when his wife woke him.

"I'm dead sleepy. I'm going to bed. I'm too sleepy to care whether it's polite or not; I'm all in."

"So am I," said Kitty, yawning frankly. "I shall follow my lord and master."

"And I my amiable chaperon," said Clyde.

"I'm afraid all I have to follow is an example," said Casey. He came close to her in the moonlight. "Perhaps I seemed ungrateful this afternoon. I didn't mean to be. I can't tell you how much I appreciated your offer, your generosity; none the less because I can't possibly accept it."

"It is nothing," she said. "It is not even generosity. Real generosity must cost something in renunciation."

"No," he replied; "the cost has little to do with it. It is the spirit of the offer that counts. Don't belittle it."

"It cost me something to make the offer," she said impulsively. "The money would have been the least part of it."

"I don't think I understand."

"I'm glad you don't; and I can't explain now. Some day, perhaps. And now—good night."

He took her hand and looked down into her eyes. He could feel the hand tremble slightly, but the eyes were steady. Darkened by the moonlight they seemed unfathomable pools, deep, mysterious, holding something which he could almost but not quite discern. In the pale light her face lost colour. It was idealized, purified, the face of a dream. Her marvellous crown of hair shone strand by strand as of twisted gold; it shimmered with halolike glory. Her slightly parted lips, vivid against the white of the face, seemed to invite him.

He bent forward, and plucked himself angrily back from the temptation. She released her hand.

"Good night," she said softly.

"Good night," he responded, hesitated, and turned away to his own quarters.

But as Clyde sought her room she seemed to walk on air. She trembled in every fibre of her strong, young body, but her blood sang in her veins. The woman within her called aloud triumphantly. It was long before she slept, and when she did so her slumber was a procession of dreams.

She awoke somewhere in the night, with a strange sound in her ears, a detonation distant but thunderous. She rose, went to the window, and peered out.

As she stood, she commanded a view of Casey Dunne's quarters. The door opened, and two men emerged, running for the stables. It seemed not a minute till two horses were led out, ready saddled. The two men went up instantly. They tore past her window in a flurry of hoofs. She recognized Casey Dunne and McHale. Neither was completely dressed. But around the waist of each was a holster-weighted belt, and across each saddle was slanted a rifle. Because of these warlike manifestations Clyde slept no more that night.

CHAPTER XIX

As the night air vibrated with the first explosion Casey Dunne and McHale leaped from their beds, and rushed for the door, opened it, and stood listening. There they heard another and another.

"Dynamite!" cried McHale, reaching for his clothes. "I'll bet it's our dam. Jump into some pants, Casey. There's just a chance to get a sight of somebody."

They threw on clothes with furious haste, caught up weapons, and raced for the stables. Their haste communicated itself to their horses, which bolted before the riders were firm in the saddles. Casey, as they tore past the house, thought he caught a glimpse of white at Clyde's window; but just then he had his hands full with Shiner, who was expressing his disapproval of such unseemly hours by an endeavour to accomplish a blind runaway.

Halfway to the river they came upon the first evidence of dynamite in the form of a bit of wrecked fluming. Water poured down a sidehill from a mass of shattered boards and broken, displaced timbers. They scarcely paused to view the ruin, but rode for the dam. There was no dam. Where it had been, remained only a few forlorn and twisted posts between which the muddied water whispered softly. The work had been very complete. McHale swore into the night.

"Our own medicine! Well, watch us take it. We ain't like boys that can't build a little thing like a dam. Which way do you reckon them fellers went?"

"Try the old ford," said Casey. "It's all chance, anyway."

A mile downstream they came to the ford, where the river for a brief distance had broadened and shallowed. Fresh tracks of one horse led down to the water's edge. On the other side, where they emerged, they were still filled with muddy water.

"That's the cuss that blowed the flume," said McHale. "He's met up with another one or two here. They've gone on downstream, but we sure can't trail them in this light. What do we do?"

"Ride ahead and trust to luck," said Casey. "It's all we can do."

"I guess that's so," McHale agreed. "But if we run up on 'em——"

He paused abruptly. Out of the distance came the unmistakable sound of a blast, closely followed by a second.

"Another dam!" Casey exclaimed. "That's Oscar's, or Wyndham's. Our own medicine, sure enough!"

"If I can put a gunsight on to one of them fellers I'll fix him so's he won't hold medicine nohow," said McHale savagely. "No use followin' the river. They'll quit it now, and strike for somewheres. Let's take a chance and hike out sorter southeast. It's as good as any other way."

They struck southeast at a steady jog, angling away from the river. The night was absolutely cloudless; the moon, near the full, bathed the landscape in a flood of white light which threw objects into startling relief, but intensified the shadows. Beneath it the land slumbered in a silence broken only by the soft drumming of hoofs. But for an occasional small band of cattle lying quietly on the slopes, it seemed devoid of life.

They rode in silence, but with eyes and ears keenly alert. At the top of each rise they paused to search the surrounding country. Now and then they drew up to listen. But their watchfulness availed nothing.

"Looks like we're out o'luck," McHale observed finally.

"Looks that way," Casey admitted. "All the same, we'll keep going."

"If we happen across 'em," McHale continued, "I s'pose we round 'em up?"

"Of course. But they may take some rounding."

"Sure! Only I'll tell you, Casey, I'm awful tired of having it put all over me by fellers that ain't got no license to. Some of these gents that allow they're hard citizens ain't so dog-goned much. I s'pose they figure on us peaceable farmers bein' bluffed out by a hard face and a hostile talk. That's an awful bad bet for 'em to make."

They were approaching a region of broken ground, carved and ridged with coulées and low hills, worthless save for range purposes. There Casey decided that he would turn back. At best it was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Chance only could serve them. Suddenly McHale checked his horse.

"Listen!" he said sharply.

They were riding by the base of a low hill. At one side the ground sloped away in a shallow depression which marked the head of a coulée. As they sat listening intently the stillness was broken by a hollow, muffled sound, the unmistakable trampling of hoofs. Faint at first, it increased in volume. Plainly, horses were coming up the draw.

Four horsemen came into view. They were riding carelessly, slouching in their saddles. One struck a match to light a pipe. The flame of it showed for an instant above his cupped hands. At a hundred yards they perceived the waiting horsemen, and halted abruptly.

"You there!" Casey hailed. "We want to talk to you!"

A vicious oath came as answer, distinct in the stillness. Then: "You get back and mind your own business!"

McHale's rifle action clicked and clashed as he levered a cartridge from magazine to chamber. "Up with your hands, the bunch of you," he ordered, "or——"