"It doesn't need to," said Casey sourly. "We found our meat, and we couldn't stop it."
"The laugh is on us," McHale admitted. "For the powder we burned we sure ought to have a scalp or two to show. Still, moonlight shootin' is chance shootin', and when a cussed mean cayuse is sashayin' round if a man hits anything but scenery he's lucky!"
"I thought that old-timer, Dade, was doing the talking."
"Sure he was. And I'll bet it was his tillikum, Cross, that took the first crack at us. Didn't waste no time. He's some soon, that feller. I s'pose they got a camp, somewheres. No use tryin' to find it. We can't prove that they used the powder on our dams. Well, what say if we point out for home? Daylight's breakin' now."
A pale light was spreading in the east, underneath the stars that rimmed the horizon. Objects became more visible. As they rode unmolested from the coulée the pale light began to flush faintly. Rosy shafts shot upward, and the stars vanished. Here and there birds began to twitter. An old grouse scuttled away, wings a-trail, as if mortally hurt, to distract attention from her young brood hidden in the short grass. A huge owl sailed ghostlike on silent wings, homeward bound from midnight foray. A coyote yipped shrill protest against the day. Away to the west, where the mountains loomed grandly, bright lights lay on peaks still white with the remnants of winter snows. Suddenly, driving the shadows before it, the sun seemed to leap above the rim of the world.
CHAPTER XX
During the next twelve hours there was much riding from ranch to ranch. Of all the small dams constructed and maintained by the ranchers for irrigation purposes but one remained; and that one was Donald McCrae's.
McCrae himself considered this an invidious distinction. He would have preferred to suffer with his neighbours. He did not know why his structure had been spared, and he lent men and teams to others, labouring hard himself in the task of rebuilding.
The temper of the ranchers was at the breaking point. Naturally the blame fell on Farwell; he was the villain of the piece. He had expected unpopularity, but he had no idea of the depth of it. The black looks he met did not disturb him in the least; nor, to do him justice, would he have been seriously alarmed if he had known that more than one man was quite ready to pick a deadly quarrel with him. For some time he had not seen Sheila McCrae, but he found himself thinking of her constantly. And so, one evening he rode over to Talapus.
Somewhat to his relief, neither McCrae nor Sandy was visible. Mrs. McCrae was calmly civil. Her manner gave no hint that he was unwelcome. Sheila, she told him, had gone for a walk somewhere along the ditch.
"Oh," said Farwell, with elaborate carelessness, "then I think I'll just stroll along and meet her."
At the end of ten minutes' walk he came upon the girl. She was sitting, her chin propped on her hands, beside the stream where a little bordering grove of willows had sprung up. The deep murmur of the running water muffled his footsteps so that she neither saw nor heard him till he was at her side.
"Good evening," he said.
She turned her head slowly, without start or exclamation.
"I did not expect to see you, Mr. Farwell."
"I thought I'd run over," he said awkwardly. "I intended to come before."
She allowed a long minute of silence to lie between them. "And why have you come now?" she asked.
"Why?" Farwell repeated the word. "Why? I wanted to see you. Why shouldn't I come?"
"You ought to know why. It's one thing to do your work; but it's quite another to blow up our dams!"
"Why do you think I did that?"
"Because I have ordinary common sense. I don't suppose you did it with your own hand. But you've brought in a bunch of toughs and gunmen to overawe us and do your dirty work. It will lead to serious trouble."
"I can handle trouble," said Farwell grimly. "Has anybody meddled with your dam?"
"No."
"Then I don't see what you have to complain of. I don't admit anything. But when you get indignant at blowing up dams you ought to remember what happened to ours."
"Oh, as for that"—she shrugged her shoulders. "We had to have water. Nobody blamed you before. But these dams that did you no harm—that's different."
"But you have water. Your own dam is all right," he insisted.
"Yes. And do you know what people are saying? They say that the reason is because we have some sort of an understanding with you. They say——" She stopped abruptly.
"What else do they say?"
"Other things. I've told you enough."
"What do you care?"
"Well, I do care. This is the only house you come to. Your visits must end now."
"End?" Farwell echoed. "I guess not. Not unless you absolutely forbid me to come. And then I don't know. I'd find it pretty hard."
"Nonsense!"
"I tell you I would," he protested. "You don't know."
"Bosh! We're not so fascinating as that."
Now Farwell was of the battle-axe type. He was accustomed to take what he wanted, to smash through opposition. He looked at the girl facing him in the fading light, and a great desire swelled within him. Her words gave the needed spur to his courage, and he went to the point as he would have gone in to quell a riot in a camp.
"'We,'" he said. "Who's talking of 'we'? I'm not. I come to see you. You ought to know that. Of course you know it. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love, but I have. You might as well know it now. I don't know whether you think anything of me or not; it would be just my luck if you didn't. Anyway, that's how I feel, and I'm not going to give up seeing you just because some people have set a crazy yarn going."
The words boiled out of him like steam from a hot spring. He scowled at her ferociously, his eyes hot and angry. It would have been difficult to imagine a more unloverlike attitude. And yet she had no doubt of his sincerity. She would have been less than woman if she had not suspected his feelings before. But she had not expected this outbreak.
"I'm sorry you said that," she told him quietly. "It's quite impossible. I can tell you now what I couldn't tell you before. People say that I have promised to marry you in exchange for your promise that we shall have water for the ranch."
"If you'll tell me the name of a man who utters an infernal lie like that I'll wring his neck," he growled.
"I believe you would. But what good would it do? You can't fight rumours and gossip in that way. That's the trouble with you—you depend on force alone. Can't you see the position this puts us in—puts me in? You can't come here any more."
"I don't see that at all," he objected. "I'll blow up your dam myself if you think it will help, but as for not seeing you—why, it's out of the question. I've got to see you. I'm going to see you. I can't help it. I tell you I think of you all the time. Why, hang it, Sheila, I think of you when I ought to be thinking of my work."
She would have laughed if she had not seen that he was in deadly earnest. His work was a fetish, all-absorbing, demanding and receiving the tribute of his entire attention and energy. That thought of a woman should come between him and it was proof positive of devotion extraordinary.
"You must not do that," she said, gently.
"But I can't help it," he reiterated. "It's new to me, this. I can't concentrate on my work. I keep thinking of you. If that isn't being in love, what in thunder is? I'm talking to you as straight as I'd talk to a man. I believe I love you as much as any woman was ever loved. You don't know much about me, but I'm considered a good man in my profession. From a material point of view I'm all right."
"If I cared for you that would be the last thing I'd think of."
"Why can't you care for me?" he demanded. "I don't expect much. We'd get along."
"No," she said decidedly. "No. It's impossible. We're comparatively strangers. I think you're going to be a big man some day. I rather admire you in some ways. But that is all."
"Well, anyway, I'm not going to quit," he announced doggedly. "I never gave up anything yet. You talk as if it didn't matter! Mayb
e it doesn't to you, but it does to me. You don't know how much I care. I can't tell you, either. This talk isn't my line. Look here, though. About ten years ago, down in the desert of the Southwest, my horse broke his leg, and I was set afoot. I nearly died of thirst before I got out. All those blistering days, while I stumbled along in that baking hell, I kept thinking of a cool spring we had on our place when I was a boy. It bubbled up in moss at the foot of a big cedar, and I used to lie flat and drink till I couldn't hold any more. It was the sweetest water in the world. All those days I tortured myself by thinking of it. I'd have given my soul, if I have one, to satisfy my thirst at that spring. And that's how I feel about you. I want your love as I wanted that water."
"I'm very sorry," she said. "It's out of the question."
"But why?" he demanded. "Give me a chance. I'm not a monster. Or do you mean that you care for somebody else? Is that it? Do you care anything for that Dunne? A fellow that's in love with another woman!"
Even in the dying light he could see the dark flush that surged over cheek and brow. She rose to the full height of her lithe figure, facing him.
"No, I don't!" she flamed. "But if I did what business would it be of yours? Casey Dunne is my friend—a gentleman—which is more than you seem to be, Mr. Farwell."
She took a step toward him in her indignation. Suddenly, with a sweep of his arm, he clipped her to him, kissing her on forehead and cheek. She struck him in the face with her clenched fist driven by muscles as hard as an athlete's.
"You great brute!" she panted.
With the blow and the words, Farwell's moment of madness passed. He held her from him at arm's length.
"A brute!" he said. "You're right. I didn't know it before. Now, I do. How can I put myself right with you?"
"Let me go!" she cried.
As he released her she heard the quick pad of running feet. Out of the dusk behind her bounded young Sandy McCrae. He came like a young wolf to its first kill, his lips lifted in a snarl. In his right hand lay a long-barrelled, black Colt's.
"Sheila!" he cried. "What's the matter? Who's this? What in—ah!"
The gun leaped up. Instinctively she threw out her hand, striking it as he pulled the trigger. A thin stream of flame blazed almost into Farwell's face, and the sharp report split the evening silence into fragments. Something like a questing finger of death ran through his hair, and his hat twitched from his head, to flutter down softly ten feet away. But he was unhurt.
Sheila locked both arms around her brother's, dragging it down.
"No, no, no!" she cried. "I tell you no, Sandy! Don't shoot again. It's a mistake."
He wrenched furiously to free his hand. "Mistake!" he shouted. "He was holding you! I saw him. I heard you. Let go. I'll blow his heart out!"
But she clung to his arm. "It's a mistake, Sandy, I tell you! Can't you understand me? Don't use that gun. I won't let you. Give it to me!"
He ceased his attempts to free his arm. "All right, Sheila. I won't shoot—this time. You, Farwell, what have you got to say for yourself?"
"Mighty little," Farwell replied. "I asked your sister to marry me, and she refused. I kissed her against her will. That's all—and plenty. If you want my opinion, I think I ought to be shot."
Sandy glared at him, taken aback by this frank admission.
"If she hadn't jolted my hand you sure would have been," he said grimly. "You're mighty lucky to be alive right now. After this if I see you——"
"Shut up, Sandy!" Sheila interrupted authoritatively, with sisterly directness. "I'm quite able to look after my own affairs. Mr. Farwell is sorry. You be white enough to let it go that way."
"It's up to you, if you want it," Sandy replied. "If you can stand for a thing like that once I can. But not twice."
"There won't be any twice. Shall we go to the house, Mr. Farwell?"
Farwell, amazed, fell into step with her. He had expected to be overwhelmed with reproaches, to face a storm of feminine anger. Still, he could not think that she was palliating his offence; and he was quite aware that she had saved his life. Young McCrae, in offended dignity, stalked in front.
"I want you to know," said Farwell, "that I'm utterly ashamed of myself. To prove it I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to wire in my resignation, and I'm going away."
"Don't."
"What?" he exclaimed incredulously.
"Don't. You are sorry, and that's the main thing. We won't mention it again. And neither will Sandy. But for a while you must not come here."
"I'll do anything," he said. "I think you are the best girl on earth."
Sheila did not reply; but she did not reprove him.
Mrs. McCrae, looking somewhat anxious, met them at the house.
"I heard a shot," she said. "Was it you, Sandy?"
"Yes," her son replied.
"What did you shoot at?"
The young man glanced at Farwell from the corner of his eye.
"A skunk," he replied. "I missed him."
Sheila bit her lip angrily. Farwell took his medicine in silence.
CHAPTER XXI
A week sufficed to put the ranchers' ditches and dams in condition to take care of water; but at the end of that time there was little water to take care of. It was being diverted into the company's ditch system. Their ditches were running full, emptying upon lands on which scarcely a pretence of cultivation was being made, while the actual farmers, just when they needed it most, had barely sufficient water for their domestic purposes, for stock, and for their small gardens. There was none for the main crops in the fields.
Naturally the crops suffered, the grain most of all. A series of hot, dry winds came. With water they would have done little or no damage; without it the leaves curled, shrivelled, and turned pale, starving for lack of moisture. And the peculiarly galling feature of it was that the water which would have meant so much was practically running to waste.
In spite of these troubles Casey managed to devote time to his guests. His projected excursion to the foothills was abandoned, but he and Clyde rode almost daily. He had reserved his little gray mare, Dolly, for her use, and she was becoming, if not expert, at least confident in the saddle.
She grew to love the long evenings, the soft twilights, the warm, sweet scent of the grasses, and the great stillness broken only by an occasional word and the beat of willing hoofs. On these evening rides she allowed her imagination to run riot. It pleased her to pretend that she and Casey were the only inhabitants of the land—an Eve and Adam of the West, pioneers of a remote civilization. All day she looked forward to this hour or two; at night, in her bed, she lived them over, recreating each mile, each word, each little thing—how the great owl had sailed ghostly across their path, the gray shape of a coyote fading into the dusk, the young broods of grouse hiding in the grass.
Occasionally she undertook to analyze her feelings toward Casey Dunne, but the result was indefinite. She enjoyed his companionship, looked forward to it, remembered his words, his tricks of manner and speech. But these things, she told herself, were not conclusive.
His sentiments she had no means of judging. He was forever doing little things to please her; but then he did as much for others. At times he was confidential; but he seldom talked of himself, his confidences taking the form of allowing her to share his private viewpoint, revealing to some extent his mental processes. But he had never said one word which indicated more than friendship. Clyde saw little of Sheila McCrae. The latter had ridden over once or twice to see, as she said, how Casey was treating them. On these occasions Clyde experienced a recurrence of latent hostility. Sheila took no pains whatever with her appearance. She came in a worn riding costume, plain, serviceable, workmanlike; and she talked water and crops and stock with Casey and McHale, avoiding more feminine topics. If there was any understanding between her and Casey it did not appear to Clyde. But it was this unreasoning hostility more than anything else which made Clyde doubt herself. Was it, she wondered, in reality jealousy?
She put the thought from her indignantly, but it refused to be banished. She even catalogued her attractions, comparing them with the other girl's. The balance was in her favour; but in the end she felt ashamed of herself. Why should she do this? She found no satisfactory reply.
After a week of the water famine she saw a change in her host. He was more silent, thoughtful. Often when they rode together he had nothing to say, staring at the horizon with narrowed eyes.
"Do you ever tell anybody your troubles?" she asked abruptly one evening. They were riding slowly homeward, and the silence had been especially marked.
"Not very often," Casey replied. "People I've met have usually had enough of their own. They didn't want to hear mine."
"Well, I haven't many troubles, and I'd like to share yours, if I may. I suppose it's this water question."
"Why, yes," he admitted. "It's getting to be a mighty hard thing to swallow—and look pleasant."
"I know." She nodded sympathetically. "You feel helpless."
"Not that exactly. The difficulty is to know just what to do—whether to do anything or not. The boys are very hostile. It wouldn't take much to start them."
"In what direction?"
"In any that would give action. They'd like nothing better than open war."
She exclaimed at the words. "Surely there's no possibility of that?"
"More than a possibility," he returned gravely. "Water is a necessity to us. The people who have taken it do not require it. They have established what is practically an armed camp. Also they have brought in a number of hard citizens—what are known as 'gunmen'—to overawe us. These patrol their ditch system, and warn us to keep away from it. It is guarded at every important point. Not satisfied with this, some of these fellows have been apparently looking for trouble in town and elsewhere. One of these fine days they will get it."
He shook his head forebodingly. They topped a rise as he spoke. Below them lay the line of the company's main canal. As they rode down to it a man on a horse seemed to appear from nowhere in particular, and came toward them. As he drew nearer Casey recognized the man Cross.
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