Chapter 19

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----"

The remainder was lost in the bark of a gun as one of the other party fired. McHale's horse jumped as though stung, just as he pulled the trigger, bumping into Shiner. Immediately that uncertain quadruped wheeled and kicked at him. So quick was his pivoting motion that Casey was almost unseated. He saved himself, but lost his rifle, which fell to the ground. With a furious curse and a jerk of the bit he wheeled Shiner around, drawing his automatic belt gun.

But the four strangers had taken advantage of the incident to turn and plunge back into the coulée. They were almost out of sight. Casey's gun spat a continuous jet of flame across the night, the rapid reports blending into a roll of sound. McHale, cursing his unsteady horse, fired again and again. But the strangers, apparently unhurt, swept out of sight.

Casey leaped to the ground, secured his rifle, and was back in the saddle again in an instant. They sailed into the shallow head of the coulée at a dead run, Casey struggling to refill the clip of his automatic, McHale cursing his horse and himself because he had used the rifle instead of his six-shooter.

At its head the coulée was merely a slight depression. Farther on it broadened and deepened. Down the middle of its length ran a sinuous grove of cottonwoods. On either side its flanks were bare, white with clay and alkali, rising to steep banks of yellow earth, bald and bleached in the moonlight.

Through this natural theatre thundered pursuers and pursued. The latter had secured a good lead. The windings of the coulée hid them from view.

Suddenly Casey became aware that there was no one ahead--that he and McHale were riding madly, to no purpose. At the same moment the latter made the like discovery. Their horses' hoofs slid and cut grooves in the earth as the riders dragged them to a halt. Usually considerate, in the excitement of the moment they used the brutal methods of the "buster."

"They've doubled back on us!" cried McHale. "Cut through them cottonwoods somewheres and let us go by a-hellin'. Fooled us, by glory, like we was a pair of hide-an'-go-seek kids. Yes--there they go now! Look up by the top past that cut bank!" He lifted his rifle as he spoke.

High up at the coulée's rim, some hundreds of yards away, figures moved. At that distance, even in the brilliant moonlight, details were lost. The eye could discern black spots merely; but it seemed that the men had dismounted for the ascent, and were helping the horses to scramble upward.

McHale fired, shoved down the lever, drew it home, and fired again. Since the light did not serve to show the dust puffs of the bullets, he could not tell whether he was shooting high or low. The main thing was that he did not hit. Casey chimed in. The bluffs and banks echoed to the reports of the high-powered rifles; but the figures gained the rim and vanished. Immediately afterward a tongue of flame leaped from the spot where they were last seen, and a bullet sang in close proximity to Casey's head. They wheeled into the shelter of the trees, where the shadows effectually concealed their whereabout. At short intervals bullets searched for their position. McHale bit large consolation and spat in disgust.

"I reckon it's a get-away," he said. "I ain't fool enough to go up that bank while they're there. And by the time we'd get around they'd be a couple of miles 'most anywheres."

"We've got ourselves to blame," said Casey.

"Well, that first shot burned up this cayuse of mine," McHale grumbled. "How could I shoot, with him jumpin' around? And that blasted, yeller-hided buzzard head of yours, he don't know no better'n to whale into him with both heels. It wouldn't happen again, not in a million years."

"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.