Desert Conquest Part 18

"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 sc.r.a.p. 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 motion, accomplishing the feat peculiar to cow and polo ponies of attaining their maximum speed in three jumps. They surged around the medley of tents and shacks, and came into the open neck and neck, running like singed cats.

A few hundred yards away, where the new sign-board stood beside the trail a horse struggled to rise, heaved its fore quarters up, and crashed down again, kicking in agony, raising a cloud of dust. Facing it, bending slightly forward, stood a man, holding a gun in his right hand.

Suddenly out of the dust cloud staggered a second, who rushed at the first, head down, extended fingers wildly clutching, and as he came he bellowed hoa.r.s.ely the wild-bull cry of the fighting male, crazed with pain or anger. The gun in the hand of the first man flashed up and cut down; and, as it hung for an instant at the level, the report rapped through the still air. But the other, apparently unhurt, charged into him, and both went down together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AS HE CAME HE BELLOWED HOa.r.s.eLY THE WILD-BULL CRY OF THE FIGHTING MALE, CRAZED WITH PAIN OR ANGER]

"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."

"n.o.body 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."