Desert Conquest Part 25

Sheila laughed. Her estimate of Farwell did not credit him with wideness of outlook. But her reply was prevented by the _thud-thud_ of rapid hoofs. A horse and rider loomed through the dark.

"h.e.l.lo, Sheila!" the rider called.

"Why, Casey, this is luck!" she exclaimed. Farwell scowled at the evident pleasure in her voice. "Light down. Better put your horse in the stable."

"That you, McCrae?" said Dunne, peering at the glow of Farwell's cigar.

"I want to see you about----"

"It's Mr. Farwell," Sheila interjected quickly.

A pause. Casey's voice, smooth, polite, broke it.

"I didn't recognize you, Mr. Farwell. How are you?" He dismounted, dropped his reins, and came upon the veranda. "Lovely night, isn't it?

Well, and how is everything going with you?"

"I'm fairly busy," Farwell replied grimly, "thanks to the actions of some persons who imagine themselves unknown."

Casey Dunne lit a cigar and held the match in his hand till the flame touched his fingers. He spoke through the ensuing greater darkness:

"I heard that your dam wasn't holding very well."

"Not very well," Farwell agreed, struggling with his temper. "Perhaps you _heard_ that it was dynamited?"

"I think I've heard most of the rumours," Dunne responded calmly.

"I have no doubt of that," Farwell observed with meaning.

"Great country for rumours," Casey went on. "Somebody always knows your inmost thoughts. Your intentions are known by others before you know them yourself. You are no exception, Mr. Farwell. The mind readers are busy with you. No action you might take would surprise them. They are quite ready for anything."

"I may surprise these wise people yet," said Farwell. "I suppose they counted on depriving our lands of water by destroying our dam?"

"That's certainly an original way of putting it," said Casey. "Well?"

"Well, they didn't foresee that, though our permanent work is wrecked, and will take time to rebuild, we would put in a temporary wing of logs, brush, and sand which would give us a partial supply."

"No, they didn't foresee that, likely," Casey admitted. "This wing dam of yours is quite an idea. By the way, I'm not getting enough water now, myself. Couldn't you get along with less than you are taking?"

"No," Farwell returned shortly.

"These wise people thought you could or would," said Casey, and, turning to Sheila, asked for her father. A few minutes afterward he strode off in search of him.

Farwell endeavoured to pick up the broken thread of conversation with Sheila. But this proved difficult. She was preoccupied; and he himself found Dunne's concluding words sticking in his memory. Did they hide a sinister meaning? He disliked Dunne heartily, and he was jealous of him besides, without having any definite cause; but he no longer underrated him.

On his way to camp he turned the problem over and over in his mind, but could make nothing of it, unless the words foreshadowed an attempt on the temporary dam. But there seemed to be little chance for the success of such an undertaking. Big acetylenes flared all night by the makeshift structure, and two men with shotguns watched by it. The whole camp was under almost martial law.

Farwell walked down to the river before he retired, to find the watchman very wide awake and a torrent booming through the stone-faced ca.n.a.l intake, to be distributed through a network of ditches upon the company's lands miles away. Farwell, satisfied, instructed the watchmen to keep a bright lookout, and turned in.

Once in the night he awoke with the impression that he had heard thunder, but as the stars were shining he put it down to a dream and went to sleep again. In the morning one of the watchmen reported a distant sound resembling a blast, but he had no idea where it was.

Farwell attached no importance to it.

But in the middle of the morning his ditch foreman, Bergin, rode in angry and profane. And his report caused similar manifestations in Farwell.

The main ca.n.a.l and larger ditches had been blown up in half a dozen places, usually where they wound around sidehills, and the released water had wrought hideous damage to the banks, causing landslides, washing thousands of tons of soil away, making it necessary to alter the ditch line altogether or put in fluming where the damage had occurred.

Nor was this all. Some three miles from the camp the main ca.n.a.l crossed a deep coulee. To get the water across, a trestle had been erected and a flume laid on it. The fluming was the largest size, patent-metal stuff, half round, joined with rods, riveted and clinched. To carry the volume of water there were three rows of this laid side by side, cemented into the main ca.n.a.l at the ends. It had been a beautiful and expensive job; and it reproduced finely in advertising matter. It was now a wreck.

Farwell rode out with Bergin to the scene of devastation. Now trestle and fluming lay in bent, rent, and riven ruin at the bottom of the coulee. The ca.n.a.l vomited its contents indecently down the nearest bank. A muddy river flowed down the coulee's bed. And the peculiarly bitter part of the whole affair was that the water, following the course of the coulee, ran back into the river again, whence it was available for use by the ranchers. It was as if the river had never been dammed. What water was diverted by the temporary dam got back to the river by way of the ca.n.a.l and coulee, somewhat muddied, but equally wet, and just as good as ever for irrigation purposes.

Bergin cursed afresh, but Farwell's anger was too bitter and deep for mere profanity. He sat in his saddle scowling at the wreck.

Once more it had been put over on him. He thought he had taken every possible precaution. Of course, ditches might be cut at any time; short of a constant patrol there was no way of preventing that. But this coulee was a thing which any man with eyes in his head and a brain back of them might have seen and thought of. And he had allowed this costly bit of fluming to lie open to destruction when it was the very key to the situation, so far as the ranchers were concerned!

His instructions had been to take the water to bring them to a properly humble frame of mind. It was part of his job to protect his employers'

property; that was what he was there for. He had taken ordinary precautions, too, so far as the dam was concerned. But he had entirely overlooked the fact, as obvious as that water runs downhill, that if his ca.n.a.l were cut at the coulee its contents must flow back into the river. Everything was now set back. With this second outrage land sales would stop altogether. It was a sickening jolt. He thought of the questions he would have to answer. He would be asked why he hadn't done this. It would be no answer to point out that he had done that. People were always so cursed wise after the event!

And then he remembered Casey Dunne's words. Dunne had said that he was not getting enough water, had asked for more, had practically given him warning. Now every rancher's ditches were running full, and all he had to show for his work was a horrible ma.s.s of wreckage.

Farwell had disliked Dunne at first sight; now he hated him. He would have liked to come to actual grips with him, to break that lean, wiry body with his own tremendous strength, to bruise and batter that quietly mocking face with his great fists.

But the worst of it all was that he had nothing to go on. There was not a shred of evidence to connect Dunne with the destruction of the dam and flume. The detective sent down by the company had looked wise but had found out nothing. The only thing in the nature of a clew was a moccasin track, and that led to young McCrae, whom, for Sheila's sake, he did not wish to involve. He felt that through no fault of his own he had made a mess of everything. The ranchers had won every round. As Africa had been the grave of countless military reputations, so Farwell saw his own repute interred along the Coldstream.

Something had to be done. He was tired of taking unavailing precautions, of sitting pa.s.sively waiting for attacks. In the nature of things it was impossible to guard adequately works extending over miles of uninhabited country. Guerilla warfare could not be met by regular tactics.

As he scowled down at the muddy torrent an idea began to germinate in his mind. The main thing was to crush these ranchers, to bring them to their knees. After that all would be easy, there would be an end of difficulties. The engineering problems were the least. He had a free hand; he was backed by an enormous corporation which would go the limit. He resolved to fight fire with fire--to give the ranchers a dose of their own medicine.

CHAPTER XV

When Clyde Burnaby entered Wade's office, that busy lawyer was much surprised. "I thought you had gone away," he said as they shook hands.

"It beats me how any young woman with the price of an elsewhere can stay in this town in summer."

Clyde laughed as she sat down. She looked deliciously cool, though the mercury was in the nineties, and the dusty canonlike streets were like ovens. "I was on the point of going," she admitted, "but I don't know where to go. I came for some information on another point, Mr. Wade."

"Yes?" said Wade interrogatively. "We carry a very complete stock of information here." He waved a hand at the formidable rows of half-calf and circuit bindings in his bookcase. "What particular shade, model, or style may I show you? Something seasonable and yet durable? Here is a very attractive and well-bound ten-pound creation covering most of the common or garden varieties of contract, including breach of promise to marry. Nice summer reading. Or, perhaps----"

"Now _do_ you think any sensible man would break such a promise to me?"

she laughed.

"You know the answer already," Wade replied. "You are a very good-looking young woman--almost as good-looking as Kitty."

"Model husband," Clyde commented approvingly. "Kitty is a darling. But to come to the point, Mr. Wade, I want some information about Mr.

Dunne."

"Casey Dunne?" inquired Wade, with a slight lift of his brows. "What has he been doing? What do you want to know about him?"