The Long Shadow Part 14

He was glad in his heart when came the time to go. Maybe she would get over her foolishness by the time he came in with the round-up. At any rate, the combination at the ranch did not tempt him to neglect his business, and he galloped down the trail without so much as looking back to see if Flora would wave--possibly because he was afraid he might catch the flutter of a handkerchief in fingers other than hers.

It was when the round-up was on its way in that Billy, stopping for an hour in Hardup, met Dill in the post office.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Dilly!" he cried, really glad to see the tall, lank form come shambling in at the door. "I didn't expect to see yuh off your own ranch. Anybody dead?" It struck him that Dill looked a shade more melancholy than was usual, even for him.

"Why, no, William. Every one is well--very well indeed. I only rode in after the mail and a few other things. I'm always anxious for my papers and magazines, you know. If you will wait for half an hour--you are going home, I take it?"

"That's where I'm sure headed, and we can ride out together, easy as not. We're through for a couple uh weeks or so, and I'm hazing the boys home to bust a few hosses before we strike out again. I guess I'll just keep the camp running down by the creek. Going to be in town long enough for me to play a game uh pool?"

"I was going right out again, but there's no particular hurry," said Dill, looking over his letters. "Were you going to play with some one in particular?"

"No--just the first gazabo I could rope and lead up to the table,"

Billy told him, sliding off the counter where he had been perched.

"I wouldn't mind a game myself," Dill observed, in his hesitating way.

In the end, however, they gave up the idea and started for home; because two men were already playing at the only table in Hardup, and they were in no mind to wait indefinitely.

Outside the town, Dill turned gravely to the other, "Did you say you were intending to camp down by the creek, William?" he asked slowly.

"Why, yes. Anything against it?" Billy's eyes opened a bit wider that Dill should question so trivial a thing.

"Oh, no--nothing at all." Dill cleared his throat raspingly. "Nothing at all--so long as there is any creek to camp beside."

"I reckon you've got something to back that remark. Has the creek went and run off somewhere?" Billy said, after a minute of staring.

"William, I have been feeling extremely ill at ease for the past week, and I have been very anxious for a talk with you. Eight days ago the creek suddenly ran dry--so dry that one could not fill a tin dipper except in the holes. I observed it about noon, when I led my horse down to water. I immediately saddled him and rode up the creek to discover the cause." He stopped and looked at Billy steadily.

"Well, I reckon yuh found it," Billy prompted impatiently.

"I did. I followed the creek until I came to the ditch Mr. Brown has been digging. I found that he had it finished and was filling it from the creek in order to test it. I believe," he added dryly, "he found the result very satisfying--to himself. The ditch carried the whole creek without any trouble, and there was plenty of room at the top for more!"

"h.e.l.l!" said Billy, just as Dill knew he would say. "But he can't take out any more than his water-right calls for," he added. "Yuh got a water right along with the ranch, didn't yuh say?"

"I got three--the third, fourth, and fifth. I have looked into the matter very closely in the last week. I find that we can have all the water there is--after Brown gets through. His rights are the first and second, and will cover all the water the creek will carry, if he chooses to use them to the limit. I suspect he was looking for some sort of protest from me, for he had the papers in his pocket and showed them to me. I afterward investigated, as I said, and found the case to be exactly as I have stated."

Billy stared long at his horse's ears. "Well, he can't use the whole creek," he said at last, "not unless he just turned it loose to be mean, and I don't believe he can waste water even if he does hold the rights. We can mighty quick put a stop to that. Do yuh know anything about injunctions? If yuh don't, yuh better investigate 'em a lot--because I don't know a d.a.m.n' thing about the breed, and we're liable to need 'em bad."

"I believe I may truthfully say that I understand the uses--and misuses--of injunctions, William. In the East they largely take the place of guns as fighting weapons, and I think I may say without boasting that I can hit the bull's-eye with them as well as most men.

But suppose Mr. Brown _uses_ the water? Suppose there is none left to turn back into the creek channel when he is through? He has a large force of men at work running laterals from the main ditch, which carries the water up and over the high land, and I took the liberty of following his lines of stakes. As you would put it, William, he seems about to irrigate the whole of northern Montana; certainly his stakes cover the whole creek bottom, both above and below the main ditch, and also the bench land above."

"h.e.l.l! Anything else?"

"I believe not--except that he has completed his fencing and has turned in a large number of cattle. I say completed, though strictly speaking he has not. He has completed the great field south of the creek and east of us. But Mr. Walland was saying that Brown intends to fence a tract to the north of us, either this fall or early in the spring. I know to a certainty that he has a good many sections leased there. I tried to obtain some of it last spring and could not." Into the voice of Dill had crept a note of discouragement.

"Well, don't yuh worry none, Dilly. I'm here to see yuh pull out on top, and you'll do it, too. You're a crackerjack when it comes to the fine points uh business, and I sure savvy the range end uh the game, so between us we ought to make good, don't yuh think? You just keep your eye on Brown, and if yuh can slap him in the face with an injunction or anything, don't yuh get a sudden attack uh politeness and let him slide. I'll look after the cow brutes myself--and if I ain't good for it, after all these years, I ought to be kicked plumb off the earth. The time has gone by when we could ride over there and haze his bunch clear out uh the country on a high lope, with our six guns backing our argument. I kinda wish," he added pensively, "we _hadn't_ got so d.a.m.n' decent and law-abiding. We could get action a heap more speedy and thorough with a dozen or fifteen buckaroos that liked to fight and had lots uh sh.e.l.ls and good hosses. Why, I could have the old man's bunch shoveling dirt into that ditch to beat four aces, in about fifteen minutes, if--"

"But, as you say," Dill cut in anxiously, "we are decent and law-abiding, and such a procedure is quite out of the question."

"Aw, I ain't meditating no moonlight attack, Dilly--but the boys would sure love to do it if I told 'em to get busy, and I reckon we could make a better job of it than forty-nine injunctions and all kinds uh law sharps."

"Careful, William. I used to be a 'law sharp' myself," protested Dill, pulling his face into a smile. "And I must own I feel anxious over this irrigation project of Brown's. He is going to work upon a large scale--a _very_ large scale--for a private ranch. You have made it plain to me, William, how vitally important a wide, unsettled country is to successful cattle raising; and since then I have thought deeply upon the subject. I feel sure that Mr. Brown is _not_ going to start a cattle ranch."

"If he ain't, then what--"

"I am not prepared at present to make a statement, even to you, William. I never enjoyed recanting. But one thing I may say. Mr. Brown has so far kept well within his legal rights, and we have no possible ground for protest. So you see, perhaps we would better turn our entire attention to our own affairs."

"Sure. I got plenty uh troubles uh my own," Billy agreed, more emphatically than he intended.

Dill looked at him hesitatingly. "Mrs. Bridger," he observed slowly, "has received news that her husband is seriously ill. There will not be another boat going north until spring, so that it will be impossible for her to go to him. I am extremely sorry." Then, as if that statement seemed to him too bald, in view of the fact that they had never discussed Mama Joy, he added, "It is very hard for Flora.

The letter held out little hope of recovery."

Billy, though he turned a deep red and acquired three distinct creases between his eyebrows, did not even make use of his favorite expletive.

After a while he said irritably that a man was a d.a.m.n fool to go off like that and leave a wife--and family--behind him. He ought either to stay at home or take them with him.

He did not mean that he wished her father had taken Flora to Klond.y.k.e, though he openly implied that he wished Mama Joy had gone. He knew he was inconsistent, but he also knew--and there was comfort as well as discomfort in the knowledge--that Dill understood him very well.

It seemed to Billy, in the short time that the round-up crew was camped by the creek, that no situation could be more intolerable than the one he must endure. He could not see Flora without having Mama Joy present also--or if he did find Flora alone, Mama Joy was sure to appear very shortly. If he went near the house there was no escaping her. And when he once asked Flora to ride with him he straightway discovered that Mama Joy had developed a pa.s.sion for riding and went along. Flora had only time to murmur a rapid sentence or two while Mama Joy was hunting her gloves.

"Mama Joy has been taking the _Ladies' Home Journal_" she said ironically, "and she has been converted to the idea that a girl must never be trusted alone with a man. I've acquired a chaperon now! Have you begun to study diplomacy yet, Billy Boy?"

"Does she chapyron yuh this fervent when the Pilgrim's the man?"

countered Billy resentfully.

He did not get an answer, because Mama Joy found her gloves too soon, but he learned his lesson and did not ask Flora to ride with him again. Nevertheless, he tried surrept.i.tiously to let her know the reason and so prevent any misunderstanding.

He knew that Flora was worrying over her father, and he would like to have cheered her all he could; but he had no desire to cheer Mama Joy as well--he would not even give her credit for needing cheer. So he stayed away from them both and gave his time wholly to the horse-breaking and to affairs in general, and ate and slept in camp to make his avoidance of the house complete.

Sometimes, of a night when he could not sleep, he wondered why it is that one never day-dreams unpleasant obstacles and disheartening failures into one's air castles. Why was it that, just when it had seemed to him that his dream was miraculously come true; when he found himself complete master of the Double-Crank where for years he had been merely one of the men; when the One Girl was also settled indefinitely in the household he called his home; when he knew she liked him, and had faith to believe he could win her to something better than friendship--all these good things should be enmeshed in a tangle of untoward circ.u.mstances?

Why must he be compelled to worry over the Double-Crank, that had always seemed to him a synonym for success? Why must his first and only love affair be hampered by an element so disturbing as Mama Joy? Why, when he had hazed the Pilgrim out of his sight--and as he supposed, out of his life--must the man hover always in the immediate background, threating the peace of mind of Billy, who only wanted to be left alone that he and his friends might live unmolested in the air castle of his building?

One night, just before they were to start out again gathering beef for the shipping season, Billy thought he had solved the problem--philosophically, if not satisfactorily. "I guess maybe it's just one uh the laws uh nature that you're always b.u.mping into," he decided. "It's a lot like draw-poker. Yah can't get dealt out to yuh the cards yuh want, without getting some along with 'em that yuh don't want. What gets me is, I don't see how in thunder I'm going to ditch m' discard. If I could just turn 'em face down on the table and count 'em out uh the game--old Brown and his fences and his darn ditch, and that dimply blonde person and the Pilgrim--oh, h.e.l.l! Wouldn't we rake in the stakes if I could?"

Straightway Billy found another element added to the list of disagreeables--or, to follow his simile, another card was dealt him which he would like to have discarded, but which he must keep in his hand and play with what skill he might. He was not the care-free Charming Billy Boyle who had made prune pie for Flora Bridger in the line-camp. He looked older, and there were chronic creases between his eyebrows, and it was seldom that he asked tunefully

"Can she make a punkin pie, Billy boy, Billy Boy?"

He had too much on his mind for singing anything.

It was when he had gathered the first train load of big, rollicky steers for market and was watching Jim Bleeker close the stockyard gate on the tail of the herd at Tower, the nearest shipping point, that the disagreeable element came in the person of Dill and the news he bore.

He rode up to where Billy, just inside the wing of the stockyards, was sitting slouched over with one foot out of the stirrup, making a cigarette. Dill did not look so much the tenderfoot, these days. He sat his horse with more a.s.surance, and his face was brown and had that firm, hard look which outdoor living brings.

"I looked for you in yesterday or the day before, William," he said, when Billy had greeted him with a friendly, "h.e.l.lo, Dilly!" and one of his illuminating smiles.

"I'm ready to gamble old Brown has been and gone and run the creek dry on yuh again," bantered Billy, determined at that moment to turn his back on trouble.

"No, William, you would lose. The creek is running almost its normal volume of water. I dislike very much to interfere with your part of the business, William, but under present conditions I feel justified in telling you that you must not ship these cattle just now. I have been watching the market with some uneasiness for a month. Beef has been declining steadily until now it ranges from two-ninety to three-sixty, and you will readily see, William, that we cannot afford to ship at that figure. For various reasons I have not obtruded business matters upon you, but I will now state that it is vitally important that we realize enough from the beef shipments to make our fall payment on the mortgage and pay the interest on the remainder. It would be a great advantage if we could also clear enough for the next year's running expenses. Have you any idea how much beef there will be to ship this fall?"