When Zen awoke next morning the mowing machines of Transley’s outfit were already singing their symphony in the meadows; she could hear the metallic rhythm as it came borne on the early breeze. She lay awake on her camp cot for a few minutes, stretching her fingers to the canvas ceiling and feeling that it was good to be alive. And it was. The ripple of water came from almost underneath the walls of her tent; the smell of spruce trees and balm-o’-Gilead and new-mown hay was in the air. She could feel the warmth of the sunshine already pouring upon her white roof; she could trace the gentle sway of the trees by the leafy patterns gliding forward and back. A cheeky gopher, exploring about the door of her tent, ventured in, and, sitting bolt upright, sent his shrill whistle boldly forth. She watched his fine bravery for a minute, then clapped her hands together, and laughed as he fled.
“Therein we have the figures of both Transley and Linder,” she mused to herself. “Upright, Transley; horizontal, Linder. I doubt if the poor fellow slept last night after the fright I gave him.” Slowly and calmly she turned the incident over in her mind. She wondered a little if she had been quite fair with Linder. Her words and conduct were capable of very broad interpretations. She was not at all in love with Linder; of that Zen was very sure. She was equally sure that she was not at all in love with Transley. She admitted that she admired Transley for his calm assumptions, but they nettled her a little nevertheless. If this should develop into a love affair—IF it should—she had no intention that it was to be a pleasant afternoon’s canter. It was to be a race—a race, mind you—and may the best man win! She had a feeling, amounting almost to a conviction, that Transley underrated his foreman’s possibilities in such a contest. She had seen many a dark horse, less promising than Linder, gallop home with the stakes.
Then Zen smiled her own quiet, self-confident smile, the smile which had come down to her from Y.D. and from the Wilsons—the only family that had ever mastered him. The idea of either Transley or Linder thinking he could gallop home with HER! For the moment she forgot to do Linder the justice of remembering that nothing was further from his thoughts. She would show them. She would make a race of it—ALMOST to the wire. In the home stretch she would make the leap, out and over the fence. She was in it for the race, not for the finish.
Zen contemplated for some minutes the possibilities of that race; then, as the imagination threatened to become involved, she sprang from her cot and thrust a cautious head through the door of her tent. The gang had long since gone to the fields, and friendly bushes sheltered her from view from the cook-car. She drew on her boots, shook out her hair, threw a towel across her shoulders, and, soap in hand, walked boldly the few steps to the stream rippling over its shiny gravel bed. She stopped and tested the water with her fingers; then brought it in fresh, cool handfuls about her face and neck.
“Mornin’, Zen!” said a familiar voice. “‘Scuse me for happenin’ to be here. I was jus’ waterin’ that Pete-horse after a hard ride.”
“Now look here, Mr. Drazk!” said the girl, whipping her scanty clothing about her, “if I had a gun that Pete-horse would be scheduled for his fastest travel in the next twenty seconds, and he’d end it without a rider, too. I won’t have you spying about!”
“Aw, don’ be cross,” Drazk protested. He was sitting on his horse in the ford a dozen yards away. “I jus’ happened along. I guess the outside belongs to all of us. Say, Zen, if I was to get properly interduced, what’s the chances?”
“Not one in a million, and if that isn’t odds enough I’ll double it.”
“You’re not goin’ to hitch up with Linder, are you?”
“Linder? Who said anything about Linder?”
“Gee, but ain’t she innercent?” Drazk stepped his horse up a few feet to facilitate conversation. “I alus take an interest in innercent gals away from home, so I kinda kep’ my angel eye on you las’ night. An’ I see Linder stalkin’ aroun’ here an’ sighin’ out over the water when he should ‘ave been in bed. But, of course, he’s been interduced.”
“George Drazk, if you speak to me again I’ll horse-whip you out of the camp at noon before all the men. Now, beat it!”
“Jus’ as you say, Ma’am,” he returned, with mock courtesy. “But I could tell a strange story if I would. But you don’t need to be scared. That’s one thing I never do—I never squeal on a friend.”
She was burning with his insults, and if she had had a gun at hand she undoubtedly would have made good her threat. But she had none. Drazk very deliberately turned his horse and rode away toward the meadows.
“Oh, won’t I fix him!” she said, as she continued her toilet in a fury. She had not the faintest idea what revenge she would take, but she promised herself that it would leave nothing to be desired. Then, because she was young and healthy and an optimist, and did not know what it meant to be afraid, she dismissed the incident from her mind to consider the more urgent matter of breakfast.
Tompkins, the cook, had not needed Transley’s suggestion to put his best foot forward when catering to Y.D. and his daughter. Tompkins’ soul yearned for a cooking berth that could be occupied the year round. Work in the railway camps had always left him high and dry at the freeze-up—dry, particularly, and a few nights in Calgary or Edmonton saw the end of his season’s earnings. Then came a precarious existence for Tompkins until the scrapers were back on the dump the following spring. A steady job, cooking on a ranch like the Y.D.; if Tompkins had written the Apocalypse that would have been his picture of heaven. So he had left nothing undone, even to despatching a courier over night to a railway station thirty miles away for fresh fruit and other delicacies. Another of the gang had been impressed into a trip up the river to a squatter who was suspected of keeping one or two milch cows and sundry hens.
“This way, Ma’am,” Tompkins was waving as Zen emerged from the grove. “Another of our usual mornings. Hope you slep’ well, Ma’am.” He stood deferentially aside while she ascended the three steps that led into the covered wagon.
Zen gave a little shriek of delight, and Tompkins felt that all his efforts had been well repaid. One end of the table—it was with a sore heart Tompkins had realized that he could not cut down the big table—one end of the table was set with a clean linen cloth and granite dishware scoured until it shone. Beside Zen’s plate were grape fruit and sliced oranges and real cream.
“However did you manage it?” she gasped.
“Nothing’s too good for Y.D.‘s daughter,” was the only explanation Tompkins would offer, but, as Zen afterwards said, the smile on his face was as good as another breakfast. After the fruit came porridge, and more cream; then fresh boiled eggs with toast; then fresh ripe strawberries with more cream.
“Mr.—Mr.—”
“Tompkins, Ma’am; Cyrus Tompkins,” he supplied.
“Well, Mr. Tompkins, you’re a wonder, and when there’s a new cook to be engaged for the Y.D. I shall think of you.”
“Indeed I wish you would, Ma’am,” he said, earnestly. “This road work’s all right, and nobody ever cooked for a better boss than Mr. Transley—savin’ it would be your father, Ma’am—but I’m a man of family, an’ it’s pretty hard—”
“Family, did you say, Mr. Tompkins? How many of a family have you?”
“Well, it’s seven years since I heard from them—I haven’t corresponded very reg’lar of late, but they WAS six—”
The story of Tompkins’ family was cut short by the arrival of a team and mowing machine.
“What’s up, Fred?” called Tompkins through a window of his dining car to the driver. “Breakfust is just over, an’ dinner ain’t begun.”
For answer the man addressed as Fred slowly produced an iron stake about eighteen inches long and somewhat less than an inch in diameter.
“What kind of shrubbery do you call that, Tompkins?” he demanded.
“Well, it ain’t buffalo grass, an’ it ain’t brome grass, an’ I don’t figger it’s alfalfa,” said Tompkins, meditatively.
“No, and it ain’t a grub-stake,” Fred replied, with some sarcasm. “It’s a iron stake, growin’ right in a nice little clump of grass, and I run on to it and bust my cuttin’-bar all to—that is, all to pieces,” he completed rather lamely, taking Zen into his glance.
“I think I follow you,” she said, with a smile. “Can you fix it here?”
“Nope. Have to go to town for a new one. Two days’ lost time, when every hour counts. Hello! Here comes someone else.”
Another of the teamsters was drawing into camp. “Hello, Fred!” he said, upon coming up with his fellow workman, “you in too? I had a bit of bad luck. I run smash on to an iron stake right there in the ground and crumpled my knife like so much soap.”
“I did worse,” said Fred, with a grin. “I bust my cuttin’-bar.”
The two men exchanged a steady glance for half a minute. Then the new-comer gave vent to a long, low whistle.
“So that’s the way of it,” he said. “That’s the kind of war Mr. Landson makes. Well, we can fight back with the same weapons, but that won’t cut the hay, will it?”
By this time Y.D. and Transley, with four other teamsters, were observed coming in. Each driver had had the same experience. An iron stake, carefully hidden in a clump of grass, had been driven down into the ground until it was just high enough to intercept the cutting-bar. The fine, sharp knives were crumpled against it; in some cases the heavy cutting-bar, in which the knives operate, was damaged.
Y.D.‘s face was black with fury.
“That’s the lowest, mangyest, cowardliest trick I ever had pulled on me,” he was saying. “I’m plumb equal to ridin’ down to Landson’s an’ drivin’ one of them stakes through under his short ribs.”
“But can you prove that Landson did it?” said Zen, who had an element of caution in her when her father was concerned. She had a vision of a fight, with Landson pleading entire ignorance of the whole cause of offence, and her father probably summoned by the police for unprovoked assault.
“No, I can’t prove that Landson did it, an’ I can’t prove that the grass my steers eat turns to hair on their backs,” he retorted, “but I reach my own conclusions. Is there any shootin’ irons in the place?”
“Now, Dad, that’s enough,” said the girl, firmly. “There’ll be no shooting between you and Landson. If there is to be anything of that kind I’ll ride down ahead and warn him of what’s coming.”
“Darter,” said Y.D.—it was only on momentous occasions that he addressed her as daughter—“I brought you over here as a guest, not as manager o’ my affairs. I’ve taken care of those affairs for some considerable years, an’ I reckon I still have the qualifications. If you’re a-goin’ to act up obstrep’rous I’ll get Mr. Transley to lend me a man to escort you home.”
“At your service, Y.D.,” said George Drazk, who was in the crowd which had gathered about the rancher, his daughter, and Transley. “That Pete-horse an’ me would jus’ see her over the hills a-whoopin’.”
“I don’t think it would be wise to take any extreme measures, at least, not just yet,” said Transley. “It’s out of the question to suppose that Landson has picketed the whole valley with those stakes. It is now quite clear why we were left in peace yesterday. He wanted us to get started, and get a few swaths cut, so that he would know where to drive the stakes to catch us the next morning. Some of these machines can be repaired at once, and the others within a day or two. We will just move over a little and start on new fields. There’s pretty good moonlight these nights and we’ll leave a few men out on guard, and perhaps we can catch the enemy at his little game. Let us get one of Landson’s men with the goods on him.”
Y.D. was somewhat pacified by this suggestion. “You’re a practical devil, Transley,” he said, with considerable admiration. “Now, in a case of this kind I jus’ get plumb fightin’ mad. I want to bore somebody. I guess it’s the only kind o’ procedure that comes easy to my hand. I guess you’re right, but I hate to let anybody have the laugh on me.” Y.D. looked down the valley, shading his eyes with his hand. “That son-of-a-gun has got a dozen or more stacks down there. I don’t wish nobody any hard luck, but if some tenderfoot was to drop a cigar—”
“In that case I suppose you’d pray for a west wind, Dad,” Zen suggested, “but the winds in these valleys, even with your prayers to direct them, are none too reliable.”
“Everybody to work on fixing up these machines,” Transley ordered. “Linder, make a list of what repairs are needed and Drazk will ride to town with it at once. Some of them may have to come out from the city by express. Drazk can get the orders in and a team will follow to bring out the repairs.”
In a moment Transley’s men were busy with wrenches and hammers, replacing knives and appraising damages. Even in his anger Y.D. took approving note of the promptness of Transley’s decisions and the zest with which his men carried them into effect.
“A he-man, that fellow, Zen,” he confided to his daughter, “If he’d blowed into this country thirty years ago, like I did, he’d own it by this time plumb to the sky-line.”
When the list of repairs was completed Linder handed it to Drazk.
“Beat it to town on that Pete-horse of yours, George,” he said. “Burn the grass on the road.”
“I bet I’ll be ten miles on the road back when I meet my shadow goin’,” said Drazk, making a spectacular leap into his saddle. “Bye, Y.D!; bye, Zen!” he shouted while he whirled his horse’s head eastward and waved his hand to where they stood. In spite of her annoyance at him she had to smile and return his salute.
“Mr. Drazk is irrepressible,” she remarked to Transley.
“And irresponsible,” the contractor returned. “I sometimes wonder why I keep him. In fact, I don’t really keep him; he just stays. Every spring he hunts me up and fastens on. Still, I get a lot of good service out of him. Praise ‘that Pete-horse,’ and George would ride his head off for you. He has a weakness for wanting to marry every woman he sees, but his infatuations seem harmless enough.”
“I know something of his weakness,” Zen replied. “I have already been honored with a proposal.”
Transley looked in her face. It was slightly flushed, whether with the summer sun or with her confession, but it was a wonderfully good face to look in.
“Zen,” he said, in a low voice that Y.D. and the others might not hear, “how would you take a serious proposal, made seriously by one who loves you, and who knows that you are, and always will be, a queen among women?”
“If you had been a cow puncher instead of a contractor,” she told him, “I’m sure you would long ago have ended your life in some dash over a cutbank.”
Meanwhile Drazk pursued his way to town. The trail, after crossing the ford, turned abruptly to the right from that which led across country to the North Y.D. For a mile or more it skirted the stream in a park-like drive through groves of spruce and cottonwood. Sunshine and the babble of water everywhere filled the air. Sunshine, too, filled George Drazk’s heart. The importance of his mission was pleasantly heavy upon him. He pictured the impression he would make in town, galloping in with his horse wet over the back, and rushing to the implement agency with all the importance of a courier from Y.D. He would let two of the boys take Pete to the stable, and then, seated on a mower seat in the shade, he would tell the story. It would lose nothing in the telling. He would even add how Zen had thrown a kiss at him in parting. Perhaps he would have Zen kiss him on the cheek before the whole camp. He turned that possibility over in his mind, weighing nicely the credulity of his imaginary audience.... At any rate, whether he decided to put that in the story or not, it was very pleasant to think about.
Presently the trail turned abruptly up a gully leading into the hills. A huge cutbank, jutting into the river, barred the way in front, and its precipitous side, a hundred feet or more in height, kept continually crumbling and falling into the stream. These cutbanks are a terror to inexperienced riders. The valleys are swallowed up in the tawny sameness of the ranges; the vision catches only the higher levels, and one may gallop to the verge of a precipice before becoming aware of its existence. It was to this that Zen had referred in speaking of Transley’s precipitateness.
Drazk followed the gully up into the hills, letting his horse drop back to a walk in the hard going along the dry bed of a stream which flowed only in the spring freshets. Pete had to pick his way over boulders and across stretches of sand and boggy patches of black mud formed by little springs leaking out under clumps of willows. Here and there the white ribs of a steer’s skeleton peered through the brush; once or twice an overpowering stench gave notice of a carcass not wholly decomposed.
It was not a pleasant environment, but in an hour Drazk was out again on the brow of the brown hills, where the sunshine flooded about and a fresh breeze beat up against his face. After all his winding about in the gully he was not more than a mile from the cutbank.
“I reckon I could get a great view from that cutbank of what Landson is doin’,” he suddenly remarked to himself. He took off his hat and scratched his tousled head in reflection. “Linder said to beat it,” he ruminated, “but I can’t get back to-night anyway, an’ it might be worth while to do a little scoutin’. Here goes!”
He struck a smart gallop to the southward, and brought his horse up, spectacularly, a yard from the edge of the precipice. The view which his position commanded was superb. Up the valley lay the white tents of Transley’s outfit, almost hidden in green foliage; the ford across the river was distinctly visible, and stretching south from it lay, like a great curving snake, the trail which wound across the valley and lost itself in the foothills far to the south; across the western horizon hung the purple curtain of the mountains, soft and vague in their noonday mists, but touched with settings of ivory where the snow fields beat back the blazing sunshine; far down the valley was the gleam of Landson’s whitewashed buildings, and nearer at hand the greenish-brown of the upland meadows which his haymakers had already cleared of their crop of prairie wool. This was now arising in enormous stacks; it must have been three miles to where they lay, but Drazk’s keen eyes could distinguish ten completed stacks and two others in course of building. He could even see the sweeps hauling the new hay, after only a few hours of sun-drying, and sliding it up the inclined platforms which dumped it into the form of stacks. The foothill rancher makes hay by horse power, and almost without the aid of a pitch-fork. Even as Drazk watched he saw a load skidded up; saw its apparent momentary poise in air; saw the well-trained horses stop and turn and start back to the meadow with their sweep. And up the valley Transley’s outfit was at a standstill.
Drazk employed his limited but expressive vocabulary. It was against all human nature to look on such a scene unmoved. He recalled Y.D.‘s half-spoken wish about a random cigar. Then suddenly George Drazk’s mouth dropped open and his eyes rounded with a great idea.
Of course, it was against all the rules of the range—it was outlaw business—but what about driving iron stakes in a hay meadow? Drazk’s philosophy was that the end justifies the means. And if the end would win the approval of Y.D.—and of Y.D.‘s daughter—then any means was justified. Had not Linder said, “Burn the grass on the road?” Drazk knew well enough that Linder’s remark was a figure of speech, but his eccentric mind found no trouble in converting it into literal instructions.
Drazk sniffed the air and looked at the sun. A soft breeze was moving slowly up the valley; the sun was just past noon. There was every reason to expect that as the lowland prairies grew hot with the afternoon sunshine a breeze would come down out of the mountains to occupy the area of great atmospheric expansion. Drazk knew nothing about the theory of the thing; all that concerned him was the fact that by mid-afternoon the wind would probably change to the west.
Two miles down the valley he found a gully which gave access to the water’s edge. He descended, located a ford, and crossed. There were cattle-trails through the cottonwoods; he might have followed them, but he feared the telltale shoe-prints. He elected the more difficult route down the stream itself. The South Y.D. ran mostly on a wide gravel bottom; it was possible to pick out a course which kept Pete in water seldom higher than his knees. An hour of this, and Drazk, peering through the trees, could see the nearest of Landson’s stacks not half a mile away. The Landson gang were working farther down the valley, and the stack itself covered approach from the river.
Drazk slipped from the saddle, and stole quietly into the open. The breeze was now coming down the valley.
Transley’s men had repaired such machines as they could and returned to work. The clatter of mowing machines filled the valley; the horses were speeded up to recover lost time. Transley and Y.D. rode about, carefully scrutinizing the short grass for iron stakes, and keeping a general eye on operations.
Suddenly Transley sat bolt-still on his horse. Then, in a low voice,
“Y.D!” he said.
The rancher turned and followed the line of Transley’s vision. The nearest of Landson’s stacks was ablaze, and a great pillar of smoke was rolling skyward. Even as they watched, the base of the fire seemed to spread; then, in a moment, tongues of flame were seen leaping from a stack farther on.
“Looks like your prayers were answered, Y.D.,” said Transley. “I bet they haven’t a plow nearer than the ranch.”
Y.D. seemed fascinated by the sight. He could not take his eyes off it. He drew a cigar from his pocket and thrust it far into his mouth, chewing it savagely and rolling it in his lips, but, according to the law of the hayfield, refraining from lighting it. At first there was a gleam of vengeance in his eyes, but presently that gave way to a sort of horror. Every honorable tradition of the range demanded that he enlist his force against the common enemy.
“Hell, Transley!” he ejaculated, “we can’t sit and look at that! Order the men out! What have we got to fight with?”
For answer Transley swung round in his saddle and struck his palm into Y.D.‘s.
“Good boy, Y.D!” he said. “I did you an injustice—I mean, about your prayers being answered. We haven’t as much as a plow, either, but we can gallop down with some barrels in a wagon and put a sack brigade to work. I’m afraid it won’t save Landson’s hay, but it will show where our hearts are.”
Transley and Y.D. galloped off to round up the men, some of whom had already noticed the fire. Transley despatched four men and two teams to take barrels, sacks, and horse blankets to the Landson meadows. The others he sent off at once on horseback to give what help they could.
Zen rode up just as they left, and already her fine horse seemed to realize the tension in the air. His keen, hard-strung muscles quivered as she brought his gallop to a stop.
“How did it start, Dad?” she demanded.
“How do I know?” he returned, shortly. “D’ye think I fired it?”
“No, but I just asked the question that Landson will ask, so you better have your answer handy. I’m going to gallop down to their ranch; perhaps I can help Mrs. Landson.”
“The ranch buildings are safe enough, I think,” said Transley. “The grass there is close cropped, and there is some plowing.”
For a moment the three sat, watching the spread of the flames. By this time the whole lower valley was blanketed in smoke. Clouds of blue and mauve and creamy yellow rolled from the meadows and stacks. The fire was whipping the light breeze of the afternoon to a gale, and was already running wildly over the flanks of the foothills.
“Well, I’m off,” said Zen. “Good-bye!”
“Be careful, Zen!” her father shouted. “Fire is fire.” But already her horse was stretching low and straight in a hard gallop down the valley.
“I’ll ride in to camp and tell Tompkins to make up a double supply of sandwiches and coffee,” said Transley. “I guess there’ll be no cooking in Landson’s outfit this afternoon. After that we can both run down and lend a hand, if that suits you.”
As they rode to camp together Y.D. drew up close to the contractor. “Transley,” he said, “how do you reckon that fire started?”
“I don’t know,” said Transley, “any more than you do.”
“I didn’t ask you what you KNEW. I asked you what you reckoned.”
Transley rode for some minutes in silence. Then at last he spoke:
“A man isn’t supposed to reckon in things of this kind. He should know, or keep his mouth shut. But I allow myself just one guess. Drazk.”
“Why Drazk?” Y.D. demanded. “He has nothin’ to gain, and this prank may put him in the cooler.”
“Drazk would do anything to be spectacular,” Transley explained. “He probably will boast openly about it. You know, he’s trying to make an impression on Zen.”
“Nonsense!”
“Of course it’s nonsense, but Drazk doesn’t see it that way.”
“I’d string him to the nearest cottonwood if I thought he—”
“Now don’t do him an injustice, Y.D. Drazk doesn’t realize that he is no mate for Zen. He doesn’t know of any reason why Zen shouldn’t look on him with favor; indeed, with pride. It’s ridiculous, I know, but Drazk is built that way.”
“Then I’ll change his style of architecture the first time I run into him,” said Y.D. savagely. “Zen is too young to think of such a thing, anyway.”
“She will always be too young to think of such a thing, so far as Drazk or his type is concerned,” Transley returned. “But suppose—Y.D., to be quite frank, supposeIsuggested—”
“Transley, you work quick,” said Y.D. “I admit I like a quick worker. But just now we have a fire on our hands.”
By this time they had reached the camp. Transley gave his instructions in a few words, and then turned to ride down to Landson’s. They had gone only a few hundred yards when Y.D. pulled his horse to a stop.
“Transley!” he exclaimed, and his voice was shaking. “What do you smell?”
The contractor drew up and sniffed the air. When he turned to Y.D. his face was white.
“Smoke, Y.D!” he gasped. “The wind has changed!”
It was true. Already low clouds of smoke were drifting overhead like a broken veil. The erratic foothill wind, which a few minutes before had been coming down the valley, was now blowing back up again. Even while they took in the situation they could feel the hot breath of the distant fire borne against their faces.
“Well, it’s up to us,” said Transley tersely. “We’ll make a fight of it. Got any speed in that nag of yours?” Without waiting for an answer he put spurs to his horse and set forward on a wild gallop into the smoke.
A mile down the line he found that Linder had already gathered his forces and laid out a plan of defence. The valley, from the South Y.D. to the hills, was about four miles wide, and up the full breadth of it was now coming the fire from Landson’s fields. There was no natural fighting line; Linder had not so much as a buffalo path to work against. But he was already starting back-fires at intervals of fifty yards, allotting three men to each fire. A back-fire is a fire started for the purpose of stopping another. Usually a road, or a plowed strip, or even a cattle path, is used for a base. On the windward side of this base the back-fire is started and allowed to eat its way back against the wind until it meets the main fire which is rushing forward with the wind, and chokes it out for lack of fuel. A few men, stationed along a furrow or a trail, can keep the small back-fire from jumping it, although they would be powerless to check the momentum of the main fire.
This was Linder’s position, except that he had no furrow to work against. All he could do was tell off men with sacks and horse blankets soaked in the barrels of water to hold the back-fire in check as best they could. So far they were succeeding. As soon as the fire had burned a few feet the forward side of it was pounded out with wet sacks. It didn’t matter about the other side. It could be allowed to eat back as far as it liked; the farther the better.
“Good boy, Lin!” Transley shouted, as he drew up and surveyed operations. “She played us a dirty trick, didn’t she?”
Linder looked up, red-eyed and coughing. “We can hold it here,” he said, “but we can never cross the valley. The fire will be on us before we have burned a mile. It will beat around our south flank and lick up everything!”
Transley jumped from his horse. He seized Linder in his arms and literally threw him into the saddle. “You’re played, boy!” he shouted in his foreman’s ear. “Ride down to the river and get into the water, and stay there until you know we can win!”
Then Transley threw himself into the fight. As the men said afterwards, Linder fought like a wildcat, but Transley fought like a den of lions. When the wagon galloped up from the river with barrels of water Transley seized a barrel at the end and set it bodily on the ground. He sprang into the wagon, shouting commands to horses and men. A hundred yards they galloped along the fighting front; then Transley sprang out and set another barrel on the ground. In this way, instead of having the men all coming to the wagon to wet their sacks, he distributed water along the line. Then they turned back, picked up the empty barrels, and galloped to the river for a fresh supply.
Soon they had the first mile secure. The backfires had all met; the forward line of flames had all been pounded out; the rear line had burned back until there was no danger of it jumping the burned space. Then Transley picked up his kit and rushed it on to a new front farther south. At intervals of a hundred yards he started fires, holding them in check and beating out the western edge as before.
But his difficulties were increasing. He was farther from the river. It took longer to get water. One of the barrels fell off and collapsed. Some of the men were playing out. The horses were wild with excitement and terror. The smoke was growing denser and hotter. Men were coughing and gasping through dry, seared lips.
“You can’t hold it, Transley; you can’t hold it!” said one of the men.
Transley hit him from the shoulder. He crumpled up and collapsed.
A mile and a half had been made safe, but the smoke was suffocatingly thick and the roar of the oncoming fire rose above the shouts of the fighters. Up galloped the water wagon; made a sharp lurch and turn, and a front wheel collapsed with the shock. The wagon went down at one corner and the barrels were dumped on the ground.
The men looked at Transley. For one moment he surveyed the situation.
“Is there a chain?” he demanded. There was.
“Hitch on to the tire of this broken wheel. Some of you men yank the hub out of it. Others pull grass. Pull, like hell was after you!”
They pulled. In a minute or two Transley had the rim of the wheel flat on the ground, with a team hitched to it and a little pile of dry grass inside. Then he set fire to the little pile of grass and started the team slowly along the battle front. As they moved the burning grass in the rim set fire to the grass on the prairie underneath; the rim partly rubbed it out again as it came over, and the men were able to keep what remained in check, but as he lengthened his line Transley had to leave more and more men to beat out the fire, and had fewer to pull grass. The sacks were too wet to burn; he had to have grass to feed his moving fire-spreader.
At length he had only a teamster and himself, and his fire was going out. Transley whipped off his shirt, rolled it into a little heap, set fire to it, and ran along beside the rim, firing the little moving circle of grass inside.
It was the teamster, looking back, who saw Transley fall. He had to drop the lines to run to his assistance, and the horses, terrified by smoke and fire and the excitement of the fight, immediately bolted. The teamster took Transley in his arms and half carried, half dragged him into the safe area behind the backfires. And a few minutes later the main fire, checked on its front, swept by on the flank and raced on up through the valley.
In riding down to the assistance of Mrs. Landson Zen found herself suddenly caught in an eddy of smoke. She did not realize at the moment that the wind had turned; she thought she must have ridden into the fire area. To avoid the possibility of being cut off by the fire, and also for better air, she turned her horse to the river. All through the valley were billows of smoke, with here and there a reddish-yellow glare marking the more vicious sections of flame. Vaguely, at times, she thought she caught the shouting of men, but all the heavens seemed full of roaring.
When Zen reached the water the smoke was hanging low on it, and she drove her horse well in. Then she swung down the stream, believing that by making a detour in this way she could pass the wedge of fire that had interrupted her and get back on to the trail leading to Landson’s. She was coughing with the smoke, but rode on in the confidence that presently it would lift.
It did. A whip of wind raised it like a strong arm throwing off a blanket. She sat up and breathed freely. The hot sun shone through rifts in the canopy of smoke; the blue sky looked down serene and unmoved by this outburst of the elements. Then as Zen brought her eyes back to the water she saw a man on horseback not forty yards ahead. Her first thought was that it must be one of the fire fighters, driven like herself to safety, but a second glance revealed George Drazk. For a moment she had an impulse to wheel and ride out, but even as she smothered that impulse a tinge of color rose in her cheeks that she should for a moment have entertained it. To let George Drazk think she was afraid of him would be utmost humiliation.
She continued straight down the stream, but he had already seen her and was headed her way. In the excitement of what he had just done Drazk was less responsible than usual.
“Hello, Zen!” he said. “Mighty decent of you to ride down an’ meet me like this. Mighty decent, Zen!”
“I didn’t ride down to meet you, Drazk, and you know it. Keep out of the way or I’ll use a whip on you!”
“Oh, how haughty! Y.D. all over! Never mind, dear, I like you all the better for that. Who wants a tame horse? An’ as for comin’ down to meet me, what’s the odds, so long as we’ve met?”
He had turned his horse and blocked the way in front of her. When Zen’s horse came within reach Drazk caught him by the bridle.
“Will you let go?” the girl said, speaking as calmly as she could, but in a white passion. “Will you let go of that bridle, or shall I make you?”
He looked her full in the face. “Gad, but you’re a stunner!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad we met—here.”
She brought her whip with a biting cut around the wrist that held her bridle. Drazk winced, but did not let go.
“Jus’ for that, young Y.D.,” he hissed, “jus’ for that we drop all formalities, so to speak.”
With a dexterous spurring he brought his horse alongside and threw an arm about Zen before she could beat him off. She used her whip at short range on his face, but had not arm-room in which to land a blow. They were stirrup-deep in water, and as they struggled the horses edged in deeper still. Finding that she could not beat Drazk off Zen clutched her saddle and drove the spurs into her horse. At this unaccustomed treatment he plunged wildly forward, but Drazk’s grip on her was too strong to be broken. The manoeuvre had, however, the effect of unhorsing Drazk. He fell in the water, but kept his grip on Zen. With his free hand he still had the reins of his own horse, and he managed also to get hold of hers. Although her horse was plunging and jumping, Drazk’s strong grip on his rein kept him from breaking away.
“You fight well, Zen, damn you—you fight well,” he cried. “So you might. You played with me—you made a fool of me. We’ll see who’s the fool in the end.” With a mighty wrench he tore her from her saddle and she found herself struggling with him in the water.
“If I put you under for a minute I guess you’ll be good,” he threatened. “I’ll half drown you, Zen, if I have to.”
“Go ahead,” she challenged. “I’ll drown myself, if I have to.”
“Not just yet, Zen; not just yet. Afterwards you can do as you like.”
In their struggles they had been getting gradually into deeper water. At this moment they found their feet carried free, and the horses began to swim for the shore. Drazk held to both reins with one hand, still clutching his victim with the other. More than once they went under water together and came up half choking.
Zen was not a good swimmer, but she would gladly have broken away and taken chances with the current. Once on land she would be at his mercy. She was using her head frantically, but could think of no device to foil him. It was not her practice to carry weapons; her whip had already gone down the stream. Presently she saw a long leather thong floating out from the saddle of Drazk’s horse. It was no larger than a whiplash; apparently it was a spare lace which Drazk carried, and which had worked loose in the struggle. It was floating close to Drazk.
“Don’t let me sink, George!” she cried frantically, in sudden fright. “Save me! I won’t fight any more.”
“That’s better,” he said, drawing her up to him. “I knew you’d come to your senses.”
Her hand reached the lash. With a quick motion of the arm, such as is given in throwing a rope, she had looped it once around his neck. Then, pulling the lash violently, she fought herself out of his grip. He clutched at her wildly, but could reach only some stray locks of her brown hair which had broken loose and were floating on the water.
She saw his eyes grow round and big and horrified; saw his mouth open and refuse to close; heard strange little gurgles and chokings. But she did not let go.
“When you insulted me this morning I promised to settle with you; I did not expect to have the chance so soon.”
His head had gone under water.... Suddenly she realized that he was drowning. She let go of the thong, clutched her horse’s tail, and was pulled quickly ashore.
Sitting on the gravel, she tried to think. Drazk had disappeared; his horse had landed somewhat farther down.... Doubtless Drazk had drowned. Yes, that would be the explanation. Why change it?
Zen turned it over in her mind. Why make any explanations? It would be a good thing to forget. She could not have done otherwise under the circumstances; no jury would expect her to do otherwise. But why trouble a jury about it?
“He got what was coming to him,” she said to herself presently. She admitted no regret. On the contrary, her inborn self-confidence, her assurance that she could take care of herself under any circumstances, seemed to be strengthened by the experience.
She got up, drew her hair into some kind of shape, and scrambled a little way up the steep bank. Clouds of smoke were rolling up the valley. She did not grasp the significance of the fact at the first glance, but in a moment it impacted home to her. The wind had changed! Her help now would be needed, not by Mrs. Landson, but probably at their own camp. She sprang on her horse, re-crossed the stream, and set out on a gallop for the camp. On the way she had to ride through one thin line of fire, which she accomplished successfully. Through the smoke she could dimly see Transley’s gang fighting the back-fires. She knew that was in good hands, and hastened on to the camp. Zen had had prairie experience enough to know that in hours like this there is almost sure to be something or somebody, in vital need, overlooked.
She galloped into the camp and found only Tompkins there. He had already run a little back-fire to protect the tents and the chuck-wagon.
“How goes it, Tompkins?” she cried, bursting upon him like a courier from battle.
“All set here, Ma’am,” he answered. “All set an’ safe. But they’ll never hold the main fire; it’ll go up the valley hell-scootin’,—beggin’ your pardon, Ma’am.”
“Anyone live up the valley?”
“There is. There’s the Lints—squatters about six miles up—it was from them I got the cream an’ fresh eggs you was good enough to notice, Ma’am. An’ there’s no men folks about; jus’ Mrs. Lint an’ a young herd of little Lints; least, that’s all was there las’ night.”
“I must go up,” said Zen, with instant decision. “I can get there before the fire, and as the Lints are evidently farmers there will be some plowed land, or at least a plow with which to run a furrow so that we can start a back-fire. Direct me.”
Tompkins directed her as to the way, and, leaving a word of explanation to be passed on to her father, she was off. A half hour’s hard riding brought her to Lint’s, but she found that this careful settler had made full provision against such a contingency as was now come about. The farm buildings, implements, stables, everything was surrounded, not by a fire-guard, but by a broad plowed field. Mrs. Lint, however, was little less thankful for Zen’s interest than she would have been had their little steading been in danger. She pressed Zen to wait and have at least a cup of tea, and the girl, knowing that she could be of little or no service down the valley, allowed herself to be persuaded. In this little harbor of quiet her mind began to arrange the day’s events. The tragic happening at the river was as yet too recent to appear real; had it not been for the touch of her wet clothing Zen could have thought that all an unhappy dream of days ago. She reflected that neither Tompkins nor Mrs. Lint had commented upon her appearance. The hot sun had soon dried her outer apparel, and her general dishevelled condition was not remarkable on such a day as this.
The wind had gone down as the afternoon waned, and the fire was working up the valley leisurely when Zen set out on her return trip. A couple of miles from the Lint homestead she met its advance guard. It was evening now; the sun shone dull red through the banked clouds of smoke resting against the mountains to the west; the flames danced and flickered, advanced and receded, sprang up and died down again, along mile after mile of front. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and Zen drew her horse to a stop on a hill-top to take in the grandeur of the scene. Near at hand frolicking flames were working about the base of the hill, and far down the valley and over the foothills the flanks of the fire stretched like lines of impish infantry in single file.
Suddenly she heard the sound of hoofs, and a rider drew up at her side. She supposed him one of Transley’s men, but could not recall having seen him in the camp. He sat his horse with an ease and grace that her eye was quick to appraise; he removed his broad felt hat before he spoke; and he did not call her “ma’am.”
“Pardon me—I believe I am speaking to Y.D.‘s daughter?” he asked, and before waiting for a reply hastened to introduce himself. “My name is Dennison Grant, foreman on the Landson ranch.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I thought—I thought you were one of Mr. Transley’s men.” Then, with a quick sense of the barrier between them, she added, “I hope you don’t think that I—that we—had anything to do with this?” She indicated the ruined valley with her hand.
“No more than I had to do with those coward’s stakes,” he answered. “Neither of us understand just now, but can we take that much for granted?”
There was something about him that rather appealed to her. “I think we can,” she said, simply.
For a moment they watched the kaleidoscopic scene below them. “It may help you to understand,” she continued, “if I say that I was riding down to see if I could be of some use to Mrs. Landson when the wind changed, and I saw I would be more likely to be needed here.”
“And it may help you to understand,” he said, “if I say that as soon as immediate danger to the Landson ranch was over I rode up to Transley’s camp. Only the cook was there, and he told me of your having set out to help Mrs. Lint, so I followed up. Fortunately the fire has lost its punch; it will probably go out through the night.”
There was a short silence, in which she began to realize her peculiar position. This man was the rival of Transley and Linder in the business of hay-cutting in the valley. He was the foreman of the Landson crowd—Landson, against whom her father had been voicing something very near to murder threats not many hours ago. Had she met him before the fire she would have spurned and despised him, but nothing unites the factions of man like a fight against a common elemental enemy. Besides, there was the question, How DID the fire start? That was a question which every Landson man would be asking. Grant had been generous about it; he had asked her to be equally generous about the episode of the stakes.... And there was something about the man that appealed to her. She had never felt that way about Transley or Linder. She had been interested in them; amused, perhaps; out for an adventure, perhaps; but this man—Nonsense! It was the environment—the romantic setting. As for Drazk—A quick sense of horror caught her as the memory of his choking face protruded into her consciousness....
“Well, suppose we ride home,” he suggested. “By Jove! The fire has worked around us.”
It was true. The hill on which they stood was now entirely surrounded by a ring of fire, eating slowly up the side. The warmth of its breath already pressed against their faces; the funnel effect created by the circle of fire was whipping up a stronger draught. The smoke seemed to be gathering to a centre above them.
He swung up close to her. “Will your horse face it?” he asked. “If not, we’d better blindfold him.”
“I’ll try him,” she said. “He was all right this afternoon, but he was reckless then with a hard gallop.”
Zen’s horse trotted forward at her urging to within a dozen yards of the circle of fire. Then he stopped, snorting and shivering. She rode back up the hill.
“Better blindfold him,” Grant advised, pulling off his leather coat. “A sleeve of my shirt should be about right. Will you cut it off?”
She protested.
“There’s no time to lose,” he reminded her, as he placed his knife in her hand. “My horse will go through it all right.”
So urged she deftly cut off his sleeve above the elbow and drew it through the bridle of her horse across his eyes.
“Now keep your head down close to his neck. You’ll go through all right. Give him the spurs, and good luck!” he shouted.
She was already careering down the hillside. A few paces from the fire the horse plunged into a badger hole and fell headlong. She went over his head, down, with a terrific shock, almost in the very teeth of the fire.