"But what work could I do for you?"
"Huh!" Angus hesitated, at a loss for an answer. "Oh, lots of things. You could—er—um—yes, of course you could."
"You can't think of one single thing I could do!"
"You could pick berries," said Angus struck by a brilliant thought. "Yes, you could do that better than any man. I always have a lot more than I can use, and you could put up all you needed for the winter."
"And you think giving me fruit would pay for—p-pay for—"
She broke off, and Angus saw to his utter amazement that her eyes were full of tears, as she bent her head.
"Whatever is the matter?" he whispered. "Is it anything I've said?"
"It's—it's everything you've said," she murmured. "Don't say anything for a minute, please."
So Angus kept silence, sorely puzzled, and in a few moments she looked him in the face with eyes still misty and a little, tremulous smile.
"Yes, it's everything. I couldn't stand it. Nobody else has really offered to help me. The boys think it's a joke, and Kathleen thinks I'm mildly crazy. And then you, a stranger—"
"I'm not. And I might as well put in my spare time helping you."
"You have no spare time, and I know it. I must pay for what you do."
"All right. I'll send you a bill."
"For a fraction of what the work is worth!" she scoffed. "Not that way, Angus Mackay!"
"Any way you like," Angus said, knowing that he could make it up to her.
"Very well—and thank you. I'll be an independent ranch lady—unless I sell the place."
"Has any one made you an offer?"
"No. I would rather not sell, anyway."
"You have your title deeds all in order, in case you should want to sell?"
"I suppose so. Uncle Godfrey would attend to that."
"He has the title papers?"
"Yes. I never saw them. I don't know much about such things. Father told me Uncle Godfrey had them all."
Angus dropped the subject. He could not very well suggest that she take a look at these papers. Faith Winton on her part appeared satisfied. Presently she suggested music and went to the piano. Lying back in a chair Angus watched the soft curve of her cheek, her clean-cut profile, the certain touch of her fingers on the keys. Absently his gaze wandered to the card players. He had no idea of the stakes, but the players were tense, absorbed. Faith Winton, glancing at him, marked his expression.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked without interrupting the play of her fingers.
"I was wondering how on earth these people can sit playing cards all night."
"I hate this," she said. He looked at her in surprise. "All of it. It's not like Christmas night. It's not even sociability. It's gambling, pure and simple. Uncle Godfrey and Kathleen will stop presently, but the boys will play till morning."
Shortly, the first half of her prediction was verified. The games broke up. Godfrey French apologized perfunctorily. Time was when he would have spent the night in such good company, but now he was no longer young. With him went Faith and Kathleen.
With their going the business of the evening began in earnest. A quartet stuck to bridge, but the rest embarked on a poker game. Scotch circulated briskly.
Angus, very much out of it, sat and smoked, regarding the players idly. He noted that the French boys—Blake was absent—drank very little. On the other hand, some of the players drank a good deal. But finally he lost interest. He became sleepy and dozed in his chair.
He was awakened by loud voices. The poker game had broken up; the players were on their feet.
"I tell you, Willoughby," Gerald French was saying, "you are quite mistaken. Nothing of the sort happened.
"I saw it," Willoughby maintained doggedly.
"You are a guest," said Gerald, "but don't abuse your privileges."
"I am aware of my obligations as a guest," Willoughby retorted, "but they do not include allowing myself to be rooked at cards."
Instantly Gerald struck him hard across the mouth and Willoughby lashed back. Another guest sought to interfere. Young Larry pushed him back.
"Keep out!" he said. "Mind your own business."
"Keep your hands off me!" the other returned, and caught at his arm.
Larry pinned him, and somebody else tried to pull him loose. Larry came loose with remarkable alacrity, and did so hitting with both hands. Gavin, pushing forward, was caught by two men. Instantly a rough-house started.
Angus sat where he was, taking no part. He saw Chetwood plunge into the fray and go back from a straight punch. Gavin shook off three men as a bear shakes clear of a worrying pack, and as he did so another man who had caught up a chair, swung it at his head. The big man partially dodged the blow, wrenched the chair away and brandished it high. As he did so he emitted a short, deep roar of anger.
Fearing that somebody might be seriously hurt, Angus decided to interfere. He leaped forward and caught the chair as it poised for a moment aloft.
"Don't do that," he said. Gavin's ordinarily cold eyes were blazing.
"Keep out of this," he said. "It's nothing to you." As he spoke he tried to wrench the chair free; but Angus' grip held. Letting go himself, the big man clinched him.
Angus felt himself caught in a tremendous grip; but the wrench and heave that followed did not pluck him from his footing. He locked his long arms around Gavin, and the arch of his back and the sinews of his braced legs held against him.
Suddenly Gavin gave ground, swung and tripped with the heel. Angus felt himself going, but he took his man with him. They rolled over and over. By this time Angus had lost all his indifference. For the first time since his full strength came upon him, he was putting it all forth against a man as strong or stronger than himself. And then he became aware that nobody else was fighting. Gavin's grip loosened.
"Let go, Mackay," he said. "Cut it out now."
Then Angus saw Kathleen. She had slipped on some clinging thing of blue and lace, and her hair in its night braids hung to her waist. Her face was pale and her eyes stormy with anger.
"Well," she said, "gentlemen!"
She accented the word with bitter irony. Her eyes swept over them disdainfully, resting for a moment on Angus.
"All right, Kit," Gavin said. "You can go back to roost."
"If you're quite through!" she said. "Otherwise I'll stay."
"Oh, we're through," Gavin assured her.
Without another word Kathleen left the room. Behind her there was utter silence for a moment. Then with one accord the guests moved toward the door. Gavin halted them.
"No," he said, "you can't go till this blizzard blows out. Don't be damned fools just because we've had a row. Mackay will tell you what it's like outside. Now we'll leave you alone, because you probably want it that way." He turned to Angus who stood apart from the rest, and lowered his voice. "You're a good, skookum man, Mackay. I half wish Kathleen hadn't butted in."
"So do I," Angus returned. The big man smiled.
"No hard feelings on my part," he said. "I'd just like to see which of us was the better man. I never hooked up with anybody as husky as you. You're not like these blighters." His eyes rested on his guests with utter contempt. "You were right in catching that chair. I might have hurt somebody. Thanks. Good night."
Left alone, Angus after telling the others that in his opinion it would be folly to venture out before daylight, established himself in his corner, where Chetwood presently joined him.
"Pleasant evening, what?" he observed. He grinned.
"I didn't know you were back."
"Just got in the other night, and intended to look you up to-morrow."
"Do it, anyway."
"I wanted to ask you if you could do with another man on your ranch?"
"Not till spring."
"Wages secondary object. Primary one a Christian home for an honest but inexperienced young man whose funds are not what they should be."
"Who is he?"
"His full name is Eustace William Fitzroy Chetwood. But he would answer to 'Bill.'"
"You?" Angus exclaimed. "You're joking."
"Not a bit of it. I have the best of reasons for asking. Tell you about them some time. To-night is my last night of the gay life. Thought I might win a little money, but instead of that I lost. I am an applicant for work."
"You're welcome. I can't pay much, but the meals come regularly."
"That's very good of you," Chetwood acknowledged. "I'll move my traps out to-morrow."
That spring, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Angus did his promised work for Faith Winton, while a couple of carpenters ran up a cottage, stable and outbuilding. With this extra work, Angus was more than busy. The Frenches did nothing to help. They seemed to regard the girl's actions as folly of which the sooner she was cured the better.
"I am getting a companion, an old friend of mine," Faith told Angus one day as the cottage neared completion. "It may be cowardly, but I don't want to live here alone."
"Of course it would be lonesome," he agreed. "It will be nice for you to have a girl friend."
She stared at him for a moment and laughed. "Oh, very nice. We'll move in some time next week."
A week passed and another, and Angus, though he had heard that the new ranch was occupied, had had no opportunity to visit it. Then one evening he saddled Chief and rode over.
He saw smoke rising from the chimney, and when he dismounted and ascended the steps he heard a strange swishing and thumping, accompanied by a melancholy moaning which put him in mind of a dog scratching a sore ear. Wondering what on earth the racket was about, he knocked.
The noise ceased, heavy footsteps utterly unlike Faith Winton's crossed the floor, the door opened and a strange lady confronted him. She was short, but extremely broad of beam. Her hair, streaked with gray, had once been a fiery red. She had keen, aggressive blue eyes, a short, turned-up nose, and a wide mouth with perfect white teeth. Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, showing a pair of solid, red, freckled forearms, and in one hand she carried a mop. Amazed at this apparition, Angus gaped at her.
"Well," said the lady in accents which left no doubt of her nationality, "well, misther man, an' phwat will yez be wantin'?"
"Is Miss Winton at home?" Angus asked.
"She isnat."
"She's living here now, isn't she?"
"She is."
"Which way has she gone?"
"I dunno."
"Then I'll wait," Angus decided.
"Outside!" the lady also decided.
Bang! The door shut in Angus' face. Immediately the thump and swish began again, though the moaning obligato did not. Angus sat down on the steps and filled his pipe, but found he had no matches. For some moments he sat there, sucking the cold stem and wondering where the deuce Faith Winton had picked up this woman. No doubt she and her girl friend had gone for a walk. Well, he might as well be doing something.
He went around to the back of the house where he had hauled a pile of wood, picked up an old ax and began to split. Once the lady of the mop came to the back door and took a long look at him. By and by, tiring of splitting and wanting a smoke very badly, he put on his coat and went to the door to request a match. The lady of the mop met him on the threshold.
"Could you give me—" he began, but she cut him short.
"I couldnat," she said grimly. "Who asked ye to do ut? On yer way!"
"But—"
"They's nawthin' comin' to ye," the lady asserted. "Ut's no handout yez'll get here."
"But I don't want—"
"Yez want coin, do yez? Divil th' cint will yez get!"
"No, no," Angus protested, "you're all wrong. I want—"
"An' do I care phwat yez want, ye black-avised bo?" the lady shouted in a tops'l-yard-ahoy bellow. "Beggars on harrseback I've heerd iv, but ye're the first I've seen. On yer way; or th' flat iv me hand and th' toe iv me boot is phwat ye'll dhraw, for all the bigness iv ye, ye long, lazy, herrin'—bel—"
"Give me a match!" Angus roared through this wealth of personal description, despairing of making his want known otherwise. "I want a match, that's all."
"A match?" the lady exclaimed.
"Sure, to light my pipe with," Angus told her. "I'm not a hobo. I'm working the place for Miss Winton."
"And why couldn't ye say so before?" she demanded, frowning at him.
"Because you wouldn't give me a chance. You wouldn't let me get in a word edgeways."
"God save us all, an' maybe I wouldn't then," she admitted. "Is Mackay th' name iv ye? Come in an' sit down. A match, is ut? Here ye are, then."
Angus sat down and lit his pipe, while she stared at him.
"Faix, then, I wouldn't have knowed ye at all, at all," she said.
"Well, you never saw me before."
"Be description, I mane. She said—"
"Miss Winton?"
"Who else? Yez do be big enough, but homelier than she said."
"Did she say I was homely?"
"Did I say so?" the lady returned, and her blue eyes twinkled.
"Not exactly. But—"
"Then don't be puttin' words into a woman's mouth, for God knows they's no need iv ut," she told him. "An' so ye do be th' Mackay lad I've been hearin' iv, that found her whin she was a little, lost wan, an' shooted that murtherin' divil iv a grizzly bear!"
Angus acknowledged his identity and diffidently inquired the lady's name.
"Me name, is ut? They's times whin I have to stop an' think. Mary Kelly I was born, an' me first was Tim Phelan. A slip iv a gyurl I was then, an' little more when they waked him. Dhrowned he was, but sure wather was always fatal to his fam'ly, an' maybe it was all for the best, as Father Paul said whin he married me to Dan Shaughnessy after a dacint year. But he died himself, the holy man, before Dan fell off the roof, an' it was Father Kerrigan said the words over me an' Pether Finucane. It was Dinney Foley brought me th' news iv th' premachure blast that tuk Pether, an' I married him. Dinny was me last. So me name's Mrs. Foley."
"And is Mr. Foley here on the ranch?" Angus asked.
"I hope not," Mrs. Foley returned with apprehension. "Givin' him th' best iv ut, he's wid th' blessid saints. A voylent man was poor Dinney, as broad as ye, but not so high, an' a lion wid a muckstick. But phwat's a muckstick to knives? Sure thim dirty dagoes is born wid thim in their hands. Though he stretched thim right an' left wid th' shovel, he could not gyard his back. So whin I buried him I quit. No, I've had no luck at all keepin' men." And Mrs. Foley sighed, pursed up her lips and shook her head at Angus.
"You do seem to have been out of luck," Angus sympathized gravely. "Have you known Miss Winton long."
"As long as she is. I nursed her wid me own b'y that died."
"And have you known this girl friend of hers, long, too?"
"Phwat gyurl friend?"
"The one who is here with her—her companion."
"I'm her," Mrs. Foley returned. "Where do ye get this gyurl friend thing, anyway?"
But Angus could not tell. He had put his own construction on Faith Winton's words. At any rate Mrs. Foley seemed a capable companion.
"Well, I hope you'll like it here," he said. "It may be a little lonely, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Bears seldom come down on the benchlands now, and there are no hoboes worse than I am."
"Afraid, is ut?" Mrs. Foley snorted. "An' wud I that has lived wid four men be afraid iv a bear? I am not even afeard iv a mouse. Anyways, for bears an' bos they's a dog."
"I thought I heard him whining when I came to the front door."
"Whining?" Mrs. Foley ejaculated.
"Well, sort of moaning as if he was scratching a sore ear. And then he howled."
"Howled!" Mrs. Foley cried. "Th' nerve iv ye!"
"What's the matter?" Angus asked. "It sounded like a lonesome pup to me."
"Did ut, indade!" snorted Mrs. Foley. "Ye big, on-mannerly blackgyard, that was me, singin'!"
"Singing?" Angus gasped.
"Singin'," Mrs. Foley repeated firmly. "An' a sweet song, too, a rale Irish song. Color blind in th' ears, ye are, ye long lummix! May th' divil—But phwat's the use? Th' ign'rance iv ye is curse enough!"
"What's the matter, Mary?" Faith Winton's voice asked from the door. "You're not quarrelling with Angus Mackay, I hope."
"I wud not lower mesilf!" Mrs. Foley replied loftily, "though he said me singin' was like the howlin's iv a purp."
"No, no," Angus protested, "I didn't mean that. I heard your singing, too, and it was fine."
"Yez may be a willin' liar, but yer work is coorse," Mrs. Foley informed him. "Well, I do not set up f'r to be wan iv thim divas. I can raise th' keen fine over a corpse, but me singin' is privut an' so intended. So I forgive ye, young man, more be token I can see it's herself thinks it's a joke on the old gyurl. For shame, Miss Faith! An' me that's crooned ye in yer cradle many's the long night!"
But there was a twinkle in Mrs. Foley's blue eyes, and Angus began to suspect that her bark was much worse than her bite.
"Mary was my nurse," Faith told him when they were seated in the living room. "She really thinks the world of me, spoils me—and bullies me. But what do you think of my humble home? You haven't seen it since it was finished."
Angus approved the room and its furnishings. There was space to move, and a fireplace. The chairs were comfortable and strong; there was a spacious couch, a well-filled bookcase, a piano and a banjo case.
"I like it," he said. "It's not cluttered up with a lot of junk. Everything looks as if it could be used. That's what I like. Is that a banjo and do you play it?"
"Yes, I play it."
"I like a banjo better than a piano."
"You Philistine! Why?"
"Perhaps because I'm a Philistine. I don't know just why. All I know is that Idolike it better. A piano is sort of machine-made music to me; but with a banjo the player seems to be making the music himself, as if he was singing."
"You mean there is more personal expression."
"Maybe. I don't know anything about music. But a banjo seems totalk. It's the thing for the tunes that everybody knows."
"You and Kipling agree, then. You know his 'Song of the Banjo':
"And the tunes that mean so much to you alone—Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose,Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that hides the groan—I can rip your very heartstrings out with those."
"And the tunes that mean so much to you alone—Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose,Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that hides the groan—I can rip your very heartstrings out with those."
"Yes, that's the idea. He's right enough there."
"And how about:
"'But the word, the word is mineWhen the order moves the line,And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die,'?"
"'But the word, the word is mineWhen the order moves the line,And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die,'?"
she asked curiously.
"The only music to fight with and to die to is the pipes," Angus said.
"The pipes? You mean the bagpipes."
"Of course."
"Some people," Faith laughed, "would say that death would be a blessed relief from the sound of them."
Angus smiled grimly. "I know. There are plenty of jokes about the pipes. But they are no joke to the men who meet the men played into battle to the skirl of them."
"I believe you are right in that," Faith admitted. "I haven't a drop of Scotch blood, so far as I know. But I have heard a pipe band playing 'Lochaber No More' behind a gun carriage which bore a dead soldier; and I have seen the Highland regiments march past the colors at a review, to 'Glendarual' and 'Cock o' the North,' and heaven knows what gatherings and pibrochs, and I have stood up on my toes and my back hair has felt crinkly. I own up to it. But I love the banjo. It's a little sister of the lonesome."
She took the instrument, a beautiful concert model, from its case, keyed it for a moment and spoke through low, rippling chords.
"Sometimes at night I pick it by the hour—oh, very softly, so as not to disturb anybody—not any particular tune—just odds and ends, anything—and my thoughts go away off wool gathering and I am quite happy. Can you understand such foolishness?"
"Yes," Angus replied seriously. "I can't play anything, or sing, but there are times when I want to—if you can understand that."
She nodded, her fingers brushing the strings. "Yes, I know. Often the person who knows least about music loves it best—down in his soul."
"Play something," Angus urged.
And so Faith Winton played. At first she played consciously; but as the daylight faded and the twilight came she let the strings talk. Bits of old half-forgotten melodies rippled from her fingers, changing, shifting, mingling and merging, now familiar or half familiar and then quite strange; but always tugging, tugging at the heartstrings, as if in the gut and parchment there dwelt a wayward, whimsical soul, half-sad and half-merry, whimpering and chuckling in the growing darkness. Suddenly the music swept into a rolling, thunderous march, shifted to a rollicking Irish jig, and stopped abruptly with a crash of chords and a ringing of gut and iron.
"Don't stop," Angus said.
"But I've played myself out—for this time. It's dark—quite dark—and I didn't notice. I must get a light."
"I must go. I have never heard playing like that—never. I'll take much of it home with me."
"Come and get more any time," she laughed. "When shall I see you again?"
"To-morrow or next day. There are several things to be done here. If I can't come myself, I'll send Gus."
"Try to come yourself," said Faith Winton.
Angus, as he rode homeward, found himself dwelling on these words.
Spring merged into early summer, and Jean came home. Angus met her, and before they were clear of town he was undergoing a feminine cross-examination as to Faith Winton.
"Is she pretty, Angus?"
"You girls are all alike," he grinned. "That's what she asked about you."
"What did you say?"
"I said I hadn't noticed."
"You're a nice brother!"
"That's exactly what she said."
"Well, I like her for that. But isshepretty?"
"Well, I don't know that a girl would call her pretty. She doesn't dress herself up like a French wedding and frizzle her hair and all that, but she's—she's—oh, darned if I know! She looksclean."
"Clean!" Miss Jean cried. "Well, I should hope so!"
"I mean clean-run, clean-strain, clean-built, like a good horse."
"My heavens, Angus, don't tell me she's built like a horse!"
"Don't be a little fool!" her brother growled. "She's better built than you are, young lady, and prettier, too."
"Oh, indeed!" Miss Jean sniffed. "Well, beauty doesn't run in our family. Now tell me about Turkey."
But Angus could not give her much information. Turkey was working around, here and there, but he never came to the ranch.
"Can't we get him to come back, Angus?"
"He can come when he likes."
"Yes, I know. But won't you ask him?"
Angus did not reply at once.
"No" he said at last, deliberately, "I won't. It's not the fire; I don't care for that. But we haven't got along well for a long time. It had to come to a show-down."
Out of her knowledge of her brother, Jean dropped the subject temporarily. She asked casually about Chetwood.
"Did he ever tell you why his remittances had stopped?"
"No. Of course I never asked. I got the idea that something had gone bust—that there was no more money coming in. He wasn't actually a remittance man, you know. He had some money of his own."
"It comes to the same thing—if he hasn't any now," said Miss Jean. "It will be a good thing for him to do some work."
She exhibited no special enthusiasm when she met the young man. Chetwood in overalls, with nailed boots, hard and brown, differed materially from the young idler of the summer before, but his cheery good nature was unchanged. Apparently the loss of his income or capital, or both, did not worry him.
The next day Jean rode over with Angus to make Faith Winton's acquaintance. Angus left them alone to be friends or otherwise. Returning a couple of hours later, he found that there was no doubt about their mutual attitude.
"Why, she's a dear!" Jean declared enthusiastically as they rode homeward. "Why didn't you tell me what she was like?"
"I tried to."
"You said she was clean-built, like a good horse. I told her—"
"What!" Angus cried in horror.
"Not that, of course. I told her you were a clam. She said from your description she thought I was a skinny, little girl in braids and short dresses."
"I never said anything about braids and dresses."
"Did you say I was skinny?" Miss Jean demanded.
"Well—"
"Then you did say it. Ye great, long, lummix—"
"Hello!" said Angus. "That sounds like Mrs. Foley.
"'And so yez do be th' sister iv that great, long, lummix iv an Angus Mackay,'" said his sister in startling imitation of that lady. "'Yez do not favor him, bein' a good-lookin' slip iv a colleen.' What do you think of that, Angus?"
"That you're making the last part up," her brother grinned.
"Not a word, not a syllable. I told her I thought you were a big, fine-looking young man, and what do you think she said?"
"I'll bet she didn't agree with you."
"''Tis yer duty as a sisther to stand up f'r yer brother,' she told me, 'an' I am not mixin' it wid yez on th' question iv his shape. 'Tis true he's that big they was a good pair iv twins spoilt in him, and he has th' legs an' arrums an' back iv a rale man; but his face is that hard it wud make a foine map f'r a haythen god.'"
"Huh!" Angus snorted. "She ought to look at her own."
"Heavens, Angus! I believe you're vain."
"Vain—blazes!" Angus growled. "I suppose I ought to be tickled when an old she-mick says I look like a totem pole."
"Like a god!" his sister chuckled. "Don't get sore, old boy. Miss Winton says she's never complimentary to the people she likes best. She thinks you've made a hit with the lady."
"Then I wonder what she'd have said about my figurehead if I hadn't?" Angus grinned. "I like the old girl, myself, but she sure does hand it to me. Well, I guess I can take my medicine."
But Angus had more important things to think about. One which began to worry him was exceptionally dry weather. High, drying winds sucked all the moisture from the soil, and with the loss of it the surface earth shifted and blew away from the roots of the grain. Deprived of this support, they twisted in the winds, their arteries of life hardened and withered. The grass crops were poor, short and wiry when they should have been lush and long. Pallid green instead of dark dominated the hue of the fields, the worst possible sign to the eye of the rancher. And this was in spite of the best that could be done by way of irrigation.
Now Angus obtained the water for his ditch system from a mountain creek fed by innumerable springs as well as by melting snows back in the hills. But for the first time in his experience he found himself without sufficient water. For he had been clearing land steadily, year after year, without enlarging his main ditch. So far the seasons had favored him. But now, in the first, old-time dry season for years, he found that his ditch was insufficient to irrigate his enlarged acreage.
It was out of the question to deepen or broaden the ditch just then. To do so would be a task of some magnitude, for from intake to ranch was nearly two miles. Time had packed and cemented the gravel of its banks, and further bound them with roots of grasses and willows. Again, to avoid expensive fluming the ditch wound sinuously around the flanks of several steep sidehills, and to disturb existing sidehill ditches is to invite slides, which necessitate flumes. He made up his mind to enlarge the ditch before another season, but meanwhile he had to depend on it. So he took every drop of water it would carry. The creek was high, a muddy torrent, and he set the water gate of his intake so that the ditch should run rap full, but no spill, and thus cause washouts along its banks.
One morning in the gray of dawn Angus awoke. The wind which had blown all night seemed to have lulled. He heard Gus pass his door on the way to the stables, but as he was dressing the big Swede returned. He pounded on Angus' door.
"Hey, gat oop!" he cried. He stuck his head inside, his eyes round and goggling. "We ent gat no watter!" he announced.
"The devil we haven't!" Angus exclaimed. "What's wrong?"
"Ay be goldarn if Ay know. She's yoost oft. Mebbe dae ditch ban plug."
"Glom a shovel for me and get an ax and pick and I'll be right with you," Angus told him.
Dressing hastily, he struck the main ditch behind the house. It was dry, save for little pools in which water lingered. They crossed the rear fence, finding no obstruction, and followed the ditch until it struck the sidehill section. Then Gus who was in the lead, stopped with an oath.
"By Yudas Priest!" he ejaculated, "dae whole dam' sidehill ban vash to hal!"
Pushing past him, Angus surveyed the damage. Where the ditch had run was a raw, gaping wound in the hillside. Hundreds of tons of gravel, earth and small bowlders had slid down on it. The far end of the ditch vomited water upon the mass. Even as they looked a few yards of hillside undermined by its rush came down upon the broken end, blocking the water. This, backed up, began to pour over the banks of the ditch.
Left to itself the whole ditch would wash away. Circling the break, both men took the trail to the intake. The water gate was wide open. The high water of the creek was hurrying through in a swift flood, far more than the ditch could carry. They threw their weight on the lever and shut it off.
"Who opened it this far on that water?" Angus demanded.
"Ay ent been near him," Gus replied. "Mebbe dae Engelschman monkey med him."
It was most unfortunate. In other years the ditch had carried a full head without accident. This time, however, it had failed just at the time when water was absolutely necessary to the crops. The only way to get water now was to build a flume; and so, immediately after breakfast, Rennie started for a load of planks, while the others began to get out timbers to support them, and to clear away the mass of dirt. Chetwood, it appeared, had not been near the water gate. Somebody, however, had changed it.
They dug into the mess, and sank holes for timbers to support the flume. Now and then a small bowlder or a little dirt came down from above, where the hill rose sheer above the slip. Gus, looking up at it, shook his head.
"Mebbe she come anoder slide an' take dae flume, hey! Mebbe I better put in leetle shot up dere an' fetch him now?
"You might fetch half the hill."
"Yoost vat you say."
"Well, make it a darn small one."
So Gus put in a very small shot which brought down a small patch of dirt and gravel, but did not budge the mass.
"I guess she ban O.K.," he admitted.
It took four days to put in the flume. When water was running once more and the long, silver ribbons of it were trickling down the length of the fields giving fresh life to the grain which, even in that short time was yellowing with the drouth, Angus heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thank the Lord that's done," he observed.
"If we couldn't have put her in we'd have had a hundred years of dry weather," Rennie grumbled. "But now, of course, she'll rain."
That night, as if to make his prediction good, thunder-heads rose above the ranges and lightning was splitting the back of the southwest sky. But all that came of it was a heavy wind, though some time in the night Angus was awakened by what he thought was a heavy roll of thunder. But as he emerged from the house in the early morning the sky was clear and the day seemed to promise more heat than ever.
Thankful that he had water anyway, he stood for a moment cleaning his lungs with big draughts of mountain air; but as he stood he seemed to miss something which was or should have been a part of that early-morning stretch and breath. Puzzled for an instant he would not tell what was missing. And then he knew. He could not hear the gurgle of water in the ditch which ran beside the house.
He reached it in two jumps. It was dry. For a moment he stood contemplating it, and then started on a run for the flume. There his worst fears were verified. There was no flume. The hanging section of sidehill above it which Gus' shot had failed to shake, had fetched away and swept the structure out of existence. The only evidence of it was a few ends of planks and timbers sticking up at crazy angles. All the work and a great deal more was to do over again.
Angus stood scowling at the wreck. His crops needed water very, very badly, and this time, to judge from appearances, it would take a week to make repairs. If the dry weather continued that would mean practical ruin to his crop.
But standing there would not help matters and time was precious. As soon as he had shut off the water he returned to the house, and after breakfast all hands tackled the job.
It was harder than before. Much earth and loose rock had to be moved. The morning was hot, breathless. As the sun gained power the sidehill absorbed its rays and threw off a baking heat. Chetwood, unused to such work, puffed and gasped, but stuck to it. Angus and Gus labored steadily, without respite. But Rennie after a while leaned on his shovel and stared up at the raw earth above.
"Where'd you put in that shot, Gus, when you was tryin' to shake her?" he asked.
Gus told him, and soon after he abandoned his shovel and climbing around the track of the slide he got above it. There he poked around for some time. Coming down he beckoned to Angus.
"How long do you s'pose it'll take to put in this flume?" he queried.
"Maybe a week."
"Uh-huh! And then s'pose she goes out again?"
"What's the use of supposing that?" Angus demanded irritably, for his hard luck was getting on his nerves. "What the devil are you croaking for? I've got troubles enough."
"I'm goin' to give you more," Rennie told him. "Look a-here!" He exhibited four or five small stones with fresh, yellow earth still clinging to them, and a piece of broken root. "What do you think of this lay-out?" he asked.
Angus frowned at the junk impatiently. The stones came from the layer of like stuff which lay beneath most of the land in the district. The root was fir, old, resinous, so that it had not rotted with the tree it had once helped to anchor, and apparently it was freshly broken off and twisted.
"I've been shoveling stuff like that for hours," he said. "What about it?"
"Quite a bit. You seen me nanitchin' round up there, and I s'pose you damned me for a lazy cuss. Well, up there's where I find them things."
"You could have found plenty of them without climbing."
"But I'm tellin' you I found these hereabovethe slide."
Angus stared at him, slowly taking in his meaning.
"Above it!" he exclaimed.
"That's what I said. Up hill from the slide. Slide stuff never runs up hill. This stuff wasblownthere."
"Gus put in a little shot—"
"Near a week ago. The dirt on these rocks ain't dry yet. Same with the wood. They ain't been lyin' out in the sun no time at all. All Gus did was to put in a little coyote hole, and she blew straight out. This shot was above, and when she blew she ripped the whole sidehill loose. Mebbe there was more than one shot. I'll bet I heard it, and thought it was thunder. Anyway, all this stuff was above where the slide started. And that's what made the first slide, too. It wasn't water. Some son of a gun shot the ditch."
Angus turned the bits of evidence over in his hands, frowning.
"Who would do a trick like that?"
"You can come as near guessin' as I can."
Angus shook his head. Nobody, so far as he knew, would deliberately cut off his water. And yet, according to this silent but conclusive evidence, somebody had done so. The repairs had been wrecked as soon as completed. They might be wrecked again. It gave him a strange, uncomfortable feeling, akin to that of a mysterious presence in the dark. Also it moved him to deep, silent anger.
"I would give a good deal to know," he said quietly.
"Nobody hangin' round lately that I've noticed. But somebody was keepin' case all right, 'cause we only got water a few hours. And I'll tell you somethin' else: When we get the flume pretty near in again I'm keepin' case myself."
It took nine days to complete the flume a second time, and all hands were dog-tired. All the time the heat had continued and the hot winds were constant. The ranch had suffered badly. Irreparable damage had been done. The grain was stunted, yellow. There would not be half a crop.
These things bit into the soul of Angus Mackay as he labored fiercely, pitting his strength and endurance against relentless time. He could get no clew, no inkling of the person responsible for the trouble.
On the afternoon of the day when the flume was completed, Rennie was absent. After supper he sought Angus.
"I went across the creek this afternoon," he said, "and I clumb up onto that hill across where we was workin'. There was somebody there across the gulch from me. Course I went down and over, but he'd gone. Found where his horse had been standin' on top of the hill."
"You couldn't tell who it was?"
"No. I don't think he seen me. But whoever it was, was sizin' up the flume. I'm goin' to take my blankets and camp alongside it for some nights."
"So will I," Angus said. "If I can find out who is doing this, Dave, I will handle them myself. I will not bother about the law."
A little spark lit in Dave Rennie's mild, blue eyes.
"Sure; best way," he agreed. "Things was a darn sight better and safer and less skunks and sharks when every gent packed his own law below his belt. Law don't give you no action when you want it. Well, let's get organized."
Angus had told Jean nothing of his suspicions as to the destruction of the flume. But now it was necessary. She listened, wide-eyed.
"But who would do it, Angus?"
"If I knew," he replied, "I would be hunting him now."
Jean looked at her big, swarthy brother, noting the grim line of his mouth, the smouldering anger in his eyes.
"Don't get into any trouble, Angus."
"It will be somebody else that will get into trouble if I find him."
"But if you can avoid—"
"I will avoid nothing," he told her sharply. "Let others do that. I have never injured a man in my life, of my own will, and nobody shall injure me and get away with it."
Going into Rennie's room he saw his blankets on the floor ready for rolling. On them reposed a worn gun-belt with two holsters, from each of which protruded an ivory butt. Angus stared at this artillery, which he had never seen before.
"Sure, take a look at 'em," Dave said, interpreting his gaze. "I ain't wore 'em for so long they feel funny now. Time was, though, when they felt natural as front teeth."
Angus drew the guns. They were ivory-handled, forty-one calibre, heavy, long-barreled, single-action weapons of an old frontier model. Though they had evidently seen much service, they were spotless. The pull, when Angus tried it, was astonishingly quick and smooth, and in his hands they fitted and balanced perfectly.
"Them guns," said Dave, "pretty near shoot themselves if a feller savvies a gun at all. A feller give 'em to me a long time ago."
"Some present," Angus commented.
"Well, he hadn't no more use for 'em," Dave explained. "Tell you about it some time. What gun you takin'?"
"I don't know."
"Take a shotgun with buck. That's the best thing at night."
Angus stared at him. In all the years he had known Rennie the little man had been meek and mild, apparently the last being on earth to exhibit bloodthirsty tendencies.
"I don't want to blow anybody to pieces," he said.
"Well, you won't—unless you get to shootin' at mighty close range," Rennie pointed out; "and then you won't care. Take a double bar'l and a box of goose loads, anyway."
An hour later they picked a level spot near the new flume, wrapped up in their blankets and lit pipes. But soon Angus dozed.
"Go to sleep," said Rennie. "I'll wake you after a while."
Angus went to sleep instantly and gratefully. He woke some hours later with Rennie's hand on his shoulder.
"It'll be light in two hours, and I'm pinchin' myself to keep awake. You're awake for sure, are you? All right."
He settled himself in his blankets, sighed and slept like a tired dog. Angus sat up. The night which had been bright with stars was now overcast and a wind was blowing. He could hear it straining through the tree tops and booming back in the hills. The creek roared and brawled noisily. A couple of horned owls hooted at their hunting in the timber. There were noises close at hand; the faint, intermittent gurgle of water, little rustlings of grasses and leaves, the occasional scurry of tiny feet, the buzz and click of insects. He had a hard job to fight off sleep. But suddenly a sound which did not blend with the natural voices of the night drove every bit of drowsiness out of him.
It was faint, like the clink of metal on stone. While Angus listened it was repeated. He touched Rennie. Instantly the latter's breathing stopped and changed.
"Somethin' doing'?"
"Listen!"
Clink, clink, clang! Down the wind came the sound.
"It's on the next sidehill," said Rennie. "Rippin' the ditch out, or makin' a hole for a shot. She's a worse hill than this, too." He rose, shook himself, and buckled on his belt. "We'll hold 'em up. Sneak up as close as we can, and tell 'em to h'ist their paws."
"Suppose they don't," said Angus, slipping a couple of shells into the breech of his gun.
"When you tell a feller to put 'em up and he don't, there's only one thing to do; 'cause there's only one thing he's goin' to do, and you got to beat him to it."
The ditch, leaving the sidehill with the new flume, crossed the end of a flat and struck another sidehill. This was brushy halfway to the top, marking the track of an old slide of many years before. But above it, where the ancient slide had started, the bank rose sheer, overhanging. As they struck the flat they heard more plainly the clink of tools.
"Right under where that old slip hangs," Rennie deducted. "That's the place 'd make most trouble to fix. It's a darn sight worse than what we did fix. Now—"
His words were interrupted by the shrill blast of a whistle from somewhere above. It was repeated, and from where the sounds of work had been came the crash of brush. Rennie swore, and a gun seemed to leap into his hand.
"Their lookout seen us on this blasted flat!" he cried. "They're climbin' the hill. If we had any sense—Come on! Maybe we can head 'em off!"
They rushed at the steep, brush-covered hill. To their right, but invisible, others seemed to be climbing also. Suddenly from above a gun barked, and a bullet drilled above Angus' head and spatted on a rock below. Again a spurt of fire lanced the night, and another bullet buzzed, this time to the left.
Angus had never been shot at before. He had supposed that he would be nervous if ever called on to stand fire. But actually his main feeling was indignation that any one could shoot at him. And just as automatically and unthinkingly as he was accustomed to swing on a bird, he sent a charge of shot at the second flash of the gun. But a third shot answered and he fired again, and broke the twelve gauge and shoved in fresh shells, and started forward, only to be pulled back by Rennie.
"There ain't no cover ahead. You'll get plugged."
"But they'll get away!"
"Well, so'll you," Dave told him; "but if you go crowdin' up without cover somebody'll have to pack you home. Have sense! And lay down. You're so darn big you'll stop something if you keep standin' up!"
Angus dropped beside him in a little hollow, and a bullet droned through the space his body had just occupied.
"Told you so," Rennie grunted. "There's one man up there savvies downhill shootin'. If I could—" The gun in his hand leaped twice so quickly that the reports almost blended. "Don't believe I touched him. Outa practice with a belt gun. Dark besides. Scatter some shot around near the top."
Angus used half a dozen shells, guessing as best he could. A shot or two came back. Rennie suddenly turned loose both his guns in a fusillade, and for an instant Angus saw or thought he saw moving figures silhouetted against the sky on the hill's rim. At these, he let go both barrels. Dave, swinging out the empty cylinders of his guns, swore.
"Darn 'f I b'lieve we've touched hide nor hair. They got horses up there. What darn fools we was to camp down in this bottom. There they go now."
Angus could hear the faint drumming of hoofs over the hill. There was nothing to be done about it. Disgusted they went back to their blankets, but not to sleep, and with dawn they returned to investigate.
An endeavor had been made to tear out the wall of the ditch, and above it a hole had been started, apparently with intent to use powder. A shot there would have split off a section of the precipitous bank, and brought it down, trees and all, into the ditch. Angus, surveying these things with lowering brow, saw Rennie stoop and pick up something.
"What have you got there?" the latter asked.
Without a word Rennie handed him an old, stag-handled jack-knife. Angus knew it very well. He himself had given it to his brother, Turkey.
Angus stared at the knife, at first blankly and then with swiftly blackening brow. He heard Dave's voice as from a distance.
"Now don't go off at half-cock, Angus. Maybe—"
"You know the knife," he said, his own voice sounding strange in his ears.
"Well, that don't say Turkey was in this. Maybe he lost it, and somebody—"
"Quit lying to yourself!"
"By gosh, Angus, I'll bet Turkey don't know a darn thing—"
But Angus was not listening. Out of the glory of the sun rising over the ranges, one of the black moods of the Black Mackays descended on him. All his life he had struggled against the hardness and bitterness of heart inherited from his ancestors, men dour and vengeful, whose creed had been eye for eye and tooth for tooth through the clan feuds of the dim centuries. Hard and bitter men, these bygone Mackays whose blood ran in his veins, carrying the black hate in the heart, even brother against brother. There was even that Mackay of a dark memory—and his name, too, was Torquil—who after a quarrel with his brothers had slain them, all four. Old tales, these, handed down through the years, losing or gaining in the telling, perhaps, but all stormy and full of violence and hate and revenge. And in all of them there was never one of a Mackay who forgave an injury. One and all they brooded over wrong and struck in their own time. With them it was not the quick word and blow—though if other tales were true they were quick enough with both—but the deep, sullen, undying resentment under injury.
As he thought of these things with the black mood upon him, Angus' heart hardened against his brother. He did not doubt that this was Turkey's revenge. There was his knife, and he should account for it. Since he had not been alone he should tell the names of his confederates. And then, like the bitter, dour Mackay he was, Angus put the knife in his pocket and turned a grim but composed face to Rennie.
"Maybe you are right," he admitted, though he had not heard a word the other had been saying. "Let's go home and get breakfast. And say nothing at all to Jean."
Jean was left in ignorance as to the occurrences of the night. No further attempts were made to interfere with the ditch; but the flume itself sagged in the middle by natural subsidence of the loose soil, and much of it had to be set up again. Angus was sick at heart, for the damage done by the combination of hot winds and lack of water was irreparable. Much of his crop would not be worth cutting.
And this, of all times, was the one chosen by Jean to re-open the question of Turkey's return to the ranch. She urged Angus to ask him. Angus flatly refused.
"He is our brother—our younger brother," Jean urged.
"If he were fifty times my brother, I would not. I tell you he has worn out my patience, and I am glad he went. He made trouble enough when he was on the ranch, and now—"
But suddenly recollecting himself he broke off. Jean's face was grave.
"Angus," she said, "what has Turkey done?"
"Nothing," he replied sullenly.
"That is not the truth, Angus."
"Then whatever he has done it is more than enough. Let it go at that. I will not talk about it to you or any one."
"The black dog is on you," Jean told him. "I have seen it for days."
"And if it is, your talk doesn't call it off," Angus retorted, and left the house. And that night, being in a worse mood than ever, he threw a saddle on Chief and rode away to have it out with his brother.
Turkey dwelt alone in a log shack on the outskirts of the town. Angus had never visited him, but he knew the place well enough. There was a light in the shack, and after listening a moment to make sure there was nobody else there, he knocked. Turkey's voice bade him enter.
Turkey was lying on a bunk reading by the light of a lamp drawn up beside him, and his eyebrows lifted as he recognized his visitor.
"It's you, is it?" he said.
"I have come to talk to you," said Angus.
"Then you'd better sit down while you're doing it," said Turkey, as he got out of his bunk.
Angus sat down. There was but one room, in which Turkey ate and slept. The walls were decorated with pictures cut from magazines. A rifle and shotgun leaned in a corner with a saddle beside them. At the head of Turkey's bunk hung a holstered six-shooter. The place was tidy enough, save for burnt matches and cigarette butts which Turkey had carelessly thrown down.
"To save time," Angus began, "I'll tell you that this is a show-down." Turkey's eyes narrowed at his tone, and the old, latent hostility sprang to life in them.
"Then spread your hand," he said. Angus took the knife from his pocket and tossed it on the table.
"That's yours, isn't it?"
Turkey picked up the knife, surprise in his face.
"You ought to know it."
"I do know it."
Turkey shrugged his shoulders. "All right. Thanks. Say whatever you have to say, and don't stall."
"I can say that in a few words," Angus returned. "It is not because you are my brother, but only for Jean's sake that I keep my hands off you. Do you get that?"
"I can tell you another reason," Turkey retorted, his young face hardening, "which is that I won't let you put your hands on me. You'll get hurt if you try it. Now go on."
"I want the names of the men who were with you."
"What men? With me when?"
"You know mighty well," Angus accused him.
"All right, have it your own way."
"I want their names."
"Then keep on wanting them," Turkey returned. "If you think I know what you mean, keep on thinking it. Keep on having your own way, same as you've always had. Same as you had when you got me to quit the ranch. Now you can go plumb, understand?"
"Before I leave here," Angus said, "you will tell me what I want to know, or—"
"Or what?" Turkey demanded.
"Or you will lie in that bunk for a week and be glad to do it," Angus finished grimly. His young brother's eyes closed down to mere slits.
"Get one thing straight," he said. "I'll take no more from you now than I would from a stranger. Remember what I told you about keeping your hands off me. I mean it!"
"And so do I," said Angus rising. "No more nonsense, Turkey. Will you answer my question?"
Turkey was on his feet instantly. He took a step backward. "No," he said; "I won't tell you one damned thing. Keep away from me, Angus. Keep away, or by—"
Unheeding the warning, Angus sprang forward. Turkey dodged, leaped back, and his hand shot for the gun hanging by his bunk. It came out of its holster. Angus swung his arm against it, and it roared in his ear. He grasped it as the hammer fell a second time, and the firing pin pierced the web of his hand between thumb and finger. He ripped the weapon from Turkey's weaker hands and threw it away. Then he lost control of himself and let his anger have full sway.