The first warm days of spring had drawn the frost from the ground. Billie rode beside Harris down the lane to the lower field. A tiny cabin stood completed on every filing. Two men were digging post holes across the valley below the edge of the last fall's plowing and the mule teams were steadily breaking out another strip.
"Almost a year," she said, referring to the commencement of the new work.
"Just a year to-day," Harris corrected, and he was thinking of the day he had first met the Three Bar girl. "This is our anniversary, sort of."
She nodded as she caught his meaning.
"The anniversary of our partnership," she said. "You're good on dates. We've pulled together pretty well, considering our start."
"It was a rocky trail for the first few days," he confessed. "But all the time I was hoping it would get smoothed out."
"You told me there were millions of miles of sage just outside," she recollected. "And millions of cows—and girls."
"Later I told you something else," he said. "And I've been meaning it ever since. The road to the outside is closed. If I was to start now I'd lose the way."
She pointed down the valley as a drove of horses moved toward them under the guidance of a dozen men. The hands would start breaking out the remuda the following day. The spring work was on.
"Off to a running start on another year," he said. "And sure to hold our lead." They drew aside as the remuda thundered past and on toward the corrals. "From to-day on out, you and I'll be a busy pair," he prophesied.
His prediction proved true. The Three Bar was a beehive of activity and it seemed that the hours between dawn and dark were all too short for the amount of work Harris wished to crowd into them.
The cowhands were breaking out the horses in the corrals while the acreage of plowed land in the lower fields steadily increased.
The heaviest cedar posts were tamped in place for the outer fence and a six-wire barrier held range cows back from the bottoms which would soon be in growing crops. It crossed the flats below the lower filings and followed the road that held to one side of the valley clear to the Three Bar lane. On the far side it mounted the bench that flanked the bottoms and followed the crest of it, tying into the home corrals. Lighter three-wire fences marked the homestead lines within.
The day that Evans led the men out on the calf round-up, the mule teams made their first trip across the plowed land with the drill.
Harris and the girl sat their horses and watched the initial trip. The fields were being seeded to alfalfa and oats so that the faster growing grain might shade and protect the tender shoots of hay. Before the grain ripened it would be cut green for hay, cured and stacked.
When the seeding was completed Billie worked with Harris and together they ran a level over the seeded ground, marking out the laterals on grade across the fields from points where they would tap the main feed ditches and carry water to the crops.
Russ and Tiny followed the lines of stakes which marked their readings of the level, throwing a plow furrow each way. A second pair of homesteaders followed behind them, their mules dragging a pointed steel-shod ditcher which forced out the loosened earth.
A concrete head gate was installed at a feasible take-out point on the Crazy Loop. Then all hands worked on a main feed ditch which would carry sufficient volume of water to cover every filing. Lead ditches tapped the main artery at frequent intervals, each one of capacity to carry a head of water to irrigate one forty. These in turn feathered out into the tiny laterals across the meadow.
Early rains had moistened the fields and they were faintly green with tiny shoots of oats. These thickened into a rank velvety carpet while the homesteaders were hauling a hundred loads of rocks to form a crude dam across the stream below the take-out. The water was gradually raised till it ran almost flush with the top of the head gate. The gates were lifted and the diverted waters sped smoothly down the new channel to carry life to a portion of the sagebrush desert.
A few days would find the cowhands back from the round-up. The homesteaders must make one more trip to the railroad to freight in the stacker and the two buck-sweeps to be used in putting up the hay. This trip was delayed only till the round-up crew was back from the range for a week of leisure and could act as guards while the others were away.
As the tangible results of the work became more apparent Harris's vigilance increased. There was now more than plowed ground to work on; crops to be trampled at a time when they would not lift again to permit of mowing; fences to be wrecked so that range stock might have free access to the fields. A single night could upset the work of many months. But as he stood with Billie at the mouth of the lane he allowed none of his thoughts to be reflected in his speech.
It was two hours before dark and the perspective toward the east was already foreshortened. Two jackrabbits hopped into the lane and moved down toward the meadow. The homesteaders had turned their hands to another job. Tiny and Russ, shod with rubber boots, were leaning on their long-handled shovels in the forty nearest the house. Beyond them the other irrigators were spreading the water over the growing crops.
Billie Warren half-closed her eyes and viewed the broad expanse of rippling green in the bottoms. How many times she had stood here in the past with old Cal Warren while he visioned this very picture which now unrolled before her eyes in reality; the transformation of the Three Bar flat from a desert waste to a scene of abundant fertility under the reclaiming touch of water.
It was a quiet picture of farm life if one looked only upon the blooming fields and took no account of the raw, barren foothills that flanked them,—the gaunt, towering range behind. She found it difficult to link the scene before her with the deviltry of a few months past. The killing of Bangs and Rile Foster's consequent grim retaliation; the raid on Three Bar bulls and the stampede of her trail herd; all those seemed part of some life so long in the past as to form no part of her present.
The continued immunity had had its effect, regardless of her earlier suspicions. She still realized the possibility of further raids but they had been so long delayed that the prospect had ceased to impress her as imminent. Tiny and Russ changed their head of water. As they shifted positions she noted that each carried some tool beside his irrigator's shovel. No man in the field ever strayed far from the rifle which was part of his equipment. But even this was an evidence of vigilance which had met her eye every day for months and had ceased to impress.
They walked to the near edge of the field and Harris stooped to part the knee-deep grain, pointing to the slender stems of alfalfa with their delicate leaves.
"We have a record stand of young hay," he said. "It's thick all through—every place I've looked." He straightened up and laughed. "And I expect I've looked at every acre. I've been right interested in those little shoots. It's deep-rooted now. The worst is past. I don't see that anything that could happen now would kill it out. Next year we'll put up a thousand tons of hay."
He dropped a hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her.
"Billie, don't you think it's about time you were finding out what Judge Colton wants?" he asked. "He's been right insistent on your going back to confer with him."
The girl shook her head positively. Two months before Judge Colton had written that he must advise with her on matters of importance and suggested that she come on at once. Harris had urged her to go and almost daily referred to it.
"I can't go now," she said. "Not till I've seen one whole season through. When the first Three Bar crop is cut and in the stack I'll go. All other business must wait till then. You two can't drive me away till after I see that first crop in the stack."
"If you'd go now you'd likely get back before we're through cutting," he urged. "And the Judge has written twice in the last two weeks."
Before she could answer this a horseman appeared on the valley road. The furthest irrigator, merely a speck in the distance, exchanged shovel for rifle and crossed to the fence. The rider, as if expecting some such move, pulled up his horse and approached at a walk.
Harris saw the two confer. The horseman handed some object to the other and urged his horse on toward the house. He was one of the sheriff's deputies. He grinned as he tapped his empty holster.
"One of your watchdogs lifted my gun," he said. He handed Harris a note.
After reading it Harris looked at his watch and snapped it shut, glanced at the sinking sun and turned to the girl.
"I have to make a little jaunt," he explained.
"Alden wants to see me. I'll take Waddles along. As we go down I'll send Russ or Tiny up to cook for the rest."
The deputy turned his horse into the corral and five minutes later Harris and Waddles rode away. Waddles was mounted on Creamer, the big buckskin.
"We'll have to step right along," Harris said. "It's forty miles."
They held the horses to a stiff swinging trot that devoured the miles without seeming to tire their mounts. For four hours they headed south and a little east, never slackening their pace except to breathe the horses on some steep ascent. The buckskin and the paint-horse had lost the first snap of their trot and it was evident that they would soon begin to lag. Another hour and they had slowed down perceptibly.
The two men dismounted and tied the horses to the brush in a sheltered coulee, then started across a broad flat on foot. Out in the center a spot showed darker than the rest,—the old cabin where Carpenter had elected to start up for himself after being discharged from the Three Bar.
When within a hundred yards of the cabin a horse, tied to a hitch post in front, neighed shrilly and Harris laid a restraining hand on Waddles's arm. They knelt in the brush as the door opened and a man stood silhouetted against the light. After a space of two minutes Carp's voice reached them.
"Not a sound anywheres," he said. "Likely some horses drifting past." He went inside and closed the door. The two men circled the cabin and came up from the rear. A window stood opened some eight inches from the bottom. Through the holes in the ragged flour sack that served as a curtain Harris secured a view of the inside. Carp and Slade sat facing across a little table in the center of the room.
"I want to clean up and go," Carp was saying. "This damn Harris put me on the black list."
"You've been on it for three months," Slade said. "Nothing has happened yet. But don't let me keep you from pulling out any time you like."
"But I've got a settlement to make," Carp insisted. "Let's get that fixed up."
"Settlement?" Slade asked. "Settlement with who?"
Carpenter leaned across the table and tapped it to emphasize his remarks.
"Listen. Morrow gave me a bill of sale from you calling for a hundred head of Three Bar she-stock, rebranded Triangle on the hip."
Slade nodded shortly.
"I gave Morrow that for two years' back pay when he quit. He could sell out to you if he liked."
"And now I want to sell out," Carp said. "And be gone from here."
"How many head have you got?" Slade asked.
"Three hundred head," Carp stated.
"You've increased right fast," Slade remarked. "I'd think you'd want to stay where you was doing so well. How much do you want?"
"Five dollars straight through," Carp said.
"Cheap enough," Slade answered. "If only a man was in the market." He looked straight at Carp and the man's eyes slipped away from Slade's steady gaze. "But I'm not buying. Likely Morrow will buy you out."
"Morrow ought to be here now," Carp stated. "He's coming to-night."
"Then I'd better go," Slade said. "I don't like Morrow's ways."
The thud of horse's hoofs sounded from close at hand. The two men outside lay flat in the shadow of the house. A shrill whistle, twice repeated, called Carp to his feet and he crossed to the door to answer it. Morrow dismounted and came to the door. He nodded briefly to Slade, hesitating on the sill as if surprised to find him there. Carp lost no time in stating his proposition. He spoke jerkily.
"I want to get out," he said. "I'll sell for five dollars a head."
Morrow held up a hand to silence him.
"I'll likely buy—but I never talk business in a crowd." He crossed the room and sat with his back to the window. "There's plenty of time."
"I take it I'm the crowd," Slade remarked. "So I'll step out."
Morrow stiffened suddenly in his chair as a cold ring was pressed against the back of his neck through the crack of the window. At the same instant Carp had tilted back and raised one knee. The gun that rested on his leg was peeping over the table at Slade.
"Steady!" he ordered. "Sit tight!"
The window was thrown up to its full height by Waddles and the curtain snatched away from the gun which Harris held against Morrow's neck. Carp's apparent nervousness had vanished. He flipped back his vest and revealed a marshal's badge.
"I'd as soon take you along feet first as any way," he said. "So if you feel like acting up you can start any time now."
Slade's eyes came back from the two men at the window and rested on the badge.
"So that's it," he said with evident relief. "A real arrest—when I figured it was an old-fashioned murder you had planned. What do you want with me?"
Waddles had reached down and removed Morrow's gun.
"A number of things," Carpenter said. "Obstructing the homestead laws for one."
Slade shook his head and smiled.
"You've got the wrong party," he said. "You can't prove anything on me."
"I don't count on that," Carp said. "You've covered up right well. We know you work through Morrow but can't prove a word. We've got enough to hang him; but I expect maybe you'll get off."
There was a scrape of feet outside the door and the sheriff entered and took possession of Slade's gun as Harris and Waddles moved round from the window and went inside.
"I'm a few minutes late," Alden said. "I wasn't right sure how close I was to the house so I left my horse too far back."
"Here's your prisoners," Carp said. "Captured and delivered as agreed. I haven't anything on Slade myself but if you want him he's yours."
"What do you want with me?" Slade demanded a second time.
"I'm picking you up on complaint make by the Three Bar," Alden said. "I'll have to take you along."
Slade turned on Harris.
"What charge?" he asked.
"Killing twelve Three Bar bulls on the last day of August," Harris stated.
"I was out with the ranger," Slade said. "Back in the hills. You know that yourself. That charge won't stick."
"Then maybe it was the second of May," Harris returned. "I sort of forget."
Slade suddenly grasped the significance of this arrest.
"How many of you fellows are pussy-footing round out here?" he inquired of Carp.
"I don't mind confessing that several of the boys are riding for you," Carp informed. "But while we've cinched Morrow we haven't been able to trace it back to you. I even got put on the black list, thinking you might do business with me direct after that—knowing my word wouldn't stand against yours. But not you! You've covered your tracks."
Carp spoke softly, as if to himself, detailing his failure to gather conclusive evidence against Slade.
"I even run your rebrand on fifty or so Three Bar cows. You knew there wasn't a dollar changed hands when Morrow gave me that paper which licensed me to rustle my own she-stock. We can't even prove that you didn't owe him two years' back pay and square up by giving him that bill of sale. There's never a check of yours made out to Morrow that's gone through the bank. The boys who staged the stampede drew down a lump sum from Morrow for the job. We know who was financing the raid—can't be proved. The idea in my starting up was to run your rebrand on any number of Three Bar cows. Later Morrow would buy me out—acting for you; can't be proved. Oh, you're in the clear, all right."
Slade broke in upon the monologue. This recitation of his probable immunity from conviction on every count, far from reassuring him, served to confirm his original suspicion as to the reason for this arrest without witnesses. If the sheriff had wanted him he had but to send word for Slade to come in. He threw out one last line and the answer convinced him beyond all doubt.
"Then a lawyer will have me out in an hour," he predicted.
"A lawyer could," Alden said. "If you saw one. But we've decided not to let you have access to legal advice for the first few days."
Slade turned on Carpenter.
"This sort of thing is against the law," he said. "You're a United States marshal. How can you go in on a kidnapping deal?"
"I'm not in on it," Carp shrugged. "The sheriff asked me to arrest you at the first opportunity. I've turned you over to him. The rest is his affair. Besides, like I was mentioning, they can't prove a thing on you. As soon as they're convinced of that they'll turn you loose."
The sheriff nodded gravely.
"The very day I'm satisfied Harris can't prove his charges I'll throw open the doors. You'll be a free man that minute."
A vision of the near future swept across Slade's mind. If he should be locked up for three months and discharged for lack of evidence it would wreck him as surely as the rumors of the last few months had cut Lang's men off from the rest of the world. Squatters had filed on every available site throughout his range and now waited to see if the Three Bar would win its fight. If the news should be spread that he was locked up these nesters would rush in. On his release he would find them everywhere. With marshals scattered through the ranks of his own men, intent on upholding the homestead laws, he would be helpless to drive them out. The pictures of the different valleys suitable for ranch sites, scattered here and there over his extensive range, traveled through his mind in kaleidoscopic procession—and he visioned a squatter outfit established on every one. If they locked him up at this time he was lost.
He nodded slowly.
"Well, I guess you've got me," he said. "I don't see that it will amount to much, anyway. Sooner or later you'll let me out." He raised his arms high above his head and stretched. Under cover of this casual move he swiftly raised one foot.
Slade planted his boot on the edge of the light table and gave a tremendous shove. The far edge caught the sheriff across the legs and overthrew him. The lantern crashed to the floor and at the same instant Morrow aimed a sidewise, sweeping kick at Carpenter's ankles. As the marshal went down his head struck the corner post of a bunk and he did not rise.
With a single sweep Morrow caught the back of his chair and swung it above his head for the spot which Waddles had occupied at the instant the light went out. The weapon splintered in his hands as it found its mark, and as the big man struck the dirt floor Morrow leaped for the dim light which indicated the open door.
A huge paw clamped on one ankle and a back-handed wrench sent him flying across the room to the far wall. With a sweep of the other hand Waddles slammed the door with a bang that jarred the cabin.
"We've got 'em trapped," the big voice exulted. "We've got 'em sewed in a sack."
Harris made one long reach and swung the butt of his gun for Slade's head as the table went down but Slade, with the same motion, vaulted the prostrate sheriff. The force of the blow threw Harris off his balance and as he tripped and reeled to his knees Slade's boot heel scored a glancing blow on his skull and floored him. He regained his feet, gripping a fragment of the chair Morrow had smashed over Waddles's head, and struck at a dim form which loomed against the vague light of the window.
The shape closed with him and he went down in a corner with Slade. Slade struck him twice in the face, writhed away and gained his feet, back-slashing at Harris's head with his spurs. Harris caught a hand-hold in the long fur of the other's chaps, wrapped both arms round Slade above the knees and dragged him back. His hand found Slade's throat and he squeezed down on it as the man raised both knees and thrust them against his stomach to break the hold. Slade's arm swept a circle on the floor in search of the gun Harris had dropped but he was jerked a foot from the floor and Harris jammed his head against the log wall,—jammed again and Slade crumpled into a limp heap. Harris held him there, unwilling to take a chance lest the other might be feigning unconsciousness. But Slade was out of the fight.
The sheriff struggled to his feet as Waddles tossed Morrow back from the door and slammed it shut. He closed with Morrow but the man eluded him. He dared not shoot with friends and enemies struggling all about the black pit of the little room.
Morrow leaped one way, then the opposite, as the sheriff groped for him. Alden turned toward a rattle at the stove as he heard Slade's head crunch against the wall under Harris's savage thrust.
"Down him!" Waddles roared. "Tear him down! Tear him down! I'm holding the door."
From the corner by the stove an iron pot hurtled across the room for the sound of the voice and crashed against the wall a foot from his head. A second kettle struck Alden in the chest and he went down. Waddles saw the light vanish from the window, then reappear. Morrow had made a headlong dive through the little opening.
Waddles swung back the door and sprang outside as Morrow vaulted to the saddle. The big man lunged and tackled both horse and man as a grizzly would seek to batter down his prey.
The frightened horse struck at him, numbing one leg with the blow of an iron-shod forefoot, then reared and wheeled away from the thing which sprang at him, but Waddles retained his grip in the animal's mane, his other hand clamped on Morrow's ankle.
The rider leaned and struck him in the head. The crazed horse shook Waddles off but as he fell the other man fell with him, dragged from the saddle by the jerk of one mighty hand. They rolled apart and Morrow leaped to his feet but Waddles had wrenched the leg already numbed by the striking horse and it buckled under him and let him back to the ground as he put his weight on it. He reached for his gun. A form loomed above him, a heavy rock upraised in both hands. The gun barked just as a downward sweep of the arms started the rock for his head. Morrow pitched down across him and Waddles swept him aside with a single thrust.
He rose and stirred the limp shape with his toe as the sheriff reached his side.
"Dead bird!" Waddles announced and turned to limp back to the cabin.
A match flared inside as Harris lighted the lantern. Carpenter stirred and sat up, moving one hand along the gash in his scalp. The sheriff stooped and snapped a pair of handcuffs on Slade's wrists. They splashed water on his face and he opened his eyes. He regarded the steel bracelets at his wrists as he was helped to his feet and turned to Harris.
"Don't forget that I'll kill you for this," he said. It was a simple statement, made without heat or bluster, and aside from this one remark he failed to speak a syllable until the sheriff rode away with him.
The sheriff waved the lantern outside the door and before he lowered it two deputies rode up, leading his horse.
"We started at that shot," one of them announced in explanation of their prompt arrival.
Alden motioned Slade to his horse and helped him up.
"Shoot him out of the saddle if he makes a break," he ordered briefly.
"Now you can move against those men I've sworn out complaints for," Harris said to Alden. "Public sentiment has turned against them to such an extent that they won't get any help—and there won't be any to fill their places, once we've cleaned them up. Deputize the whole Three Bar crew when you're ready to start."
The sheriff nodded and led the way with the two deputies riding close behind, one riding on either side of Slade.
The freight wagons rattled away from the Three Bar as the first light showed in the east, and the grind of wheels on gravel died out in the distance as Harris and Billie finished their breakfast.
They walked to the mouth of the lane and watched the light driving the shadows from the valleys. A score of times they had stood so, never tiring of the view afforded from this spot, a view which spoke of Three Bar progress and future prosperity. The hands had come in from the round-up the night before, prior to the return of Harris and Waddles from their mysterious two-day trip in response to the sheriff's message, and Evans had led them to Brill's for a night of play. They were due back at the ranch in the early forenoon and Harris had allowed the freighters to depart before the others arrived.
"We'll be short of guards for the next hour or two," he said. "Till the boys get back from Brill's—but they'll be rocking in most any time now."
"What did Alden want?" she asked, referring to the trip from which he and Waddles had returned late the night before.
"We made a call on Carp," he said. "He had some good news we've been waiting for."
"Then Carp is a Three Bar plant," she said.
"He's a U. S. plant," Harris corrected. "But he's been working in with us to get something on Slade—to gather proof that he's behind these squatter raids of the last few years and the ones they've aimed at us up to date. He couldn't get a shred that would hold in court. But Slade is almost through. His claws are clipped."
The girl started to question him as to Carp's activities but after the first sentence she became aware that his attention was riveted on something other than her words. He had thrown up his head like a startled buck and was peering down the valley.
Her range-bred ears caught and correctly interpreted the sound which had roused him. A distant rumble reached her and the surface of the earth seemed to vibrate faintly beneath her feet. She knew the jar for the pounding of thousands of hoofs, the drone for the far-off bawling of frightened cows. A low black line filled the valley from side to side, rushing straight on up the gently-sloping bottoms for the Three Bar flat.
"They're on us," Harris said. "I might have known. Get back to the house—quick!"
As they ran she noticed that his eyes were not upon the surging mass of cows in the valley but were trained on the broken slopes back of the house.
"Anyway, they don't want you," he said. "We'll do the best we can."
Waddles stood in the door of the cookhouse, his big face flushed with wrath as he gazed at the oncoming sea of cows. He reached up and took the shotgun which reposed on two pegs above the door.
He slammed the heavy door and dropped the bar as they sprang inside.
"I made that prediction about clipping Slade's claws too soon," Harris said. "What with Slade locked up and Morrow six feet underground, I was overconfident. I might have known it was planned ahead."
His face was lined with anxiety, an expression she had never before seen him wear even in the face of emergency. She had no time to question him about the assertions relative to Morrow and Slade.
The front rank of the stampede was bearing down on the lower fence. The barrier went down as so much spider web before the drive; posts were broken short, wire was snapped and dragged, and three thousand head of cows pounded on across the meadows.
The girl had a sickening realization that the work of a year would be blotted out in a space of seconds under those churning hoofs. It seemed that she must die of sheer grief as she witnessed the complete devastation of the fields she had watched day by day with such loving care. The stampede swept the full length of the meadow and held on for the house. The acute stab of her grief was dulled and replaced by a mental lethargy. The worst had happened and she viewed the rest of the scene with something akin to indifference.
The foremost cows struck the corrals and they went down with a splintering crash under the pressure from behind. She looked out on a sea of tossing horns and heaving backs as the herd rushed through, the heavy log buildings shaking from the mass of animals jammed against them and squeezing past.
The force of the run was spent on the steep slope back of the house and the herd split into detachments and moved off through the hills.
The west side of the house was windowless, a blank wall built against the standing winds. Waddles was busily engaged in knocking out a patch of chinking and endeavoring to work a loophole between the logs. Harris was similarly engaged between two windows which overlooked the blacksmith shop, storerooms and saddle room that formed a solid line of buildings a hundred yards to the east. She reflected hazily that there was little cause for such petty activity when the worst had happened and the Three Bar had suffered an irreparable loss.
Harris pointed down the valley to the south and she turned mechanically and crossed to that window. A few riders showed on the ridges on either flank of the valley.
"They were cached up there to pick us off if we rode down to try and turn the run," he said. "If it had been light they might have opened on the wagons. But they knew the rest hadn't started the cows."
She nodded without apparent interest. What might transpire now seemed a matter to be viewed with indifference.
"It's time for me to go," Harris said. "I'll hold the bunk house. Good luck, Billie—we'll hold 'em off."
He turned to Waddles who still worked to make a loophole through the blank wall.
"If it gets too hot put her outside and tell her to give herself up. Even Lang would know that the whole country would be hunting them to-morrow if they touched her. They won't if they can help it. But this is their last hope—to trust in one final raid. They'll go through with it. Make her go outside if it comes to that."
He opened the door and leaped across the twenty yards of open space which separated the main building from the bunk house. The fact that no rifle balls searched for him as he sprang inside was sufficient testimony that the raiders who might be posted in the hills back of the house were not yet within easy range. He barred the door and looked from the south window. The riders along the valley rims had descended to the bottoms. Smoke was already rising from one homestead cabin and they were riding toward the rest. Two men had dismounted by the head gate.
Harris cursed himself for not having anticipated this very thing. The whole plan was clear to him. Slade would have known of the implements at the railroad waiting to be freighted in. He would have known, too, that when the cowhands came in from the round-up there would follow the inevitable night at Brill's. Morrow had mapped out the raid long in advance, engaging Lang to gather the cows throughout the first night the round-up crew was in from the range and hold them a few miles from the ranch. In case the freighters failed to leave before the others came back from Brill's the raid would have been staged just the same; men cached along the lip of the valley to pick off all those who should attempt to ride down and turn the run; others ready to slip down from behind and torch the buildings while the fight was going on in the flat. Lang could not know that Slade was locked up and that Morrow was dead so the raid had gone through as planned.
Smoke was rising from two more cabins in the flats and Harris reproached himself for another oversight in allowing the wagons to pull out before the others arrived. The crop would have been ruined in any event but with the hands at home they could have prevented the destruction of the cabins.
He turned to the opposite side and scanned the face of the hills for signs of life. Not a sage quivered to show the position of bodies crawling through the brush; no rattle of gravel indicated the presence of men working down through any of the sheltered coulees behind; yet he knew they were near. The silence was in sharp contrast to the rumble and roar of the stampede just past. The only sounds which shattered the quiet were the muffled thuds of Waddles's hand-axe as the cook worked on a single idea and endeavored to gouge a loophole through the cracks of the twelve-inch logs. Harris transferred his attention to the long line of log buildings a hundred yards to the east. The row afforded perfect cover for any who chose that route of approach. They could walk up to them in absolute safety, screened both from himself and those in the main house.
As he watched the doors and windows for sign of movement within a voice hailed them from the shop.
"You might as well come out," it called. "We're going to fire the plant."
Harris stretched prone on the floor and rested the muzzle of his rifle on a crack between the logs. It was hard shooting. He was forced to shift the butt end of the gun, moving with it himself to line the sights instead of swinging the free end of the barrel. He trained it on a crack some two feet from the door of the shop. Behind the aperture the light of a window on the far side showed faintly.
"Come out!" the voice ordered. "Or we'll cook you inside. We've no time to lose. Rush it!"
The light disappeared from the crack and Harris pressed the trigger. With the roar of his gun a shape pitched down across the door of the shop. Some unseen hands caught the man by the feet and as he was dragged back from sight Harris saw the red handkerchief which had served as a mask.
From all along the row of buildings a fire was opened on the bunk house. Apparently one man was detailed to search out a certain crevice between the logs. Harris threw himself flat against the lower log which barely shielded him. One rifleman covered a crack breast-high, another the one next below, drilling it at six-inch intervals. Shreds of 'dobe chinking littered the room. The balls which found an entrance splintered through the bunks and buried themselves in the logs of the far wall. A third marksman worked on the lower crack. Puffs of 'dobe pulverized before Harris's eyes as the systematic fire crept toward him down the crack in six-inch steps.
A flash of dust a few inches before his nose half blinded him. The next shot drilled through an inch above his head, flattened sidewise on the floor, and a fragment of shell-jacket, stripped in passing through, scored his cheek and nicked his ear. The next fanned his shirt across the shoulders and the biting scraps of 'dobe stung his back.
The shooting suddenly ceased. Billie Warren, dazedly indifferent as to what should happen to the Three Bar since the wreck of the lower field, had roused to action the instant she saw the spurts of chinking fly from the cracks of the bunk house before the fusillade sent after Harris. She threw open the door and stepped out, holding up one hand.
"Don't kill him!" she commanded. "If you fire another shot at him I'll put up every dollar I own to hang every man that ever rode a foot with Lang! Do you hear that, Lang?"
"Lang's in Idaho," a voice growled surlily from the shop. "None of us ever rode with Lang. We're from every brand on the range—and we're going to burn you squatters out."
"Draw off and let us ride away," she said. "You can have the Three Bar."
"All but Harris," the voice called back. "He stays!"
She threw up the rifle she carried and touched it off at a crack near the shop door. As the splinters flew from the edge of the log a figure sprang past the door for the safety of the opposite side and she shot again, then emptied the magazine at a crevice on the side where he had taken refuge.
"Get back inside, damn you!" a voice shouted. "We're going to wreck the Three Bar—and you with it if you stand in the way. Get back out of line!"
Harris knew that the men would not be deterred in their purpose—would sacrifice her along with the rest if necessary to accomplish their end.
"Get back, Billie," he called from the bunk house. "You can't do us any good out there. Take the little cabin and sit tight. We'll beat them off."
A haze of smoke showed through the storeroom door, a bright tongue of flame leaping back of it.
She turned to the door but Waddles had barred it behind her.
"Take the little house, Pet," he urged. "Like Cal said. You'll be safe enough. We'll give 'em hell."
She walked to the little cabin that stood isolated and alone, the first building ever erected on the Three Bar and which had sheltered the Harrises before her father had taken over the brand.
The smoke had spread all along the row of buildings and hung in an oily black cloud above them, the hungry flames licking up the sides of the dry logs. The men had withdrawn after putting the torch to the row in a dozen spots.
From her point of vantage she saw two masked men rise from the brush and run swiftly down toward the main house, each carrying a can. She divined their purpose instantly.
"Watch the west side!" she called. "The west side—quick."
The sound of Waddles's hand-axe ceased and an instant later the roar of the shotgun sounded twice from within the house, followed by the cook's lament.
"Missed!" the big voice wailed. "Two minutes more and I'd have made a real hole."
The muffled crash of a rifle rolled steadily from the house as Waddles fired at the chinking in an effort to reach the two men outside. But they had accomplished their purpose and retreated, the house shielding them from Harris's field of view; and they kept on the same line, out of sight of the bunk house, till they reached a deep coulee which afforded a safe route of retreat.
The row of buildings was a seething mass of flames rolling up into the black smoke. Flames hissed and licked up the blank wall of the main House, traveling along the logs on which the two masked raiders had thrown their cans of oil. The men outside had only to wait until the occupants were roasted out. A stiff wind held from the west and once the house was in flames they would be driven down upon the bunk house and fire it in turn. She knew Waddles would come out when it grew too hot. The raiders might let him go. It was Harris they waited for.
The girl ran across and pounded on the bunkhouse door.
"Run for it," she begged. "Make a run for the brush! I'll keep between you and them. They won't shoot me. You can get to the brush. There's a chance that way."
"All right, old girl," Harris said. "In a minute now. But you go back, Billie. Get back to the little house. As soon as it gets hot I'll run for it. I've got ten minutes yet before I'm roasted out. I'll start as soon as you're inside the house."
"No. Start now!" she implored. The flames were sliding along one side of the house and even now she could feel the heat of them fanned down upon the bunk house by the wind. "Run, Cal," she entreated. "Run while you've got a chance." She leaned upon the door and beat on it with her fists.
"All right, Billie," he said. "I'll go. You stay right where you are as if you're talking to me."
She heard him cross the floor. He dropped from the window on the far side from the men. When he came in sight of them he was running in long leaps for the brush, zigzagging in his flight. Their gaze had been riveted on the girl and he gained a flying start of thirty yards before a shot was fired. Then half a dozen rifles spurted from two hundred yards up the slope, the balls passing him with nasty snaps. He reached the edge of the sage and plunged headlong between two rocks. Bullets reached for him, ripping through the tips of the sage above him, tossing up spurts of gravel on all sides and singing in ricochets from the rocks.
One raider, in his eagerness to secure a better view, incautiously exposed his head. He went down with a hole through his mask as a shot sounded from the main house. From the window, his big face red and dripping from the heat, Waddles pumped a rifle and covered Harris's flight as best he could, drilling the center of every sage that shook or quivered back of the house.
Two men turned their attention to the one who handicapped their chances of locating the crawling man and poured their fire through the window. A soft-nose splintered the butt of the cook's rifle and tore a strip of meat from his arm as another fanned his cheek. He dropped to the floor and peered from a crack. The firing had suddenly ceased. He saw a hat moving up a coulee, a mere flash here and there above the sage as the owner of it ran. As he watched for the man to reappear, the roof of the whole string of buildings to the east caved with a hissing roar and belched sparks and debris high in the air.
The fire was filtering through the cracks and circling its hungry tongues inside. The smoke hurt his eyes and the heat seemed to crack his skin. He crossed over to see if Harris was down; that would account for the sudden cessation of shooting from the hills back of the house.
The raiders in the lower field were riding swiftly for the far side of the valley. One man knelt near the head gate, then mounted and jumped his horse off after the rest. Waddles put the whole force of his lungs behind one mighty cheer.
Fifty yards back in the brush Harris cautiously raised his head to determine the cause of this triumphant peal.
Far down along the rim of the valley, outlined against the sky, four mules were running as so many startled deer under the bite of the lash and six men swayed and clung in the wagon that lurched behind. High above the crackle of the flames sounded Tiny's yelps, keen and clear, as he urged on the flying mules. Three men unloaded from the wagon as it came opposite the cluster of men riding far out across the flats. They opened a long-range fire at a thousand yards while the others stayed with the wagon as it rocked on toward the burning ranch.
Billie was running to the brush at the spot where Harris had disappeared. He rose to meet her.
"Cal, you're not hurt?" she asked.
"Not a scratch," he said. "Thanks to you."
In her relief she grasped his arm and gave it a fierce little squeeze.
"Then it's all right," she said.
Waddles burst from the door of the burning house, his arms piled high with salvage.
"We'll save what we can," Harris said and started for the house. As he ran the valley rocked with a concussion which nearly threw him flat and a column of fragments and trash rose a hundred feet above the spot where the head gate had been but a second past.
A dozen running horses flipped over the edge of the hill and plunged down toward the ranch. The men were back from Brill's. Tiny halted the mules on the lip of the valley and the three men came down the slope on foot.
Harris held up his hand to halt the riders as they would have kept on past the house. He knew that the raiders stationed behind the ranch had long since reached their horses and were lost in the choppy hills. He waved all hands toward the buildings and they swarmed inside, carrying out load after load of such articles as could be moved and piling them out of reach of the flames.
The girl sat apart and watched them work. Her lethargy had returned. It seemed a small matter to rescue these trinkets when the Three Bar was a total wreck. The wind fanned the flames down on the bunk house and one side was charred and smoking. The men drew back from the heat. Tiny spurts of fire flickered along the charred side. Then it burst into a sheet of flame.
Harris spoke briefly to Evans and the tall man nodded as he itemized the orders in his mind.
"Now I'll get her away from here," Harris said. "It's hell for her to just sit there and watch it burn."
He caught two of the saddled horses that had carried the men from Brill's and crossed over to where she sat.
"Let's ride down to the field," he said. "And see what's got to be done. I expect a week's work will repair that part of it all right."
She gazed at him in amazement. He spoke of repairing the damage while the Three Bar burned before his eyes. But she rose and mounted the horse. He shortened her stirrup straps and they rode off down what had once been the lane, the fence flattened by the rushing horde of cattle that had swept through.
The homestead cabins smoked but still stood intact.
"Look!" he urged cheerfully. "Those logs were too green to burn. We won't even have to rebuild. They'll look a little charred round the edges maybe, but otherwise as good as new."
Behind her sounded a gurgling roar as the roof of the main house fell but Harris did not even look back.
"We can restring that fence in a right short while," he asserted. "We've lost one crop of oat-hay—which we didn't much need, anyhow. That young alfalfa is too deep rooted to be much hurt. Next spring it'll come out thick, a heavy stand of hay; and we'll cut a thousand tons."
They rode across fields trampled flat by thousands of churning hoofs and reached the spot where the head gate had been, a yawning hole at which the water sucked and tore. A section of the bank caved and was washed away. And through it all he planned the work of reconstruction and the transformation which would be effected inside a year,—while behind them the home ranch was ablaze.
"We're not bad hurt," he said. "They can't hurt our land. I'd rather have this flat right now—the way it stands—than three thousand head of cows on the range and no land at all. We can rebuild the place this winter while work is slack. Build better than before. Those buildings were pretty old, at best. There'll be enough hungry cowhands riding grub-line at the Three Bar to rebuild it in two months. Every man that feeds on us this winter will have to work."
His enthusiasm failed to touch her. For her the Three Bar was wrecked, the old home gone, and her gaze kept straying back to the eddying black smoke-cloud at the foot of the hills.