CHAPTER XVIII
DOBLE PAYS A VISIT
"Hello, the Jackpot!"
Out of the night the call came to the men at the bunkhouse.
Bob looked at his companion and grinned. "Seems to me I recognize that melojious voice."
A man stepped from the gloom with masterful, arrogant strides.
"'Lo, Hart," he said. "Can you lend me a reamer?"
Bob knew he had come to spy out the land and not to borrow tools.
"Don't seem to me we've hardly got any reamers to spare, Dug," drawled the young man sitting on the porch floor. "What's the trouble? Got a kink in yore casin'?"
"Not so you could notice it, but you never can tell when you're goin' to run into bad luck, can you?" He sat down on the porch and took a cigar from his vest pocket. "What with losin' tools and one thing an' 'nother, this oil game sure is hell. By the way, how's yore fishin' job comin' on?"
"Fine, Dug. We ain't hooked our big fish yet, but we're hopeful."
Dave was sitting in the shadow. Doble nodded carelessly to him without recognition. It was characteristic of his audacity that Dug had walked over impudently to spy out the camp of the enemy. Bob knew why he had come, and he knew that Bob knew. Yet both ignored the fact that he was not welcome.
"I've known fellows angle a right long time for a trout and not catch him," said Doble, stretching his long legs comfortably.
"Yes," agreed Bob. "Wish I could hire you to throw a monkey wrench in that engine over there. Its chuggin' keeps me awake."
"I'll bet it does. Well, young fellow, you can't hire me or anybody else to stop it," retorted Doble, an edge to his voice.
"Well, I just mentioned it," murmured Hart. "I don't aim to rile yore feelin's. We'll talk of somethin' else…. Hope you enjoyed that reunion this week with yore old friend, absent far, but dear to memory ever."
"Referrin' to?" demanded Doble with sharp hostility.
"Why, Ad Miller, Dug."
"Is he a friend of mine?"
"Ain't he?"
"Not that I ever heard tell of."
"Glad of that. You won't miss him now he's lit out."
"Oh, he's lit out, has he?"
"A li'l bird whispered to me he had."
"When?"
"This evenin', I understand."
"Where'd he go?"
"He didn't leave any address. Called away on sudden business."
"Did he mention the business?"
"Not to me." Bob turned to his friend. "Did he say anything to you about that, Dave?"
In the silence one might have heard a watch tick, Doble leaned forward, his body rigid, danger written large in his burning eyes and clenched fist.
"So you're back," he said at last in a low, harsh voice.
"I'm back."
"It would 'a' pleased me if they had put a rope round yore neck, Mr.
Convict."
Dave made no comment. Nobody could have guessed from his stillness how fierce was the blood pressure at his temples.
"It's a difference of opinion makes horse-races, Dug," said Bob lightly.
The big ex-foreman rose snarling. "For half a cent I'd gun you here and now like you did George."
Sanders looked at him steadily, his hands hanging loosely by his sides.
"I wouldn't try that, Dug," warned Hart. "Dave ain't armed, but I am. My hand's on my six-shooter right this minute. Don't make a mistake."
The ex-foreman glared at him. Doble was a strong, reckless devil of a fellow who feared neither God nor man. A primeval savagery burned in his blood, but like most "bad" men he had that vein of caution in his make-up which seeks to find its victim at disadvantage. He knew Hart too well to doubt his word. One cannot ride the range with a man year in, year out, without knowing whether the iron is in his arteries.
"Declarin' yoreself in on this, are you?" he demanded ominously, showing his teeth.
"I've always been in on it, Dug. Took a hand at the first deal, the day of the race. If you're lookin' for trouble with Dave, you'll find it goes double."
"Not able to play his own hand, eh?"
"Not when you've got a six-shooter and he hasn't. Not after he has just been wounded by another gunman he cleaned up with his bare hands. You and yore friends are lookin' for things too easy."
"Easy, hell! I'll fight you and him both, with or without guns. Any time.
Any place."
Doble backed away till his figure grew vague in the darkness. Came the crack of a revolver. A bullet tore a splinter from the wall of the shack in front of which Dave was standing. A jeering laugh floated to the two men, carried on the light night breeze.
Bob whipped out his revolver, but he did not fire. He and his friend slipped quietly to the far end of the house and found shelter round the corner.
"Ain't that like Dug, the damned double-crosser?" whispered Bob. "I reckon he didn't try awful hard to hit you. Just sent his compliments kinda casual to show good-will."
"I reckon he didn't try very hard to miss me either," said Dave dryly.
"The bullet came within a foot of my head."
"He's one bad citizen, if you ask me," admitted Hart, without reluctance. "Know how he came to break with the old man? He had the nerve to start beauin' Miss Joyce. She wouldn't have it a minute. He stayed right with it—tried to ride over her. Crawford took a hand and kicked him out. Since then Dug has been one bitter enemy of the old man."
"Then Crawford had better look out. If Doble isn't a killer, I've never met one."
"I've got a fool notion that he ain't aimin' to kill him; that maybe he wants to help Steelman bust him so as he can turn the screws on him and get Miss Joyce. Dug must 'a' been makin' money fast in Brad's company. He's on the inside."
Dave made no comment.
"I expect you was some surprised when I told Dug who was roostin' on the step so clost to him," Hart went on. "Well, I had a reason. He was due to find it out anyhow in about a minute, so I thought I'd let him know we wasn't tryin' to keep him from knowin' who his neighbor was; also that I was good and ready for him if he got red-haided like Miller done."
"I understood, Bob," said his friend quietly.
CHAPTER XIX
AN INVOLUNTARY BATH
Jackpot Number Three hooked its tools the second day after Sanders's visit to that location. A few hours later its engine was thumping merrily and the cable rising and falling monotonously in the casing. On the afternoon of the third day Bob Hart rode up to the wildcat well where Dave was building a sump hole with a gang of Mexicans.
He drew Sanders to one side. "Trouble to-night, Dave, looks like. At Jackpot Number Three. We're in a layer of soft shale just above the oil-bearin' sand. Soon we'll know where we're at. Word has reached me that Doble means to rush the night tower and wreck the engine."
"You'll stand his crowd off?"
"You're whistlin'."
"Sure your information is right?"
"It's c'rect." Bob added, after a momentary hesitation: "We got a spy in his camp."
Sanders did not ask whether the affair was to be a pitched battle. He waited, sure that Bob would tell him when he was ready. That young man came to the subject indirectly.
"How's yore shoulder, Dave?"
"Doesn't trouble me any unless something is slammed against it."
"Interfere with you usin' a six-shooter?"
"No."
"Like to take a ride with me over to the Jackpot?"
"Yes."
"Good enough. I want you to look the ground over with me. Looks now as if it would come to fireworks. But we don't want any Fourth-of-July stuff if we can help it. Can we? That's the point."
At the Jackpot the friends walked over the ground together. Back of the location and to the west of it an arroyo ran from a cañon above.
"Follow it down and it'll take you right into the location where Steelman is drillin'," explained Bob. "Dug's gonna lead his gang up the arroyo to the mesquite here, sneak down on us, and take our camp with a rush. At least, that's what he aims to do. You can't always tell, as the fellow says."
"What's up above?"
"A dam. Steelman owns the ground up there. He's got several acres of water backed up there for irrigation purposes."
"Let's go up and look it over."
Bob showed a mild surprise. "Why, yes, if you want to take some exercise.
This is my busy day, but—"
Sanders ignored the hint. He led the way up a stiff trail that took them to the mouth of the cañon. Across the face of this a dam stretched. They climbed to the top of it. The water rose to within about six feet from the rim of the curved wall.
"Some view," commented Bob with a grin, looking across the plains that spread fanlike from the mouth of the gorge. "But I ain't much interested in scenery to-day somehow."
"When were you expectin' to shoot the well, Bob?"
"Some time to-morrow. Don't know just when. Why?"
"Got the nitro here yet?"
"Brought it up this mo'nin' myself."
"How much?"
"Twelve quarts."
"Any dynamite in camp?"
"Yes. A dozen sticks, maybe."
"And three gallons of nitro, you say."
"Yep."
"That's enough to do the job," Sanders said, as though talking aloud to himself.
"Yep. Tha's what we usually use."
"I'm speaking of another job. Let's get down from here. We might be seen."
"They couldn't hit us from the Steelman location. Too far," said Bob.
"And I don't reckon any one would try to do that."
"No, but they might get to wondering what we're doing up here."
"I'm wonderin' that myself," drawled Hart. "Most generally when I take a pasear it's on the back of a bronc. I ain't one of them that believes the good Lord made human laigs to be walked on, not so long as any broomtails are left to straddle."
Screened by the heavy mesquite below, Sanders unfolded his proposed plan of operations. Bob listened, and as Dave talked there came into Hart's eyes dancing imps of deviltry. He gave a subdued whoop of delight, slapped his dusty white hat on his thigh, and vented his enthusiasm in murmurs of admiring profanity.
"It may not work out," suggested his friend. "But if your information is correct and they come up the arroyo—"
"It's c'rect enough. Lemme ask you a question. If you was attacktin' us, wouldn't you come that way?"
"Yes."
"Sure. It's the logical way. Dug figures to capture our camp without firin' a shot. And he'd 'a' done it, too, if we hadn't had warnin'."
Sanders frowned, his mind busy over the plan. "It ought to work, unless something upsets it," he said.
"Sure it'll work. You darned old fox, I never did see yore beat. Say, if we pull this off right, Dug's gonna pretty near be laughed outa the county."
"Keep it quiet. Only three of us need to know it. You stay at the well to keep Doble's gang back if we slip up. I'll give the signal, and the third man will fire the fuse."
"Buck Byington will be here pretty soon. I'll get him to set off the Fourth-of-July celebration. He's a regular clam—won't ever say a word about this."
"When you hear her go off, you'd better bring the men down on the jump."
Byington came up the road half an hour later at a cowpuncher's jog-trot. He slid from the saddle and came forward chewing tobacco. His impassive, leathery face expressed no emotion whatever. Carelessly and casually he shook hands. "How, Dave?"
"How, Buck?" answered Sanders.
The old puncher had always liked Dave Sanders. The boy had begun work on the range as a protégé of his. He had taught him how to read sign and how to throw a rope. They had ridden out a blizzard together, and the old-timer had cared for him like a father. The boy had repaid him with a warm, ingenuous affection, an engaging sweetness of outward respect. A certain fineness in the eager face had lingered as an inheritance from his clean youth. No playful pup could have been more friendly. Now Buck shook hands with a grim-faced man, one a thousand years old in bitter experience. The eyes let no warmth escape. In the younger man's consciousness rose the memory of a hundred kindnesses flowing from Buck to him. Yet he could not let himself go. It was as though the prison chill had encased his heart in ice which held his impulses fast.
After dusk had fallen they made their preparations. The three men slipped away from the bunkhouse into the chaparral. Bob carried a bulging gunnysack, Dave a lantern, a pick, a drill, and a hammer. None of them talked till they had reached the entrance to the cañon.
"We'd better get busy before it's too dark," Bob said. "We picked this spot, Buck. Suit you?"
Byington had been a hard-rock Colorado miner in his youth. He examined the dam and came back to the place chosen. After taking off his coat he picked up the hammer. "Le's start. The sooner the quicker."
Dave soaked the gunnysack in water and folded it over the top of the drill to deaden the sound. Buck wielded the hammer and Bob held the drill.
After it grew dark they worked by the light of the lantern. Dave and Bob relieved Buck at the hammer. They drilled two holes, put in the dynamite charges, tamped them down, and filled in again the holes. The nitroglycerine, too, was prepared and set for explosion.
Hart straightened stiffly and looked at his watch. "Time to move back to camp, Dave. Business may get brisk soon now. Maybe Dug may get in a hurry and start things earlier than he intended."
"Don't miss my signal, Buck. Two shots, one right after another," said
Dave.
"I'll promise you to send back two shots a heap louder. You sure won't miss 'em," answered Buck with a grin.
The younger men left him at the dam and went back down the trail to their camp.
"No report yet from the lads watchin' the arroyo. I expect Dug's waitin' till he thinks we're all asleep except the night tower," whispered the man who had been left in charge by Hart.
"Dave, you better relieve the boys at the arroyo," suggested Bob.
"Fireworks soon now, I expect."
Sanders crept through the heavy chaparral to the liveoaks above the arroyo, snaking his way among cactus and mesquite over the sand. A watcher jumped up at his approach. Dave raised his hand and moved it above his head from right to left. The guard disappeared in the darkness toward the Jackpot. Presently his companion followed him. Dave was left alone.
It seemed to him that the multitudinous small voices of the night had never been more active. A faint trickle of water came up from the bed of the stream. He knew this was caused by leakage from the reservoir in the gulch. A tiny rustle stirred the dry grass close to his hand. His peering into the thick brush did not avail to tell him what form of animal life was palpitating there. Far away a mocking-bird throbbed out a note or two, grew quiet, and again became tunefully clamorous. A night owl hooted. The sound of a soft footfall rolling a pebble brought him to taut alertness. Eyes and ears became automatic detectives keyed to finest service.
A twig snapped in the arroyo. Indistinctly movements of blurred masses were visible. The figure of a man detached itself from the gloom and crept along the sandy wash. A second and a third took shape. The dry bed became filled with vague motion. Sanders waited no longer. He crawled back from the lip of the ravine a dozen yards, drew his revolver, and fired twice.
His guess had been that the attacking party, startled at the shots, would hesitate and draw together for a whispered conference. This was exactly what occurred.
An explosion tore to shreds the stillness of the night. Before the first had died away a second one boomed out. Dave heard a shower of falling rock and concrete. He heard, too, a roar growing every moment in volume. It swept down the walled gorge like a railroad train making up lost time.
Sanders stepped forward. The gully, lately a wash of dry sand and baked adobe, was full of a fury of rushing water. Above the noise of it he caught the echo of a despairing scream. Swiftly he ran, dodging among the catclaw and the prickly pear like a half-back carrying the ball through a broken field. His objective was the place where the arroyo opened to a draw. At this precise spot Steelman had located his derrick.
The tower no longer tapered gauntly to the sky. The rush of waters released from the dam had swept it from its foundation, torn apart the timbers, and scattered them far and wide. With it had gone the wheel, dragging from the casing the cable. The string of tools, jerked from their socket, probably lay at the bottom of the well two thousand feet down.
Dave heard a groan. He moved toward the sound. A man lay on a sand hummock, washed up by the tide.
"Badly hurt?" asked Dave.
"I've been drowned intirely, swallowed by a flood and knocked galley-west for Sunday. I don't know yit am I dead or not. Mither o' Moses, phwat was it hit us?"
"The dam must have broke."
"Was the Mississippi corked up in the dom cañon?"
Bob bore down upon the scene at the head of the Jackpot contingent. He gave a whoop at sight of the wrecked derrick and engine. "Kindlin' wood and junk," was his verdict. "Where's Dug and his gang?"
Dave relieved the half-drowned man of his revolver. "Here's one. The rest must be either in the arroyo or out in the draw."
"Scatter, boys, and find 'em. Look out for them if they're hurt. Collect their hardware first off."
The water by this time had subsided. Released from the walls of the arroyo, it had spread over the desert. The supply in the reservoir was probably exhausted, for the stream no longer poured down in a torrent. Instead, it came in jets, weakly and with spent energy.
Hart called. "Come here and meet an old friend, Dave."
Sanders made his way, ankle deep in water, to the spot from which that irrepressibly gay voice had come. He was still carrying the revolver he had taken from the Irishman.
"Meet Shorty, Dave. Don't mind his not risin' to shake. He's just been wrastlin' with a waterspout and he's some wore out."
The squat puncher glared at his tormentor. "I done bust my laig," he said at last sullenly.
He was wet to the skin. His lank, black hair fell in front of his tough, unshaven face. One hand nursed the lacerated leg. The other was hooked by the thumb into the band of his trousers.
"That worries us a heap, Shorty," answered Hart callously. "I'd say you got it comin' to you."
The hand hitched in the trouser band moved slightly. Bob, aware too late of the man's intention, reached for his six-shooter. Something flew past him straight and hard.
Shorty threw up his hands with a yelp and collapsed. He had been struck in the head by a heavy revolver.
"Some throwin', Dave. Much obliged," said Hart. "We'll disarm this bird and pack him back to the derrick." They did. Shorty almost wept with rage and pain and impotent malice. He cursed steadily and fluently. He might as well have saved his breath, for his captors paid not the least attention to his spleen.
Weak as a drowned rat, Doble came limping out of the ravine. He sat down on a timber, very sick at the stomach from too much water swallowed in haste. After he had relieved himself, he looked up wanly and recognized Hart, who was searching him for a hidden six-shooter.
"Must 'a' lost yore forty-five whilst you was in swimmin', Dug. Was the water good this evenin'? I'll bet you and yore lads pulled off a lot o' fancy stunts when the water come down from Lodore or wherever they had it corralled." Dancing imps of mischief lit the eyes of the ex-cowpuncher. "Well, I'll bet the boys in town get a great laugh at yore comedy stuff. You ce'tainly did a good turn. Oh, you've sure earned yore laugh."
If hatred could have killed with a look Bob would have been a dead man.
"You blew up the dam," charged Doble.
"Me! Why, it ain't my dam. Didn't Brad give you orders to open the sluices to make you a swimmin' hole?"
The searchers began to straggle in, bringing with them a sadly drenched and battered lot of gunmen. Not one but looked as though he had been through the wars. An inventory of wounds showed a sprained ankle, a broken shoulder blade, a cut head, and various other minor wounds. Nearly every member of Doble's army was exceedingly nauseated. The men sat down or leaned up against the wreckage of the plant and drooped wretchedly. There was not an ounce of fight left in any of them.
"They must 'a' blew the dam up. Them shots we heard!" one ventured without spirit.
"Who blew it up?" demanded one of the Jackpot men belligerently. "If you say we did, you're a liar."
He was speaking the truth so far as he knew. The man who had been through the waters did not take up the challenge. Officers in the army say that men will not fight on an empty stomach, and his was very empty.
"I'll remember this, Hart," Doble said, and his face was a thing ill to look upon. The lips were drawn back so that his big teeth were bared like tusks. The eyes were yellow with malignity.
"Y'betcha! The boys'll look after that, Dug," retorted Bob lightly. "Every time you hook yore heel over the bar rail at the Gusher, you'll know they're laughin' at you up their sleeves. Sure, you'll remember it."
"Some day I'll make yore whole damned outfit sorry for this," the big hook-nosed man threatened blackly. "No livin' man can laugh at me and get away with it."
"I'm laughin' at you, Dug. We all are. Wish you could see yoreself as we see you. A little water takes a lot o' tuck outa some men who are feelin' real biggity."
Byington, at this moment, sauntered into the assembly. He looked around in simulated surprise. "Must be bath night over at you-all's camp, Dug. You look kinda drookid yore own self, as you might say."
Doble swore savagely. He pointed with a shaking finger at Sanders, who was standing silently in the background. "Tha's the man who's responsible for this. Think I don't know? That jail bird! That convict! That killer!" His voice trembled with fury. "You'd never a-thought of it in a thousand years, Hart. Nor you, Buck, you old fathead. Wait. Tha's what I say. Wait. It'll be me or him one day. Soon, too."
The paroled man said nothing, but no words could have been more effective than the silence of this lean, powerful man with the close-clamped jaw whose hard eyes watched his enemy so steadily. He gave out an impression of great vitality and reserve force. Even these hired thugs, dull and unimaginative though they were, understood that he was dangerous beyond most fighting men. A laugh snapped the tension. The Jackpot engineer pointed to a figure emerging from the arroyo. The man who came dejectedly into view was large and fat and dripping. He was weeping curses and trying to pick cactus burrs from his anatomy. Dismal groans punctuated his profanity.
"It stranded me right on top of a big prickly pear," he complained. "I like never to 'a' got off, and a million spines are stickin' into me."
Bob whooped. "Look who's among us. If it ain't our old friend Ad Miller, the human pincushion. Seein' as he drapped in, we'll collect him right now and find out if the sheriff ain't lookin' for him to take a trip on the choo-choo cars."
The fat convict looked to Doble in vain for help. His friend was staring at the ground sourly in a huge disgust at life and all that it contained. Miller limped painfully to the Jackpot in front of Hart. Two days later he took the train back to the penitentiary. Emerson Crawford made it a point to see to that.
CHAPTER XX
THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND
If some one had made Emerson Crawford a present of a carload of Herefords he could not have been more pleased than he was at the result of the Jackpot crew's night adventure with the Steelman forces. The news came to him at an opportune moment, for he had just been served notice by the president of the Malapi First National Bank that Crawford must prepare to meet at once a call note for $10,000. A few hours earlier in the day the cattleman had heard it rumored that Steelman had just bought a controlling interest in the bank. He did not need a lawyer to tell him that the second fact was responsible for the first. In fact the banker, personally friendly to Crawford, had as good as told him so.
Bob rode in with the story of the fracas in time to cheer the drooping spirits of his employer. Emerson walked up and down the parlor waving his cigar while Joyce laughed at him.
"Dawggone my skin, if that don't beat my time! I'm settin' aside five thousand shares in the Jackpot for Dave Sanders right now. Smartest trick ever I did see." The justice of the Jackpot's vengeance on its rival and the completeness of it came home to him as he strode the carpet. "He not only saves my property without havin' to fight for it—and that was a blamed good play itself, for I don't want you boys shootin' up anybody even in self-defense—but he disarms Brad's plug-uglies, humiliates them, makes them plumb sick of the job, and at the same time wipes out Steelman's location lock, stock, and barrel. I'll make that ten thousand shares, by gum! That boy's sure some stemwinder."
"He uses his haid," admitted Bob admiringly.
"I'd give my best pup to have been there," said the cattleman regretfully.
"It was some show," drawled the younger man. "Drowned rats was what they reminded me of. Couldn't get a rise out of any of 'em except Dug. That man's dangerous, if you ask me. He's crazy mad at all of us, but most at Dave."
"Will he hurt him?" asked Joyce quickly.
"Can't tell. He'll try. That's a cinch."
The dark brown eyes of the girl brooded. "That's not fair. We can't let him run into more danger for us, Dad. He's had enough trouble already. We must do something. Can't you send him to the Spring Valley Ranch?"
"Meanin' Dug Doble?" asked Bob.
She flashed a look of half-smiling, half-tender reproach at him. "You know who I mean, Bob. And I'm not going to have him put in danger on our account," she added with naïve dogmatism.
"Joy's right. She's sure right," admitted Crawford.
"Maybeso." Hart fell into his humorous drawl. "How do you aim to get him to Spring Valley? You goin' to have him hawg-tied and shipped as freight?"
"I'll talk to him. I'll tell him he must go." Her resolute little face was aglow and eager. "It's time Malapi was civilized. We mustn't give these bad men provocation. It's better to avoid them."
"Yes," admitted Bob dryly. "Well, you tell all that to Dave. Maybe he's the kind o' lad that will pack up and light out because he's afraid of Dug Doble and his outfit. Then again maybe he ain't."
Crawford shook his head. He was a game man himself. He would go through when the call came, and he knew quite well that Sanders would do the same. Nor would any specious plea sidetrack him. At the same time there was substantial justice in the contention of his daughter. Dave had no business getting mixed up in this row. The fact that he was an ex-convict would be in itself a damning thing in case the courts ever had to pass upon the feud's results. The conviction on the records against him would make a second conviction very much easier.
"You're right, Bob. Dave won't let Dug's crowd run him out. But you keep an eye on him. Don't let him go out alone nights. See he packs a gun."
"Packs a gun!" Joyce was sitting in a rocking-chair under the glow of the lamp. She was darning one of Keith's stockings, and to the young man watching her—so wholly winsome girl, so much tender but business-like little mother—she was the last word in the desirability of woman. "That's the very way to find trouble, Dad. He's been doing his best to keep out of it. He can't, if he stays here. So he must go away, that's all there is to it."
Her father laughed. "Ain't it scandalous the way she bosses us all around, Bob?"
The face of the girl sparkled to a humorous challenge. "Well, some one has got to boss you-all boys, Dad. If you'd do as I say you wouldn't have any trouble with that old Steelman or his gunmen."
"We wouldn't have any oil wells either, would we, honey?"
"They're not worth having if you and Dave Sanders and Bob have to live in danger all the time," she flashed.
"Glad you look at it that way, Joy," Emerson retorted with a rueful smile. "Fact is, we ain't goin' to have any more oil wells than a jackrabbit pretty soon. I'm at the end of my rope right now. The First National promised me another loan on the Arizona ranch, but Brad has got a-holt of it and he's called in my last loan. I'm not quittin'. I'll put up a fight yet, but unless things break for me I'm about done."
"Oh, Dad!" Her impulse of sympathy carried Joyce straight to him. Soft, rounded arms went round his neck with impassioned tenderness. "I didn't dream it was as bad as that. You've been worrying all this time and you never let me know."
He stroked her hair fondly. "You're the blamedest little mother ever I did see—always was. Now don't you fret. It'll work out somehow. Things do."
CHAPTER XXI
THE HOLD-UP
To Sanders, working on afternoon tower at Jackpot Number Three, the lean, tanned driller in charge of operations was wise with an uncanny knowledge the newcomer could not fathom. For eight hours at a stretch he stood on the platform and watched a greasy cable go slipping into the earth. Every quiver of it, every motion of the big walking-beam, every kick of the engine, told him what was taking place down that narrow pipe two thousand feet below the surface. He knew when the tools were in clay and had become gummed up. He could tell just when the drill had cut into hard rock at an acute angle and was running out of the perpendicular to follow the softer stratum. His judgment appeared infallible as to whether he ought to send down a reamer to straighten the kink. All Dave knew was that a string of tools far underground was jerking up and down monotonously.
This spelt romance to Jed Burns, superintendent of operations, though he would never have admitted it. He was a bachelor; always would be one. Hard-working, hard-drinking, at odd times a plunging gambler, he lived for nothing but oil and the atmosphere of oil fields. From one boom to another he drifted, as inevitably as the gamblers, grafters, and organizers of "fake" companies. Several times he had made fortunes, but it was impossible for him to stay rich. He was always ready to back a drilling proposition that looked promising, and no independent speculator can continue to wildcat without going broke.
He was sifting sand through his fingers when Dave came on tower the day after the flood. To Bob Hart, present as Crawford's personal representative, he expressed an opinion.
"Right soon now or never. Sand tastes, feels, looks, and smells like oil. But you can't ever be sure. An oil prospect is like a woman. She will or she won't, you never can tell which. Then, if she does, she's liable to change her mind."
Dave sniffed the pleasing, pungent odor of the crude oil sands. His friend had told him that Crawford's fate hung in the balance. Unless oil flowed very soon in paying quantities he was a ruined man. The control of the Jackpot properties would probably pass into the hands of Steelman. The cattleman would even lose the ranches which had been the substantial basis of his earlier prosperity.
Everybody working on the Jackpot felt the excitement as the drill began to sink into the oil-bearing sands. Most of the men owned stock in the company. Moreover, they were getting a bonus for their services and had been promised an extra one if Number Three struck oil in paying quantities before Steelman's crew did. Even to an outsider there is a fascination in an oil well. It is as absorbing to the drillers as a girl's mind is to her hopeful lover. Dave found it impossible to escape the contagion of this. Moreover, he had ten thousand shares in the Jackpot, stock turned over to him out of the treasury supply by the board of directors in recognition of services which they did not care to specify in the resolution which authorized the transfer. At first he had refused to accept this, but Bob Hart had put the matter to him in such a light that he changed his mind.
"The oil business pays big for expert advice, no matter whether it's legal or technical. What you did was worth fifty times what the board voted you. If we make a big strike you've saved the company. If we don't the stock's not worth a plugged nickel anyhow. You've earned what we voted you. Hang on to it, Dave."
Dave had thanked the board and put the stock in his pocket. Now he felt himself drawn into the drama represented by the thumping engine which continued day and night.
After his shift was over, he rode to town with Bob behind his team of wild broncos.
"Got to look for an engineer for the night tower," Hart explained as he drew up in front of the Gusher Saloon. "Come in with me. It's some gambling-hell, if you ask me."
The place hummed with the turbulent life that drifts to every wild frontier on the boom. Faro dealers from the Klondike, poker dealers from Nome, roulette croupiers from Leadville, were all here to reap the rich harvest to be made from investors, field workers, and operators. Smooth grafters with stock in worthless companies for sale circulated in and out with blue-prints and whispered inside information. The men who were ranged in front of the bar, behind which half a dozen attendants in white aprons busily waited on their wants, usually talked oil and nothing but oil. To-day they had another theme. The same subject engrossed the groups scattered here and there throughout the large hall.
In the rear of the room were the faro layouts, the roulette wheels, and the poker players. Around each of these the shifting crowd surged. Mexicans, Chinese, and even Indians brushed shoulders with white men of many sorts and conditions. The white-faced professional gambler was in evidence, winning the money of big brown men in miner's boots and corduroys. The betting was wild and extravagant, for the spirit of the speculator had carried away the cool judgment of most of these men. They had seen a barber become a millionaire in a day because the company in which he had plunged had struck a gusher. They had seen the same man borrow five dollars three months later to carry him over until he got a job. Riches were pouring out of the ground for the gambler who would take a chance. Thrift was a much-discredited virtue in Malapi. The one unforgivable vice was to be "a piker."
Bob found his man at a faro table. While the cards were being shuffled, he engaged him to come out next evening to the Jackpot properties. As soon as the dealer began to slide the cards out of the case the attention of the engineer went back to his bets.
While Dave was standing close to the wall, ready to leave as soon as Bob returned to him, he caught sight of an old acquaintance. Steve Russell was playing stud poker at a table a few feet from him. The cowpuncher looked up and waved his hand.
"See you in a minute, Dave," he called, and as soon as the pot had been won he said to the man shuffling the cards, "Deal me out this hand."
He rose, stepped across to Sanders, and shook hands with a strong grip. "You darned old son-of-a-gun! I'm sure glad to see you. Heard you was back. Say, you've ce'tainly been goin' some. Suits me. I never did like either Dug or Miller a whole lot. Dug's one sure-enough bad man and Miller's a tinhorn would-be. What you did to both of 'em was a-plenty. But keep yore eye peeled, old-timer. Miller's where he belongs again, but Dug's still on the range, and you can bet he's seein' red these days. He'll gun you if he gets half a chance."
"Yes," said Dave evenly.
"You don't figure to let yoreself get caught again without a six-shooter." Steve put the statement with the rising inflection.
"No."
"Tha's right. Don't let him get the drop on you. He's sudden death with a gun."
Bob joined them. After a moment's conversation Russell drew them to a corner of the room that for the moment was almost deserted.
"Say, you heard the news, Bob?"
"I can tell you that better after I know what it is," returned Hart with a grin.
"The stage was held up at Cottonwood Bend and robbed of seventeen thousand dollars. The driver was killed."
"When?"
"This mo'nin'. They tried to keep it quiet, but it leaked out."
"Whose money was it?"
"Brad Steelman's pay roll and a shipment of gold for the bank."
"Any idea who did it?"
Steve showed embarrassment. "Why, no, I ain't, if that's what you mean."
"Well, anybody else?"
"Tha's what I wanta tell you. Two men were in the job. They're whisperin' that Em Crawford was one."
"Crawford! Some of Steelman's fine work in that rumor, I'll bet. He's crazy if he thinks he can get away with that. Tha's plumb foolish talk. What evidence does he claim?" demanded Hart.
"Em deposited ten thousand with the First National to pay off a note he owed the bank. Rode into town right straight to the bank two hours after the stage got in. Then, too, seems one of the hold-ups called the other one Crawford."
"A plant," said Dave promptly.
"Looks like." Bob's voice was rich with sarcasm. "I don't reckon the other one rose up on his hind laigs and said, 'I'm Bob Hart,' did he?"
"They claim the second man was Dave here."
"Hmp! What time d'you say this hold-up took place?"
"Must 'a' been about eleven."
"Lets Dave out. He was fifteen miles away, and we can prove it by at least six witnesses."
"Good. I reckon Em can put in an alibi too."
"I'll bet he can." Hart promised this with conviction.
"Trouble is they say they've got witnesses to show Em was travelin' toward the Bend half an hour before the hold-up. Art Johnson and Clem Purdy met him while they was on their way to town."
"Was Crawford alone?"
"He was then. Yep."
"Any one might'a' been there. You might. I might. That don't prove a thing."
"Hell, I know Em Crawford's not mixed up in any hold-up, let alone a damned cowardly murder. You don't need to tell me that. Point is that evidence is pilin' up. Where did Em get the ten thousand to pay the bank? Two days ago he was tryin' to increase the loan the First National had made him."
Dave spoke. "I don't know where he got it, but unless he's a born fool—and nobody ever claimed that of Crawford—he wouldn't take the money straight to the bank after he had held up the stage and killed the driver. That's a strong point in his favor."
"If he can show where he got the ten thousand," amended Russell. "And of course he can."
"And where he spent that two hours after the hold-up before he came to town. That'll have to be explained too," said Bob.
"Oh, Em he'll be able to explain that all right," decided Steve cheerfully.
"Where is Crawford now?" asked Dave. "He hasn't been arrested, has he?"
"Not yet. But he's bein' watched. Soon as he showed up at the bank the sheriff asked to look at his six-shooter. Two cartridges had been fired. One of the passengers on the stage told me two shots was fired from a six-gun by the boss hold-up. The second one killed old Tim Harrigan."
"Did they accuse Crawford of the killing?"
"Not directly. He was asked to explain. I ain't heard what his story was."
"We'd better go to his house and talk with him," suggested Hart. "Maybe he can give as good an alibi as you, Dave."
"You and I will go straight there," decided Sanders. "Steve, get three saddle horses. We'll ride out to the Bend and see what we can learn on the ground."
"I'll cash my chips, get the broncs, and meet you lads at Crawford's," said Russell promptly.
CHAPTER XXII
NUMBER THREE COMES IN
Joyce opened the door to the knock of the young men. At sight of them her face lit.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" she cried, tears in her voice. She caught her hands together in a convulsive little gesture. "Isn't it dreadful? I've been afraid all the time that something awful would happen—and now it has."
"Don't you worry, Miss Joyce," Bob told her cheerfully. "We ain't gonna let anything happen to yore paw. We aim to get busy right away and run this thing down. Looks like a frame-up. If it is, you betcha we'll get at the truth."
"Will you? Can you?" She turned to Dave in appeal, eyes starlike in a face that was a white and shining oval in the semi-darkness.
"We'll try," he said simply.
Something in the way he said it, in the quiet reticence of his promise, sent courage flowing to her heart. She had called on him once before, and he had answered splendidly and recklessly.
"Where's Mr. Crawford?" asked Bob.
"He's in the sitting-room. Come right in."
Her father was sitting in a big chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the arm. He was smoking a cigar composedly.
"Come in, boys," he called. "Reckon you've heard that I'm a stage rustler and a murderer."
Joyce cried out at this, the wide, mobile mouth trembling.
"Just now. At the Gusher," said Bob. "They didn't arrest you?"
"Not yet. They're watchin' the house. Sit down, and I'll tell it to you."
He had gone out to see a homesteader about doing some work for him. On the way he had met Johnson and Purdy near the Bend, just before he had turned up a draw leading to the place in the hills owned by the man whom he wanted to see. Two hours had been spent riding to the little valley where the nester had built his corrals and his log house, and when Crawford arrived neither he nor his wife was at home. He returned to the road, without having met a soul since he had left it, and from there jogged on back to town. On the way he had fired twice at a rattlesnake.
"You never reached the Bend, then, at all," said Dave.
"No, but I cayn't prove I didn't." The old cattleman looked at the end of his cigar thoughtfully. "Nor I cayn't prove I went out to Dick Grein's place in that three-four hours not accounted for."
"Anyhow, you can show where you got the ten thousand dollars you paid the bank," said Bob hopefully.
A moment of silence; then Crawford spoke. "No, son, I cayn't tell that either."
Faint and breathless with suspense, Joyce looked at her father with dilated eyes. "Why not?"
"Because the money was loaned me on those conditions."
"But—but—don't you see, Dad?—if you don't tell that—"
"They'll think I'm guilty. Well, I reckon they'll have to think it, Joy." The steady gray eyes looked straight into the brown ones of the girl. "I've been in this county boy and man for 'most fifty years. Any one that's willin' to think me a cold-blooded murderer at this date, why, he's welcome to hold any opinion he pleases. I don't give a damn what he thinks."
"But we've got to prove—"
"No, we haven't. They've got to do the proving. The law holds me innocent till I'm found guilty."
"But you don't aim to keep still and let a lot of miscreants blacken yore good name!" suggested Hart.
"You bet I don't, Bob. But I reckon I'll not break my word to a friend either, especially under the circumstances this money was loaned."
"He'll release you when he understands," cried Joyce.
"Don't bank on that, honey," Crawford said slowly.
"You ain't to mention this. I'm tellin' you three private. He cayn't come out and tell that he let me have the money. Understand? You don't any of you know a thing about how I come by that ten thousand. I've refused to answer questions about that money. That's my business."
"Oh, but, Dad, you can't do that. You'll have to give an explanation.
You'll have to—"
"The best explanation I can give, Joy, is to find out who held up the stage and killed Tim Harrigan. It's the only one that will satisfy me. It's the only one that will satisfy my friends."
"That's true," said Sanders.
"Steve Russell is bringin' hawsses," said Bob. "We'll ride out to the Bend to-night and be ready for business there at the first streak of light. Must be some trail left by the hold-ups."
Crawford shook his head. "Probably not. Applegate had a posse out there right away. You know Applegate. He'd blunder if he had a chance. His boys have milled all over the place and destroyed any trail that was left."
"We'll go out anyhow—Dave and Steve and I. Won't do any harm. We're liable to discover something, don't you reckon?"
"Maybeso. Who's that knockin' on the door, Joy?"
Some one was rapping on the front door imperatively. The girl opened it, to let into the hall a man in greasy overalls.
"Where's Mr. Crawford?" he demanded excitedly.
"Here. In the sitting-room. What's wrong?"
"Wrong! Not a thing!" He talked as he followed Joyce to the door of the room. "Except that Number Three's come in the biggest gusher ever I see. She's knocked the whole superstructure galley-west an' she's rip-r'arin' to beat the Dutch."
Emerson Crawford leaped to his feet, for once visibly excited. "What?" he demanded. "Wha's that?"
"Jus' like I say. The oil's a-spoutin' up a hundred feet like a fan. Before mornin' the sump holes will be full and she'll be runnin' all over the prairie."
"Burns sent you?"
"Yep. Says for you to get men and teams and scrapers and gunnysacks and heavy timbers out there right away. Many as you can send."
Crawford turned to Bob, his face aglow. "Yore job, Bob. Spread the news. Rustle up everybody you can get. Arrange with the railroad grade contractor to let us have all his men, teams, and scrapers till we get her hogtied and harnessed. Big wages and we'll feed the whole outfit free. Hire anybody you can find. Buy a coupla hundred shovels and send 'em out to Number Three. Get Robinson to move his tent-restaurant out there."
Hart nodded. "What about this job at the Bend?" he asked in a low voice.
"Dave and I'll attend to that. You hump on the Jackpot job. Sons, we're rich, all three of us. Point is to keep from losin' that crude on the prairie. Keep three shifts goin' till she's under control."
"We can't do anything at the Bend till morning," said Dave. "We'd better put the night in helping Bob."
"Sure. We've got to get all Malapi busy. A dozen business men have got to come down and open up their stores so's we can get supplies," agreed Emerson.
Joyce, her face flushed and eager, broke in. "Ring the fire bell. That's the quickest way."
"Sure enough. You got a haid on yore shoulders. Dave, you attend to that. Bob, hit the dust for the big saloons and gather men. I'll see O'Connor about the railroad outfit; then I'll come down to the fire-house and talk to the crowd. We'll wake this old town up to-night, sons."
"What about me?" asked the messenger.
"You go back and tell Jed to hold the fort till Hart and his material arrives."
Outside, they met Russell riding down the road, two saddled horses following. With a word of explanation they helped themselves to his mounts while he stared after them in surprise.
"I'll be dawggoned if they-all ain't three gents in a hurry," he murmured to the breezes of the night. "Well, seein' as I been held up, I reckon I'll have to walk back while the hawss-thieves ride."
Five minutes later the fire-bell clanged out its call to Malapi. From roadside tent and gambling-hall, from houses and camp-fires, men and women poured into the streets. For Malapi was a shell-town, tightly packed and inflammable, likely to go up in smoke whenever a fire should get beyond control of the volunteer company. Almost in less time than it takes to tell it, the square was packed with hundreds of lightly clad people and other hundreds just emerging from the night life of the place.
The clangor of the bell died away, but the firemen did not run out the hose and bucket cart. The man tugging the rope had told them why he was summoning the citizens.
"Some one's got to go out and explain to the crowd," said the fire chief to Dave. "If you know about this strike you'll have to tell the boys."
"Crawford said he'd talk," answered Sanders.
"He ain't here. It's up to you. Go ahead. Just tell 'em why you rang the bell."
Dave found himself pushed forward to the steps of the court-house a few yards away. He had never before attempted to speak in public, and he had a queer, dry tightening of the throat. But as soon as he began to talk the words he wanted came easily enough.
"Jackpot Number Three has come in a big gusher," he said, lifting his voice so that it would carry to the edge of the crowd.
Hundreds of men in the crowd owned stock in the Jackpot properties. At Dave's words a roar went up into the night. Men shouted, danced, or merely smiled, according to their temperament. Presently the thirst for news dominated the enthusiasm. Gradually the uproar was stilled.
Again Dave's voice rang out clear as the bell he had been tolling. "The report is that it's one of the biggest strikes ever known in the State. The derrick has been knocked to pieces and the oil's shooting into the air a hundred feet."
A second great shout drowned his words. This was an oil crowd. It dreamed oil, talked oil, thought oil, prayed for oil. A stranger in the town was likely to feel at first that the place was oil mad. What else can be said of a town with derricks built through its front porches and even the graveyard leased to a drilling company?
"The sump holes are filling," went on Sanders. "Soon the oil will the running to waste on the prairie. We need men, teams, tools, wagons, hundreds of slickers, tents, beds, grub. The wages will be one-fifty a day more than the run of wages in the camp until the emergency has been met, and Emerson Crawford will board all the volunteers who come out to dig."
The speaker was lost again, this time in a buzz of voices of excited men.
But out of the hubbub Dave's shout became heard.
"All owners of teams and tools, all dealers in hardware and groceries, are asked to step to the right-hand side of the crowd for a talk with Mr. Crawford. Men willing to work till the gusher is under control, please meet Bob Hart in front of the fire-house. I'll see any cooks and restaurant-men alive to a chance to make money fast. Right here at the steps."
"Good medicine, son," boomed Emerson Crawford, slapping him on the shoulder. "Didn't know you was an orator, but you sure got this crowd goin'. Bob here yet?"
"Yes. I saw him a minute ago in the crowd. Sorry I had to make promises for you, but the fire chief wouldn't let me keep the crowd waiting. Some one had to talk."
"Suits me. I'll run you for Congress one o' these days." Then, "I'll send the grocery-men over to you. Tell them to get the grub out to-night. If the restaurant-men don't buy it I'll run my own chuck wagon outfit. See you later, Dave."
For the next twenty-four hours there was no night in Malapi. Streets were filled with shoutings, hurried footfalls, the creaking of wagons, and the thud of galloping horses. Stores were lit up and filled with buyers. For once the Gusher and the Oil Pool and other resorts held small attraction for the crowds. The town was moving out to see the big new discovery that was to revolutionize its fortunes with the opening of a new and tremendously rich field. Every ancient rig available was pressed into service to haul men or supplies out to the Jackpot location. Scarcely a minute passed, after the time that the first team took the road, without a loaded wagon, packed to the sideboards, moving along the dusty road into the darkness of the desert.
Three travelers on horseback rode in the opposite direction. Their destination was Cottonwood Bend. Two of them were Emerson Crawford and David Sanders. The third was an oil prospector who had been a passenger on the stage when it was robbed.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE GUSHER
Jackpot number three had come in with a roar that shook the earth for half a mile. Deep below the surface there was a hiss and a crackle, the shock of rending strata giving way to the pressure of the oil pool. From long experience as a driller, Jed Burns knew what was coming. He swept his crew back from the platform, and none too soon to escape disaster. They were still flying across the prairie when the crown box catapulted into the sky and the whole drilling superstructure toppled over. Rocks, clay, and sand were hurled into the air, to come down in a shower that bombarded everything within a radius of several hundred yards.
The landscape next moment was drenched in black petroleum. The fine particles of it filled the air, sprayed the cactus and the greasewood. Rivulets of the viscid stuff began to gather in depressions and to flow in gathering volume, as tributaries joined the stream, into the sump holes prepared for it. The pungent odor of crude oil, as well as the touch and the taste of it, penetrated the atmosphere.
Burns counted noses and discovered that none of his crew had been injured by falling rocks or beams. He knew that his men could not possibly cope with this geyser on a spree. It was a big strike, the biggest in the history of the district, and to control the flow of the gusher would necessitate tremendous efforts on a wholesale plan.
One of his men he sent in to Malapi on horseback with a hurry-up call to Emerson Crawford, president of the company, for tools, machinery, men, and teams. The others he put to salvaging the engine and accessories and to throwing up an earth dike around the sump hole as a barrier against the escaping crude. All through the night he fought impotently against this giant that had burst loose from its prison two thousand feet below the surface of the earth.
With the first faint streaks of day men came galloping across the desert to the Jackpot. They came at first on horseback, singly, and later by twos and threes. A buckboard appeared on the horizon, the driver leaning forward as he urged on his team.
"Hart," decided the driller, "and comin' hell-for-leather."
Other teams followed, buggies, surreys, light wagons, farm wagons, and at last heavily laden lumber wagons. Business in Malapi was "shot to pieces," as one merchant expressed it. Everybody who could possibly get away was out to see the big gusher.
There was an immediate stampede to make locations in the territory adjacent. The wildcatter flourished. Companies were formed in ten minutes and the stock subscribed for in half an hour. From the bootblack at the hotel to the banker, everybody wanted stock in every company drilling within a reasonable distance of Jackpot Number Three. Many legitimate incorporations appeared on the books of the Secretary of State, and along with these were scores of frauds intended only to gull the small investor and separate him from his money. Saloons and gambling-houses, which did business with such childlike candor and stridency, became offices for the sale and exchange of stock. The boom at Malapi got its second wind. Workmen, investors, capitalists, and crooks poured in to take advantage of the inflation brought about by the new strike in a hitherto unknown field. For the fame of Jackpot Number Three had spread wide. The production guesses ranged all the way from ten to fifty thousand barrels a day, most of which was still going to waste on the desert.
For Burns and Hart had not yet gained control over the flow, though an army of men in overalls and slickers fought the gusher night and day. The flow never ceased for a moment. The well steadily spouted a stream of black liquid into the air from the subterranean chamber into which the underground lake poured.
The attack had two objectives. The first was to check the outrush of oil. The second was to save the wealth emerging from the mouth of the well and streaming over the lip of the reservoir to the sandy desert.
A crew of men, divided into three shifts, worked with pick, shovel, and scraper to dig a second and a third sump hole. The dirt from the excavation was dumped at the edge of the working to build a dam for the fluid. Sacks filled with wet sand reinforced this dirt.
Meanwhile the oil boiled up in the lake and flowed over its edges in streams. As soon as the second reservoir was ready the tarry stuff was siphoned into it from the original sump hole. By the time this was full a third pool was finished, and into it the overflow was diverted. But in spite of the great effort made to save the product of the gusher, the sands absorbed many thousands of dollars' worth of petroleum.
This end of the work was under the direction of Bob Hart. For ten days he did not take off his clothes. When he slept it was in cat naps, an hour snatched now and again from the fight with the rising tide of wealth that threatened to engulf its owners. He was unshaven, unbathed, his clothes slimy with tar and grease. He ate on the job—coffee, beans, bacon, cornbread, whatever the cooks' flunkies brought him—and did not know what he was eating. Gaunt and dominating, with crisp decision and yet unfailing good-humor, he bossed the gangs under him and led them into the fight, holding them at it till flesh and blood revolted with weariness. Of such stuff is the true outdoor Westerner made. He may drop in his tracks from exhaustion after the emergency has been met, but so long as the call for action lasts he will stick to the finish.
At the other end Jed Burns commanded. One after another he tried all the devices he had known to succeed in capping or checking other gushers. The flow was so continuous and powerful that none of these were effective. Some wells flow in jets. They hurl out oil, die down like a geyser, and presently have another hemorrhage. Jackpot Number Three did not pulse as a cut artery does. Its output was steady as the flow of water in a pipe. The heavy timbers with which he tried to stop up the outlet were hurled aside like straws. He could not check the flow long enough to get control.
On the evening of the tenth day Burns put in the cork. He made elaborate preparations in advance and assigned his force to the posts where they were to work. A string of eight-inch pipe sixty feet long was slid forward and derricked over the stream. Above this a large number of steel rails, borrowed from the incoming road, were lashed to the pipe to prevent it from snapping. The pipe had been fitted with valves of various sizes. After it had been fastened to the well's casing, these were gradually reduced to check the flow without causing a blowout in the pipe line.
Six hours later a metropolitan newspaper carried the headline:
BIG GUSHER HARNESSED; AFTER WILD RAMPAGE
Jackpot No. 3 at Malapi Tamed
Long Battle Ended