Ironheart

Jones sent a messenger to his chief with word of Don Black’s threat, and Merrick at once rode to Elk Creek to consult with the man he had put in charge.

“Do they mean to attack you? Is that what you gathered from what he said?” asked the chief engineer of his assistant.

“Don’t know. Prowers smoothed over what Black said. I judge he didn’t want to go on record as having made any threats. But the last thing the big fellow yelled at me was that we had till to-night to get out.”

“Good of him to give you warning. What do you suggest, Jones?”

“Give me half a dozen rifles and I’ll hold the fort,” the younger man replied, eyes gleaming. “Double the gang and let me rush the work.”

Merrick shook his head. “No, this isn’t a little private war we’re having. Think I’ll just let you sit tight and see what happens. Prowers isn’t likely to go far to start with.”

“Suits me, but don’t blame me if they drive us out. I’m rather looking for a bunch of armed cowboys to descend upon us.”

“In which case you’ll enter a formal protest and retire in good order without resistance. The law’s with us. I filed our maps and plans with the Land Office before Black homesteaded. He obviously took up this quarter section only to hamper us.”

“Will it delay you much?”

Justin Merrick smiled, a rather peculiar smile that suggested a knowledge of facts not on the surface. “I don’t think so, but there’s no reason why Prowers shouldn’t.”

“Rather tame surrender, wouldn’t it be? If you’re within your rights, why not stand our ground and fight them off?”

“For the moral effect, you mean?”

“Yes. Isn’t it a sign of weakness for us to hoist the white flag after the first brush?”

“That’s a point of view. We’re playing for position. Let Prowers break the law and get in wrong. If we’re armed and looking for trouble, we don’t come into court with clean hands ourselves. I’d rather let him show his plan of campaign. Even though we should be driven out, we can come back whenever we want to. He can’t keep his men here and hold the gulch.”

“No. At least he won’t.”

The man who had fought in Flanders was not satisfied. The irrigation company was in the right. Prowers and the group of men with him were obstructionists, trying to hold back the progress of the country for their own selfish ends. They were outside the law, though they were using it as a cover. The policy to be expected of Merrick would have been bolder, less opportunistic. Why had the chief marched his men up the hill, like the King of France in the rhyme, only to march them down again? This did not seem to go well with his salient, fighting jaw.

Since it was his business to obey orders and not to ask for reasons, Tug said no more. He understood that Merrick was holding back something from him, and he had no desire whatever to force a confidence.

Merrick rode back to the dam and left his subordinate in charge of the camp. Throughout the day work went on uninterrupted. At dusk the surveyors and ditch-diggers returned to the draw where the tents had been set. At this point of the gorge the wall fell back and a slope led to the rim above.

At the summit of this rise the engineer posted a sentry with orders to fire a revolver in case of an attack. Two other guards were set, one at each mouth of the cañon. At the expiration of four hours, these were relieved by relays. At midnight, and again in the chill pre-dawn hours, Jones himself made a round of the posts to see that all was well.

He had scarcely lain down after the second tour when the crack of a revolver sounded. Tug leaped to his feet and was drawing on a boot before the echoes had died away.

As he ducked out from the tent flap, revolver in hand, a glance showed him scantily clad men spilling from their sleeping quarters.

“What is it? Where are they?” some one yelled.

A light breeze was stirring. On it was borne a faint rumble as of thunder. It persisted—seemed to be rolling nearer. The sound deepened to a steady roar. Tug’s startled glance swept the cañon sword cleft. Could there have been a cloudburst in the hills? The creek bed was still dry. His eyes swung round to the saddle ridge of the draw above him.

A living tidal wave was pouring across the rim and down the draw. Hundreds of backs tossed up and down like the swell of a troubled sea. Though he had never seen one before, the engineer knew that the camp was in the path of a cattle stampede.

He shouted a warning and raced for the higher ground at the edge of the draw. The men scattered to escape from the path of that charging avalanche. They were in a panic of fear. If any were caught beneath the impact of those scores of galloping hoofs, they would be crushed to death instantly. Startled oaths and staccato shouts rang out. An anguished yell of terror lifted itself shrilly. A running man had stumbled and gone down.

The thud of the hoofs died away. The stampede had swept down into the dry bed of the stream and swung to the right. It left behind it a devastated camp. Tents had been torn down and ripped to pieces. Cots were smashed to kindling. From the overturned chuck wagon scattered food lay trampled into the ground by sharp feet. The surveying instruments were broken beyond repair.

A huddled mass lay motionless in the track of the avalanche. Tug knelt beside it and looked into the battered outline of what a few moments earlier had been a man’s face quick with life. No second glance was necessary to see that the spirit had passed out of the crushed body. The engineer recognized him by the clothes. His name was Coyle. He had been a harmless old fellow of many quips and jests, one full of the milk of human kindness. He, too, had fought against his weakness, a fondness for liquor that had all his life kept him down. Now, in a moment, his smiles and his battles were both ended.

Jones straightened the twisted body and the sprawling limbs before he covered the face with a handkerchief. He rose and looked grimly round at the group of appalled men whose blanched faces made a gray semi-circle in the faint light of coming dawn. They were a rough-and-ready lot. Most of them had seen the lives of fellow workmen snuffed out suddenly. But this had come like a bolt from heaven. Each of them knew that it might have been he lying there; that if the boss had not set a watch, the stampede would have destroyed many of them. The shock of it still chilled the heart.

“They’ve murdered poor Coyle,” the engineer said, and his voice was a solemn accusation.

“How’s that?” asked one, startled.

“These cattle didn’t gather up there by themselves. They were rounded up and stampeded over the crest.”

“Jake Prowers!” exclaimed a mule-skinner.

“We’ll name no names yet, boys, not till we’ve put it up to Mr. Merrick.” The camp boss glanced up the hill. The sound of some one running had reached his ears. “Here comes Jensen. We’ll hear what he has to say.”

Jensen confirmed the charge of the engineer. He had heard voices, shots, the crack of whips, and then the thundering rush of cattle. He had fired once and fled for the safety of the rocks. The stampede had stormed past and down the slope. But he had seen and heard no more of the men who had been exciting the wild hill cattle to a panic of terror. They had disappeared in the darkness.

The engineer made arrangements for carrying the body of Coyle to the dam and sent a messenger to notify Merrick of what had taken place. This done, he climbed to the saddle of the draw with the intention of investigating the lay of the land where the stampede had started. He knew that, if he were only expert enough to read it, the testimony written there would convict those who had done this crime.

At work of this sort he was a child. He was from the East, and he knew nothing of reading sign. Stamped in mud, with outlines clear-cut and sharp, he would have known, of course, a pony’s tracks from those of a steer. But unfortunately the marks imprinted on the short brittle grass were faint and fragmentary. They told no story to Jones.

He quartered over the ground carefully, giving his whole mind to the open page which Nature had spread before him and covered with her handwriting. Concentration was not enough. It was written in a language of which he had not learned the vocabulary. Reluctantly he gave up the attempt. Sheriff Daniels was a Westerner, an old cattleman, skilled at cutting sign. This was a problem for him to solve if he could.

It was afternoon when the sheriff arrived. He had made one discovery before reaching the camp. A cow had broken a leg in the stampede and lay helpless in the bed of Elk Creek. The brand on it was the Diamond Bar K.

“Fine business,” he commented dryly. “Clint’s enemies try to bust up the irrigation proposition he’s interested in by stampedin’ his own cattle down the draw here. Maybe we can find out the hombres that rounded up a bunch of his stock yesterday. That’d help some.”

If the sheriff discovered anything from his examination of the lane over which the stampede had swept, he did not confide in either Jones or Merrick. Like many men who have lived much in the open, he had a capacity for reticence. He made his observations unhurriedly and rode away without returning to the camp.

Merrick gave his assistant orders to break camp and return to the dam. A force was still to continue at work in the cañon, but the men would be taken up and brought back each day.