Desert Conquest, A. M. Chisholm [best reads .TXT] 📗

hung 'em up to dry. I guess I forgot 'em. It's not the right place, that's a fact." He rose, took down the offending footgear, and tossed them through the open door into the next room. They thumped on the floor, and Sheila was not placated.

"That's just as bad. Why, they were covered with dried mud, and now it's all over the floor. You're shockingly careless. Don't you know that that makes work?"

"For Feng, you mean. That's what I pay him for—only he doesn't do it."

But she shook her head, brushing the excuse aside as trifling, unsatisfactory. "It's a bad habit. I pity your wife, Casey."

"Poor thing!"

"When you get one, I mean."

"Time enough to sympathize then. Now, Sheila, if it's all the same to you, don't muss that table up. I know where to find everything the way it is."

"Muss it up! I like that!" she responded. "Why, of all the old junk! Haven't you got a tool house? And it's an inch deep in dust." She extended her fingers in proof. "That dirty rag! And a gun and cartridges there for any one to pick up! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't you know better than that? Don't you know you shouldn't leave firearms and ammunition together? It's as bad as leaving them loaded, almost."

"That's Tom's gun. Sail into him."

"You shouldn't allow it."

"Allow it! I never touch another man's gun. Nobody comes in here but Feng, and he doesn't matter. What's a Chink more or less?"

"But it's the principle. And what's this—down here? Why, Casey, it's—it's a hen!"

It was a hen. In a space between two piles of newspapers, flanked by a cigar box, squatted a white fowl, very intent upon her own affairs.

"Shoo!" said Sheila. But the bird merely cocked a bright eye at her, and uttered a little warning, throaty sound. Casey laughed.

"That's Fluffy, and she's a lady friend of mine. Poor old Fluff, poor old girl! Don't scare her, Sheila. Can't you see she's busy?"

"Casey Dunne, do you mean to tell me that you allow a hen to lay in your sitting room, on your table?"

"Of course—when she's a nice little chicken like Fluffy. Why not? She doesn't do any harm."

"I never heard of such a thing. The place for hens is in the chicken run. Casey, you're simply awful! Your wife—oh, heavens, what a life she'll have!"

"Nobody could help liking Fluff," he replied. "She's really good company. I wish I could talk her talk. She has a fine line of conversation if I could only savvy it."

Sheila sat down with a hopeless gesture. Fond of all living things as she was, she could not understand the tolerance that allowed a hen the run of the house. To her a hen was a hen, nothing more. She could name and pet a horse or a dog or any quadruped. But a hen! She could not understand.

But Feng entered with the two "ice drink"—a tray containing long glasses, tinkling ice, claret, lemons, cake, and biscuits. He set the tray upon the table. As he did so his hand came in contact with Fluffy. With a rasping cry of indignation she pecked him.

"Hyah!" cried Feng, startled, and reached for her impulsively.

Fluffy bounded from her nest, and fled shrieking for the door. Her fluttering wings brushed the contents of the tray. The long glasses and bottle capsized, rolled to the floor, and smashed, the crash of glass mingling with her clamour.

"What foh?" yelled Feng, in a fury. "Jim Kli, dam chickum spoiley icey dlink. Hiyu no good—all same son of a gun! S'pose me catch him, ling him neck!" And he darted after the hen, on vengeance bent.

But Casey caught him by the collar. "Never mind, Feng. That chicken all same my tillikum, you savvy. Hiyu good chicken; lay hiyu egg. You catch more ice drink!"

And when the angry Celestial had gone he lay back in his chair, and laughed till he was weak. Sheila laughed, too, at first half-heartedly, then more heartily, and finally, as she reconstructed Feng's expression, in sheer abandonment of merriment, until she wiped her eyes and gasped for breath.

"Oh—oh!" she protested weakly; "my side hurts. I haven't had such a laugh for ages. Oh, Casey, that chicken all same my friend now, too. It's coming to her. That Chink—how mad he was! But what a mess! And claret stains so. Your rug——"

She rose, impelled by her housewifely instincts to do what she could, and, glancing through the door, she saw a man standing by the veranda steps.

This was Tom McHale, Casey's friend and foreman. He was lean with the flat-bellied leanness that comes of years of hard riding, and a but partially subdued devil of recklessness lurked in his steady hazel eyes. He was a wizard with animals, and he derived a large part of his nourishment from Virginia leaf. He and Sheila were the best of friends.

"Howdy, Miss Sheila!" he greeted her. "I sure thought there was hostiles in the house. What you doin' to that there Chink? He's cussin' scand'lous. Casey been up to some of his devilment?"

"Come in and join us, Tom," said Casey. "Feng had a run-in with Fluff. Result, one bottle of claret and two glasses gone to glory."

"Also one Chink on the warpath," McHale added. "If I was in the insurance business I wouldn't write no policy on that there hen. She's surely due to be soup flavourin'. She ain't got no more show than if the Oriental was a coon. He's talkin' now 'bout goin' back to China."

"He always does when he gets a grouch. I wish I could get a white man."

"A white man that can cook hates to stay sober long enough to build a bannock," said McHale. "Chink grub has one flavour, but it comes reg'lar, there's that about it."

Feng entered with fresh supplies, and they drank luxuriously, tinkling the ice in the glasses, prolonging the satisfaction of thirst. McHale went about his business. Sheila picked up her hat and gloves, declaring that she must be going. Casey insisted on accompanying her. He shifted his saddle to Dolly, a pet little gray mare; not because Shiner was tired, but because there was a hard ride in store for him on the morrow.

They rode into Talapus in time for supper. Afterward Casey and McCrae discussed the coming of Farwell, and its significance.

"I pumped Corney Quilty a little," said Casey. "This Farwell is a slap-up man, and they'd never waste him on this little job without some good reason. I'm told he's bad medicine. Unpleasant devil, he seems. I wonder if they've got wise at all? If they have it will be mighty interesting for us."

"I'll chance it," said McCrae. "Anyway, we'll all be in it."

"That's a comforting thought," said Dunne. As he rode home that night he went over the ranchers one by one; and he was quite sure that each was trustworthy.

CHAPTER VII

Farwell took charge of his construction camps, and immediately began to infuse some of his own energy into his subordinates.

But as a beginning he rode over the works, blue prints in hand, thus getting to know the contour of the country, and the actual location and run of the main canal and branch ditches, constructed and projected. With this knowledge safely filed away in his head, he proceeded to verify the calculations of others; for he had once had the bitter experience of endeavouring to complete work which had been based on the erroneous calculations of another man. He had been blamed for that, because it had been necessary to find a scapegoat for the fruitless expenditure of many thousands. So, having had his lesson, he was ever after extremely careful to check all calculations, regardless of the labour involved.

These things occupied him closely for some weeks. He saw scarcely anybody but his own men, nor did he wish to see anybody else. He intended to finish the job, and get out at something better. Therefore he plugged away day and night, and, so far as he could, forced others to do the same.

But the current of his routine was changed by so small a thing as a wire nail. He was returning from an inspection of his ditches, when his horse pulled up dead lame. Farwell, dismounting, found the nail imbedded to the head in the animal's hoof; and he could not withdraw it, though he broke his knife blade in repeated attempts. He swore angrily, not because it meant temporary inconvenience to himself, but because he sympathized with his horse; and, looping the reins over his arm, began to walk, the animal limping after him.

Half an hour of this slow progress brought him in sight of Talapus Ranch. It had been pointed out to him before; but it was with considerable reluctance that he decided, for his mount's sake, to turn into the trail to the house.

Sheila was on the veranda, and Farwell raised his hat.

"Miss McCrae, I think. You may remember me—Farwell. I'm sorry to trouble you, but my horse has picked up a nail. If I could borrow a pair of pliers or shoeing pincers——"

"Of course. Father is at the stable. I'll show you."

Donald McCrae, just in from a day of irrigating, shook hands, and took the horse's hoof between his knees with the certainty of a farrier.

"Right bang to the head," he observed, as he tried for a grip. "I'll have it in a minute. Hold him, now! Steady, boy! There you are!"

With a twist and an outward wrench he held up the nail between the tips of the pincers. He released the hoof, but the horse held it clear of the ground.

"Sore," said McCrae. "A nasty brute of a piece of wire, too. That's a mighty lame cayuse. You won't ride him for a week—maybe two."

"He'll have to take me to camp, or I'll have to take him."

"And that might lame him for two months. Leave him here. I'll poultice the foot if it needs it. You stay and have supper. Afterward we'll drive you over."

Farwell demurred, surprised. He considered all the ranchers to be leagued against the railway, and in that he was not far wrong. In his mind it followed as a corollary that they were also hostile to him, as he was hostile to them.

"Thanks! It's very good of you, but, under the circumstances—you understand what I mean."

"You needn't feel that way," McCrae returned. "When this country was just country, and no more, a white man was always welcome to my fire, my blankets, and my grub, when I had it. It's no different now, at Talapus. You're welcome to what we have—while we have it. There's no quarrel between us that I know of."

"No, of course not," said Farwell, not quite at his ease. If McCrae chose to put it on that footing he could not reasonably object. "Well, thanks very much. I'll be glad to accept your offer."

An excellent meal put him in better humour. By nature he was a hard man, who took life seriously, engrossed in his profession. He led a nomadic existence, moved continually from one piece of work to another, his temporary habitations ranging from modern hotels to dog tents and shacks. In all the world there was no spot that he could call home; and there was no one who cared a button whether he came or went. His glimpses of other men's homes were rare and fleeting, and he was apt to thank Heaven that he was not thus tied down.

But the atmosphere of the ranch appealed to him. Its people were not silly folk, babbling of trivial things which he neither understood nor cared to understand. Mrs. McCrae, as he mentally appraised her, was a sensible woman. In her husband—big, quiet, self-contained—he recognized a man as hard as himself. Young McCrae, silent, too grim of mouth for his years, was the makings of another hard man. But it was at Sheila that he looked the most, and at her if not