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.