AN ENEMY AT WORK
Spring merged into early summer, and Jean came home. Angus met her, and
before they were clear of town he was undergoing a feminine
cross-examination as to Faith Winton.
"Is she pretty, Angus?"
"You girls are all alike," he grinned. "That's what she asked about
you."
"What did you say?"
"I said I hadn't noticed."
"You're a nice brother!"
"That's exactly what she said."
"Well, I like her for that. But is _she_ pretty?"
"Well, I don't know that a girl would call her pretty. She doesn't dress
herself up like a French wedding and frizzle her hair and all that, but
she's--she's--oh, darned if I know! She looks _clean_."
"Clean!" Miss Jean cried. "Well, I should hope so!"
"I mean clean-run, clean-strain, clean-built, like a good horse."
"My heavens, Angus, don't tell me she's built like a horse!"
"Don't be a little fool!" her brother growled. "She's better built than
you are, young lady, and prettier, too."
"Oh, indeed!" Miss Jean sniffed. "Well, beauty doesn't run in our
family. Now tell me about Turkey."
But Angus could not give her much information. Turkey was working
around, here and there, but he never came to the ranch.
"Can't we get him to come back, Angus?"
"He can come when he likes."
"Yes, I know. But won't you ask him?"
Angus did not reply at once.
"No" he said at last, deliberately, "I won't. It's not the fire; I don't
care for that. But we haven't got along well for a long time. It had to
come to a show-down."
Out of her knowledge of her brother, Jean dropped the subject
temporarily. She asked casually about Chetwood.
"Did he ever tell you why his remittances had stopped?"
"No. Of course I never asked. I got the idea that something had gone
bust--that there was no more money coming in. He wasn't actually a
remittance man, you know. He had some money of his own."
"It comes to the same thing--if he hasn't any now," said Miss Jean. "It
will be a good thing for him to do some work."
She exhibited no special enthusiasm when she met the young man. Chetwood
in overalls, with nailed boots, hard and brown, differed materially from
the young idler of the summer before, but his cheery good nature was
unchanged. Apparently the loss of his income or capital, or both, did
not worry him.
The next day Jean rode over with Angus to make Faith Winton's
acquaintance. Angus left them alone to be friends or otherwise.
Returning a couple of hours later, he found that there was no doubt
about their mutual attitude.
"Why, she's a dear!" Jean declared enthusiastically as they rode
homeward. "Why didn't you tell me what she was like?"
"I tried to."
"You said she was clean-built, like a good horse. I told her--"
"What!" Angus cried in horror.
"Not that, of course. I told her you were a clam. She said from your
description she thought I was a skinny, little girl in braids and short
dresses."
"I never said anything about braids and dresses."
"Did you say I was skinny?" Miss Jean demanded.
"Well--"
"Then you did say it. Ye great, long, lummix--"
"Hello!" said Angus. "That sounds like Mrs. Foley.
"'And so yez do be th' sister iv that great, long, lummix iv an Angus
Mackay,'" said his sister in startling imitation of that lady. "'Yez do
not favor him, bein' a good-lookin' slip iv a colleen.' What do you
think of that, Angus?"
"That you're making the last part up," her brother grinned.
"Not a word, not a syllable. I told her I thought you were a big,
fine-looking young man, and what do you think she said?"
"I'll bet she didn't agree with you."
"''Tis yer duty as a sisther to stand up f'r yer brother,' she told me,
'an' I am not mixin' it wid yez on th' question iv his shape. 'Tis true
he's that big they was a good pair iv twins spoilt in him, and he has
th' legs an' arrums an' back iv a rale man; but his face is that hard it
wud make a foine map f'r a haythen god.'"
"Huh!" Angus snorted. "She ought to look at her own."
"Heavens, Angus! I believe you're vain."
"Vain--blazes!" Angus growled. "I suppose I ought to be tickled when an
old she-mick says I look like a totem pole."
"Like a god!" his sister chuckled. "Don't get sore, old boy. Miss Winton
says she's never complimentary to the people she likes best. She thinks
you've made a hit with the lady."
"Then I wonder what she'd have said about my figurehead if I hadn't?"
Angus grinned. "I like the old girl, myself, but she sure does hand it
to me. Well, I guess I can take my medicine."
But Angus had more important things to think about. One which began to
worry him was exceptionally dry weather. High, drying winds sucked all
the moisture from the soil, and with the loss of it the surface earth
shifted and blew away from the roots of the grain. Deprived of this
support, they twisted in the winds, their arteries of life hardened and
withered. The grass crops were poor, short and wiry when they should
have been lush and long. Pallid green instead of dark dominated the hue
of the fields, the worst possible sign to the eye of the rancher. And
this was in spite of the best that could be done by way of irrigation.
Now Angus obtained the water for his ditch system from a mountain creek
fed by innumerable springs as well as by melting snows back in the
hills. But for the first time in his experience he found himself without
sufficient water. For he had been clearing land steadily, year after
year, without enlarging his main ditch. So far the seasons had favored
him. But now, in the first, old-time dry season for years, he found that
his ditch was insufficient to irrigate his enlarged acreage.
It was out of the question to deepen or broaden the ditch just then. To
do so would be a task of some magnitude, for from intake to ranch was
nearly two miles. Time had packed and cemented the gravel of its banks,
and further bound them with roots of grasses and willows. Again, to
avoid expensive fluming the ditch wound sinuously around the flanks of
several steep sidehills, and to disturb existing sidehill ditches is to
invite slides, which necessitate flumes. He made up his mind to enlarge
the ditch before another season, but meanwhile he had to depend on it.
So he took every drop of water it would carry. The creek was high, a
muddy torrent, and he set the water gate of his intake so that the ditch
should run rap full, but no spill, and thus cause washouts along its
banks.
One morning in the gray of dawn Angus awoke. The wind which had blown
all night seemed to have lulled. He heard Gus pass his door on the way
to the stables, but as he was dressing the big Swede returned. He
pounded on Angus' door.
"Hey, gat oop!" he cried. He stuck his head inside, his eyes round and
goggling. "We ent gat no watter!" he announced.
"The devil we haven't!" Angus exclaimed. "What's wrong?"
"Ay be goldarn if Ay know. She's yoost oft. Mebbe dae ditch ban plug."
"Glom a shovel for me and get an ax and pick and I'll be right with
you," Angus told him.
Dressing hastily, he struck the main ditch behind the house. It was dry,
save for little pools in which water lingered. They crossed the rear
fence, finding no obstruction, and followed the ditch until it struck
the sidehill section. Then Gus who was in the lead, stopped with an
oath.
"By Yudas Priest!" he ejaculated, "dae whole dam' sidehill ban vash to
hal!"
Pushing past him, Angus surveyed the damage. Where the ditch had run was
a raw, gaping wound in the hillside. Hundreds of tons of gravel, earth
and small bowlders had slid down on it. The far end of the ditch vomited
water upon the mass. Even as they looked a few yards of hillside
undermined by its rush came down upon the broken end, blocking the
water. This, backed up, began to pour over the banks of the ditch.
Left to itself the whole ditch would wash away. Circling the break, both
men took the trail to the intake. The water gate was wide open. The high
water of the creek was hurrying through in a swift flood, far more than
the ditch could carry. They threw their weight on the lever and shut it
off.
"Who opened it this far on that water?" Angus demanded.
"Ay ent been near him," Gus replied. "Mebbe dae Engelschman monkey med
him."
It was most unfortunate. In other years the ditch had carried a full
head without accident. This time, however, it had failed just at the
time when water was absolutely necessary to the crops. The only way to
get water now was to build a flume; and so, immediately after breakfast,
Rennie started for a load of planks, while the others began to get out
timbers to support them, and to clear away the mass of dirt. Chetwood,
it appeared, had not been near the water gate. Somebody, however, had
changed it.
They dug into the mess, and sank holes for timbers to support the flume.
Now and then a small bowlder or a little dirt came down from above,
where the hill rose sheer above the slip. Gus, looking up at it, shook
his head.
"Mebbe she come anoder slide an' take dae flume, hey! Mebbe I better put
in leetle shot up dere an' fetch him now?
"You might fetch half the hill."
"Yoost vat you say."
"Well, make it a darn small one."
So Gus put in a very small shot which brought down a small patch of dirt
and gravel, but did not budge the mass.
"I guess she ban O.K.," he admitted.
It took four days to put in the flume. When water was running once more
and the long, silver ribbons of it were trickling down the length of the
fields giving fresh life to the grain which, even in that short time was
yellowing with the drouth, Angus heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thank the Lord that's done," he observed.
"If we couldn't have put her in we'd have had a hundred years of dry
weather," Rennie grumbled. "But now, of course, she'll rain."
That night, as if to make his prediction good, thunder-heads rose above
the ranges and lightning was splitting the back of the southwest sky.
But all that came of it was a heavy wind, though some time in the night
Angus was awakened by what he thought was a heavy roll of thunder. But
as he emerged from the house in the early morning the sky was clear and
the day seemed to promise more heat than ever.
Thankful that he had water anyway, he stood for a moment cleaning his
lungs with big draughts of mountain air; but as he stood he seemed to
miss something which was or should have been a part of that
early-morning stretch and breath. Puzzled for an instant he would not
tell what was missing. And then he knew. He could not hear the gurgle of
water in the ditch which ran beside the house.
He reached it in two jumps. It was dry. For a moment he stood
contemplating it, and then started on a run for the flume. There his
worst fears were verified. There was no flume. The hanging section of
sidehill above it which Gus' shot had failed to shake, had fetched away
and swept the structure out of existence. The only evidence of it was a
few ends of planks and timbers sticking up at crazy angles. All the work
and a great deal more was to do over again.
Angus stood scowling at the wreck. His crops needed water very, very
badly, and this time, to judge from appearances, it would take a week to
make repairs. If the dry weather continued that would mean practical
ruin to his crop.
But standing there would not help matters and time was precious. As soon
as he had shut off the water he returned to the house, and after
breakfast all hands tackled the job.
It was harder than before. Much earth and loose rock had to be moved.
The morning was hot, breathless. As the sun gained power the sidehill
absorbed its rays and threw off a baking heat. Chetwood, unused to such
work, puffed and gasped, but stuck to it. Angus and Gus labored
steadily, without respite. But Rennie after a while leaned on his shovel
and stared up at the raw earth above.
"Where'd you put in that shot, Gus, when you was tryin' to shake her?"
he asked.
Gus told him, and soon after he abandoned his shovel and climbing around
the track of the slide he got above it. There he poked around for some
time. Coming down he beckoned to Angus.
"How long do you s'pose it'll take to put in this flume?" he queried.
"Maybe a week."
"Uh-huh! And then s'pose she goes out again?"
"What's the use of supposing that?" Angus demanded irritably, for his
hard luck was getting on his nerves. "What the devil are you croaking
for? I've got troubles enough."
"I'm goin' to give you more," Rennie told him. "Look a-here!" He
exhibited four or five small stones with fresh, yellow earth still
clinging to them, and a piece of broken root. "What do you think of this
lay-out?" he asked.
Angus frowned at the junk impatiently. The stones came from the layer of
like stuff which lay beneath most of the land in the district. The root
was fir, old, resinous, so that it had not rotted with the tree it had
once helped to anchor, and apparently it was freshly broken off and
twisted.
"I've been shoveling stuff like that for hours," he said. "What about
it?"
"Quite a bit. You seen me nanitchin' round up there, and I s'pose you
damned me for a lazy cuss. Well, up there's where I find them things."
"You could have found plenty of them without climbing."
"But I'm tellin' you I found these here _above_ the slide."
Angus stared at him, slowly taking in his meaning.
"Above it!" he exclaimed.
"That's what I said. Up hill from the slide. Slide stuff never runs up
hill. This stuff was _blown_ there."
"Gus put in a little shot--"
"Near a week ago. The dirt on these rocks ain't dry yet. Same with the
wood. They ain't been lyin' out in the sun no time at all. All Gus did
was to put in a little coyote hole, and she blew straight out. This
shot was above, and when she blew she ripped the whole sidehill loose.
Mebbe there was more than one shot. I'll bet I heard it, and thought it
was thunder. Anyway, all this stuff was above where the slide started.
And that's what made the first slide, too. It wasn't water. Some son of
a gun shot the ditch."
Angus turned the bits of evidence over in his hands, frowning.
"Who would do a trick like that?"
"You can come as near guessin' as I can."
Angus shook his head. Nobody, so far as he knew, would deliberately cut
off his water. And yet, according to this silent but conclusive
evidence, somebody had done so. The repairs had been wrecked as soon as
completed. They might be wrecked again. It gave him a strange,
uncomfortable feeling, akin to that of a mysterious presence in the
dark. Also it moved him to deep, silent anger.
"I would give a good deal to know," he said quietly.
"Nobody hangin' round lately that I've noticed. But somebody was keepin'
case all right, 'cause we only got water a few hours. And I'll tell you
somethin' else: When we get the flume pretty near in again I'm keepin'
case myself."