With eager fingers Conniston struck a match. Almost the first thing
which his searching eyes found was the heavy Winchester, three inches
of its barrel protruding from a roll of bedding. He flung the bedding
open upon the ground. There was half a box of cartridges with it. He
made sure that the magazine was filled, threw a shell into the barrel,
thrust the box into his pocket, and ran outside.
No one had seen him. There were no eyes for him. A very few stragglers
moved unsteadily here and there; the great majority of the men were
packed in a mass about the barrel. Tin cups, dippers, even buckets and
pans ran from hand to hand, from those nearest the wagon to the
clamorous fellows upon the outskirts of the crowd, spilling the liquor
freely as they were jolted and jostled.
This his eyes took in at a quick glance. Then he saw that fifty yards
from the group of men there was another wagon which had been drawn
aside with its four empty barrels. Walking slowly now, the rifle held
vertically close to the side which was turned away from them, he moved
toward this second wagon. He reached it, attracting no attention.
Springing into its low bed, he dragged the four barrels close
together. The broadside of the wagon was turned toward the clamorous
crowd. Keeping his body hidden behind the bulwark he had made, he
watched and waited for more light.
Slowly the pale glow in the east lengthened and broadened and
brightened. Once Conniston lifted his rifle quickly to see if he could
find the sights. It was still too dark for quick, accurate work.
So again he waited. A strange, cool calmness had succeeded to his
almost frenzied agitation of a moment ago. He knew the danger of the
thing which he was about to do; he knew and realized clearly what he
might be called upon to do in self-protection alone when once he had
taken his stand. But there was no other way; and, no matter what the
consequences, no matter what the results, he accepted the only chance
which circumstances had left him. And moments of unswerving
determination do not make for nervous excitement. It is the anxious
uncertainty, like that through which he had just passed, that makes a
man's finger tremble upon the trigger.
Louder and ever louder rose the throaty voices, faster and faster
passed the cups and dippers. Ben and Mundy had their arms about each
other. In the wagon the Lark had slipped down, and now lay upon his
back, staring at the dim, swirling stars and babbling incoherent
nothings.
Men sang in strident, raucous, unmusical voices. A swarthy little
Italian was playing waltzes upon a harmonica, and heavy-booted feet
shuffled and stamped upon the sand as men flung their brawny arms
about one another and swayed back and forth. Conniston saw that when a
man thrust his arm down into the barrel for a fresh cupful of whisky
it did not disappear three inches above the elbow.
Swiftly the desert daylight came. Conniston stooped and tied his
boot-laces, that they might not trip him when he moved. He stood up
and whipped his revolver from its holster, spinning the cylinder, and
then shoving it back. And then, laying the rifle across the top of one
of the barrels, he cleared his throat and called out loudly.
One of the men nearest him heard him above the shouting and pointed
him out to another. The two laughed loudly and turned away from him,
forgetting him as they turned. Again he called, louder than before. No
one heard him, no one looked to him. He waved his hat above his head.
If any one saw, no one gave sign of seeing. He licked his lips and
lifted the rifle.
"God see me through with it!" he muttered.
He fired high above their heads. The sudden report crashed through the
babel of shoutings, a veritable babel into which half of the tongues
of Europe mingled with Chinese and Japanese sing-song. As the crack of
the gun died away all other sounds died with it. The desert grew as
suddenly still as it ever is in the depths of its man-free solitudes.
Staring, wondering faces which had first turned to one another turned
now toward him.
Again there broke out a volley of abrupt cries, followed by as sudden
a silence, as they watched him to see what he meant, what he would do.
And Conniston took quick advantage of this short hush.
"Leave that wagon, every man of you!" he shouted. "Move toward the
ditch. And move fast!"
No man of them stirred. Their numbers, their intoxication, gave them
assurance. He was no longer the "boss." They were all just men now,
and he was only one while they were two hundred. They began to laugh.
The Italian with the harmonica struck up a fresh, jigging air. The
heavy-booted feet took up the rhythm. A man climbed into the wagon
and scooped up a dipperful of whisky, holding it aloft before he
drank.
The light was still uncertain, but the dipper was a bright, clear
target. Conniston waited a moment, his teeth hard set, hardly
breathing. Then, as the man lowered the dipper from his face and held
it out invitingly over the heads of the men on the ground, he fired.
The bullet crashed through the tin thing, hurling it into the crowd.
The man who had held it cried out aloud, and, clutching the fingers of
his right hand in his left, leaped down from the wagon. The Lark
rolled over and to the ground, dived between the wheels, and
disappeared. And again came a sudden silence.
Now Conniston did not wait. He fired at the barrel itself, hoping to
smash in the staves, to drill holes near the bottom through which the
confined liquor could escape. And now the men ceased singing and
dancing and leaped back, crowding away from the barrel, plunging and
stumbling out of the line of bullets. For a moment Conniston thought
that in that wild, headlong scramble for safety he saw the end of the
thing. And almost before the thought was formed he knew better.
The men were talking sullenly. He could hear their angry, snarling
voices, no longer shouting, but low-pitched. He began to make out
their faces and saw nowhere an expression of fear, everywhere black
wrath, restless fury. They no longer moved backward, but stood their
ground, muttering. In a moment--he knew what would happen. He could
read it in their faces, could sense it in their low, rumbling tones.
And so he shouted to them again, his voice ringing clear above their
mutterings.
"I drop the first man that takes a step this way!"
Tense, anxious, watchful, he waited. He saw hesitation, but saw, too,
that the hesitation was momentary, that it would be followed by a
blind rush if he could not drive fear into their hearts. And he
realized with a sick sinking of his own heart that there was little
fear in men like these.
"It looks like an end of things for Greek Conniston," he muttered,
dully.
His watchful eyes saw a little commotion upon the fringe of the knot
of men who had moved a little toward the tent. He saw one of the men
step out quickly and raise a big revolver. The man, as he lifted the
revolver, fired, not seeming to aim. The bullet struck one of the
front wheels of Conniston's wagon. Almost at the same second Conniston
fired. Fired and missed, and fired again. With the second report came
a shrill cry from the man with the revolver, and Conniston saw him
stagger, drop his gun, wheel half around, and fall. And where he fell
he lay, writhing and calling out to his fellows.
For a moment the others hung back, hesitating. The man upon the ground
lifted himself upon an elbow, glared at Conniston, and began to crawl
slowly back toward the tent. Obviously, he had been struck in the
thigh or side. The man who had shot him, and who was new to this sort
of work, thanked God that he had not killed the fellow outright.
The next moment he forgot him entirely. Ben and Mundy were a pace or
two in front of their men, who from force of habit had begun to flock
toward their daily leaders. They were talking earnestly, their voices
lowered so that the pressing forms about them had to crane their necks
to listen.
Still the whisky-barrel stood scarcely more than touched. Conniston,
seeing that as long as it stood there he could hope to do nothing
toward a restoration of order, emptied the magazine of his rifle into
it. He saw the splinters fly, saw that the bullets had torn great
holes into the hard wood, heard the snapping of oaths from those of
the men who had drunk only enough to arouse their thirst, and began
slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine.
"There'll be precious little of that stuff left, anyway," he grunted,
with grim satisfaction.
He had expected a charge, but it did not come. Ben and Mundy had in
all evidence taken command now. Their backs were to him as they issued
short orders which he could not catch. But their purport was plain
enough. He took his revolver from its holster and laid it in front of
him upon a board across the top of one of the barrels.
Silently the men were falling back. And as they retreated they spread
out into a great semicircle, wider and wider. He saw that fifty,
perhaps seventy-five, of them had revolvers in their hands. And he saw
that these men stood in advance of their companions. In another five
minutes, in less than five minutes, the semicircle would be a circle
of which he would be the center. Then they would close in on him, and
then--
There must be no _then_. That was the one thing clear. He might shoot
down a dozen of them, but they would get him in the end. At one end of
the slowly widening arc was Ben the Englishman. At the other was
Mundy.
"Ben!" shouted Conniston, sharply. "You've got to stop that! Mundy,
stop where you are! I don't want to kill you fellows, but I'll do it
if you keep on!"
In the beginning he had hoped to bluff them. Now such hope had died
out of him. These were the sort of men who would want to see the other
man's cards laid down on the table. And he knew that he must make good
his bluff or there would in sober truth be an end of him. His voice
rang with cold determination. And Ben and Mundy stopped.
Conniston watched that line of black faces, and as his eyes clung to
the threatening arc he thought with a queer twitching of the lips of
the football line-ups which he had watched in other days. He was
surprised that his feelings now were much as they had been then. It
was a game, and that in the other games a goal had been the thing he
schemed and battled for while now it was his life made little
difference. He was surprised that he was cool, that his heart beat
steadily, that his hands upon his gun were like rock.
There was something strange in the way the men were watching him,
something in their sudden silence, in their eager faces, which puzzled
him. Their whole attitude spoke of one thing--a breathless waiting.
What were they waiting for? Had his words put the fear of death in
them? Were they watching to see if he was going to shoot down the men
who led them? Was there a chance--
His taut senses told him of a danger which he could not understand.
Something was wrong; death hovered over him--close, closer. What was
it? His eyes flashed up and down the long curve of motionless figures,
seeking an explanation and finding none. A little shiver ran up and
down his backbone. He could not understand--
A sound, scarcely louder than the footfall of a cat, but jarring
harshly upon his straining, over-acute ears, told him. He swung about
with a sharp cry. There was the explanation. There, just behind him,
barefooted, bent almost double, crouching to leap upon him, a great
Chinaman, a long, curved knife clenched in his hand, was not three
feet away. Even as he swung about the giant Asiatic sprang forward,
the knife flashing up and down. Conniston struck with his rifle--the
range was too short for him to use the thirty-thirty save as a club.
It struck the big man a glancing blow upon the shoulder.
The lean, snarling, yellow face was so close to his that he could feel
the hot, whisky-laden breath. He parried, and the rifle was jerked
from his grasp, falling with a clatter to the bed of the wagon. The
knife struck and bit into the shoulder he had thrown forward. Again it
was raised. Conniston sprang back, and as he leaped he swept up the
revolver from the barrel-top. As the knife fell, cutting a long gash
again in his shoulder, he jammed the muzzle of Lonesome Pete's gun
against the Chinaman's stomach and fired. The Chinaman grunted,
coughed, and sank limply, vomiting blood.
For a moment Conniston forgot the men out yonder, growing suddenly
sick at the sight of the ugly, twitching thing at his feet. And then
as quickly as it had come, the nausea was gone, and he was
clear-headed and watchful. He snatched up his rifle and whirled toward
Ben and Mundy and the men between them.
They had not moved, had taken no single step forward. He remembered
having seen a man near Mundy standing with open mouth and bulging
eyes; the fellow's jaw still sagged, his eyes were fixed in the same
strange stare, his eyelids had not so much as winked.
"That's one!" yelled Conniston. He laughed out loud, the laugh of a
man whose nerves are strained almost to the point of snapping.
"Come on, come on! Who'll be next?"
They muttered among themselves; here and there a man called out
sharply. But still they did not move. A thing like that which they had
just witnessed drives the fumes of alcohol from a man's brain like a
dip in ice-water. They could beat him down, they could take him, they
could kill him as he had killed the Chinaman. But he could kill more
than one of them before they could drop him. These things were clear.
And the men hesitated.
"Afraid?" he laughed, taunting, jeering them, all discretion swept
away from him. "Why don't you send some more men? There might be a
little whisky left--if you hurry!"
He saw Ben and Mundy stir uneasily, saw them glance at each other, at
the barrel with its shattered staves and gushing liquor, at the men
whom they were self-elected to lead, and back to him. He saw the Lark
and the man Peters standing close together, talking earnestly, seeming
to argue with growing heat. And as the wave of hot blood left him and
he grew cool and his saner judgment came back to him he called out to
them sternly, but not threateningly, not mockingly:
"Ben! Mundy! you, Peters! and you, Lark! what's the use? Hasn't this
thing gone far enough? You can kill me, but what good will it do? Your
whisky is spilled, and you can't get it back. You know the wages I
offered you fellows yesterday. You can go back to them, and nothing
said. I have five hundred more men coming from Denver. They can take
your jobs if you like. You can go to Swinnerton, but when he knows
that I have fired you he won't take you on. You know that he is just
taking men to keep us from getting them. You'd be fools to give up
your jobs now. What's the word, boys? Will you go back to work, Ben?
And you, Peters? And you, Mundy and the Lark? Shall I tell the cook to
get coffee ready? Talk up lively. What is it?"
A rumbling chorus of murmurs rose up to greet him. The men were
sullen, and they snarled openly at him. But he could see that already
the thing had gone further than the more law-abiding spirits had
thought to see it go. A sudden soberness had fallen upon many of them,
and with it a cooler sanity. They broke into quick talk everywhere up
and down the line. He could see that no longer at least were they
united against him. He could see that the argument between Peters and
the Lark was strong, heated. And he hoped and prayed that good might
come of it and of the brief hesitation.
Suddenly the Lark broke away from his comrades and ran forward.
Conniston, ever watchful, ever suspicious, covered him with his rifle.
But the Lark was grinning, and as he came closer he lifted his two
hands.
"I'm with you!" he shouted. "I got a bellyful of this here racket.
An'," with a glance over his shoulder, "I got a bellyful of that
rotgut, too. Besides, it's all gone. How about coffee, boys?"
"And you, Mundy? How about you?" Conniston called, quickly. "Do you
want to keep your job at the wages I offered you yesterday? Or shall I
put another man in your place? Quick, man! Speak up!"
Mundy hesitated, glancing at Ben before he answered. And then slowly
he stepped out to where the Lark already stood.
"I'll keep my job," he grunted, sullenly.
"Please, sir," grinned the Lark, shaking his hand high above his head
like a ragged urchin in school, "kin I go git a drink? Water, I mean,"
he finished with widening grin.
"Yes," answered Conniston, trying to keep from his eyes the gladness
which was surging up within him. "Come this way first. There--stop.
Now throw your gun toward me. You've got some sense. Now go get your
water."
Ben came forward; and slowly, reluctantly, with evil, red-rimmed eyes,
Peters. And, as the Lark had done, they tossed their revolvers to the
sand near Conniston's wagon and trudged off toward the nearest
water-wagon. A dozen men followed them. Gradually the line broke up as
the call of water grew imperative to parched throats.
From the corner of his eye Conniston saw these men go to the first
wagon, tilt up the barrels, and go to the next. And suddenly he heard
a great shout go up from them--a shout no longer of anger, but of
sheer surprise.
In the bottom of every barrel there was an auger-hole. There was not a
single drop of water in camp!
In a flash of inspiration Conniston saw the thing which he must say.
"Who wants to go to work for Swinnerton now?" he cried. "You know
whose work this is; you know who is trying to block every move we
make. You know as well as I do that it was Swinnerton, or one of the
men working for Swinnerton, the same man who got Bat Truxton drunk,
who has given you your whisky--and taken away your chasers! And you
know as well as I do how many miles it is to water."
The rest of the men had flung down their guns and rushed to the empty
barrels. Already the burning thirst engendered by the raw, vile whisky
was making them lick their dry lips, making their throats work
painfully. They pulled over barrel after barrel, seeking to find that
somewhere there was a cupful of water. And they found none.
"It's Swinnerton's gang you have to thank for this, boys," Conniston
shouted again, seeing and taking his opportunity. "Swinnerton, who
wants to break us like a rotten stick. He will be a millionaire many
times over if he breaks us. And if we put our work across, if we make
a go of it, Swinnerton will be the rotten stick!"
He stopped suddenly and watched them. And as often as he heard them
curse him he heard them curse Swinnerton.
"Ben," he cried, when he had waited for them to understand what he had
said, "get the harness on some horses and take one of the wagons to
Valley City. Take a couple of men with you. Go to the general office
and ask for Tommy Garton. Tell him we've got to have water. You, Lark,
take the rest of the wagons as fast as you can send your horses to the
Half Moon for more water. Take what men you need. Cook, see if you
have enough water in your tent to do any good. And then get us
something to eat. Ben will be back from Valley City before you know
it. The rest of you fellows better lie around and chew tobacco until
water comes. We'll get an early start to-morrow to make up for lost
time. Peters, you and Mundy see that somebody looks out for the men
that are hurt. Take them to the tent. They get first water if the
cook has any. If not, Ben, you take them with you to Valley City."
His orders came with staccato precision. There was no tremor of doubt
in his tones. And there was no slightest hesitation in obeying the
orders from the man who was again "boss." Ben shouted out his own
commands to two men who stood close to him, and they ran for the
horses. The Lark was at the same time snapping out his orders, and the
men he called by name hurried for horses, and many hands made quick
work of the hitching-up. Other fingers whittled plugs, wrapped them
about with bits of sack, and drove them tight into the holes in the
barrels. The cook sped to his tent, found a bucket half full of water,
and was drinking thirstily when Mundy jerked it from his hands.
"None of that, you sneakin' skunk!" he shouted. "Them guys as got hurt
gets the first show."
The fellow Conniston had shot in the thigh, and the man whom he had
seen a companion strike with a knife, cutting him deeply in the neck,
were carried into the tent, water thrust up to their parched lips,
their wounds bound swiftly and gently. The Chinaman Mundy rolled over
with his foot.
"Deader 'n hell," he grunted. "Might as well leave him where he is
until plantin'-time."
Once more order had grown quietly out of chaos. The men stood here and
there talking, chewing tobacco, cursing the thirst which as the
minutes dragged by grew ever more tormenting. Already the sun had
rolled upward above the flat horizon. Already the desert heat had
leaped out at them. A dozen men climbed upon Ben's wagon, thinking to
go to Valley City with him to get water there. But he drove them back,
threatening them with his big fists and cockney oaths, and they
dropped down and watched him as the wagon, rocking and swaying and
lurching, was drawn away from them by galloping horses.
At a sharp word from Conniston two of the men brought the broken
barrel which had contained whisky to where the discarded revolvers lay
glinting in the early light and tossed them into it. And then Brayley
came.
"What's up, Con?" he asked, swinging down from his panting horse, his
keen eyes taking in the fading excitement, the general idleness. And
then, as he stooped forward and looked into the barrel: "Good heavens!
What _is_ the matter?"
In a few words Conniston told him. For a moment Brayley said nothing,
shaking his head and eying him curiously.
"You sure got your nerve, Con," he said, simply, after a minute.
Conniston laughed shakily. Again a sinking nausea made him faint and
dizzy. He could remember now the way the nose of his revolver had sunk
into the Chinaman's stomach, could see again all of the horror of the
thing which he had done.
"I'm sick, Brayley," he said, unsteadily. "The thing will drive me
mad. I--I had to kill a man--and I can't forget how he looked!"
"How you managed to stop 'em jest killing _one_ gets me. Where is he?"
Conniston nodded to the wagon and turned away shuddering. The Half
Moon foreman strode over to the wagon and looked closely at the limp
body. And then he came to Conniston with long strides.
"Hell," he grunted, disgustedly. "I thought you said you'd killed a
man! That's only a Chink!"