XVIII

Higgins and the first ox wagon of his train arrived soon afterward, and

in the morning he led the six negro laborers he had brought in an

attack with heavy machetes upon the elderberry jungle. The big knives,

wielded by the powerful blacks, cut through the-soft wood at a single

stroke. The brush was then piled and burned, and the land was ready

for the tractor and breaking plow which were coming in pieces from

Citrus Grove via ox team.

Payne watched the work for a while, then turned his attention to the

fencing job out on the prairie. There was a mile of north-and-south

fence to be built, and he set at once to work digging post holes well

on the inside of his line.

He had worked two hours when he saw a horseman loping easily toward him

from the west. The horseman was apparently a cow-puncher. He was

tall, dark and hard-featured. He pulled up abruptly on the fence line

and sat looking down, insolently refusing to acknowledge Payne's

greeting. At last he said: "What you think you doing?"

"Well," replied Roger, "I'm sort of under the impression that I'm

building a line fence."

"You can't fence here."

Roger paused in the act of driving his digger into the ground and

looked carefully at his visitor, who, sitting his big buckskin with

easy assurance, looked steadily back. For several seconds they

appraised one another. Roger grew warm with the anger natural to a man

who has been faced on his own land; the stranger was insolent with the

bearing of a man who feels himself master in his own country and is

face to face with a stranger. Still keeping his eyes on the man Roger

drove the digger into the soil, twisted it round and pulled up a core

of dirt. He continued doing this until the hole was dug, then pacing

deliberately forward he came on a straight line to the stranger's

horse. He touched the animal sharply with the digger.

"Up a step, boy."

"Who! Whoa ---- you!" The rider checked his mount's startled leap by

jerking back on the reins with a viciousness that threw the animal's

open mouth straight up in the air.

"What you mean ---- you?"

"Easy, easy," cautioned Roger. "Don't go to cursing. That's mighty

poor business."

"Business! What do you mean by prodding my nag that way?"

"He was standing right where the next hole is going," replied Roger,

driving the digger into the ground. "Sorry, but you were in my way.

Now I'm a busy man, Mister Whoever-you-are, and I haven't any time to

waste arguing or quarreling with you. I don't know who you are or why

you've intruded on me like this, but I do know that you're on my land

and that you've been extremely insulting; and if you've no other

business with me than to tell me what I can't do, I bid you good-day."

The rider apparently paid not the slightest attention to Roger's words.

He sat crouched in the saddle in the attitude of a man controlling

himself until the propitious moment for a sudden leap.

"In your way?" he said.

"Yes--as you see."

"And you think you come here to move folks when they're in your way?"

"Usually a man has sense enough to move when he's in the way of another

man's land."

"You come down here to teach us sense too?"

Roger made no reply, but continued with his digging.

"I said you can't fence here." The man's voice was thick with anger,

and Roger, sensing what was coming, though he continued with his work,

his back turned to the rider, leaned forward upon the balls of his

feet, alert and ready for any emergency.

"You can't fence here!" snarled the rider. "That's what I come over to

see about. I heard talk about your planning to run a fence, but I

didn't think you'd be foolish enough to try it, so I came over to see.

And I'm warning you to stop. This is cattle country and free range.

You quit right where you are with your fence and you'll save yourself

money and us the trouble of cutting it down."

"It's against the law to cut fences," suggested Payne.

"Law! We're the law here; you're an outsider; and I'm laying down the

law to you now. You cut out that fence business and don't try to

change things round here and we may go easy on you. If you don't folks

will wonder what's become of you. Understand English? Now I've given

you my message. And now--you're in my way and it's time for you to

move!"

Like a flash the big buckskin leaped forward at the cruel dig of the

spurs, and like a flash Roger turned toward the thudding hoofs,

swinging the post-hole digger in a swift arc. The shovels caught the

horse a terrible blow full on the nose and with a scream it reared high

in the air, its forehoofs waving almost above Roger's head.

"Down on him, Duke, down on him!" bellowed the rider, striving to swing

the brute forward, but as Roger leaped to drag him from the saddle he

swerved his mount and galloped out of reach. Curses streamed from his

lips as he checked the steed and swung him round, curses for the horse

and for the man on foot. His quirt rose and fell, lashing the horse

into a frenzy as he galloped in a circle round Roger.

"You're in my way, you hear?" he cried. "It's your turn to move."

Each turn brought his course nearer his intended victim; and each

moment wrought horse and rider up to a greater fury.

"Move, you sucker, move!"

Roger stood his ground, turning to follow the whirling horse, waiting

for the moment when the rider would swing the beast straight at him.

"Jump, sucker, jump! or I'll ride you into the ground."

Roger jumped as the horse came thundering at him, easily carrying

himself out of danger from the animal's hoofs as well as from the heavy

quirt which the rider swung at him.

"Pretty nimble, eh? You sucker, you're going under the hoofs if it

takes all day!"

Roger looked round. They were alone on the bare prairie, out of sight

and hearing of any possible assistance. Higgins would grow curious at

lunch time if Roger failed to appear and possibly come out to search

for him, but previous to that there was no hope that any one would know

the grim game that was being played out there in the desolate waste.

Three hundred yards away lay an island of palmetto shrubs with a few

pines sprinkled among them. If he could reach that without being

ridden down he could equalize somewhat the advantage which a mounted

man holds over a man afoot in the open country, but he calculated the

danger of turning his back to the maddened horse and rider and gave it

up. A sense of outrage, deeper than his anger, began to grow in him as

he considered the spectacle of being forced to hop about like a

harlequin, at the mercy of a stranger, and on his own land. The

instinct of the landowner with his two feet planted upon his own soil

welled up in him, and he whisked up the long-handed digger and took a

stand to defend himself.

His attitude was that of a man defying the other to ride him down, and

the rider, accepting the challenge with a yell, drove at him like a

Fury. Roger saw the outstretched nostrils, the bared teeth and

pounding hoofs hurtling at him and realized the folly of his impulse.

As the steed came upon him he leaped suddenly to one side and struck

furiously at the figure in the saddle. He missed his aim, but the

horse, with his nose still throbbing from the blow from the steel,

swerved widely, and Roger's quick eyes saw that which gave him hope.

"Come on, you cur!" he shouted. "Try it again."

A volley of sneers, defiance, threats, rolled from his lips as he

backed slowly over to where he had been at work. All the facility of

his invention and all his vocabulary were called upon to drive the

rider frantic with rage and to forbid his powers of observation the

opportunity to function. The rider saw no danger, failed to notice the

little mound of dirt near which Roger was standing, considered nothing

but the act of driving full speed at the man who taunted him. Twice he

rode at his agile enemy, twice Roger struck at the horse to make him

swerve; and at the third charge the animal's foreleg went into the

posthole round which Roger had maneuvered, and the rider shot like a

sprawling puppet from the saddle onto the ground. He was up in an

instant, bewildered but unharmed, and as his eyes ranged from the

struggling horse to Roger, the latter said grimly: "Now we'll talk

business."

A curse hissed from the other's stiff, open lips, and insane with rage,

head down, he threw himself forward. Roger met the rush with a

straight left, which cut through an eyebrow like a knife, and went home

with a crack on a high cheek bone; but no blow could stop the rush of

rage and in another moment the man was on him, grappling for a hold.

The fight for the nonce became a scuffle. The stranger fought as Roger

had never seen a white man fight before; his hard brown fingers were

fixed rigidly like iron claws with which he struck and clutched

spasmodically for a grip on the flesh of face or neck.

"I'll claw the face off you, you sucker! I'll leave you blind for the

vultures to pick."

"Fight like a white man!" cried Roger, throwing him off. "Close your

fists and hit, or, by the eternal, I'll beat you to a pulp."

He caught the wrists of the frenziedly clawing hands as they chopped at

him again and in an instant was forced to let go, as his assailant

kicked with vicious cunning at his groin. Roger drew a great breath,

filling his lungs to their utmost capacity, then, venting his loathing

rage in a rumbling bellow, he dove in regardless. Straight against the

ironlike claws he drove, reckless in the grasp of the anger that had

exploded within him at the unfair trick. Up and back he beat the

clutching hands, and drove his right fist to the lower ribs with a

force that made the victim gasp. Again he struck, bringing his fist

from behind him in an irresistible arc to its mark. Again and again he

struck the cattleman's hardened body and then, sensing his opponent's

wilting, he drove in, both arms working like pistons, literally beating

his man flat to the ground.

Roger stepped back. The tough-bodied fellow on the ground, though

overwhelmed by the relentless shower of blows, was not unconscious and

not whipped. He lay panting and helpless for the moment, his eyes held

fearfully on Roger's boots.

"You hound!" gasped the young man as he understood. "Do you think I'd

kick you when you're down. Get up, get up! You've got only half of

what's coming to you."

"Can't get up," said the prostrate man sullenly, after a pause. "Hip's

broke, or something."

"You lie! Get up, you liar!"

"All right." The cattleman slumped helplessly together. "Go ahead;

stomp on me. I can't get up."

Roger stood looking down at him irresolutely. In the fury of combat he

had been ready, even eager, to wreak any possible damage to his

opponent by fighting. Now with his blood growing cooler and no

antagonist before him it was a different matter, and the Anglo-Saxon

instinct to succor a fallen and helpless foe began to assert itself.

"You're a lying hound," he said furiously, to hide his intentions.

"Your hip is as sound as mine. Get up."

"All right; stomp on me; go ahead; I can't move."

"Where do you pretend you're hurt?"

"It's here." The man's right hand was fumbling in the side pocket of

his overalls. "Broke or paralyzed or something! Oh! oh! Mister, you

won the fight. Oh! Going to leave me here for the buzzards, I s'pose?"

"What do you take me for?" Roger bent over his victim. "Turn over so

I can see where your hand is."

"Oh, oh! Straighten my leg out, for Gawd's sake." Roger bent to do

so, his eyes for the moment leaving the other's face. "Easy; easy,

now. There, you sucker; take that!"

As one might leap back from a reptile's fangs, so Roger leaped at the

burning sensation and the thud of a blow on his back. The cattleman,

too, came to his feet with a spring that betrayed his shaming

[Transcriber's note: shamming?]; and at sight of the glistening thing

in the man's hand Roger understood. It was a long-bladed clasp knife

with a button catch. While the man was groaning and pretending to feel

for his broken bones he had opened the knife in his pocket; and when

Roger had bent over the man had stabbed him in the back.

The man was grinning in bestial fashion, his teeth bared, his eyes

alight with devilish expectancy, waiting for his victim to fall. He

was gloating; he feasted his eyes upon Roger's fresh young face, his

bright eyes, and waited for the flesh to begin to fade and grow

greenish white; for the eyes to fill with a slow astonishment and to

grow dim as a light that is turned out, and for the great young body to

come crashing stupidly to the ground. He made no move to strike again;

he was too intensely interested in anticipation of the sight he thought

to gloat over. The delectable spectacle did not seem to come. The

victim's fresh color did not fade; his bright eyes did not grow dim.

"Missed," said Roger quietly, withdrawing his wet hand from its

exploration. "Hit a rib. Now, cur, do your damnedest!"

He walked forward toward the outpointed knife, walked straight-limbed

and head up, his shoulders squared, his jaw set in fashion that

indicated how completely caution had been flung aside.

But the man was watching the blue eyes and he was of the breed that

cannot fight fair. He quailed before the Northern relentlessness, bred

of kinship with the relentless Northern ice, that showed in those blue

eyes. He could not fathom what was in the look that chilled him; his

breed never could; but one thing he understood: He had met his master.

He gave ground a foot, the knife still held out before him. He gave a

yard. He wilted, became panic-stricken, turned and fled to his horse

and galloped away. Well out of reach he turned and waved his blade in

a dramatic threat. Then he disappeared behind an islet of palmetto

scrub.