The Land of Strong Men Part 38

It was faint, like the clink of metal on stone. While Angus listened it was repeated. He touched Rennie. Instantly the latter's breathing stopped and changed.

"Somethin' doing'?"

"Listen!"

Clink, clink, clang! Down the wind came the sound.

"It's on the next sidehill," said Rennie. "Rippin' the ditch out, or makin' a hole for a shot. She's a worse hill than this, too." He rose, shook himself, and buckled on his belt. "We'll hold 'em up. Sneak up as close as we can, and tell 'em to h'ist their paws."

"Suppose they don't," said Angus, slipping a couple of sh.e.l.ls into the breech of his gun.

"When you tell a feller to put 'em up and he don't, there's only one thing to do; 'cause there's only one thing he's goin' to do, and you got to beat him to it."

The ditch, leaving the sidehill with the new flume, crossed the end of a flat and struck another sidehill. This was brushy halfway to the top, marking the track of an old slide of many years before. But above it, where the ancient slide had started, the bank rose sheer, overhanging.

As they struck the flat they heard more plainly the clink of tools.

"Right under where that old slip hangs," Rennie deducted. "That's the place 'd make most trouble to fix. It's a darn sight worse than what we did fix. Now--"

His words were interrupted by the shrill blast of a whistle from somewhere above. It was repeated, and from where the sounds of work had been came the crash of brush. Rennie swore, and a gun seemed to leap into his hand.

"Their lookout seen us on this blasted flat!" he cried. "They're climbin' the hill. If we had any sense--Come on! Maybe we can head 'em off!"

They rushed at the steep, brush-covered hill. To their right, but invisible, others seemed to be climbing also. Suddenly from above a gun barked, and a bullet drilled above Angus' head and spatted on a rock below. Again a spurt of fire lanced the night, and another bullet buzzed, this time to the left.

Angus had never been shot at before. He had supposed that he would be nervous if ever called on to stand fire. But actually his main feeling was indignation that any one could shoot at him. And just as automatically and unthinkingly as he was accustomed to swing on a bird, he sent a charge of shot at the second flash of the gun. But a third shot answered and he fired again, and broke the twelve gauge and shoved in fresh sh.e.l.ls, and started forward, only to be pulled back by Rennie.

"There ain't no cover ahead. You'll get plugged."

"But they'll get away!"

"Well, so'll you," Dave told him; "but if you go crowdin' up without cover somebody'll have to pack you home. Have sense! And lay down.

You're so darn big you'll stop something if you keep standin' up!"

Angus dropped beside him in a little hollow, and a bullet droned through the s.p.a.ce his body had just occupied.

"Told you so," Rennie grunted. "There's one man up there savvies downhill shootin'. If I could--" The gun in his hand leaped twice so quickly that the reports almost blended. "Don't believe I touched him.

Outa practice with a belt gun. Dark besides. Scatter some shot around near the top."

Angus used half a dozen sh.e.l.ls, guessing as best he could. A shot or two came back. Rennie suddenly turned loose both his guns in a fusillade, and for an instant Angus saw or thought he saw moving figures silhouetted against the sky on the hill's rim. At these, he let go both barrels. Dave, swinging out the empty cylinders of his guns, swore.

"Darn 'f I b'lieve we've touched hide nor hair. They got horses up there. What darn fools we was to camp down in this bottom. There they go now."

Angus could hear the faint drumming of hoofs over the hill. There was nothing to be done about it. Disgusted they went back to their blankets, but not to sleep, and with dawn they returned to investigate.

An endeavor had been made to tear out the wall of the ditch, and above it a hole had been started, apparently with intent to use powder. A shot there would have split off a section of the precipitous bank, and brought it down, trees and all, into the ditch. Angus, surveying these things with lowering brow, saw Rennie stoop and pick up something.

"What have you got there?" the latter asked.

Without a word Rennie handed him an old, stag-handled jack-knife. Angus knew it very well. He himself had given it to his brother, Turkey.

Angus stared at the knife, at first blankly and then with swiftly blackening brow. He heard Dave's voice as from a distance.

"Now don't go off at half-c.o.c.k, Angus. Maybe--"

"You know the knife," he said, his own voice sounding strange in his ears.

"Well, that don't say Turkey was in this. Maybe he lost it, and somebody--"

"Quit lying to yourself!"

"By gosh, Angus, I'll bet Turkey don't know a darn thing--"

But Angus was not listening. Out of the glory of the sun rising over the ranges, one of the black moods of the Black Mackays descended on him.

All his life he had struggled against the hardness and bitterness of heart inherited from his ancestors, men dour and vengeful, whose creed had been eye for eye and tooth for tooth through the clan feuds of the dim centuries. Hard and bitter men, these bygone Mackays whose blood ran in his veins, carrying the black hate in the heart, even brother against brother. There was even that Mackay of a dark memory--and his name, too, was Torquil--who after a quarrel with his brothers had slain them, all four. Old tales, these, handed down through the years, losing or gaining in the telling, perhaps, but all stormy and full of violence and hate and revenge. And in all of them there was never one of a Mackay who forgave an injury. One and all they brooded over wrong and struck in their own time. With them it was not the quick word and blow--though if other tales were true they were quick enough with both--but the deep, sullen, undying resentment under injury.

As he thought of these things with the black mood upon him, Angus' heart hardened against his brother. He did not doubt that this was Turkey's revenge. There was his knife, and he should account for it. Since he had not been alone he should tell the names of his confederates. And then, like the bitter, dour Mackay he was, Angus put the knife in his pocket and turned a grim but composed face to Rennie.

"Maybe you are right," he admitted, though he had not heard a word the other had been saying. "Let's go home and get breakfast. And say nothing at all to Jean."

CHAPTER XXII

BROTHER TO BROTHER

Jean was left in ignorance as to the occurrences of the night. No further attempts were made to interfere with the ditch; but the flume itself sagged in the middle by natural subsidence of the loose soil, and much of it had to be set up again. Angus was sick at heart, for the damage done by the combination of hot winds and lack of water was irreparable. Much of his crop would not be worth cutting.

And this, of all times, was the one chosen by Jean to re-open the question of Turkey's return to the ranch. She urged Angus to ask him.

Angus flatly refused.

"He is our brother--our younger brother," Jean urged.

"If he were fifty times my brother, I would not. I tell you he has worn out my patience, and I am glad he went. He made trouble enough when he was on the ranch, and now--"

But suddenly recollecting himself he broke off. Jean's face was grave.

"Angus," she said, "what has Turkey done?"

"Nothing," he replied sullenly.

"That is not the truth, Angus."

"Then whatever he has done it is more than enough. Let it go at that. I will not talk about it to you or any one."

"The black dog is on you," Jean told him. "I have seen it for days."