“Gee,” Baxter exclaimed when he heard the story. “You certainly are the lucky one. All that doing in your first week. It’s more excitement than I have had in the past two years.”
“It has been pretty good fun,” Scott admitted, “but I suppose it will seem slow now that it is all over.”
“Not if I know Jed and Dawson,” Baxter exclaimed, “Jed is yellow and will never try a fair fight with you, but if I were you I would get a suit of mail armor for he is likely to try to shoot you in the back any time. Isn’t old Dawson a smooth one, though? Here he has been doing that thing for three or four years and yet no one ever so much as suspected him of it. He will not say or do a thing until he knows which way this investigation is going. If he finds you have anything on him that he cannot get out of, then watch out. I did not know he was crooked but I know that he will not stop at anything to get what he wants.”
“Sounds as though there might be some interest left in life yet,” Scott laughed.
“If I were you I would come over to my shack and stay. You can work your district just as well from there and I can help you. It would not be so easy for them to pick on the two of us. One man does not stand much show alone; he has to sleep sometime.”
“And let them think they had run me out,” Scott exclaimed. “Nothing doing. I’m not afraid of them.”
“There are times when a man has a right to be afraid,” Baxter urged, “it isn’t cowardice, it’s only decent caution and common sense.”
He was so earnest about it and so different from his usual daredevil self that Scott seriously considered his proposition. “Well, I can’t run away now without any pretext, but if they make it too hot for me I’ll consider it. If I have to run anywhere it will be to you.”
“Good, I don’t want to seem to croak but I expect to see you before long. Don’t put off the running too long.”
“By the way,” Scott called just as he was starting back for the chute to see if the sheep were coming back all right to their allotted ranges, “have you had lunch? I forgot mine in the excitement and it is almost three o’clock.”
“Forgot mine, too. Might as well eat together here before you go.”
They brought their lunches from their saddle bags and continued the investigation discussion. Probably most of the people within fifty miles would be talking about it in the morning. They had scarcely swallowed the last sandwich when Scott noticed a distinct column of smoke rising over the ridge to the north.
“Hello,” he exclaimed, “is that another of Jed’s signal fires?”
Baxter took a long look at it. “No, that’s no brush pile. There is no wind and yet the smoke seems to be pretty widely scattered. That’s the trouble with this country; four days of sunshine and then fire will run in the needles. That cannot be far from the lookout station, but I suppose we better go up and have a look.”
They mounted and rode up the slope together. As they approached the ridge it seemed very apparent that it was not a brush pile burning. The smoke was rising from a considerable area. From the ridge they could see it plainly. It was a ground fire on the lower slope just below the lookout station.
“Quickest way will be to ride to the lookout station and get a couple of shovels from the cache.”
So they galloped up to the station and raided the tool cache. There was no one there. They grabbed the shovels and ran down the slope. The first person they saw was the lookout’s wife, dressed in overalls and swinging a shovel like a ditch digger.
“Where is Benny?” Baxter called to her.
“He’s working on the other end of it,” she replied without turning from her work.
“Then I’m going over there,” said Baxter with decision. “He’s sent me out on many a dirty fire and I want the satisfaction of seeing him work on one himself. Don’t know as I’ll even help him unless it’s pretty bad.”
Only the needles on the surface were dry and a shovel full of the moist earth put out the fire wherever it reached it. Scott fell to work a little bit ahead of the woman and they progressed rapidly. It was only a few minutes till they met the lookout and Baxter and the fire was out.
“How did it start, Benny?” Baxter asked. “Throw a cigarette out the tower window?”
“Looks like it,” Benny admitted. “No, some sheep herder did it. I happened to pick him up with the glasses away down by the cliffs, and I caught sight of him from time to time as he came up the valley, but I could not recognize him. Just about the time he reached the pass up there I found the smoke. Since then I have been too busy to think about him.”
“He probably dropped a match,” Scott suggested.
“It was a match all right, but I’ll bet he did not drop it,” Baxter commented. “Let’s go see what we can find.”
The emergency over, the lookout’s wife had gone quietly back to her home work. The three men went down into the valley to investigate. They easily picked up the man’s trail and found where it touched the edge of the burn. Sure enough, there was plenty of evidence to show that the match was not dropped carelessly. Pine needles had been carefully raked together in a long pile which had apparently been lighted in several places. No efforts had been made to efface the traces of the work.
“Just what I thought,” Baxter exclaimed, straightening up with a frown.
“But why in thunder did he set the thing right under my nose?” asked Benny in an injured tone.
“Probably like the rest of us,” Baxter laughed, “he wanted to see you work. No, that was just sheer bravado. That fire was set as a warning to show us what would happen if we pushed this sheep business and he wanted to put it where it would surely be seen.”
“By the way,” Benny asked with sudden interest, “how did the recount come out? I called up Dawson, but he was not home.”
When he had heard the story he shook his head sagely. “If that is the way it stands I would not be surprised if that was what the fire was for. And I would not be surprised if there were some more of them in the next few days.”
With this comforting piece of news Scott started back by the way of the bench to have a look at the sheep before he went home to supper. He found them all trailing back to the feeding grounds. The herders were in a sullen mood. Not that it made much difference to them who owned the sheep, but they felt the failure of the plan as a personal defeat and they took it out in hating the man who had frustrated the plan. They hinted darkly at what would happen to the district and its patrolman.
Their attitude furnished Scott with some food for thought. If these men who had no financial interests at stake felt as bitter as they did, he could well imagine the feelings of Dawson, Jed and Dugan. Two of them he knew to be unscrupulous and Baxter had assured him that Dawson would be no better. He was beginning to think a little more seriously of Baxter’s advice. It would be hard for one man to live alone and protect himself against three others for an indefinite time.
He had ridden so slowly that it was dusk when he turned Jed into the corral and went to the lonely cabin to prepare his supper. There was no evidence that any one had been there in his absence, but he felt uneasy. These men were not like the men he had known. If they would come out in the open and fight fairly with their fists he would not have thought twice about it, but the thought of being shot in the back with no chance at all seemed horrible. It was one thing to rush a man in the face of a loaded gun in the flush of excitement, and to feel hour after hour that the same gun may be aimed at you from behind a tree or from out of the darkness around the cabin. It was the unfairness of it all that oppressed him; the feeling that it was something over which he had no control.
Early in the evening the ’phone rang. He had already become so nervous that he jumped almost out of his skin at the sound. It was the supervisor.
“I have only a minute, Burton, and must talk fast. You made a beautiful clean up of that bunch to-day and from a few things I have found out since, I believe you are right about all the rest of it. Jed is crazy. He has loaded up on fire water and is telling every one what he is going to do to you and the whole service. I want you to keep out of his way. You are probably no match for him with a gun and moreover I do not want any fights if I can help it.
“I understand that the big reservoir on the upper plateau is about full. The snows are melting pretty fast now. I want you to start up there early to-morrow and watch it. When it reaches the twenty foot mark open the spillway; it will raise Cain if it overflows. Stop and tell Baxter to look after your district, but do not tell any one else where you are going. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Scott answered.
“I’ll send for you when I want you for that investigation. So long. Take care of yourself.”
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