The Land of Strong Men Part 36

"Like a G.o.d!" 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "dae whole dam' sidehill ban vash to hal!"

Pus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.s. 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s.

"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 d.a.m.ned 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.