The Settling of the Sage Part 30

"Don't kill him!" she commanded. "If you fire another shot at him I'll put up every dollar I own to hang every man that ever rode a foot with Lang! Do you hear that, Lang?"

"Lang's in Idaho," a voice growled surlily from the shop. "None of us ever rode with Lang. We're from every brand on the range--and we're going to burn you squatters out."

"Draw off and let us ride away," she said. "You can have the Three Bar."

"All but Harris," the voice called back. "He stays!"

She threw up the rifle she carried and touched it off at a crack near the shop door. As the splinters flew from the edge of the log a figure sprang past the door for the safety of the opposite side and she shot again, then emptied the magazine at a crevice on the side where he had taken refuge.

"Get back inside, d.a.m.n you!" a voice shouted. "We're going to wreck the Three Bar--and you with it if you stand in the way. Get back out of line!"

Harris knew that the men would not be deterred in their purpose--would sacrifice her along with the rest if necessary to accomplish their end.

"Get back, Billie," he called from the bunk house. "You can't do us any good out there. Take the little cabin and sit tight. We'll beat them off."

A haze of smoke showed through the storeroom door, a bright tongue of flame leaping back of it.

She turned to the door but Waddles had barred it behind her.

"Take the little house, Pet," he urged. "Like Cal said. You'll be safe enough. We'll give 'em h.e.l.l."

She walked to the little cabin that stood isolated and alone, the first building ever erected on the Three Bar and which had sheltered the Harrises before her father had taken over the brand.

The smoke had spread all along the row of buildings and hung in an oily black cloud above them, the hungry flames licking up the sides of the dry logs. The men had withdrawn after putting the torch to the row in a dozen spots.

From her point of vantage she saw two masked men rise from the brush and run swiftly down toward the main house, each carrying a can. She divined their purpose instantly.

"Watch the west side!" she called. "The west side--quick."

The sound of Waddles's hand-axe ceased and an instant later the roar of the shotgun sounded twice from within the house, followed by the cook's lament.

"Missed!" the big voice wailed. "Two minutes more and I'd have made a real hole."

The m.u.f.fled crash of a rifle rolled steadily from the house as Waddles fired at the c.h.i.n.king in an effort to reach the two men outside. But they had accomplished their purpose and retreated, the house s.h.i.+elding them from Harris's field of view; and they kept on the same line, out of sight of the bunk house, till they reached a deep coulee which afforded a safe route of retreat.

The row of buildings was a seething ma.s.s of flames rolling up into the black smoke. Flames hissed and licked up the blank wall of the main House, traveling along the logs on which the two masked raiders had thrown their cans of oil. The men outside had only to wait until the occupants were roasted out. A stiff wind held from the west and once the house was in flames they would be driven down upon the bunk house and fire it in turn. She knew Waddles would come out when it grew too hot. The raiders might let him go. It was Harris they waited for.

The girl ran across and pounded on the bunkhouse door.

"Run for it," she begged. "Make a run for the brus.h.!.+ I'll keep between you and them. They won't shoot me. You can get to the brush.

There's a chance that way."

"All right, old girl," Harris said. "In a minute now. But you go back, Billie. Get back to the little house. As soon as it gets hot I'll run for it. I've got ten minutes yet before I'm roasted out.

I'll start as soon as you're inside the house."

"No. Start now!" she implored. The flames were sliding along one side of the house and even now she could feel the heat of them fanned down upon the bunk house by the wind. "Run, Cal," she entreated. "Run while you've got a chance." She leaned upon the door and beat on it with her fists.

"All right, Billie," he said. "I'll go. You stay right where you are as if you're talking to me."

She heard him cross the floor. He dropped from the window on the far side from the men. When he came in sight of them he was running in long leaps for the brush, zigzagging in his flight. Their gaze had been riveted on the girl and he gained a flying start of thirty yards before a shot was fired. Then half a dozen rifles spurted from two hundred yards up the slope, the b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sing him with nasty snaps. He reached the edge of the sage and plunged headlong between two rocks.

Bullets reached for him, ripping through the tips of the sage above him, tossing up spurts of gravel on all sides and singing in ricochets from the rocks.

One raider, in his eagerness to secure a better view, incautiously exposed his head. He went down with a hole through his mask as a shot sounded from the main house. From the window, his big face red and dripping from the heat, Waddles pumped a rifle and covered Harris's flight as best he could, drilling the center of every sage that shook or quivered back of the house.

Two men turned their attention to the one who handicapped their chances of locating the crawling man and poured their fire through the window.

A soft-nose splintered the b.u.t.t of the cook's rifle and tore a strip of meat from his arm as another fanned his cheek. He dropped to the floor and peered from a crack. The firing had suddenly ceased. He saw a hat moving up a coulee, a mere flash here and there above the sage as the owner of it ran. As he watched for the man to reappear, the roof of the whole string of buildings to the east caved with a hissing roar and belched sparks and debris high in the air.

The fire was filtering through the cracks and circling its hungry tongues inside. The smoke hurt his eyes and the heat seemed to crack his skin. He crossed over to see if Harris was down; that would account for the sudden cessation of shooting from the hills back of the house.

The raiders in the lower field were riding swiftly for the far side of the valley. One man knelt near the head gate, then mounted and jumped his horse off after the rest. Waddles put the whole force of his lungs behind one mighty cheer.

Fifty yards back in the brush Harris cautiously raised his head to determine the cause of this triumphant peal.

Far down along the rim of the valley, outlined against the sky, four mules were running as so many startled deer under the bite of the lash and six men swayed and clung in the wagon that lurched behind. High above the crackle of the flames sounded Tiny's yelps, keen and clear, as he urged on the flying mules. Three men unloaded from the wagon as it came opposite the cl.u.s.ter of men riding far out across the flats.

They opened a long-range fire at a thousand yards while the others stayed with the wagon as it rocked on toward the burning ranch.

Billie was running to the brush at the spot where Harris had disappeared. He rose to meet her.

"Cal, you're not hurt?" she asked.

"Not a scratch," he said. "Thanks to you."

In her relief she grasped his arm and gave it a fierce little squeeze.

"Then it's all right," she said.

Waddles burst from the door of the burning house, his arms piled high with salvage.

"We'll save what we can," Harris said and started for the house. As he ran the valley rocked with a concussion which nearly threw him flat and a column of fragments and trash rose a hundred feet above the spot where the head gate had been but a second past.

A dozen running horses flipped over the edge of the hill and plunged down toward the ranch. The men were back from Brill's. Tiny halted the mules on the lip of the valley and the three men came down the slope on foot.

Harris held up his hand to halt the riders as they would have kept on past the house. He knew that the raiders stationed behind the ranch had long since reached their horses and were lost in the choppy hills.

He waved all hands toward the buildings and they swarmed inside, carrying out load after load of such articles as could be moved and piling them out of reach of the flames.

The girl sat apart and watched them work. Her lethargy had returned.

It seemed a small matter to rescue these trinkets when the Three Bar was a total wreck. The wind fanned the flames down on the bunk house and one side was charred and smoking. The men drew back from the heat.

Tiny spurts of fire flickered along the charred side. Then it burst into a sheet of flame.

Harris spoke briefly to Evans and the tall man nodded as he itemized the orders in his mind.

"Now I'll get her away from here," Harris said. "It's h.e.l.l for her to just sit there and watch it burn."

He caught two of the saddled horses that had carried the men from Brill's and crossed over to where she sat.

"Let's ride down to the field," he said. "And see what's got to be done. I expect a week's work will repair that part of it all right."

She gazed at him in amazement. He spoke of repairing the damage while the Three Bar burned before his eyes. But she rose and mounted the horse. He shortened her stirrup straps and they rode off down what had once been the lane, the fence flattened by the rus.h.i.+ng horde of cattle that had swept through.