asin of McCrae's he's
pretty near got him to rights. I don't know what he's got, though.
About Cross and McHale, I don't care a curse which shot the other.
These men--Cross, Dade, Lewis, and some more--were protecting our
property. And that's all."

"Not quite all. They blew up our dams."

"Just as man to man," said Farwell, "let me ask you if you expected to
run a dynamite monopoly?"

"I'm not kicking," said Casey. "I'm merely stating facts. I can take my
medicine."

"You're a good deal of a man," Farwell acknowledged grudgingly. "I hate
a squealer. Anyway, it was no part of their job to break into your
house. See here, Dunne, the last five minutes has got us better
acquainted than the last two months. I'll fire these fellows to-morrow
if you'll promise me that our ditches won't be interfered with again."

"As long as we have water there will be no trouble," said Casey. "I'll
promise nothing more."

"That's good for some weeks, anyway," Farwell predicted. "I guess we'll
have to fight it out in the end. Still, I'm glad to have had this talk.
I like you better than I did. And I can tell you there was lots of room
for it--is yet, for that matter. Good-bye."

Without waiting for a reply, he dug a heel into his horse and swept on.
Casey watched him go, with a thoughtful smile.

"Odd devil!" he muttered. "Queer combination. I don't like him,
but--well, he's a fighter, and I believe he's straight. To think of him
being fond of Sheila! I wonder if he has a chance there? She never
mentions him now. H'm!" Finding no answer to the question, he wheeled
Shiner and headed for home.

CHAPTER XXVI

Just before utter blackness shut down on the land, Sandy McCrae
dismounted and stripped saddle and pack from his horses. He looked up
at the sky, shook his head, and, taking a light axe, cut two picket
pins; after which he staked the horses out in the abundant pasture at
the bottom of the draw, driving the pins in solidly beyond the
possibility of pulling. Then he set about making a hasty camp.

Beside him a little spring bubbled out of the bottom of the draw and
seeped away under tangled roots and fallen brush. A thirst-parched
stranger might have ridden past twenty times on the bench above without
suspecting its presence. The faint cattle trail leading to it entered
the draw a quarter of a mile away, and led along under low but almost
perpendicular banks.

Sandy's camp preparations were simple, but much more elabor