"We've got ourselves to blame," said Casey.
"Well, that first shot burned up this cayuse of mine," McHale grumbled. "How could I shoot, with him jumpin' around? And that blasted, yeller-hided buzzard head of yours, he don't know no better'n to whale into him with both heels. It wouldn't happen again, not in a million years."
"It doesn't need to," said Casey sourly. "We found our meat, and we couldn't stop it."
"The laugh is on us," McHale admitted. "For the powder we burned we sure ought to have a scalp or two to show. Still, moonlight shootin' is chance shootin', and when a cussed mean cayuse is sashayin' round if a man hits anything but scenery he's lucky!"
"I thought that old-timer, Dade, was doing the talking."
"Sure he was. And I'll bet it was his tillikum, Cross, that took the first crack at us. Didn't waste no time. He's some soon, that feller. I s'pose they got a camp, somewheres. No use tryin' to find it. We can't prove that they used the powder on our dams. Well, what say if we point out for home? Daylight's breakin' now."
A pale light was spreading in the east, underneath the stars that rimmed the horizon. Objects became more visible. As they rode unmolested from the coulée the pale light began to flush faintly. Rosy shafts shot upward, and the stars vanished. Here and there birds began to twitter. An old grouse scuttled away, wings a-trail, as if mortally hurt, to distract attention from her young brood hidden in the short grass. A huge owl sailed ghostlike on silent wings, homeward bound from midnight foray. A coyote yipped shrill protest against the day. Away to the west, where the mountains loomed grandly, bright lights lay on peaks still white with the remnants of winter snows. Suddenly, driving the shadows before it, the sun seemed to leap above the rim of the world.
CHAPTER XX
During the next twelve hours there was much riding from ranch to ranch. Of all the small dams constructed and maintained by the ranchers for irrigation purposes but one remained; and that one was Donald McCrae's.
McCrae himself considered this an invidious distinction. He would have preferred to suffer with his neighbours. He did not know why his structure had been spared, and he lent men and teams to others, labouring hard himself in the task of rebuilding.