"Begobs, I belave he's coming!"
A further scanning of the landscape elicited a cry of satisfaction.
"Nick's headin' fer the howl all right," said he elatedly.
The Irishman was standing on the tank, his hand on the pump-handle. He had backed the grays into a pool fed by a small creek that here expanded into a miniature pond some dozen yards across. In Western threshing the tankman draws his water from the nearest hole or stream. For some days both Easy and Nick Ford, the McClure tankman, had been filling their tanks at the same pool.
Nick Ford was known familiarly as Boozey Ford, a self-explanatory sobriquet. Whiskey aside, he was one of the most reliable tankers along the Valley. With whiskey by his side his water-wagon was apt to receive a diluted attention.
As the days sped by the struggle between the two outfits became intense. The two tankmen were nearing the point of interpersonal complications in their heated conversations on the issue. Easy Murphy was feeling irrepressibly loquacious on this occasion, for he had not met Boozey since the affair of the R-M wrench. However, as Nick drove up he began a foxy approach, greeting him in a friendly manner.
"Nick! How is the wur-r-rld using you?" was his opening.
"So, so!" was Nick's no less friendly response.
"Ye'll be afthurr faylin' a demi-semi-quaver in yer boots, Nick, since till-night's the night the Valley Outfit take the candy from the kid."
"There's sure going to be a lark to-night," agreed Nick. "We'll have a howling time putting the kibosh on your little, old Outfit. You mark my words, Murphy, when Jack Butte hands out his estimates you'll freeze stiff. I'll bet you even money we lick you by a thousand."