“They’ve let us alone for quite a spell now,” Bradshaw said. “Time something was breaking.”
A stiff wind screeched across the country and the two men sought shelter behind a pile of baled hay, sprawling comfortably in the sun until Mattison located them there and reported a bit of news.
“Headquarters has thrown off the bridle and issued orders to shoot down every man that tampers with the tracks,” he informed. “I just got the word. Now that we’ve got free rein we’ll clean up this mess.”
These instructions were passed out to all of the marshal’s men. Two hours after midnight Carver stood on the tracks with Mattison.
Both men turned to view a vague light that seemed to flicker up from near a string of buildings at one end of the main street. The high wind which had prevailed throughout the day had died down within the past hour and in the resulting hush sounds could be heard at a considerable distance. The light increased and shed a pinkish glow over a portion of the sleeping town. A similar light, smaller and less evident, as if but a reflection of the other, appeared near the courthouse at the far end of the town. From somewhere there sounded the muffled thud of many hoofs.
“I wonder now,” Carver said, as he caught this sound. “An hour ago, before the wind went down, a fire would have wiped Oval Springs off the map—no water.” He listened again to the rumble of hoofs. “It’s come,” he announced. “Casa has been in a ferment for weeks, threatening to ride over and sack Oval Springs. Now they’re at it.”
Black smoke rolled above the pink glow which was rapidly swelling into a lurid glare. Tongues of scarlet flame now leaped above the buildings as the fire, started in the rear of them, licked hungrily up the back of the frame structures. There was a sudden clamor of voices as sleeping citizens were roused by the glare of the fire, then a roar of hoofs as forty horsemen thundered the length of the main street and emptied their guns at the store fronts. They wheeled and rode back through the street, shooting as they came, this last demonstration for the purpose of keeping citizens within doors until the flames had attained sufficient headway to spread beyond control.
The rumble of hoofs died out as the raiders pounded away toward the north and the population of Oval Springs boiled out to check the spread of the fire.
“It’s no affair of ours,” Mattison said. “Dog eat dog. Let ’em go. Wellman, our good sheriff, hasn’t exerted himself to help find out who’s been shooting my boys at night. Let him handle this deal himself.”
The Casa raiders had planned well and if the wind had held Oval Springs would have been reduced to ashes in an hour. But the fates had intervened. The wind had slacked off, then died, and now a reverse wind blew up and piled the flames back upon themselves. The fire at the courthouse had not attained sufficient headway and a determined body of citizens checked the spread of the flames. The blaze at the north end of town was confined to the one section in which it started, the strong wind from the south beating back the flames which leaped high above the buildings. Men on adjacent structures stamped out the sparks which were belched far and wide as each burning roof sagged and fell with a hissing roar.