Part 22 (1/2)
He jumped and clawed at the sides in his frenzy, and Wallie could see that Rufus well might do so, for even as Wallie looked the water rushed in and rose to Rufus's ankles, and before he could get the bucket over the edge and started downward it was well to his knees, bubbling faster with every second as the opening widened.
It was indeed time for action, and Wallie himself felt relief when the windla.s.s spun and he heard the splash of the bucket in the bottom.
Rufus's shrieks urged haste as he began to wind laboriously, and with reason, for Rufus was heavy and though Wallie put forth all his strength it was no easy task single-handed, and Rufus rose so slowly that the water gained rapidly.
It became a race between Wallie and the subterranean stream that had been tapped, and he was panting and all but exhausted when Rufus rose to the surface. As he stepped from the bucket the water reached the top, poured over the edge, and rushed down the ”draw” to Skull Creek.
Wallie looked with bulging eyes for a moment and when he had recovered from his astonishment, he turned joyfully, his grudge forgotten, and shook Rufus's hand in congratulation.
A moment later his enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by the discovery that he had brought to the surface the strongest flow of salt water in the country!
CHAPTER XIII
WIPED OUT
”It's sh.o.r.e wicked the way you curse, Old Timer,” said Pinkey, reprovingly, as Wallie came up from the corral carrying an empty milk bucket in one hand and testing the other for broken bones. ”I could hear you talkin' to Rastus from whur I'm settin'.”
Wallie exhibited a row of bruised knuckles and replied fiercely:
”If ever I had an immortal soul I've lost it since that calf came!
Between his bunting on one side and me milking on the other, the cow kicked the pail over.”
”Quirl you a brownie and blow it threw your hackamore and forgit it,”
said Pinkey, soothingly, as he handed him a book of cigarette papers, with a sack of tobacco and made room for him on the door-sill. ”I ain't used to cow milk anyhow; air-tight is better.”
Wallie took the offering but remained standing, rolling it dextrously as he looked off at his eighty acres of spring wheat showing emerald green in the light of a July sunset.
Pinkey eyed him critically--the tufts of hair which stood out like brushes through the cracks in what had once been a fine Panama hat, his ragged s.h.i.+rt, the faded overalls, the riding boots with heels so run over that he walked on the side of them.
Unconscious of the scrutiny, Wallie continued to gaze in a kind of holy ecstasy at his wheat-field until Pinkey e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:
”My, but you've changed horrible!”
”How, changed?” Wallie asked, absently.
”You're so danged dirty! I should think you'd have to sand that s.h.i.+rt before you could hold it to git into it.”
”I hardly ever take it off,” said Wallie. ”I've been so busy I haven't had time to think how I looked, but I hope now to have more leisure.
Pinkey,” impressively, ”I believe my troubles are about over.”
”Don't you think it!” replied Pinkey, bluntly. ”A dry-farmer kin have six months of hard luck three times a year for four and five years, hand-runnin'. In fact, they ain't no limit to the time and the kind of things that kin happen to a dry-farmer.”
”But what _could_ happen now?” Wallie asked, startled.
”It's too clost to bed-time fer me to start in tellin' you,” said Pinkey, drily.
”You're too pessimistic, Pinkey. I've prepared the soil and seed according to the instructions in the Farmers' Bulletins from Was.h.i.+ngton, and as a result I've got the finest stand of wheat around here--even Boise Bill said so when he rode by yesterday.”