Part 29 (1/2)

Swan immediately took part in the melee of gnas.h.i.+ng, rolling, rearing dogs, laying about among them with impartial hand, quickly subduing them to obedience. He stood looking stonily at Mackenzie, unmoved by anger, unflushed by exertion. In that way he stood silent a little while, his face untroubled by any pa.s.sion that rolled in his breast.

”You're runnin' your sheep over on my gra.s.s--what?” said Swan.

”You're a mile over my range,” Mackenzie accused.

”You've been crowdin' over on me for a month,” Swan said, ”and I didn't say nothing. But when a man tries to run his sheep over amongst mine and drive 'em off, I take a hand.”

”If anybody's tryin' such a game as that, it's you,” Mackenzie told him. ”Get 'em out of here, and keep 'em out.”

”I got fifteen hundred in that band--you'll have to help me cut 'em out,” said Swan.

”You had about seven hundred,” Mackenzie returned, dispa.s.sionately, although it broke on him suddenly what the big flockmaster was trying to put through.

Counting on Mackenzie's greenness, and perhaps on the simplicity of his nature as they had read it in the sheep country, Swan had prepared this trap days ahead. He had run a small band of the same breed as Sullivan's sheep--for that matter but one breed was extensively grown on the range--over to the border of Tim's lease with the intention of mingling them and driving home more than he had brought. Mackenzie never had heard of the trick being worked on a green herder, but he realized now how simply it could be done, opportunity such as this presenting.

But it was one thing to bring the sheep over and another thing to take them away. One thing Mackenzie was sure of, and that was the judgment of his eyes in numbering sheep. That had been Dad Frazer's first lesson, and the old man had kept him at it until he could come within a few head among hundreds at a glance.

”I'll help you cut out as many as you had,” Mackenzie said, running his eyes over the mingled flocks, ”they're all alike, one as good as another, I guess. It looks like you got your stock from this ranch, anyhow, but you'll not take more than seven hundred this trip.”

”My dogs can cut mine out, they know 'em by the smell,” Swan said. ”I had fifteen hundred, and I bet you I'll take fifteen hundred back.”

The dogs had drawn off, each set behind their respective masters, panting, eyeing each other with hostility, one rising now and then with growls, threatening to open the battle again. The sheep drifted about in confusion, so thoroughly mingled now that it would be past human power to separate them again and apportion each respective head to its rightful owner.

”Seven hundred, at the outside,” Mackenzie said again. ”And keep them off of my gra.s.s when you get 'em.”

Carlson stood where he had stopped, ten feet or more distant, his arms bare, s.h.i.+rt open on his breast in his way of picturesque freedom.

Mackenzie waited for him to proceed in whatever way he had planned, knowing there could be no compromise, no settlement in peace. He would either have to yield entirely and allow Carlson to drive off seven or eight hundred of Sullivan's sheep, or fight. There didn't seem to be much question on how it would come out in the latter event, for Carlson was not armed, and Mackenzie's pistol was that moment under his hand.

”You got a gun on you,” said Swan, in casual, disinterested tone. ”I ain't got no gun on me, but I'm a better man without no gun than you are with one. I'm goin' to take my fifteen hundred sheep home with me, and you ain't man enough to stop me.”

Carlson's two dogs were sitting close behind him, one of them a gaunt gray beast that seemed almost a purebred wolf. Its jaws were b.l.o.o.d.y from its late encounter; flecks of blood were on its gray coat. It sat panting and alert, indifferent to Mackenzie's presence, watching the sheep as if following its own with its savage eyes. Suddenly Carlson spoke an explosive word, clapping his great hands, stamping his foot toward Mackenzie.

Mackenzie fired as the wolf-dog sprang, staggering back from the weight of its lank body hurled against his breast, and fired again as he felt the beast's vile breath in his face as it snapped close to his throat.

Mackenzie emptied his pistol in quick, but what seemed ineffectual, shots at the other dog as it came leaping at Carlson's command. In an instant he was involved in a confusion of man and dog, the body of the wolfish collie impeding his feet as he fought.

Carlson and the other dog pressed the attack so quickly that Mackenzie had no time to slip even another cartridge into his weapon. Carlson laughed as he clasped him in his great arms, the dog clinging to Mackenzie's pistol hand, and in a desperate moment it was done.

Mackenzie was lying on his back, the giant sheepman's knee in his chest.

Carlson did not speak after ordering the dog away. He held Mackenzie a little while, hand on his throat, knee on his chest, looking with unmoved features down into his eyes, as if he considered whether to make an end of him there or let him go his way in added humiliation and disgrace. Mackenzie lay still under Carlson's hand, trying to read his intention in his clear, ice-cold, expressionless eyes, watching for his moment to renew the fight which he must push under such hopeless disadvantage.

Swan's eyes betrayed nothing of his thoughts. They were as calm and untroubled as the sky, which Mackenzie thought, with a poignant sweep of transcendant fear for his life, he never had beheld so placid and beautiful as in that dreadful moment.

Carlson's huge fingers began to tighten in the grip of death; relax, tighten, each successive clutch growing longer, harder. The joy of his strength, the pleasure in the agony that spoke from his victim's face, gleamed for a moment in Carlson's eyes as he bent, gazing; then flickered like a light in the wind, and died.

Mackenzie's revolver lay not more than four feet from his hand. He gathered his strength for a struggle to writhe from under Carlson's pressing knee. Carlson, antic.i.p.ating his intention, reached for the weapon and s.n.a.t.c.hed it, laying hold of it by the barrel.

Mackenzie's unexpected renewal of the fight surprised Carlson into releasing his strangling hold. He rose to sitting posture, breast to breast with the fighting sheepman, whose great bulk towered above him, free breath in his nostrils, fresh hope in his heart. He fought desperately to come to his feet, Carlson sprawling over him, the pistol lifted high for a blow.