Delaney and S. Behrman found themselves in the rear of the cavalcade as it moved off. The cowpuncher turned to his chief:
“Well, captain,” he said, still panting, as he bound up his forehead; “well—we got him.”
VI
Osterman cut his wheat that summer before any of the other ranchers, and as soon as his harvest was over organised a jackrabbit drive. Like Annixter’s barn-dance, it was to be an event in which all the countryside should take part. The drive was to begin on the most western division of the Osterman ranch, whence it would proceed towards the southeast, crossing into the northern part of Quien Sabe—on which Annixter had sown no wheat—and ending in the hills at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, where a barbecue was to be held.
Early on the morning of the day of the drive, as Harran and Presley were saddling their horses before the stables on Los Muertos, the foreman, Phelps, remarked:
“I was into town last night, and I hear that Christian has been after Ruggles early and late to have him put him in possession here on Los Muertos, and Delaney is doing the same for Quien Sabe.”
It was this man Christian, the real estate broker, and cousin of S. Behrman, one of the main actors in the drama of Dyke’s capture, who had come forward as a purchaser of Los Muertos when the Railroad had regraded its holdings on the ranches around Bonneville.
“He claims, of course,” Phelps went on, “that when he bought Los Muertos of the Railroad he was guaranteed possession, and he wants the place in time for the harvest.”
“That’s almost as thin,” muttered Harran as he thrust the bit into his horse’s mouth, “as Delaney buying Annixter’s Home ranch. That slice of Quien Sabe, according to the Railroad’s grading, is worth about ten thousand dollars; yes, even fifteen, and I don’t believe Delaney is worth the price of a good horse. Why, those people don’t even try to preserve appearances. Where would Christian find the money to buy Los Muertos? There’s no one man in all Bonneville rich enough to do it. Damned rascals! as if we didn’t see that Christian and Delaney are S. Behrman’s right and left hands. Well, he’ll get ’em cut off,” he cried with sudden fierceness, “if he comes too near the machine.”
“How is it, Harran,” asked Presley as the two young men rode out of the stable yard, “how is it the Railroad gang can do anything before the Supreme Court hands down a decision?”
“Well, you know how they talk,” growled Harran. “They have claimed that the cases taken up to the Supreme Court were not test cases as we claim they are, and that because neither Annixter nor the Governor appealed, they’ve lost their cases by default. It’s the rottenest kind of sharp practice, but it won’t do any good. The League is too strong. They won’t dare move on us yet awhile. Why, Pres, the moment they’d try to jump any of these ranches around here, they would have six hundred rifles cracking at them as quick as how-do-you-do. Why, it would take a regiment of U.S. soldiers to put anyone of us off our land. No, sir; they know the League means business this time.”
As Presley and Harran trotted on along the county road they continually passed or overtook other horsemen, or buggies, carryalls, buckboards or even farm wagons, going in the same direction. These were full of the farming people from all the country round about Bonneville, on their way to the rabbit drive—the same people seen at the barn-dance—in their Sunday finest, the girls in muslin frocks and garden hats, the men with linen dusters over their black clothes; the older women in prints and dotted calicoes. Many of these latter had already taken off their bonnets—the day was very hot—and pinning them in newspapers, stowed them under the seats. They tucked their handkerchiefs into the collars of their dresses, or knotted them about their fat necks, to keep out the dust. From the axle trees of the vehicles swung carefully covered buckets of galvanised iron, in which the lunch was packed. The younger children, the boys with great frilled collars, the girls with ill-fitting shoes cramping their feet, leaned from the sides of buggy and carryall, eating bananas and “macaroons,” staring about with ox-like stolidity. Tied to the axles, the dogs followed the horses’ hoofs with lolling tongues coated with dust.
The California summer lay blanketwise and smothering over all the land. The hills, bone-dry, were browned and parched. The grasses and wild-oats, sear and yellow, snapped like glass filaments under foot. The roads, the bordering fences, even the lower leaves and branches of the trees, were thick and grey with dust. All colour had been burned from the landscape, except in the irrigated patches, that in the waste of brown and dull yellow glowed like oases.
The wheat, now close to its maturity, had turned from pale yellow to golden yellow, and from that to brown. Like a gigantic carpet, it spread itself over all the land. There was nothing else to be seen but the limitless sea of wheat as far as the eye could reach, dry, rustling, crisp and harsh in the rare breaths of hot wind out of the southeast.
As Harran and Presley went along the county road, the number of vehicles and riders increased. They overtook and passed Hooven and his family in the former’s farm wagon, a saddled horse tied to the back board. The little Dutchman, wearing the old frock coat of Magnus Derrick, and a new broad-brimmed
