At last Hooven’s unpainted house, beneath the enormous live oak tree, came in sight. Across the Lower Road, breaking through fences and into the yard around the house, thundered the Leaguers. Magnus was waiting for them.
The riders dismounted, hardly less exhausted than their horses.
“Why, where’s all the men?” Annixter demanded of Magnus.
“Broderson is here and Cutter,” replied the Governor, “no one else. I thought you would bring more men with you.”
“There are only nine of us.”
“And the six hundred Leaguers who were going to rise when this happened!” exclaimed Garnett, bitterly.
“Rot the League,” cried Annixter. “It’s gone to pot—went to pieces at the first touch.”
“We have been taken by surprise, gentlemen, after all,” said Magnus. “Totally off our guard. But there are eleven of us. It is enough.”
“Well, what’s the game? Has the marshal come? How many men are with him?”
“The United States marshal from San Francisco,” explained Magnus, “came down early this morning and stopped at Guadalajara. We learned it all through our friends in Bonneville about an hour ago. They telephoned me and Mr. Broderson. S. Behrman met him and provided about a dozen deputies. Delaney, Ruggles, and Christian joined them at Guadalajara. They left Guadalajara, going towards Mr. Annixter’s ranch house on Quien Sabe. They are serving the writs in ejectment and putting the dummy buyers in possession. They are armed. S. Behrman is with them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Cutter is watching them from the Long Trestle. They returned to Guadalajara. They are there now.”
“Well,” observed Gethings, “from Guadalajara they can only go to two places. Either they will take the Upper Road and go on to Osterman’s next, or they will take the Lower Road to Mr. Derrick’s.”
“That is as I supposed,” said Magnus. “That is why I wanted you to come here. From Hooven’s, here, we can watch both roads simultaneously.”
“Is anybody on the lookout on the Upper Road?”
“Cutter. He is on the Long Trestle.”
“Say,” observed Hooven, the instincts of the old-time soldier stirring him, “say, dose feller pretty demn schmart, I tink. We got to put some picket way oudt bei der Lower Roadt alzoh, und he tek dose glassus Mist’r Ennixt’r got bei um. Say, look at dose irregation ditsch. Dot ditsch he run righd across both dose road, hey? Dat’s some fine entrenchment, you bedt. We fighd um from dose ditsch.”
In fact, the dry irrigating ditch was a natural trench, admirably suited to the purpose, crossing both roads as Hooven pointed out and barring approach from Guadalajara to all the ranches save Annixter’s—which had already been seized.
Gethings departed to join Cutter on the Long Trestle, while Phelps and Harran, taking Annixter’s field glasses with them, and mounting their horses, went out towards Guadalajara on the Lower Road to watch for the marshal’s approach from that direction.
After the outposts had left them, the party in Hooven’s cottage looked to their weapons. Long since, every member of the League had been in the habit of carrying his revolver with him. They were all armed and, in addition, Hooven had his rifle. Presley alone carried no weapon.
The main room of Hooven’s house, in which the Leaguers were now assembled, was barren, poverty-stricken, but tolerably clean. An old clock ticked vociferously on a shelf. In one corner was a bed, with a patched, faded quilt. In the centre of the room, straddling over the bare floor, stood a pine table. Around this the men gathered, two or three occupying chairs, Annixter sitting sideways on the table, the rest standing.
“I believe, gentlemen,” said Magnus, “that we can go through this day without bloodshed. I believe not one shot need be fired. The Railroad will not force the issue, will not bring about actual fighting. When the marshal realises that we are thoroughly in earnest, thoroughly determined, I am convinced that he will withdraw.”
There were murmurs of assent.
“Look here,” said Annixter, “if this thing can by any means be settled peaceably, I say let’s do it, so long as we don’t give in.”
The others stared. Was this Annixter who spoke—the Hotspur of the League, the quarrelsome, irascible fellow who loved and sought a quarrel? Was it Annixter, who now had been the first and only one of them all to suffer, whose ranch had been seized, whose household possessions had been flung out into the road?
“When you come right down to it,” he continued, “killing a man, no matter what he’s done to you, is a serious business. I propose we make one more attempt to stave this thing off. Let’s see if we can’t get to talk with the marshal himself; at any rate, warn him of the danger of going any further. Boys, let’s not fire the first shot. What do you say?”
The others agreed unanimously and promptly; and old Broderson, tugging uneasily at his long beard, added:
“No—no—no violence, no unnecessary violence, that is. I should hate to have innocent blood on my hands—that is, if it is innocent. I don’t know, that S. Behrman—ah, he is a—a—surely he had innocent blood on his head. That Dyke affair, terrible, terrible; but then Dyke was in the wrong—driven to it, though; the Railroad did drive him to it. I want to be fair and just to everybody.”
“There’s a team coming up the road from Los Muertos,” announced Presley from the door.
“Fair and just to everybody,” murmured old Broderson, wagging his head, frowning perplexedly. “I don’t want to—to—to harm anybody unless they
