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Political slush, all of it and the hull darned country a-blazin' behind you!" The crowd moved uneasily, then scattered away from the shelter of the depot to where they could snuff inquiringly the wind, like dogs in the leash. "That's right," yelled Blumenthall, of the Double Diamond. "There's a fire, sure as hell!" He started to run.
Blumenthall spoke a last, commonplace sentence or two, just to round off the conversation and make the termination not too abrupt, and they rode away, with Polycarp glancing curiously back, now and then, as though he was tempted to stay and gossip, and yet was anxious to know all that had happened at the Double Diamond. "What did Polycarp Jenks mean about Manley not coming to-night?"
"Lucky it ain't as windy as it was yesterday and the day before," Blumenthall cried out, as Kent stepped upon the brake block to reach a barrel. "It'd sweep the whole country if it was." Kent nodded, and ran back to the fire, trailing the dripping sack after him.
Blumenthall, cut off, with his men, from reaching his own ranch, was directing a group about to set a back fire. His voice boomed as if he were shouting across a milling herd. A roll of his eye brought his attention momentarily from the work, and he ran toward a horseman who was gesticulating wildly and seemed on the point of riding straight toward the fire. "Hi!
Val, tucking a side comb hastily into her freshly coiled hair, her pretty self clothed all in white linen, appeased eagerly in the doorway. "Why where's Manley?" she demanded anxiously. Blumenthall was dismounting near her, and he touched his hat before he answered. "We were on the way home, and we thought we'd better ride around this way and see how you came out," he evaded.
Blumenthall glanced meaningly at Kent and Fred De Garmo, sitting to one side of his saddle, looked at Polycarp Jenks and smiled slightly. "We left town ahead of him, and knocked right along." Val regarded the group suspiciously. "He's coming, then, is he?" "Oh, certainly. Glad you're all right, Mrs. Fleetwood.
As he had said, fighting fire is hungry work, and none save Blumenthall, who was dyspeptic and only ate twice a day, and then of certain foods prepared by himself, declined the invitation. To Val the days of heat and smoke, and the isolation, had made life seem unreal, like a dream which holds one fast and yet is absurd and utterly improbable.
Val was standing in the doorway, staring after the group of horsemen. "Nothing, I guess, Polycarp never does mean anything half the time; he just talks to hear his head roar. Man'll come, all right. This bunch happened to beat him out, is all." "Oh, do you think so? Mr. Blumenthall acted as if there was something "
At the Blumenthall ranch no man save the cook remained at home, and he only because he had a boil on his neck which sapped his interest in all things else. Polycarp Jenks was in town by nine o'clock, and only one man remained at the Wishbone. That man was Kent, and he stayed because, according to his outraged companions, he was an ornery cuss, and his bump of patriotism was a hollow in his skull.
He did make a half-hearted attempt to get lumber to the place, but there seemed to be no team in town which he could hire. Every one was busy, and put him off. He tried to buy hay of Blumenthall, of the Wishbone, of every man he met who had hay. No one had any hay to sell, however. Blumenthall complained that he was short, himself, and would buy if he could, rather than sell.
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