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Updated: June 25, 2025
"And so," Sheriff Dove continued, with calm finality, "I'm out to bring in this here McHale." Casey thereupon gave Tom's reasons for leaving, and expressed his opinion that he would come in and give himself up within a short time. The sheriff listened, smoking impassively. "I dunno but what McHale acted pretty sensible," he commented. "He needn't worry about my not protectin' him.
"Well?" he asked abruptly. "Well, it was me and this here Cross," McHale explained. "I downed him." "In the argument?" laughed Wade, who did not comprehend. But Casey asked quickly: "Gun?" McHale nodded. "You did! How'd it happen? Is he dead?" "I miss once, but three times I'm pretty near centre," McHale replied.
"You never know when you'll need a gun," McHale asserted, as an incontrovertible general proposition. "You won't need it this time. Come along." It was almost midday when they came in sight of the construction camp beside the dam. To their surprise, a barbed wire fence had been thrown around it, enclosing an area of some twenty acres.
What you doin' to that there Chink? He's cussin' scand'lous. Casey been up to some of his devilment?" "Come in and join us, Tom," said Casey. "Feng had a run-in with Fluff. Result, one bottle of claret and two glasses gone to glory." "Also one Chink on the warpath," McHale added. "If I was in the insurance business I wouldn't write no policy on that there hen.
High up at the coulée's rim, some hundreds of yards away, figures moved. At that distance, even in the brilliant moonlight, details were lost. The eye could discern black spots merely; but it seemed that the men had dismounted for the ascent, and were helping the horses to scramble upward. McHale fired, shoved down the lever, drew it home, and fired again.
A light appeared in a window of one of the shacks. "Blazes!" muttered McHale, "somebody's getting up." A low whistle came from behind them. It was significant of the tension of the moment that both McHale and McCrae jumped. But Dunne was cooler. "That's only Wyndham with the horses," he said. Suddenly a long aperture of light appeared in the dark wall of the shack.
"Now, you listen here," said McHale. "Lemme tell you something: It's just hell's tender mercy on you I ain't got a gun. If I'd 'a' had it, you'd been beef by the trail right now." "There's always two chances to be the beef," the other returned, unmoved. "Go fill your hand before you talk to me." McHale grinned at him. "I like you better than I did, partner.
"Good enough!" cried McHale, his eyes lighting up. "But say, Casey, them ditch-and-dam boys ain't no meek-and-lowly outfit. Some of 'em is plumb hard-faced. How'd it be if I scattered back to the ranch first. I ain't packed a gun steady since I got to be a hayseed, but " "What do you want of a gun? We're just going to look at things and have a talk with Farwell."
He added that his wife and Miss Burnaby would accompany him. They would stay, he said, in town, at the hotel. Immediately Casey went into committee with Tom McHale. "Wade was coming here," he said. "The ladies complicate matters, but we'll have to do the best we can. It's the house that worries me. It's not furnished the way I'd like to have it. And then it's small.
There Casey lived with Tom McHale, his right-hand man and foreman. The hired men, varying in number constantly, occupied other quarters. Casey would have helped Sheila to alight, but she swung down, stretching her limbs frankly after the hard ride. "That's going," she said. "Beaver Boy was a brute to hold; he wanted to race Shiner. He nearly got away from me once. My wrists are actually lame."
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