ll stay with the game while I got a chaw and a
ca'tridge left. I may be froze out, but dog-gone my ol' hide if I'll be
bluffed out. This here ain't none different from claim jumpin'. I own
my water, and I'm goin' to keep on havin' it. And the man that shets it
off will be mighty apt to see how they irrigate them green fields 'way
over yander 'cross the River Jordan."

His words were like fire in dry straw.

"That's right, Uncle Ike!" cried Carter.

"By George I'm with you myself!" cried Wyndham.

"_Moi aussi!_" exclaimed Brule. "By damn, yes!"

"Yes, let 'em try it!" cried young Alec McCrae, his eyes gleaming like
those of a fierce young hawk that sights its first quarry. "Let 'em try
it!" he repeated ominously, nodding to himself.

But on the excitement of the others Donald McCrae's words fell like an
icy douche: "Men, this is plain foolishness. Alec, let me hear no more
of it from you. James, you should know better. We can't enforce claim
law here. The old days are gone."

"I ain't gone yet, nor you ain't," old James replied, his eyes gleaming
balefully through slitted lids. "I give it out now that I don't set
quiet and see my ditches go dry. Long's the law won't help us--and the
law never gave no action in the West nohow--I'm goin' to help myself. I
ain't raisin' the long yell for partners, neither!"

"You can't bring back the old days," McCrae repeated. "I stand to lose
as much as any man here, but shooting one or two men who are doing what
they are paid to do won't help us. You all know that."

"That's so," Casey admitted. "That's the last thing we can afford to
do."

"Well, maybe you boys are right," said the old man reluctantly. "Maybe
I ain't up to date. But what you goin' to do? You got to do somethin'."

"Yes," said Wyndham. "They are getting ahead with their work. It won't
be long till that dam is finished. Then they'll take the water from us,
that's certain."

But here Big Oscar received an inspiration. He had been listening
carefully, casting mildly inquiring blue eyes on the speakers. He was a
good listener, was Oscar, and he seldom spoke. His mental engine, so
far as could be judged by its verbal expression, turned over stiffly.
Apparently it had never been run enough to be smoothed down--at least
in English. But his contribution to the debate at this juncture was
noteworthy. Said he:

"Say, Ay tenk Ay blow dat dam, easy!"

They stared at him for a moment, while the suggestion took root.