The Running of Silver River by C Read online

  listening to the sound for hours. Far out in the hillside sloped steeply; there was no other

  night, a deep, dull boom came out of the

  cover under the bright starlight except the dry darkness of the hills. Harlow crawled across bed of the river.

  the room and laid his rifle across the sill of the The horsemen had stopped firing. side window commanding the river-bed. He Harlow, leaning upon his window-sill, heard

  knew what ghostly vengeance it was that was

  the manager’s voice coming from afar off.

  roaring and booming closer and closer; and a

  “What are they down on us for? What

  moment later the men hidden in the river-bed got them after you, anyhow?”

  knew, too.

  Harlow tried to get his voice, but his

  “They blocked the creek on the other

  senses seemed to be drifting away on some

  side of the range,” he whispered, in answer to boundless sea, far from the trouble and pain of Houghton’s excited questions. “Keep the

  life. Everything seemed dimmed and dulled

  devils in their own trap; they can’t come out except that horrible stinging wound in his

  this way! Don’t you hear the water? I found

  shoulder. Then he screamed with agony. The

  the dam, and got a crowbar under the

  manager’s big hand was on his arm, brutally

  keystone. It’s the river coming!”

  shaking him into consciousness.

  “They’re going to rush us. Wake up

  here! They’re bunching behind the powder-

  house—my God, they’ve fired it!”

  Harlow caught, that. The devils from

  the mountain had fired the powder-house,

  which held enough giant-powder to blow a

  troop of cavalry into chin-straps.

  A shout from Houghton roused him.

  The light was growing brighter behind the

  little house across the road. A man on a black horse shot away from the light, crossed the

  road, as Houghton fired at him, and leaped his horse over the steep bank into the bed of the river.

  “Missed the brute!” Houghton

  growled. “It’s Bill Raynor. He’s going to

  enfilade us when we jump for it out back.

  There go two more! I can’t hit anything in this light. Are you awake, boy? Got hurt, didn’t

  you?”

  Two or three shots entered the side

  window, coming from the river-bed, and

  Houghton pulled Harlow to the floor.

  “They’re all over in the river now,” he

  “They’re afraid to come this way, an’

  The Running of Silver River 7

  they’re making up stream to where the bank is manager was saying. “Thought you was sure

  lower,” the manager cried, as a flare of fire finished when that bang came. The powder

  from the burning powder-house lit up the blowed a hole in the ground big enough to scene like daylight.

  plant Raynor and all his gang, including the

  “There’s one of the brutes trying to

  cayuses. How d’ye feel?”

  climb the bank now,” Harlow chattered, half

  A shade of anxiety crossed Harlow’s

  crazed from pain and weakness. “If I thought features.

  it was Bill Raynor, I’d pot him!”

  “The Raynor crowd are dead, you

  “You’ll get out of this hole right now,

  say?”

  that’s what you’ll do!” Houghton exclaimed.

  “Dead, not them!” The manager

  “See that fire out there? The whole place will grunted his disgust. “That bloomin’ river came go up in about a second. Mosey, man!”

  down like Niagara on a bender, but it only

  He sprang to the rear of the office,

  accounted for two or three drowned broncs.

  flinging open a back door; but Harlow did not The sheriff came back from Yuma Valley this

  heed either his words or his actions. A morning, and he says the Raynors have spitting, clear stream of fire spurted up from skipped clean out o’ the country. They must

  the roof of the powder-house, like the fire-

  have been working to block up Silver River

  spurt of a blow-pipe. Then a blast like the

  ever since they sold this plant to the Western explosion of a twelve-inch gun rose in the

  Company. Figured on getting the plant back

  midst of a great furnace of flame, lifting the for nothing, an’ then they’d turn on the water whole front of the building with it. But, again. See? Nice pair of citizens!”

  regardless of falling timbers and crashing

  Harlow was lying in the back room of

  glass, the engineer clung to the remnants of the wrecked office. The crushers were

  the window, glaring at another devouring pounding and booming in the reducing-works, element that was forging onward with and he smiled as he listened to the fuss and irresistible might. He saw the white crest of flurry of the river.

  the mighty wave that led the coming river, and

  “I wired N’York,” Houghton said.

  he heard the wild shrieks of the men caught

  “Guess you get most of the credit, son.”

  down between the banks of the torrent.

  “I guess the credit goes to Providence,

  all right,” Harlow murmured. “She did her

  IV

  work with fire and flood, but she always does it handsomely. I guess she knew where she

  “THOUGHT we’d never get you awake,” the

  wanted the Silver River to run!”