But his words had not been intended as a ruse. Casey was riding over on his little gray mare to see who the strangers were, and what they wanted.
"This man tells me you're Dunne," said the gray-eyed man.
"My name is Dade; his name is Cross." He indicated his companion by a sidewise nod. "We've bought land from this here irrigation outfit. So have half a dozen other men, friends of ours. Now we can't get water."
"Well, the company puts it up that some of you fellows is to blame. You've cut the ditches so they won't carry. We've come to tell you that this has got to stop."
"That's kind of you, anyway," Casey observed quietly. He and Dade eyed each other appraisingly.
"What I want to make plumb clear," said the latter, "is that this don't go no more. It's no good. You'll leave the ditches alone, or else----"
"Or else we'll make you," said Dade grimly. "We want water, and we'll have it."
"I wonder," said Casey, "if you are trying to hang a nice little bluff on me, Mr. Dade? Suppose, for instance, you have no land, and don't need any water."
"That's quite possible. All right, Mr. Dade. Is there anything more you want to say?"
"I reckon that's all," said Dade. "If you'll say that the ditches will be let alone there'll be no trouble; if not, there will be."
"Very well," said Casey. "Now, listen to me, Mr. Dade. You and your friend there and your whole outfit can go plumb. Get that? Every ranch here has water, and we're going to keep it. How we keep it is our own business. If you've bought land you may look to the company for water, and not to us. If you haven't bought land--if you're hired to come here to start something--why, let it start!"
He and Dade looked straight into each other's eyes in the silence that followed. Cross made a sudden movement.
"Be careful, partner!" McHale warned him in hard tones.
Once more Clyde, an involuntary listener, felt the presence of a crisis, the chill of fate impending. But, as before, it passed.
"You're barking up the wrong tree," said Dade. "Nothing starts--now. Better remember what I told you. Come on, Sam, we'll get going."
Clyde heard the trample of hoofs dying in the distance, and then McHale's voice:
"You run the bluff, but you took an awful chance. That there Cross come mighty close to making a break."