"It's safer for some people," McHale commented. "S'pose we struck hard luck to-night and got backed into a corner or followed up too close--how'd we look without guns? 'Course, I'd take awful long chances before I shot _at_ anybody; but all the same a Winchester helps out a retirin' disposition a whole lot."
"No doubt about that. But the devil of packing a gun is the temptation to use it before you really have to. That accounts for a lot of trouble. Why, even in the old days, a man who didn't pack a gun was safe, unless he tracked up with some mighty mean specimen of a killer. And those dirty killers usually didn't last long."
"That's so in one way," McHale admitted, "but I look at it different. If nobody but the killers had packed guns they'd have run the whole show. Some of them gents killed for the fun of it, like a mink in a chicken coop. The mean sort'd pick out some harmless, helpless party, and stomp up and down, r'arin' and cussin' till they got up a big mad. The chances was about even they'd shoot. Usual they didn't try them plays on men that wore their artillery in plain sight."
"Well, we haven't any killers now, anyway," said Dunne. "This is about as far as it's safe to go with the horses. We'll wait till the others come up."
In a few minutes, the faint straining of leather, creak of springs, and subdued clank of axles came to them. The buckboard loomed out of the darkness, and halted suddenly.
"Yes. We won't take the horses any farther. If that watchman is on the dam to-night he might hear something. We can pack the powder the rest of the way ourselves."
The rear riders, young Sandy McCrae and Wyndham, arrived. Then a dispute arose. No one wished to remain with the horses. Casey Dunne settled it.
"There's only one man going to plant powder and cut fuses, and that's Oscar," said he. "If we all go messing around with it in the dark, half the shots won't fire, and we may have an accident. Outside of that there's nothing to do except take care of the watchman if he's there; and he's sure to be. Wyndham, you're not cut out for that sort of work. You will stay with the ponies. Now, McCrae, you'd better turn around and drive home."
McCrae pulled the team around. "Good luck, boys," said he quietly, and was gone. The spare horse which had been tied to the buckboard remained for Oscar.