"When gentlemen of a dark and sinister cast of mind deliberately set out to frustrate one's legitimate efforts under a misapprehension as to the course to be pursued, the proper diplomacy in such a case is to foster the delusion circulating in their craniums as long as possible and thus divert their attention from the real purpose. Don't you agree with me, David?" Lee Bryant gravely inquired of his young companion, as they were about to set forth next morning.
"Yes, sir," Dave affirmed, to whom the statement was so much Greek.
"Then since the vote is unanimous, we'll proceed to run a line along the mountain side where it will collide with these new homesteads."
The engineer shouldered tripod and rod, whistled Mike to heel, and with Dave started forward. Half way to Bartolo they perceived three men busy on the hillside, so Bryant swung up to a point a quarter of a mile off and began surveying. When he approached the workmen, Mexicans naturally, he saw that they were engaged in setting fence posts, of which a row was already in line part way up the hill.
The men dropped their tools and confronted him as he drew near.
"This is my land; you keep away," one exclaimed, with waving arms, while the other backed him up in a show of force.
"How can I build a canal here if you won't let me go through?" Bryant demanded.
"No go through, no canal on my claim!"
"Well, just let me run a line, anyhow."
"No. Keep off, keep off," was the obstinate answer.
The engineer continued to argue, now as if in anger and now with a conciliatory mien, all the while protesting that the homesteader must not prevent the construction of the canal. But he received only shakes of the head, short replies, and malicious looks. So at length, with every pretense of disappointment and dejection, he went down the hillside.
A mile farther along, where he found two more men occupied at similar labour, he likewise dissembled his purpose, with the same opposition, controversy, and retreat. He thereupon led Dave back to the ranch house, where he prepared and ate dinner with satisfaction. Very likely Menocal would receive reports that evening faithfully depicting his chagrin and despair, or whatever were the Mexican equivalents.
Yet while he deluded the banker, he must secretly carry on his actual surveying on the mesa. Since the men setting fence posts had a fairly wide view of the plain, he determined to work in the open only for two or three hours at daybreak before the Mexicans were about. For Menocal, or any one else, must have no suspicion of his real ditch line until an application for construction of the project had been filed in the state engineer's office.
Signs that the banker had taken measures to keep him under surveillance were not wanting.
"Dave," he said, "have you noticed a sheepherder with a bunch of sheep hanging around here, when he should be up in the mountains where the range is good?"
"Yes, I've seen him. And he hasn't a full band, either."
"Looks as if he's grazing down here on the mesa so as to watch us," Bryant mused. "When we went north, he and his sheep drifted in that direction; when we were over on the mountain side, they followed there. What shall we do about it?"
"I don't see that we can do anything except to watch him, too, and fool him." The lad took thought for a moment, and then proceeded, "Somebody was around here yesterday while we were away, for I saw a brown paper cigarette stub on the ground in front of the door this morning. You use white papers; it's mostly Mexicans who have those straw papers."
"Then we had better put an extra nail or two in the windows as a precaution," Lee stated, "before we go down to Sarita Creek. And I'll leave Mike here also. If anybody comes fooling around, he'll take a piece out of the fellow's leg."
In addition to nailing the windows and leaving Mike at the door, much to his dissatisfaction, Bryant secreted his papers, note-books, and maps, the theft of which would be an extremely serious loss. Menocal probably would not instigate open lawlessness, but his hirelings might break into the house on their own initiative. And this was not unlikely since a bitter feeling was systematically beingaroused against Bryant and his project among the preponderate Mexican inhabitants.
But for the time being he dismissed this matter from his thoughts, when with tripod and rod and a bundle of stakes on Dick's saddle he and Dave set out for Sarita Creek, leading the horse. Bryant had postponed, under pressure of work, the business of fixing the feminine homesteaders' garden ditch, until his conscience began to prick him on the subject. He had neither seen nor had news of them since the chance meeting at the ford; but now, as he could survey his canal line on the mesa only during the early hours, he planned to make frequent visits to the girls.
That they already had a caller this afternoon he discovered on arriving at the two little cabins built of boards, peeping forth from among the trees in the mouth of the cañon. The place was indeed charming, with its grass and shade, with its brook flowing close by the dwellings, with walls of rock rising behind. Just now an automobile rested before the trees; and the engineer saw a man sitting on the grass with Ruth Gardner and Imogene Martin, the three chatting and laughing gaily. When Bryant got a good look at the other visitor he gave vent to an ejaculation in which was blended surprise and contempt. "That magpie! Of all damn impudence!" For the cavalier so debonairly entertaining the young ladies was none other than the olive-skinned Charlie Menocal.
A sense of pique was Bryant's succeeding feeling. He would have disdainfully denied that he was moved by a pang of jealousy. But he had anticipated finding the girlsalone and having a pleasant chat with them, enjoying their companionship, relaxing from the strain of arduous work, harkening to their badinage. Indeed, if the interloper had been someone else, some other man, at least, he would have experienced a turn of disappointment—but that the individual should be this tricky, coddled, egotistical Charlie Menocal! Well, he should align the girls' irrigating ditch and then go about his business.
"I've been delayed in coming to correct your water flow," he remarked, when the fair homesteaders had given him greeting, "but I'm on hand at last."
Ruth Gardner, looking prettier and fuller of spirits than ever, assured him the ditch was behaving no better than before. Her next words, however, left him with an impression that he and not Charlie Menocal was the intruder, which hardened his annoyance into a desire to have done with the matter.
"I wish you had come some other day, for we're just about to depart," she exclaimed. "Mr. Menocal is very kindly taking Imo and me in his car to see the old ruins of a pueblo somewhere over west. We'll be gone probably all the rest of the afternoon, and there'll be no one to show you the ditch and what's wrong with it."
"Oh, I'll find out what's wrong and straighten out the trouble," the engineer replied. "You've a spade or shovel, I suppose? Go right ahead with your exploring expedition and don't worry about me; the ditch will be working properly when you return."
"Well, if you don't really need us——"
"Not in the least," was his assurance.
She still hesitated, while her look travelled from Bryant to Menocal and back again. To the engineer that inclusive regard indicated that her mind was less concerned with the garden ditch than with a comparison of her two visitors; and with a sudden feeling of warmth about his neck Bryant admitted to himself that he presented no attractions. He wore laced boots, soiled khaki trousers and flannel shirt, with his hat pulled over one eye against the sun; Menocal was dressed in light gray clothes, thin and cool, low white shoes, a pale pink silk shirt (trust a Mexican for colour somewhere!) a vivid rose-hued scarf, and a white cap. To further emphasize the contrast, Bryant led a loaded horse and a gangling boy, while Charlie Menocal leaned at ease against his twin-six. Quite a difference, for a fact. And it was plain that Ruth Gardner noted it with discrimination.
Imogene Martin now spoke.
"I don't think I'll go, Ruth. I've not been feeling well the last day or two, as you know, and I'm afraid to risk the sun."
"Oh, come on, Imo. The ride will do you good," her friend replied, with a trace of impatience.
"No, I told Mr. Menocal when he proposed the expedition that I doubted if I should go."
"Too bad not to come, Miss Martin," that worthy remarked, without enthusiasm. Clearly his interest in what company he should have did not point toward her.
"I'm going, at any rate," Ruth Gardner said. And then, "Oh, dear! I overlooked altogether introducing you you two gentlemen."
Bryant was human; the opportunity was one he could not let pass. So smiling broadly he said:
"We've met before, haven't we, Menocal? At Perro Creek ford." And receiving no response but a scowl, he spoke at large, "Well, I must get busy if I'm to save those beans."
He led Dick, with Dave at his side, toward the garden on open ground below the trees, where the bean vines were already turning yellow for lack of water. He chuckled as he went, for the disappearance of Charlie Menocal's patronizing air and the sudden thundercloud hanging on his visage attested that the charge had gone home.
Ten minutes later the automobile passed the garden, but Bryant, who had set up his tripod and stationed Dave with his rod some distance off, did not see the hand Ruth Gardner waved. His eye was where an engineer's eye should be, at his transit.
"She waved at you," Dave called.
"Who?"
"That girl with the Mexican."
"Well, what of it?"
When Bryant used that tone, Dave recognized the wisdom of silence. He pretended that he had not heard. Even his employer, whom he worshipped, had strange, mysterious moods.
The defect in the ditch proved to be one of minor character, which Bryant corrected after a few observations and half an hour's work with a shovel. While he was thus engaged, Imogene Martin, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, strolled out to watch his operations. She was in a friendly and talkative mood, and asked questions concerning ditches and irrigation and surveying, and about Dave, and speculated on the ruins of the pueblo whither Ruth and Charlie Menocal had gone, and said she was glad Bryant had bought the ranch just north of their claims and would be their neighbour. Only, she added, she was sorry to learn that he was having trouble with the people about; Mr. Menocal had stated such to be a fact, though what he had further hinted of Bryant's endeavour to gain property to which he had no title and of the engineer's being a trouble-maker, she did not for one instant believe.
"I'll be a trouble-maker for Charlie and his dad if they continue their present policy," Lee vouchsafed, tossing aside a shovelful of earth.
Imogene Martin carefully flattened a hill of bean plants for a seat, sat down, and locked her hands over her knees.
"I think you're to be trusted, so I'll tell you a secret," she remarked, smiling. "Charlie Menocal doesn't make a'hit' with me, either. When you referred to the ford, I could scarcely keep my face straight; and my feeling ill this afternoon, though partly true, was also partly manufactured, because I didn't want to go to those old ruins with him. I don't care for men like him especially. I share the feeling of my uncle in Kennard—"
"You have an uncle there? I thought you were from the East."
"I am; from Ohio. But I've an uncle and aunt living in Kennard, which is the reason Ruth and I came to this section for homesteads. Ruth was crazy to take up a claim, having read how easily one is acquired, while my health was not very good and the doctor at home thought it would be improved by being in the open in a high altitude. Uncle said I'd better stay with him and aunt, but I knew how terribly disappointed Ruth would be if I did, because she couldn't homestead alone. So uncle declared that if homesteaders we had to be, then we must locate near him where he could have me under his eye, so to speak. I myself am not taking this claim business very seriously. And now uncle, who once had some controversy with the elder Menocal, wouldn't be very well pleased if he knew the son was making calls on us."
"So others besides myself have trouble with the Menocals," Bryant stated.
"Apparently. I don't know what this particular difficulty was about, but uncle is president of a bank in Kennard and so it may have been some financial matter. Or it may have been over politics; both of them mix in that. Anyway, he doesn't think highly of the elder Menocal, andhas no use at all for the younger; so I know he would be vexed at Ruth and me for receiving this Charlie."
"You didn't know him that day he and I clashed at the ford," Lee suggested.
"Oh, no. Our meeting came about one afternoon about a week afterward. He overtook us on the road a mile or so away from here and politely offered to bring us home in his car; we were walking and couldn't very well refuse his courtesy, and then he asked to call and Ruth at once gave him permission, and that's the way it came about. But I thought it wise to draw the line at going off miles and miles with him to see ruins. Of course, Ruth hasn't any uncle to consider, but uncle or no uncle I should have drawn the line just the same."
"A colour line, eh?" Lee asked, with a lift of his brows.
"Yes, that's it, though I hesitated to put it in just those words," she agreed, with a nod, while both her lips and her blue eyes smiled at him in amusement. "Really, Mexicans are of different blood and race, you know, and I feel the—gulf. That probably sounds foolish and ridiculous, still I can't help the feeling. When I look at a man like Charlie Menocal, I see the Mexican strain uppermost even if his mother was white; and I think what strange, savage, unguessed traits may lurk in his blood from a long time back; and I shiver. One dare not say they have ceased. There may be forces at work in his soul that are inherited from the very tribesmen who dwelt in that pueblo ages ago, whose ruins he and Ruth have gone to see. Who knows? And I'm never able to rid myself of the feeling that such forces exist in him and his kind."
The engineer thrust his shovel into the earth and seated himself beside the girl.
"Nor I," said he. "And I suppose that feeling will remain between persons of different races as long as the races themselves last. Those who ignore or deny it are simply blind. Why, look, there's antipathy between even white men of different nationalities! So what else is to be expected when the question is one of race and colour? Nor will one or two generations change what is infused in blood and sinew."
"Now, that's what uncle says," Imogene Martin declared, "and asserts that's the reason why Mexicans born and raised here are in sympathy with those across the border in any trouble Mexico has with our country." Her face all at once became amused. "He says craniums were shaped long before governments."
Bryant laughed on hearing that concise summing up of the case. And then they continued to talk of this and other subjects, while Dave Morris drew near and silently drank in the conversation, most of which passed above his head. As for the engineer, he found in his companion a peculiar charm that he never would have suspected from their first meeting at the ford; a pleasure begotten of a quick intelligence and a keen, trained mind.
"I've delayed you in your work," she exclaimed, at length.
"Except to throw out a few shovelfuls of dirt, and that will take but a moment. I was done. I didn't sit down until it was practically put in shape. I hope we shall have another talk soon; this one has been a great treat for me. Let me help you up."
When he had cleaned the last clods from the ditch, he set off with tripod and shovel on shoulder to walk with her to the cabins, while Dave followed with Dick. At the houses Bryant cast an appraising look at the scanty heap of chopped wood and wound up his visit by seizing the axe and attacking the store of dry poles hauled from the cañon by the man who had built the cabins.
"There, that will keep you going for awhile," he stated, when he had produced a large pile of sticks. "I don't believe you're strong enough to handle an axe, Miss Martin; and it would grieve me deeply to learn you had removed a toe in the attempt. Really, this homesteading game isn't for women and girls."
"Oh, we've made out fairly well."
"Your spirit is admirable, but I can't say as much for your judgment in the matter," he returned, good-naturedly. "Still, we all go hunting trouble in our own individual fashion; if not in one way, why, then in another."
It was after five o'clock when Lee Bryant and Dave, once more leading the loaded horse, took their departure and followed Sarita Creek down to the mesa trail. When they had struck into the latter and travelled it for half a mile, they saw a long distance ahead someone walking toward them, also leading a horse. In a land where men saddle a mount to ride a few hundred yards, the singular coincidence excited their curiosity. They wondered why the fellow walked, as doubtless he was wondering the same thing of them. But as they drew nearer they perceived the pedestrian to be not a man but a woman; and when they met Bryant recognized in her the girl who had sat by Charlie Menocal in hisautomobile at the ford. Her gray corded riding habit was dusty; she appeared both hot and tired; and her countenance showed a deep dejection. The horse she led was limping.
Bryant raised his hat and addressed her.
"Your horse has gone lame, I see. Can I be of any service to you?"
"I'm afraid not; he acts as if he had strained a tendon," she replied. "So I'm leading him home. Our ranch is on Diamond Creek."
"But you had a fall! There's blood on your glove."
"No, it's not from that," she said, with a shake of her head.
Bryant again remarked the exquisite molding of her face as he had noted it at their first meeting, and her wide brow and clear brown eyes and the fineness of her skin, and her warm, sensitive lips, at this instant moving in the barest tremble imaginable. She was gazing at him with a curious, troubled look.
"Bring Dick here," Lee bade Dave.
He swiftly untied the ropes and removed tripod, rod, and saddle. Then he unfastened the hitch of the saddle of the horse the girl led.
"Why, what are you doing?" she exclaimed.
"Giving you a fresh horse. You can ride mine home and send him back to me to-morrow; I live just ahead on Perro Creek at the Stevenson place."
"I wondered if you weren't the new owner, for I had learned that the ranch had been sold by Mr. Stevenson. Father bought his sheep. You are Mr. Bryant, aren't you? This is most kind to lend me your horse."
"You'll find Dick gentle; and you can lead your own mount. Walking appears to have exhausted you."
Again she shook her head, with an odd expression growing upon her face—anxiety, distress, just what Lee could not exactly decide. But as she made no explanation, he gave her a hand and swung her upon Dick, after which he handed her the reins and advanced the hope that she should arrive home without further misadventure.
She made no move to depart, however, but sat regarding the engineer.
"I was at your house," she stated, finally.
"To see me?"
"To find you, or someone, who could help me. When my horse went lame near the ford, I found that he had picked up a stone which I couldn't remove. So I led him to your house, seeking assistance. When I reached there——"
She stopped in her recital, compressing her lips and gazing off across the sagebrush.
"Well?" the engineer encouraged.
"When I reached there, I heard a dog whining."
Bryant stiffened.
"I left my dog Mike behind," said he.
"The sound was really more like a moaning," she went on. "At first I could see nothing, but when I looked everywhere I found that it came from one of the three cottonwood trees. Somebody had hurt him, and the poor creature was suffering terribly. I—I can hardly tell what had been done to him!" And she shuddered.
"Mike! They've killed my dog Mike!"
"They nailed him to a cottonwood tree. A nail througheach leg. A nail through his throat. Nails through his body. They had crucified him. And, oh, his pitiful eyes!"
Lee Bryant stood perfectly still and quiet. Dave was frozen and horrified. Both gazed fixedly across the mesa to where the cottonwoods could be seen.
"Is Mike alive yet?" Bryant asked presently, in an unsteady voice.
"No; not now. I found a piece of iron and hammered the nails free. Then I lifted him down and carried him to the creek and washed his wounds. But he died. I see his eyes yet, looking up at me." For a little she was overcome. Then she resumed, "When he was dead, I carried him up to your door, for I knew you must have loved him."
Bryant glanced up at her.
"Mike would know you were a friend," he said.
She nodded and reined Dick about. Leading the other horse, she rode away through the sunshine that burnished the mesa.
July passed. Followed August, with days likewise hot and unvarying except for a scarcely appreciable retardation of dawn. Perro Creek now showed no water at all in its shallow bed; the garden planted by the Stevensons was long dried up; the sagebrush was dustier than ever; and Bryant and Dave were hauling in a barrel on a sledge water for their use from a pool in the cañon.
From daybreak until about eight o'clock in the morning the engineer and his assistant worked on the canal line. Bryant had run a fictitious survey along the mountain side, staking it out conspicuously for any one to see, to the first of the fenced claims of the Mexican homesteaders, where it ended as if blocked; but his real line on the mesa remained unstaked.
To the low ridge, or spur of ground, projecting from the mountain's base at a point half a mile south of his right of way through the fields, where the canal began its sweep out upon the plain, he gave considerable time. The fall of this at first was sharp, and concrete drops would have to be constructed at intervals for a distance of a mile or so in order to lower the water. When this section was left behind, he advanced rapidly along the line, for the surface of the gentle crescent swell was smooth, its grade fairly regular, and its contour fixed by nature. Essential points he marked bystones, with merely their surfaces exposed, so that if noticed they would be considered scattered pieces of rock from the hills. At the proper time they would constitute guides for later staking.
Evenings Bryant spent in developing his notes and in making tracings of the canal sections covered. During the day hours, when he knew watchful eyes were on him, he made a topographical survey of his ranch; work that he could carry on openly. The five thousand acres comprising the tract had a general direction of east and west, being about four miles long and two miles wide, which for the most part lay equally on each side of Perro Creek. By using the water of this stream during the flood season, a period of some weeks in spring and early summer, Bryant would be able very considerably to augment the supply from the Pinas. It was necessary to join the two sources in a unified system of laterals that would efficiently serve the tract; and therefore the whole enterprise required study, innumerable measurements, calculations of dirt moving, of water distribution, of dam, weir, and gate construction, of soil analysis—a coördination of the thousand and one matters concerned in an irrigation project that are preliminary to breaking ground. So early and late he toiled, and with him Dave Morris.
The boy indeed did enough for a man. And Bryant would sometimes arise from his drawing board where he worked after supper until midnight, to go and affectionately gaze at Dave sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
One afternoon, when the pair were at work near the southern boundary of the ranch, Ruth Gardner came through the sagebrush to the spot, a mile from Sarita Creek.
"I could see you, just black specks, from our cabins; and since you don't visit us, I made up my mind to visit you," she announced. "I've noticed you down here for two days past. Days and days have gone by without you coming to pay another call."
"Well, we've been sticking pretty steadily at our job," Bryant replied. "Won't you use this bag of stakes for a seat? It will keep you off the ground."
Ruth accepted the proffered resting place and loosened the thongs of her hat, inspected her face in a tiny mirror produced from somewhere, rubbed her nose with a handkerchief, and then gave her attention to her companions.
"Our garden has grown splendidly since you fixed the ditch," she said. "Thanks to you. How is yours?"
"It has expired."
"Then you shall have things out of ours—if you'll come get them. See, I'm using that to decoy you. There are beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, and new potatoes, not very large yet, of course. I know just what you're doing: working hard, eating only canned stuff, skimping your food, and ruining your digestion."
Bryant laughed. Her tone had expressed indignation, while her face was directly accusatory.
"We seem to have fair health, don't we, Dave?" he remarked.
"You look positively thin," said she. "And as for this poor starved shadow that you call Dave! Well, I won't say my thoughts. For a penny I'd invite myself to dinner at your house just to see what you do have."
At this possibility both the engineer and his youngassistant displayed signs of consternation. Under pressure of work housekeeping had been an unimportant trifle frequently postponed; last meal's dishes were washed while the next meal was preparing; clothes were left where they were carelessly flung; and surveying tools, maps, and papers littered the rooms. No, it was not a dwelling in which to entertain a feminine guest.
"Maybe I had better go there and clear up things some," Dave stated, uneasily. And without awaiting a reply from Bryant, he set off through the sagebrush for the house.
Ruth began to laugh, resting her cheeks in her hands.
"That poor solemn boy, he took me seriously!" she exclaimed. "I shouldn't come alone, of course; it wouldn't be proper—and Imo would be horrified. Well, you may as well sit down and talk to me, Mr. Bryant, for you can't work alone, and I've come to stay awhile. Imogene told me what a nice talk she had with you the afternoon I went to the ruins, and I hoped you'd come soon again, but you never did."
"Perhaps I haven't been exactly neighbourly."
He lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged, considering her.
"I thought that possibly I had offended you in going off so abruptly with Charlie Menocal," she said, with eyes fastened on his. "You and he aren't very good friends. I know——"
"We're not friends at all; we're enemies."
"That need not keep you away from us. He has been very civil and kind, but neither Imogene nor I have any particular fancy for the man. Besides, I think his chiefinterest in life centres around a girl living on Diamond Creek, named Louise Graham; he hinted that they were as good as engaged. Very likely we shall see little more of him. So if your dislike at meeting him is the reason for your staying away, you haven't a good reason at all. Don't you think Imo and I ever tire of listening to each other? Any two girls would, living alone by themselves. After your promise at the ford we were delighted—and how many calls have we had from you? Just one. With me away, too!"
"To-morrow will be Sunday; I'll stop work at noon and come," he declared.
She pointed a forefinger at him and wiggled her thumb, in imitation of a pistol.
"Hold up your right hand and swear it," she commanded, "or I'll shoot." She continued to menace Bryant while he obeyed. "There, now you're safe. And bring that hungry boy and we'll feed you both; this is a dinner invitation, understand. Now, tell me about everything."
"Everything?"
"All you're doing with that three-legged telescope and these stakes."
She smoothed her dress and manifested an expectant interest. The impression Bryant had gained at the first accidental meeting at Perro Creek, of her good looks, of her vitality and irrepressible spirits, was heightened. As he recollected his feeling of pique at her visit with Charlie Menocal to the ruined pueblo, he realized that he had indulged in a bit of senseless, unwarranted umbrage; and now had, in consequence, a quick desire to make amends. Itwas as if he must reëstablish himself in her good opinion and his own.
Their talk ran on from topic to topic. The gaiety of her comments pleased him; the youthfulness of her was irresistible; and he found himself observing the changing curves of her throat and cheek as she turned her head a little aside or raised her chin; found himself watching for certain unconscious attitudes; awaiting the lift of her eyes to his, harkening for particular tones of her voice. And Bryant, who, though he knew it not, was also athirst for companionship, more and more yielded to her subtle feminine attraction. "She's even prettier than I supposed," he thought. Her lips, her nose, her eyes of deep gray with their wonderfully long lashes—each had a particular charm of its own. He admired the grace of her figure. He felt an odd surprise at her apparent soft and pliant strength, as at a discovery. His mind thrilled with delight at her laughter.
"Look where the sun is!" she exclaimed, all at once. "Straight over our heads—noon. Your David will be wondering where you are, while Imogene will imagine I'm lost. Let me pick a flower to stick in the ribbon of your hat and then I'll go."
"Your fingers will suffer; I'll get some," Lee said, quickly. From a spreading bed of prickly-pear he plucked a dozen of the cactus blossoms, ranging in colour from a delicate lemon to a deep orange. He turned to her.
"First I'll decorate you," he said. "Please assume an angelic expression and gaze straight at the camera."
She tilted her chin upward and thrust her arms downward with all five fingers of each hand stretched apart. Butimmediately she began to laugh. Lee gave her a reproving tap on the uplifted chin and then fastened the flowers in her hat-band. A thrill like fire ran through his body at the proximity of that soft, round chin, those red lips, her eyes gleaming with merriment.
"Now, beauty!" he said, stepping back.
The yellow blossoms made a garland about her hat.
"Do you like them thus?" she asked, delighted.
"Immensely."
"Then they shall stay there. And Imo will die of envy when I tell her they're yours."
"Nobody ever died of that."
"Perhaps not. But she will suffer extremely. You didn't even put bean plants in her hat."
Lee was highly amused at this raillery. He began to walk forward by her side as she moved away from the spot, now addressing her, now listening to her words, in a desire to stretch the last minute to the uttermost. Her head came just even with his shoulder, so that she had to raise her face to gaze at him when he spoke, and in the act there was something simple, winning, blithe, as likewise in the swing of her lissom figure beside his own there was an inimitable jauntiness and cheer. He divined her eager, ardent spirit; and the closeness of her, this comradeship, set his blood humming.
Abruptly he halted, laying a finger on her arm.
"I mustn't go the whole way, you know," he said, "though I should like to. For, by heavens, you've opened my eyes! Didn't realize how satiated with myself I'd become. But I'll make up for that now, Miss Ruth, and it won't be verylong before you and your friend will be planning how to rid yourselves of me."
"Just try us and see," she exclaimed.
"Well, I shall. Till to-morrow, then."
"Till to-morrow, yes." She moved forward some paces and wheeled about, pointing her forefinger at his head and working her thumb. "Beware—and don't forget!" Then after another advance and face about she concluded by blowing him a kiss off the palm of her hand, with which performance she did actually start for home, weaving her way through the sagebrush and going farther and farther off.
"What a pretty little witch she is!" thought Lee; and he, too, made his way from the spot.
Dave's hot, harassed face greeted him at the door.
"Where is she? Didn't she come?" he cried, peering about everywhere. "Well, thank goodness for that! But if that isn't the way with a girl—and after I'd swept up and made the beds and scraped all the skillets, too!"
That Sunday afternoon at Sarita Creek! The dinner, so savoury, so delectable; the two girls, arrayed in cool white lawn, rosy-cheeked, beaming; the gay talk and banter and laughter; the blissful hours together on the grass beneath the trees, with the wide mesa diffusing an immense languor, with the mountains bestowing a vast peace, with the brook at their feet murmuring an accompaniment to their words—hours to treasure, hours of pure gold: Little wonder that Dave, lying full length and gazing upward through the boughs at the blue vault, allowed his eyelids to sink and at last to close. Little wonder the girls' faces grew dreamy and their voices gentle. And none, none at all, that Lee succumbed to the spell.
He was still under the enchantment when toward sunset Ruth suggested they go up the cañon. But Imogene, arousing herself, declared that she had letters to write; and Dave, still fast asleep, was already on roamings of his own. Ruth and Lee therefore went alone up the path through the trees and underbrush, until they emerged in the cool, dusky gorge formed by the contracting of the rocky walls. The brook rippled by over stones and moss. A few insects hovered over the stream with their tiny bodies shining like bronze. From somewhere came a sweet, honeyed smell of flowers.
"Imo writes letters regularly," Ruth explained concerning her friend, "to an instructor in a university in the East. I don't think they're exactly affianced, but expect to be. Waiting, apparently. Waiting until he's a professor—and until her health is better, too, I imagine. An agreement to let things rest as they are for the present, one might say. Imogene talks very little about it, and of course I ask no questions."
She sat down on a fallen tree, patting its trunk to signify a place for him at her side. Pointing at crevises in the cañon wall, she began to tell him the names she and Imogene had given them—Bandit's Stair, Devil's Crack, Bear's Hole, and to enumerate those assigned the jutting points and knobs along the rim that by a stretch of the imagination bore a resemblance to animals or human heads.
As she talked, with her gray eyes at times turning to his to learn if he was interested, he felt anew the charm of her youthfulness, of her vivid personality. It dwelt in her small, firm hands pointing now here, now there, in her slender, rounded form faced toward him, in her red lips, her soft smooth cheek, her brow, in her glances and her animated words. He noted again, as a quality altogether delicious, the air of unconscious friendliness that he had perceived at their very first encounter. It quite offset the slight touch of obstinacy in her chin—but, in truth, did the latter require an offset? He had earlier thought that with such a trait one could not foretell where its possessor might go, or what do, or what exact, under stress of feeling. He smiled at that now. How ridiculous the notion! Why shouldn't a girl have a bit of determination in her make-up? Well, she should. Itgave force to her character. It made her more individual, more attractive. It coloured a nature so essentially feminine as Ruth Gardner's with elusive and delightful possibilities.
"See, up yonder at the top!" she exclaimed. "That piece of rock like a man's head and shoulders I named Lee Bryant, after you."
"Do I look as block-headed as that?"
"No. It was not because of any resemblance, but because you kept your back so long toward us. Now, however, since you've repented and ceased to neglect us, I shall call it after someone else. Perhaps after the stage-driver who takes our letters down to Kennard; he sits hunched up like that. I'll seek a much nicer rock to represent you."
"That's wholly unnecessary, for I intend to keep before your eyes in person."
"Which will be the nicest of all," said she, smiling.
He continued to gaze at her, to listen to her voice, with a pleasure he made no effort to conceal. And she, on her part, seemed to surrender herself to the enjoyment of the moment; her eyes remaining longer on his, her tones softening to a slow, tender utterance almost carrying a caress, her face keeping its languorous smile; as if the honey-sweet fragrance from the unseen flowers had invaded her spirit.
A pause came in their talk. They sat unmoving, without stir of hand or head, quiescent. Then Lee all at once experienced a feeling of profound compassion for Ruth as he regarded her, a poignant stab in his breast like pain. Sitting there without movement, with her hands idle upon her lap, with her face a little lifted and her eyes wistfully bent on the great wall opposite, she seemed so young and small tobe dwelling at such a place, so helpless, so solitary, that her presence appeared a cruel irony of fate. Her homesteading was a desperate clutch at security; and her situation was utterly different from that of her friend, Imogene Martin, who viewed the matter as in the nature of a health-seeking holiday, and who was sustained by the knowledge that she had wealthy relations at Kennard to whom she could return. Far different, indeed. At the thought of the homesickness that at times Ruth must know, of the lonesomeness of mountain and mesa from which she must suffer, of the deprivations, the hard bareness of the life, the moments of despair, he had a sensation of the bitter unfairness of things and a desire to snatch her safe away from the harsh pass in which she stood. It would be only right, it would be only just.
When presently she looked about and found his eyes rapt on her face, a quick blush spread over her throat and cheeks.
"I think—think we should go home now," she said, with a catch of her breath.
"Yes," said he, rising.
He leaped the log on which they had been sitting and then put up a hand to help her mount. Holding his fingers she raised herself upon the tree trunk. But suddenly the bark gave way; she slipped, lost her balance, and pitched forward. Lee caught her in his arms.
For an instant she rested there in his clasp, her surprised eyes gazing into his. A quiver passed over her form. Her lips were parted, but she had ceased to breathe. Likewise in Bryant's breast the breath had stopped. A fiercepassion swept him to hold her always thus, warm and close and secure. His arms trembled at the thought; at which her eyelashes began to flutter and her breath to come once more, as hurried as the beat of her heart. And then, yielding utterly to the swirl of mad impulse, he kissed her—once, twice, and twice again.
Afterward he set her on her feet.
"I guess that ends our friendship," he said, with a wavering smile. "Lost my head altogether. Couldn't help it. I looked at you and—and it just happened. All my will and sense vanished in an instant. Bewitched!"
The colour was still in her face, and her air was uncertain, disturbed. But at his words, so palpably sincere and self condemnatory, she began to smile.
"Perhaps—if we just forget——"
The smouldering fire in his eyes flared suddenly.
"Forget? I'll never forget that minute, those kisses," he exclaimed. "Hanged if I want to, or will!"
"If, then, we don't repeat them, and are more circumspect, why, I'll overlook it," she said, a little confusedly. "I know you meant no discourtesy." He gave a savage shake of his head. "And Imogene and I both prize your friendship."
"Thank you, Ruth. You take an awful load off my heart."
She glanced up at him, now once more composed. Her eyes gleamed with a veiled impishness.
"No girl ever died from being kissed. But what a splendid lover you would make!" Away she darted a few steps, to whirl and point and waggle a finger at thedumfounded youth. "Are you coming? Because I don't consider this a wise place to be with a flighty, irresponsible man, first name Lee. Besides, it's beginning to grow dark in here."
Bryant joined her. The glow was still in his eyes, but in all other respects he was his usual self, calm, collected. Together they went down the cool, dim cañon, with its honey scent of flowers drifting with them; and though they talked lightly of things of no importance, there was a little smile on the lips of each and sometimes their eyes met, as if sharing a new, sweet intimacy.
Thereafter, frequent as were Lee's calls at Sarita Creek of evenings, he seldom had Ruth to himself and on more than one occasion had to share her company with Charlie Menocal, much to his impatience. When Imogene sometimes succeeded in detaining the fellow at her side, Bryant silently gave her unutterable thanks. And Ruth seemed day by day more receptive to his passion.
"I think of only two things, my canal and you," he declared to her one night.
"When you put me first and the canal second, why, who knows what I may think then?" she said, tantalizingly. "But to esteem an irrigation ditch before me, the idea! What if you had to choose between us?" And she continued thus to tease him, fanning the fires hotter in his breast.
By the end of August Bryant had completed the survey of the canal line down to a point where it touched the northern boundary of the ranch, tapping the latter's system of distributing ditches. Pinas River, Perro Creek, and the tract to be watered were thus united. Though later, doubtless,it would be necessary to make minor corrections, as always, the surveying was finished. One tracing showed the entire irrigation scheme from the dam on the Pinas to the tips of the laterals branching out in a gridiron over the land. There were other tracings, too, on a larger scale and of successive sections, ready to be taken to Kennard in order to make blueprints.
"Town for us to-morrow, Dave," Lee exclaimed one day, as he rolled and tied his maps in a waterproof canvas. "We're due for a rest; our job is done for the present. We'll leave the instruments and note-books with the girls at Sarita Creek, who've agreed to keep them until we return. The Mexicans are still hanging around."
Toward the middle of the afternoon they appeared at the cabins, where they disengaged Dick from his burden of freight and turned him out to graze. Imogene was nursing an obstinate headache in her darkened bedroom, and Dave immediately settled himself under a tree with a novel of the girls'. So Ruth and Lee were left to themselves.
"I'm going up the creek to gather raspberries, and you came just in time to carry the basket," said she. "I discovered a large thicket of them half way up the cañon; the more you pick, the more you'll have for supper to-night. And if you don't bring Imo and me a box of chocolates, and a big box, when you come back from wherever you're going to-morrow, you need never show your lean brown face again at our doors! I'm dying for some. Oh, Lee, I really am. They help so when one's lonely."
The pathetic tone in which she uttered the final words sent Bryant off in a fit of laughter.
"You may count on them," he said, at length.
"Your heart's of stone to laugh like that. Bonbonsdohelp when one is low-spirited."
Nevertheless, her spirits were high enough on this afternoon. All the while that they were gathering raspberries she kept up a lively chatter, and when Lee suggested, now that the basket was full, leaving it at the spot and making an excursion to the head of the gorge, she readily assented. The sun was still far from setting; the air between the rocky walls was pleasant; and the cañon held forth a fresh enticement. They walked for an hour, and though they failed to gain the end of the long mountain crevice they ascended to where the springs that fed the brook had their source, and where the rivulet trickled over ledges and among boulders, finding themselves in the heavy timber that forested the upper mountains. There they sat on a rock, Ruth holding the wild flowers she had plucked on the way, and talked.
"Does your going now have to do with your project?" she questioned.
"Yes; I've finished the preliminary work."
"But Charlie Menocal said you were making no progress, that you were blocked."
"What Charlie doesn't know would fill lots of space," Lee said. "In spite of the Menocals' opposition and tricks, I've established my survey—but don't breathe it yet! And now I'm ready for the financing of the scheme. When that's done, I'll begin actual work."
Ruth considered him with shining eyes.
"I'm glad you succeeded; I knew you would succeed,"she exclaimed. "You've worked so hard. And I hope that it makes you famous and wealthy."
"So do I," he laughed. "I need the money."
She nodded.
"One needs money to be happy in this world."
"Oh, I don't know about that," he responded, thoughtfully. "I've probably been as happy while hammering out this survey as I'll ever be, that is, happy in my work. Of course, money means comforts and luxuries. But I doubt if it really ever brings contentment."
The obstinate touch grew in her chin.
"If I had plenty of money I'd have the contentment, or I'd soon find it," she declared. "Pretty clothes, and fine furniture, and automobiles, and servants, and parties, and so on, are things—at least with women—that go a long way toward satisfaction. I sometimes don't blame girls who marry rich old men; they can put up with them for the pleasures their money will procure."
"Ruth, Ruth, don't utter such nonsense! At any rate, you've too much common sense ever to waste yourself on a doddering money bags."
"I'll never have the chance," said she. "But if I had, I'd think it over carefully. A young man with money I could be especially nice to, and I might even set out to catch him. You see, I'm quite frank and open about it."
"Nonsense," he repeated. "You'd marry no one just for his money."
"That depends whether or not he caught me at a moment when I was feeling sick of everything and reckless. Lookat my hands, all calloused from work. If I have to work, I shall do it for myself; not marry to work."
Bryant lifted her hands and regarded them.
"They please me immensely as they are; they're lovely hands," he asserted.
"Then your vision is poor."
"It's clear enough when I look at you, Ruth. And when you talk as you have, I become impatient because I know you don't mean it. But nonetheless, you deserve the best that any man can give, and you ought to have all the comforts and pretty things any woman has, for you're too sweet and good for a bare, commonplace life." He pressed gently the fingers he yet retained. "I told you once that you had bewitched me. It was true; I am bewitched, have been ever since I touched your dear lips. And I love you. It hurts my heart to think of you at this homesteading business—"
"What else was there for me?" she asked. "I've had no business training, nothing but two years in a college, no knowledge of anything that a girl needs to hold a position. And I'm not even a good homesteader." Her tone rang with a trace of bitterness.
"You ought not to have to do it—and you shall not, Ruth, if I have my way. I want to save you from it, and make life pleasant and happy for you. The money I have now is little, but I'm going ahead; I'm going ahead, and nothing shall stop me, I tell you. Soon I shall have ample means. Within a year or two. Already I've told you I love you, though this you must have known, for I've made no effort to conceal my love. To me you're the dearest, sweetest girl in the world; and all I ask is the chance to strive and toil foryou, and make a home for you, and relieve you of anxiety and care, and have you for a joyous companion and mate."
Ruth closed her hands on his, while her eyes grew wet.
"You mean it, Lee?"
"Ah, I do, I do! I love you; I hold you dearer than anything in the world."
The smile she gave was tender, trustful.
"I believe you," she said.
She yielded to his arms. Her head fell back upon his shoulder and her look lifted to his blissfully. When he kissed her a thrill of passionate desire answered, as when on that fragrant evening in the cañon he first had fiercely pressed her lips. This was happiness—happiness. If it could but last forever!
"And my love is yours, too, Lee," she exclaimed, so earnestly that he felt his heart quiver. "I want to be happy; I want to be loved; I don't want to live a life of just dreary commonplaceness, alone, uncared for, with no outlook, with no prospect of joys. I want the most there is in happiness—every girl wants that; and this monotonous existence has been robbing me, stifling me, until sometimes I've been wild enough to leap off a high rock. But now!"
Bryant's arms went closer about her.
"It shall be different now," he murmured.
"Yes, yes; it must, it shall. There's no sense in people not being happy when the world was made for that very purpose."
"Whenever you say, we'll be married," Lee stated.
Ruth was silent for a time, considering this. It, indeed, left her a little startled.
"But it mustn't be too soon," she replied, at last. "We had best go on as we are while your project is being started, for I wouldn't be so selfish as to make a command on your time at a critical moment, Lee dear. And I must plan clothes and things. Knowing that happiness is ahead of us, oh, homesteading then will be only a lark! I'll never need follow it up, but just abandon it when we're ready. Kiss me again, Lee, and then we must start back."
They retraced their steps down the cañon, obtaining the basket of berries on the way. Once, as they neared the cabins, Ruth paused, gazing at her lover.
"I had actually come to hate these claims," she said. "I felt chained to the spot, as if something would keep me in the miserable place for the rest of my life. Had I known how lonely I should be here, I never would have come."
"But that's over now, Ruth. A little while longer, that's all."
She gazed at him with an odd, intent, anxious expression upon her countenance.
"You'll not let your irrigation project keep you here always?" she asked. "Or live in other places like it? These mountains and this desolate mesa get on my nerves. If I thought you were going to stay away from other people, foregoing all the pleasures of cities and the like, I think I should lose my courage and not be able to love you enough to stand it. I want you most of all, but shall want other things, too."
He smiled indulgently.
"A few years perhaps," he replied. "Till I'm solid on my feet—till I get going well—we're both young—andthen——" He dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand.
But that evening, when Lee and Dave had gone, when Imogene was asleep, when the soft darkness was thickening over the mesa, Ruth walked forth to the edge of the sagebrush.
"I wonder," she murmured, leaving her thought unfinished.
The hush of the mountains, the silence of the plain, the vastness, the emptiness, the seeming purposelessness of it all, irritated and oppressed her spirit. And she so yearned to be where the world was alive and throbbing!
"I wonder if I really love him enough, or if I made a little fool of myself this afternoon?" she muttered to herself. "I wonder!"