On Christmas morning the thought occurred to Lee that he had heard nothing more from Imogene of the plan for him to spend the day at the McDonnells', which she had mentioned the night of their talk. Rather strangely, too, he had not received from either of the girls even a note of holiday greeting; to Imogene he had had sent from Denver an edition of Ibsen's plays, and to Ruth a splendid set of furs, both in care of Mrs. McDonnell, who had promised they should be delivered when Santa Claus came down the chimney. Odd, the girls' silence.
He was at work on his accounts at the moment, but now he remained biting the end of his pen-holder and staring through the window. From somewhere in the sagebrush came the sound of shots: Dave potting tin cans with the .22 rifle that had been Lee's gift to him. In the room was only the snapping of the fire. Presently the telephone rang.
"Imo now," he exclaimed. "I'll be hanged if I go down and carry out the farce before the McDonnells."
But the person proved to be Louise Graham.
"I wondered—well, several things," she said, when he had answered. "First, if you had gone away anywhere; next, in case you hadn't, whether you were working; and last, should the camp be resting to-day, if you wouldn't come to Christmas dinner with father and me."
"No work's going on."
"Then we'll be delighted to have you come—and Dave also, of course. There's an especially fattened turkey ready to slide into the oven now. Father has just said, too, to tell you that there's going to be something else—Tom and Jerry. How does that sound?"
"Like a man and a boy coming down the road toward Diamond Creek," Lee answered, with a laugh. "Thank you for your thoughtfulness in remembering us."
"I'll judge how sincere you are by the amount of turkey you eat," she said. "Dinner will be about one o'clock."
"We shall be prompt."
Lee hung up the receiver, then glanced at his watch. It was ten. He reseated himself at his desk and endeavoured to fasten his thoughts upon the entries in the book before him, but at last he exclaimed, throwing down his pen: "Damned if I can or will!" and jumped up, and went to tramping about the office, and when Dave's cat and kitten presented themselves to be stroked, unfeelingly thrust them aside with his boot as he tramped. And when Dave came in, about half-past eleven, the boy found him part way into a clean white shirt, with the cat and the kitten eying him resentfully, and received the order: "Get a move on you; we're going to the Grahams' for dinner. See that you scrub your face, too—and ears!" Which left Dave quite as indignant as the cat, for he always washed his ears.
They arrived at the Graham ranch house shortly after noon, where wreaths of holly, strings of evergreen, and red paper bells created a Christmas atmosphere. Coming from their cold ride into these cheerful rooms and to a warmwelcome, the hearts of both man and boy glowed with unaccustomed feeling. And throughout the dinner that followed betimes—during which Mr. Graham's pleasantries and Louise's gay spirits and mirth evoked in Lee a blitheness to which he long had been a stranger and in Dave a state of joyous bliss—they luxuriated in halcyon well-being. After the meal Louise, at her father's suggestion, went to the piano and sang while the men were smoking their cigars. And then followed an hour at cards, High Five, at which Mr. Graham and Dave won the most games; and then a maid, a Mexican girl, Rosita, brought in a bowl of nuts and raisins for the rancher and the boy who settled themselves for a match at checkers, and Lee and Louise strolled to a window seat at the other end of the long living room.
A delicate pink was in the girl's cheeks. Her eyes were tender under their long lashes; a smile still lingered on her lips. It was as if her countenance, her mind, her spirit, were suffused with the happiness and peace of the hour, of the day.
"My poor one-armed man, how is he?" she asked. "I intended to go see him, but the cold has been so steady that I gave it up. You said over the telephone several days ago that he was doing as well as could be expected."
"Quite out of danger now," Lee replied. "The doctor told him a lady assisted at the operation and now he's full of curiosity regarding you."
"I'll surprise him some day by just walking up to his cot and saying: 'Good morning, how's my patient?' The day I'm going to pick is the next one you move camp: I wantto see how all those tents and shacks and everything rise up on their feet and travel."
"You shall," he stated, with a laugh. "I'll notify you of the date. About New Year's Day the next migration will occur. You've had your turn at hospital work and now perhaps you wish to try your hand at transportation. I wager you'd make a good camp manager if you took hold of the job."
"Would you revive me a second time if I threatened to faint?" she queried, gayly. "You and Imogene Martin gave me just the right treatment that evening, for you kept my thoughts off the ordeal I'd been through. Next day I was myself, as I told you when you called up."
"I haven't seen you since that day," Lee remarked. "I was really worried that afternoon, you know." And an echo of the anxiety he had suffered sounded in his voice.
Her face showed that she noted it, and it softened.
"And you have so many anxieties, too," said she.
He stirred, then withdrew his gaze from her and directed it out a window. The emotion he had experienced that afternoon when she sat before his fire, when she sat there so frank and so simple-hearted, was rising in his breast again. The breath trembled a little upon his lips. But after a time he felt himself grow calmer.
"I have anxieties, yes," he said, "but so, I suppose, has every man and woman, of his or her own kind and degree. And they aren't the important thing, after all. What has happened in the past, not what may occur in the future, is what really matters. One can't change the past, what's done; especially by one's own act. And if the act was aserious mistake. That's fatal! I see now that failure to accomplish what one sets out to do, as for instance in the building of my canal, may not be ruinous to a man. A man may fail and be quite as able a man as ever, as those who succeed; for human beings can do only so much and no more. Nothing that he has done or not done would alter the result. And he need not take the failure greatly to heart. But voluntary and heedless acts of folly, precipitate and unconsidered leaps in the dark, these indeed are ruinous. Oh, yes, they do the business. They become balls and chains. Leave him no choice or action. If it were only so simple as the game of checkers your father and Dave are playing! When one game is over, they can start another. But there's only one game to life."
"But it is a long one, and changes," Louise said.
She glanced at him. He intended that his words should be taken, she perceived, in a general sense. But the mind always seeks the specific: hers instinctively seized on the particular thorn that had prompted his utterance. Of Ruth Gardner's extraordinary and inexplicable behaviour she had become informed, like everyone else; it at first amazed, then shocked, and finally outraged her sense of decency. It repelled her—but, then, her early attempts at friendship with the other had never advanced. The girl had always been absorbed in her own doings, immersed in pleasure or in plans for pleasure, concerned entirely with the friends she had, and, unlike Imogene, received Louise's calls and approaches at cordiality with an indifference that withered all feeling. With the passing of time Louise had considered Lee's course in relation to the girl as a cause for wonder. Theengineer was singularly patient, or incredibly obtuse, or marvellously in love. Whichever it was, her heart stirred with pity. He deserved better, he deserved the best. As for Ruth Gardner, she could now only think of her with a hot resentment that set her lips quivering; and she was moved at moments by a profound desire to express her sympathy to him and to give that warm encouragement his spirit on occasion must need. But she must refrain.
At his speech her conclusions, but not her feelings, underwent a sharp revision. The revelation startled her. He had not been obtuse. He no longer was marvellously in love with Ruth Gardner, nor in love with her at all. Relief followed surprise in her mind, the relief that comes at a fear unrealized, a disaster avoided. Disaster had been precisely what she had sensed if not thought, since a union of two persons whose natures were as utterly different, as essentially opposed, as Lee's and Ruth's would inevitably lead to disillusionment, antagonism, sorrow, havoc. That his eyes at last were open was a blessing.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked, all at once.
She found his eyes full upon her.
"Of what you had said," she responded. "And at this minute I'm speculating on whether anything—one's decisions, or acts, or sentiments—are ever quite conclusive or final. Or fatal, too, as you said. We might possibly except murder and suicide." She smiled as she mentioned this reservation.
Lee shifted his position with a trace of impatience.
"I'm not a pessimist," he exclaimed.
"No, you're too active to be. Pessimism is at bottom a kind of mental indolence, I'd say—an unpleasant kind."
"Some matters are not solved by action," said he. "That is, when they are out of one's hands and in another's."
Her attention was caught by those words, and she hung on them for a little. They distressed her; they caused her to understand the forced immobility of his face as he spoke, and wish that he would give way to his feeling. The phrase "out of one's hands and in another's" referred undoubtedly to Ruth Gardner. She did not trust herself to speak.
"What became of all those flowers that were in your garden last summer?" he asked, suddenly. "Do you dig up the roots, or cover them, or let them freeze? You have no idea how many times these cold days the recollection of that hour with you last summer when we walked among them recurs to me. It seems ages ago, however. That was one of the happy days, Louise."
A delicate tint of pink stole into her face. For to her also the day had been one of happiness, as clear-cut in her memory as a cameo. The thought that it and she had been dwelling in his mind produced in her breast an unaccountable agitation. The coral pink in her cheeks deepened to a flush; she lowered her eye-lashes and averted her look.
"The flowers are banked with straw, the perennials," she said, to prevent a silence.
"I shall come and see them when they're blooming again," he stated. "The more I recall them, the more beautiful it seems they were—yes, and the orchard, too, and the grassy canals, and the sunshine that day. And you in the picture—the centre of the picture, Louise. Theimpressions one retains that stand out vividly in the mind are few: that is one of the number for me. But perhaps not for you."
"Oh, for me also," she exclaimed.
Bryant stared at her round forearms and hands lying on her lap, but without observing them. He had marked the quick sincerity of her response. It affected him as would her soft hand-clasp. He began to glance restlessly about the room.
The dusk of the early winter night was at hand. It had thickened in the corners and over where Mr. Graham and Dave were meditating their game in silence. The flames crackling in the fireplace intensified the forming shadows. Lee recognized that it was time to be going. Nevertheless, he continued to linger for a while, with his eyes sometimes resting on his companion in enjoyment of her face, engaged in thought, experiencing a contentment in merely being in her presence.
"This will be another of those days," he at length remarked, in a musing tone.
His words aroused her from her own reflections.
"One for winter as well as for summer," she said, raising her look. "Did I seem to be dreaming when you spoke? I was doing scarcely that; my mind was lulled; the quiet—the twilight—Christmas Day—they bring a soothing mood."
"Something that in a world of money, money can't buy," Lee said. He appeared about to make a further remark, but failed to do so. His thoughts, however, had gone off somewhere, Louise observed. Then he inquired in a matter-of-fact way: "When will you ride up to camp again?"
"Not until it grows warmer. Twelve miles or more is rather too far for a canter on a sharp day."
He cast his eyes about at the strings of evergreen and the suspended red bells and holly wreaths.
"I'll run down again, if I may, before the holidays are over," said he. "If only for another look at those things. They give a fellow a pull—out of the ditch, so to speak." And he rose.
"Come, by all means," Louise replied, with a nod.
A week of twenty-below-zero weather opened the month of January and halted work on the mesa. At that time four miles of canal remained to be dug. Bryant and Pat Carrigan sat by the stove in Lee's shack and waited, as the whole camp waited, for the thermometer to rise. On one of these mornings, when Dave had gone across the street to the engineers' building, Lee informed the contractor that company funds were not far from exhausted and related his talk with Gretzinger before the latter's departure for New York.
"So he would squeeze you out," Pat remarked. "What you might expect from him, nothing more! I've had the notion for some time that your cash was getting low, from the way the money has gone."
"I've spent five thousand on engineering, medical, and general accounts," Lee stated, "twenty thousand on concrete work, and paid you forty thousand. I've fifteen thousand left from the sale of bonds and a personal loan I obtained from McDonnell. That will pay for about two weeks' work. And I think we've made every dollar go as far as it would under the circumstances."
"My word for that."
"It's this little trick of Menocal's that's burning up good coin. Sixty thousand would have built the projectordinarily; my estimates were correct enough. But having to do the job in this infernal weather is what's raising the cost forty thousand more. I feel like entering in the ledger 'To account of frost—$40,000.00.' Like that." Lee scribbled the line on a sheet of paper and handed it to Pat. "But there's one thing sure, I'll sink the last cent I have in the ground before I quit and let those Eastern pirates get their claws into me. I'll have you cut down your force if necessary and string the last dollar and last day's work out till my three months' grace is up."
"Might try McDonnell for another loan," Carrigan suggested.
"I hate doing that worse than anything I know. He, not the bank, let me have that twenty thousand on my unsecured note. I had nothing to offer but my stock in this company, and until the project's finished that's no better than so much blank paper. Loaned it to me because of my nerve, he said. And at the time I told him it would be enough money to carry me through, which I believed. Now to go back to him again——" Lee stopped, with an expression of deep chagrin upon his face.
Pat tapped the dottle from his pipe and refilled the bowl. He glanced once or twice at the engineer during the act.
"You can make a better showing now than before," said he. "Four miles more and you'll be to the good. One of the excitements of construction enterprises, and of irrigation projects in particular, I've observed, is the financing. The more often a man can go and pull his backers' legs for cash, the better financier he is. It seems to be largely a matter of keeping at them, talking them to death, wearingthem out, until they weaken and hand over the money. More than one railroad was built that way. Try it on McDonnell."
"You come with me."
"No, thank you," said Pat, with vigour.
"I thought you wouldn't," said Lee.
He took Carrigan's suggestion, however, and went down through the bitter cold to see the banker. But the visit was fruitless. The bank could not make the loan, and money being tight because of first of the year settlements, McDonnell was not in shape to make it personally, nor would be in time to render any assistance. He was perfectly willing, he said, to gamble another twenty thousand on Bryant's ability to win through, but he did not have the cash. Then he went on to say that Imogene had been suffering from a slight cold, and that Ruth Gardner was visiting at present with other friends in Kennard.
Lee had had a telephone call from each of them the morning after Christmas, thanking him for his gift, and later a letter from Imogene again expressing her appreciation, with a line that a change in Mrs. McDonnell's plans had prevented having him with them on Christmas.
Nothing from either since. He now asked the banker to convey to Imogene his wishes for a quick recovery, then set out for camp. Ruth—he did not even know where in town to look for Ruth, had he been so inclined. Engaged! The thing would have been amusing if it was not so horrible.
"No luck," he said to Pat, briefly, when in his shack warming his chilled body at the fire. "Your system maywork in summer, but all the money is froze up at this time of year, like everything else."
At the end of the week the winter's frigid grip on the earth relaxed and a period of mild, almost balmy days followed. Under the noon-day sun the top ground even softened a little. The camps awoke, the rested men and horses fell upon their task with new spirit, and excavation went ahead steadily. If there had been a full force, as Carrigan pointed out, he could have moved at the rate of a mile in six days instead of in eight. Still the canal was being built, yard by yard, rod by rod, until by the middle of January another mile of the total was finished. The two camps were now easily within sight of each other, the larger in the south, the smaller in the north, and but three miles apart across the sagebrush. Moreover, the last stones of the dam had been laid; it stood completed; and the men who had been engaged there moved down to add their strength to the north camp.
One day toward noon Lee entered his office and to his amazement found Ruth seated there, glancing over an old magazine and toasting her feet at the stove. The furs he had given her reposed on his desk, where she had laid them aside. At his entrance she sprang up, uttered a delighted exclamation, and rushing forward clasped her arms about his neck and kissed him.
"Lee, how good it seems to see you!" she said. "After so long! And I can't thank you enough for those darling furs! I've thought of you so much, working up here in the cold and alone with just men. My, your face is like ice! Come to the fire. Poor thing, you look so thin and tired!I hope that soon you'll be able to rest; I'll make it a point to see that you do take a long vacation and rest, for you need it." She concluded with a hug and another kiss.
"Go easy with my ears, Ruth," he said, disengaging her arms. "They were nipped the other night and are still tender. How did you get here? I thought you were in Kennard."
He led her back to her seat and began to remove his cap and long sheep-lined overcoat, saying in an undertone that the weather was really too warm for the things. Afterward he posted himself by the stove near her, where he stuffed his pipe with tobacco and began to smoke, while his eyes considered her face.
"Imo and I returned to Sarita Creek yesterday," she remarked, with an air of satisfaction. "It was good to be back, too. There has been so much going on at Kennard that I felt quite worn out; one becomes weary of too much buzzing around. I don't want any more of it for some time. And I missed you dreadfully, Lee!" She flashed up a smile at him, caught his hand for an instant, and gave it a squeeze. A thin stream of smoke issued from one corner of Bryant's mouth at the action. "The people were proving somewhat tiresome also. So as the weather had moderated Imogene and I decided to return to our cabins."
"Has she recovered from her cold?" Lee inquired, raising his look to the ceiling.
"Oh, yes; entirely. And we're quite comfortable. We had even thought of having our ponies brought from the stable at Bartolo, so that we could ride if it grew still milder."
"Risky."
"Well, you're probably right." She paused and scrutinized her toes to see that they were not scorching. "Charlie brought Imo and me here on his way home; you can take us back to our cabins when we're ready to go."
"Imo here?" Bryant's eyebrows lifted.
"Over in the shack Dave called 'the hospital.' Dave was here when we came and Imo asked him to take her to the place; she had heard something of an injured man from Louise Graham. Did Louise really help during an operation?" Lee nodded. "Well, she's odd in many ways. Must be—what shall I say?—a little thick-skinned not to mind blood and all the rest of it. And she doesn't go about much; not at all with the real crowd at Kennard, only with a slow one when she does go. With her father well off, I'd think she would want to be doing something worth while. Charlie's still mad for her, but Gretzie thought after he met her at our cabins that she was too self-conceited. When he asked her if the men of New York, compared with Western men, didn't impress her with superiority and smartness of dress, she said, 'Not those of my acquaintance; they don't try to impress one; it isn't done in their circle, you know. That's one of the differences in manners, I suppose, that distinguishes Fifth Avenue from Broadway.' Gretzie was furious. He had been speaking of Broadway shows and restaurants and things at the time. He declared later that a little attention had turned her head, and that what she had said was all rot. I don't care for her, either. But let us talk of ourselves, Lee."
"Yes, that's more interesting," he remarked, with an accent of irony that escaped her.
He was curious to learn what this talk was leading to. His curiosity outweighed the irritation he felt at her calm ignoring of the past weeks, at her complacent assumption of his love, at the kiss and the caress she had bestowed, indeed, at her very presence in the room.
"Tell me everything about your work and about yourself," she said, folding her hands and gazing up at him. "I'm so impatient to hear."
"Nothing worth relating has occurred," he replied.
"You've been well?"
"Oh, quite. This is a regular health resort."
"And you're not working too hard?"
"For a whole week I scarcely stirred from the stove," said he.
"I'm so glad. You had earned a rest. You don't seem worried about anything, either."
"Worried?" His intonation was that of surprise. Then he added, as if by after-thought, "Oh, no."
"How relieved I am! I feared you might be worrying your head off about difficulties—cold weather, the time limit set, perhaps money matters. I gained the impression somewhere that you might run short before you finished; I can't just say where I got it. From Imo, perhaps. Nothing definite, you know. But it's so nice to know that you're no longer anxious. That means you're sure you'll build the ditch. How much more is there to do?"
"You can see the north camp out of that window."
Ruth rose and went to the window indicated, where she stood surveying the men and teams at work beyond thecamp and the stretch of sagebrush extending to the white specks of tents in the distance.
"That's all that's left to do, Lee?"
"That's all. Three miles."
"Charlie Menocal hasn't said anything about it lately."
"Knowing Charlie, I'm amazed," he commented.
Ruth resumed her seat and proceeded to toast her toes anew. Her glances from time to time were directed at Lee's countenance somewhat speculatively. Several times she smoothed her dress with slow attention. Lee continued his deliberate smoking.
"Well, it's a great comfort to know that you're well and that everything is proceeding so brightly," she stated, at length. "You must take time to run down and see me, now that I'm back. I'm not going to be satisfied with anything less than almost every evening with you. Bring along one of those nice engineer boys for Imogene while we talk."
Lee gave a shake of his head.
"Don't count on me," he said. "We're doing night work as well as day. We're near the end. Have to push the job. Little time to spare." He jerked the phrases forth shortly, one after another.
"Do try to come once in a while, though," she responded, gazing about the room in a way that gave her speech a perfunctory character. That, at any rate, was the impression made upon Lee; and he continued to puzzle his brain as to what underlay it all—what motive, what object. At the same time he was sickened by the suave interest she pretended, by her shallow insincerity. "I've wondered if I could be of any help here to you," she went on. But asharp movement on his part caused her to say, "Still, I know a man doesn't like a girl messing up his work. That's one reason I've been careful not to propose it before, or even to make the demands on your time that some girls would have made. I'll be glad when the project is out of the way; then we can begin to plan for ourselves." She cast her eyes upward at space. "There are lots of things to decide—where to live, and so on. You come soon and we'll set some of them down on paper for consideration."
Lee could not escape that feeling of perfunctoriness in her twitter of talk. It went no further than that, however; he had no chagrin or repugnance or anger at the thin duplicity, not even at her complacent confidence in his stupidity and infatuation. For to count on his being blind to the past and deluded by her words, she could only believe him both stupid and infatuated. He was quite calm. His actual state of mind was, more than anything else, one of detachment. He imagined that he had come to a point where she was incapable of arousing in him any kind of sentiment or passion.
Presently she took up her furs and walked humming about the office as she adjusted them.
"I'd like to stay all day, but must be going," she said. "Imo and I were wondering, by the way, if you could send us a man with some tar-paper to line our cabins."
"Of course. I'll send him after dinner. And he can chop you some wood and bring your water."
She stood for a little examining a blue-print tacked on the wall.
"That's like the one Mr. Gretzinger sometimes carries,"she remarked. "I suppose he'll be returning one of these days. Not that it matters; he was tiresome at times, like Charlie Menocal." She studied the lines of the map attentively. "He appeared anxious to get to New York. Said something about a sweetheart there. You'll be glad if he doesn't come back to bother you again, won't you, Lee dear?" She swung about, laughing.
"Oh, he'll show up."
"I wasn't sure; he said he thought not."
Lee emptied and put away his pipe.
"He'll come," was his assured reply.
"Then he must have been 'kidding' me."
Her thoughtful air returned. She picked a raveling from her sleeve, and stroked her fur, and inspected the tips of her gloves, and untied and retied the strings of her cap—all with an inscrutable face. Then suddenly her mind appeared to be made up.
"Well, dear, run and bring your car and we'll pick up Imogene," she said, giving him a quick pat on the cheek.
Lee experienced an inward and involuntary shrinking at that touch. He no more could have returned the caress than he could have risen off the ground into the air, like those floating figures depicted in sacred paintings. After all, she was quite capable of stirring a sentiment in his heart—a sentiment of aversion.
"Go join Imo," he replied. "One of the boys will bring the car to the hospital and take you home. Impossible for me to drive you there to-day."
That was it—impossible, literally impossible, for his whole being was in revolt. The threshold of the doormight have been a dead-line; he was unable to cross it, at any rate. With a stony aspect he watched her depart and wave a hand back at him from a distance and at last disappear. Then he closed the door and leaned his head against it, with his features drawn in an expression of pain and desperation. His position was diabolical. She meant to hold him to his word; she believed he loved her; and, anyway, she had him fast in a coil. Yes, she had him fast. And he did not love her, not at all. On the contrary, he detested her—detested her with all his heart, almost to hatred, utterly.
"Will you be so kind as to come here?" Mr. Menocal inquired of Bryant.
It was an afternoon in late January, and the banker, bundled in a great overcoat and numerous rugs, had reined his team to a halt at the spot where he found the engineer. The air was cutting. Steam in sharp jets came from the nostrils of his pair of bays, as from those of the horses straining at the plows and scrapers in the stretch of partially excavated canal near by.
Lee went forward to the buggy, slapping his gloved hands together to quicken their circulation.
"What do you want of me, Mr. Menocal?" he asked. "You're picking a frosty day to look at the scenery."
"Well, there's a matter that's been troubling my mind for some time and I decided to let it go no longer. We have our differences, Mr. Bryant, but I wouldn't wish you to believe me responsible for a number of annoyances to which you've been put. I am a gentleman; I fight fair. For instance, I was quite within my rights in suggesting those men take homesteads down yonder along the base of the mountains, though I was wrong in my guess. Also, in taking advantage of the law under which you were limited by the Land and Water Board, I wasn't stepping out of bounds. But I've learned that some time ago a man introduced whiskyinto camp against your rules, and I wish to tell you that I knew nothing of it at the time and would countenance no sort of disgraceful act like that."
"I judged that you wouldn't," said Lee.
"Then again last summer someone killed your dog, I understand. That was a bad deed. I am fond of dogs, and had I been able to learn who did it I should have informed you so that you could have had Winship arrest him. Since that time, too, there have been other things, many of them—men cutting your telephone wire, removing your survey stakes, and the like. All making you angry. Well, I was angry when I heard that those things were being done. Resorting to questionable and criminal tactics against any man is the worst possible course a person can follow. I do not do it in your case; I will prevent any one else from doing it if I can. You have the right to work undisturbed."
"I never connected you with these underhanded acts," the engineer stated.
"Thank you, Mr. Bryant. It pleases me to hear you say that. I should like to see you lose your water right, of course; it would mean much money in my pocket; but I'll not do contemptible things or crooked things to get possession of it."
Lee glanced at the speaker's face. It was sincere, earnest, and now relieved. He felt an increase of respect for the man, opponent though he was. Menocal appeared, to be sure, unable to comprehend the ethics involved in seeking to thwart Bryant, but he was scrupulous and honourable within his understanding. Far more so than Gretzinger, for instance. Or Charlie Menocal. The thought of thebanker's son pulled Bryant up. Should he mention his conviction that Charlie was the instigator of the mischief discussed? As he was still in doubt when his visitor turned the subject, he let it rest.
"The way you're going ahead with your canal, I'm afraid that my chance of retaining the water is poor, very poor," Menocal said, with a lugubrious sigh. He drew his fat chin deeper into his coat collar, tugged at the ice on his big white moustache, and ran his eyes up and down the long line of moving teams. "And it will cost me a lot of money." Again the sigh. "I didn't think you could do it; I didn't think any man in the world could do it. In cold weather, in ninety days! I said it was impossible. Charlie said it was impossible. Everyone said it was impossible."
"Everyone except my contractor and me," Lee interjected, smiling a tight smile.
The other nodded. "Except you, yes. And you're showing us that after all it's not impossible. I shall never say again that anything is impossible. If I ever have a big ditch to build, I shall insist, Mr. Bryant, that you take charge. Then I would say, 'I should like to have it built so and so, and by such a time,' and sit down at my desk and think no more of it, knowing it would be built."
Bryant laughed softly. He could not help doing so. That naïve avowal from the one whom he considered his chief enemy tickled his fancy. And presently Menocal, catching the humour of it, himself began to smile.
"I shouldn't be surprised if we have had a misconception of each other," Lee stated.
"Ah,cielos!That is nothing less than the truth. Whata pity, too, my young friend, that we could not have found it out earlier. Our affair, perhaps—we might have reached a satisfactory agreement. This winter work, it is costing you something."
"A good many extra thousand."
"And, alas, costing me even more! But it is too late now." He made a tragic gesture. "It has gone too far. Within two or three weeks it will be settled one way or the other. For you if the weather remains good; for me if the weather becomes stormy." He again studied the moving horses along the canal. "For me then—perhaps. You might not allow even a great storm to stop you, in some way. This winter is remarkable; there seem to be no storms to happen. You're very lucky."
"Yes, I am in that respect."
"Well, I've done all that I shall do in the matter. I've become quite calm, fatalistic. There's nothing else to be." He gathered up his reins.
"That's a good team you have," Lee remarked.
"Of the very best. I disliked to use them in this cold, but Charlie had gone with the car to Kennard. Va! He is never at home any more. It would be well if I made him drive a team on your ditch."
"Send him along; I'll give him a job," Lee said.
The banker shook his head.
"He would say I was crazy and he wouldn't come. He doesn't even attend to matters that require attention. This winter he has been running too much with idle men in town and spending money as if it took no effort to get it, as if it could be picked off of weeds. It's very perplexing. I amtoo easy with Charlie, I let him have his way too much. I should put him in a pair of overalls for a while and say, 'You are going out with a band of sheep; you have to work.' Several times I've made up my mind to do that, but when the moment came I couldn't say it. He isn't robust, he has always had the best of everything, and he's been educated in a college."
"Cut off his allowance and take away his automobile. He would stay at home and attend to business then," Lee offered.
"But it would shame him. He isn't a little boy any longer; he's thirty years old. The trouble is that he isn't like me, particular and careful; he's wild and impatient and reckless. His mother wasn't that way, I am not that way—I don't know where he got that nature."
Menocal senior drove off and Bryant turned back to his work. The pity of the thing was, as the banker had stated, that they had been hasty in the beginning, that they had not sought to come to an understanding, some arrangement. It was another mistake. To Lee his whole past here was beginning to appear a record of oversights, incredible misjudgements, blinded blunders, and ghastly mistakes.
Ghastly mistakes! Some cynic has said the only mistake in life a man can make is "to go broke." Bryant did not realize until afterward the irony lurking in the penumbra of the talk with Menocal. He was broke, unable to proceed, even while he listened to the banker's commendation. The workmen were busy, it was true, and the horses were pulling loaded fresnos, and plows were cutting the trench deeper; but that was an expiring motion, a last falling gesture. Only a few wretched dollars lay at the bottom of the money chest. A day more, and Menocal would have won.
That evening Lee climbed in his car and drove away from camp. Carrigan had said nothing, but he as well as Bryant knew the company's bank account was drained; he would expect a settlement and when it was made, discharge the crews, pull up stakes, and move his property to Kennard. At Sarita Creek Bryant alighted.
"I wish to see Ruth," he told Imogene. "Is she away? Her cabin is dark and I obtained no answer to my knock."
"She's gone to town."
"Well, I wanted to tell her I've failed. Work stops to-morrow. Out of money. And less than two miles to build!"
Imogene's face became a picture of dismay.
"Oh, no, Lee! There must be some way to go on, some place to obtain money," she cried.
"None. I've tried, but have reached the end of my rope. Only twenty thousand more needed, or maybe twenty-five. Just enough to hammer through during the next two weeks. But it might as well be a million. I decided to inform Ruth at once; she might consider it important."
"She would," said she, positively.
"I haven't been to Sarita Creek before since you returned. You can guess why."
"Yes."
"Does Ruth suspect that I've ceased to love her?" he asked, frowning.
"I think not. There was considerable talk on her part about being bored with Kennard and how happy she would be when she was married, but it was on the surface. She's really waiting for something I'm not able to divine. I'm reminded when I observe her of a card-player studying a hand before the cards begin to fall."
"Where is she to-night? With Charlie Menocal?"
"With Gretzinger."
"Gretzinger back?"
"Arrived in Kennard this morning. Two days ago Ruth received a letter with a New York post-mark and became very animated. I'm sure she has had none before. Then late this afternoon the man himself appeared here, ate supper with us, and took Ruth off to a concert in town. He said he had business in camp with you to-morrow."
"Ruth's spirits have revived and her retirement hasended," Lee remarked, with sarcasm. "Well, don't say anything about this now to either of them."
"Oh, I'll be long asleep when they return, and I'll not speak of it to Ruth in the morning. She'll not rise before noon, I suspect, as it will be one or two o'clock before they're home. Or she may stay with one of the girls she's chummy with and come up with him to-morrow. Probably that."
Lee made ready to go. He gave Imogene a sardonic smile.
"May the music she hears to-night strengthen her soul for the morrow's smash," he said; and went out.
Where the trail from the cabins debouched upon the main mesa road he slowed the car to a stop and sat for a time in thought, with the engine humming softly and the freezing night air biting at his cheeks. It seemed to make little difference where he went, or if he went at all. Nothing worth while was at the end of any road. His inclination, however, was working and at last he set out for the Graham ranch.
Since his Christmas visit he had made a number of calls there, a rather large number, indeed, considering everything. He had schooled his face and words on those occasions to a passivity he was far from feeling, and had left Louise's presence each time with a greater torment of mind. Now this was the end—of her as of everything so far as he was concerned. To-morrow the project came down in wreckage. Then he should go from Perro Creek, poorer in purse, poorer in spirit, poorer in faith, sore, and bitterly disillusionized.
Louise Graham observed a shadow upon his countenance as she invited him to a seat before the fireplace. Her fatherwas absent and she had been reading a book when Bryant's knock came. She had been wondering, too, if the engineer might not choose this night to call again. How much these calls of his now meant to her she did not dare consider.
"What's wrong, Lee?" she asked at once, anxiously. "I see something has happened."
He moved round on the divan that he might fully face her.
"Everything so far as my affairs go," he replied. "Work stops on the canal to-morrow. That will result, of course, in the water right lapsing and in the ditch never being finished or used, except under the circumstance of my handing over my interest gratis to Gretzinger and the bondholders. If I did that even, I don't believe Gretzinger could finish it on time, for neither Carrigan nor the men would exert themselves for him as they have for me, and they would be sure of their pay in any case. The trouble is, I've used up all the money and can borrow no more. I'm through. And I can't bring myself to the point of surrendering my interest in the company to the bondholders merely to pull them out. They're trying to strangle me in order that they may profit; they could put up the cash needed easily enough if they would; but they count on my yielding. I shall not do so. And so the project fails. Those New Yorkers will wait too long if ever they do put up the funds; and I can do nothing myself. The uncompleted ditch will remain simply a scar on the mesa."
"I never dreamed you were in this strait!"
"No, probably not. One always hopes to the last that somehow—by a credulous belief in one's own letter of creditwith Providence, I presume—one will pull through. So I delayed telling you of what was impending."
"If—perhaps father——"
"Your father? No. Above all persons, no. That's a suggestion I can't consider for an instant."
"But what will you do?" she exclaimed, nervously.
Lee glanced at her, then compressed his lips.
"I'm going away; I couldn't stay here on the scene of this disaster. It would be intolerable. Before long people will be describing the unfinished project by the name of 'Bryant's Folly', or the like. Haven't you seen old, windowless structures that were never completed, or grass-grown railroad enbankments never ironed, or rusting mine machinery never assembled? Men's failures, men's 'follies'."
"Lee, Lee! It never will be so!" she cried. "Nor will your project be a failure to me who have known how you've striven and sacrificed."
Bryant looked past her and about the room, but his eyes in the end came back to hers.
"You have always been generous in your thoughts of me," he said, in an unsteady voice.
"No more than you deserved."
"Listen, Louise," he went on, after a pause. "This is the last time I shall see you for a long time, possibly for all time, and it's of your kindness I wish to speak—and of another matter. Of course, I shouldn't be quite human if I hadn't complained a bit about this blow, but my complaints are done now. I'll possibly do some grimacing to myself hereafter, though. What I came to say is thatwherever I go in the future I'll always carry with me as a treasure the memory of your goodness and of your face."
Louise's lips had parted, while the colour slowly receded from her cheeks.
"But we shall see each other," she gasped. "We'll meet, we can keep in touch." After a silence there came in a whisper, "Friends should."
Bryant began to tremble. He turned away from her in order to gaze into the fire. Her low utterance had wrung the chords of his heart; he dared not allow his eyes to continue to dwell upon her face.
"What good in that?" he asked. Then he gave a passionate shake of his head. "The risk for me is too great. I shall seek an engineering billet altogether out of the country, in South America, in Asia, wherever one is open. A job without responsibility, preferably. No, no; I can't remain and play with fire—any longer."
An intense stillness rested in the room after these words. He doubted if Louise even breathed.
"Would it be that?" she asked, at last.
"Of course. Haven't you seen?"
"I—I——" Her voice failed her.
"I could no more help loving you, Louise, after I came to know you, than can the earth its blooming under a summer sun. The thing was inevitable." He was speaking now in a slow, fixed attempt at restraint. "And this love coming when it did, after I was betrothed to Ruth Gardner, is the capping madness of the whole nightmarish situation in which I find myself. 'Nightmarish' isn't an exaggeration, honestly. By all the empty, senseless conventions I ought to seal mylips on my love and to go dumbly away, because I'm engaged to Ruth Gardner." He turned abruptly to her. "Do you think I should?"
Her hands were locked together in a clasp that expelled the blood and left them white. Her regard had the intentness of a stare.
"If you love me, if you're going away—" She suddenly became agitated. "Oh, I am unhappy!" And with a quick movement she bent her head aside.
"Louise, forgive me for causing this distress," he exclaimed.
Without looking about she put out a hand, touched and pressed his. The unexpected act filled Bryant with amazement. He sat gazing stupidly at the hand until she withdrew it. Then he found an explanation.
"You feel compassion for me," he said. "You would." A sound, low, inarticulate, reached him. "It's your kind nature to make some return for my love even if it's not love you can give. Or ought to give! I'm expecting nothing, can expect nothing. That is out of the question. If I were entirely calm and rational, I should doubtless be asking myself why I should speak of my passion instead of trying to tear it out of my heart. But, of course, being in love I'm neither the one nor the other. The only explanation for the impulse to pour out a confession like this is overcharged nerves. Or, after all, is it just unconscious egotism?" His composure had slipped off and his tone had grown savage.
"Don't, don't, Lee! Don't cut at yourself!"
"What was it I had started to say? Oh, yes. I had said I felt no compunction in brushing aside the usualconventions of duty as proscribed for an engaged man. Cobwebs in my case! Why pretend lies? No honour is involved that I can discover. I don't love Ruth, and I think she's incapable of loving me or any one else. She never felt half the affection I did for her, and mine withered quickly, God knows! A dash of passion on my part, and lonesomeness and the belief I should have wealth on her side—there's the salad."
Louise leaned forward a little breathlessly.
"And if she believes you're ruined?" she asked.
"She'll hold me if she thinks she can't do better," Lee responded, bitterly. "I at least beat homesteading."
"Lee!"
Louise had risen. The pallor of her face startled him. Her hands were fast clenched.
"What is it?" he asked, fearfully.
"I can bear this. To have you love me—love me and go away! It will break my heart. To stay here alone!"
The words struck his brain as if they were cast in a fierce glare of light. The suddenness of the knowledge they gave, the revelation they made, left him speechless. Louise loved him in return. The first effect upon his mind was to produce a blank incredulity; he stared at her as if to ascertain whether or not this was in truth she; for though he well knew he possessed her friendship, he had never conceived so fantastic a possibility as that of winning her love. Then a swift exaltation succeeded. He swam in a kind of spiritual ether.
"Louise, Louise, my dear beloved!" he murmured.
He caught her hand, pressed it. She glanced at himwithout replying, looked away, back again. Her bosom rose and fell with a slow and tremulous movement, as though stirring with deep, soundless sighs. A little smile hovered on her lips, tender, rapturous.
But at length she withdrew her hand, while the soft gladness passed from her face.
"It cannot be; you must go, Lee," she said.
Bryant remembered—and felt the ice forming about his heart. He shivered slightly. The full cruelty of the situation was reached. Ruth Gardner not only held him, but he held her as well by a thread to which she could cling for safety against the blandishments of scoundrels, and her own desires, and the dark uncertainty of the future. And much as he loved Louise Graham, he could not snap that thread; much as he detested Ruth, he lacked the flintiness of heart to let her slip into the abyss. Nor would Louise have it otherwise.
She was seeking his eyes, questioning them.
"Well, this hour is worth it all to me," he said, calmly. "All of the unhappiness of the past, and all the loneliness of the future! I am poor now; in that fact lies what hope I have."
A gentle inclination of her head answered him.
"I am happy to-night, anyway," said she.
"The only thing for me to do is to remain away from you," he answered. "Heaven knows I shall be miserable enough then, but I should grow desperate if I were near."
"I know. We mustn't see each other, Lee dear."
He walked to where his storm coat and cap lay on a chair by the door. In silence he drew on and buttoned the former.She had accompanied him to the spot and watched with moisture on her lashes his preparation for departure. His eyes were lowered while his fingers were engaged with the buttons.
"You should understand about this," he said, grimly. "That man Gretzinger is after her. She has no money, no training to earn money, is crazy for pleasure and attention and clothes. I ought in all decency to break our engagement. She has given me grounds enough. But it's keeping her straight. If I broke it"—his hand dropped to his side and he stood for a moment quite still—"he drags her under." His gaze rose to hers.
"I guessed it long ago," she said, in a choked voice. "And loved you for it." Next instant she leaned forward, took his temples between her hands, and lightly touched his brow with her lips. "Go, go!" she exclaimed, with an accent of despair.
She herself turned and went quickly out of the room.