For four days the bitter cold and fierce wind held the camps in thrall, then the latter blew itself out. The cold, however, still endured though the sun shone. When one looked forth from camp, all that could be seen was a snowbound earth; mesa and mountains were as white and silent as some polar region; nothing moved; nothing seemed to live out yonder. It was like a dazzling, frigid, extinct world.
The main mesa road was blocked and telephone wires were down. What went on outside the limits of the camp's snow-drifted horizon its dwellers knew not—nor for the moment cared. Work was the only thought. With hastily constructed snow-plows roads had been broken among the tents and shacks as soon as the weather allowed, and afterward broad paths made to the working ground. The section of undug canal was now scraped bare. There, sheltered by tents and warmed by sagebrush fires, men bored in the iron-like earth powder-holes in rows that exactly aligned the canal. On the morning of the fifth day a first stretch of fifty yards was blown out, whereupon teams and scrapers were rushed into the ragged cavity to deepen and clear the ditch before the soil froze anew. This was at the north end. In the afternoon one hundred yards at the south end went up in a blast and crews from the main camp fell upon this area.
That night the sky clouded over again. All the next day snow came down steadily. The workmen played cards in the mess tents and waited. Carrigan busied himself at accounts and waited. Bryant waited, with impatience and anxiety gnawing at his heart. There were six hundred yards and more unexcavated, and but three days of his time remained.
The snow ceased at nightfall and work was instantly resumed by aid of the torches; again the desperate scraping of snow, bundled men at fires and sheltered by windbreaks, the drilling of holes in the frozen ground, the reliefs every two hours, the thawing of nipped fingers and toes and noses. All night hot food and boiling coffee were served at intervals to the cold and hungry labourers. At nine o'clock next morning two hundred yards of dirt went spraying into the air, with the subsequent struggle in the long hole: fresnos bearing forth what earth was loose and what the plows broke out; the horses, blinded by the glare of snow, staggering forward under curse and lash; the men toiling in a sort of grim fury. A maximum of effort finished one hundred and fifty yards more by eleven o'clock. Carrigan ordered all work to stop until nine next morning.
"The men are 'all in'," he told Lee. "We'll crack this last nut to-morrow."
"But what if it sets in to snow? More than two hundred and fifty yards left to do, and only to-morrow and the day after to work."
"We'll have to risk it."
"Will your powder hold out?"
"Yes." He regarded Bryant keenly. "Say, what youneed isn't information but sleep. You worked all day yesterday, and all last night, and to-day again, and here it is going on midnight. I'm going to tell you the schedule for to-morrow to calm your mind, then you roll into your blankets. At nine o'clock in the morning all hands except the cooks go at the drills and stay by them till the stretch is holed. Whenever that's done, which should be about evening, we shoot the chunk. And after that we hit the bottom with every scraper and fresno and horse and man, with the cooks fighting the coffee-boilers, and never come out of the ditch till the last lump of dirt is moved. That's the programme. I figure it will be about midnight when the last card's turned, maybe an hour or so after. I promised the men double wages and a box of cigars apiece out of the store and a few other things perhaps—I don't remember. So you get your sleep, for there's a big day ahead to-morrow. That dirt all goes out before you'll have another chance to hit the hay."
Bryant arose next morning at seven. The sky was overcast and the thermometer was sixteen below zero when he examined it. Across the snow he could see the north camp stirring to life, awakening in the frosty, pallid light of dawn. Stretching thither ran uneven snowy ridges, save at one place where they lay bare and brown—the banks of the canal. When the small interval still undug was moved, the ditch would be finished from river to ranch, from the Pinas down to Perro. And this was to be the last day of toil! To-day the camps were to hurl themselves at that short remaining strip of earth and tear it out; the furrow so long pressed ahead through the iron ground was to be brought to an end;the enemy, frost, was to be conquered at last. When he thought of the inexorable labour done under heart-breaking conditions, in spite of cold and wind and snow, and with sufferings and deprivations little considered. Bryant felt for the workmen, rough though they were, a strong affection. They had done the bitter work.
"Out goes the chunk to-day," was Pat's greeting that morning.
A spirit of eagerness, almost of enthusiasm, pervaded the crews that first went forth in the cold to work at the drills. It was the final attack, and they went from their steaming breakfast with jests and laughter that rang back over the snow. Sixteen below zero, and they laughed! Bryant had a sudden conviction that nothing could stop such men—neither weather, nor elements, nor fate itself. They were heroes not to be daunted. They swung the hammer of Thor against the earth and were worthy of an epic.
Toward the middle of the afternoon of that day Carrigan said to the engineer:
"We're making better time than I calculated. The holes will all be drilled by five o'clock; we're loading them as they're done and we'll shoot at five-thirty."
"What about supper?"
"Supper at five. Then the men will be back and ready to jump in the ditch when the shot's fired."
"And be done twenty-four hours before the hour set by the Land and Water Board," said Lee.
"That's cutting it fine enough as it is. Who's that waving yonder toward camp?" And Carrigan pointed amittened hand at a figure swinging an arm and shouting Bryant's name.
The engineer stared for a time.
"Charlie Menocal," he said, finally. "Morgan—Morgan, come here!" he called. And as Morgan came to join him, Lee addressed Pat, "I'll just run over to Bartolo with this young scoundrel. The road's open and I'll be back by dark. Want Morgan to come along to look after him and Alvarez, the man you caught."
"Better start back in plenty of time. The sky's thickening again. More snow in sight, Lee."
"I shall."
"You might invite old man Menocal to return with you," Pat remarked, with a grin, "and see us put the kibosh on his dream of owning the Pinas River. What are you going to do with this boy of his? Send him over the road?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"That's where he ought to go, after trying to burn us out the night of the blizzard." He turned away to the work.
"You're not to let this fellow over there waiting for us get away, Morgan," Lee stated.
"I'll freeze on to him."
They went along the snowy path toward camp, coming up with Menocal, who waited until they arrived and then accompanied them toward Bryant's office.
"Have a letter for you from Ruth," he said. "Had a terrible time getting up from Kennard. Road isn't half opened, but I found a man to drive me home. Promised Ruth to deliver this to you."
He drew the letter from an inner pocket and handed it tothe engineer, who glanced at the writing on the envelope, his own name, and shoved the epistle into his glove. When they gained camp, Lee said:
"Morgan and I are going to Bartolo with you, and also a friend of yours called Alvarez. We nabbed him as he was trying to burn our camp about two hours before the blizzard. Take this man to headquarters, Morgan, and keep him till I come over."
Menocal's face became livid with anger and alarm.
"Let me go, damn you!" he shouted, shrilly.
Bryant waved a hand towards the engineers' shack and thither Charlie was propelled, cursing and struggling, in Morgan's firm grasp. Entering his office, Lee closed the door, walked to the stove, and standing there produced the letter. It was the first and only missive he had ever received from Ruth. He gazed at the envelope and the scrawled writing on it with an impression of strangeness, but this gave way to a curiosity as to the contents. He had a strong suspicion of the letter's purport. Ruth would have reviewed her conduct that night at Sarita Creek, and, with her instinctive cunning, perceived it would alienate Lee. The message doubtless carried an adroit explanation and excuse, ending up with numerous declarations of her affection and hypocritical assertions of her anxiety on his account. Disgust overwhelmed him. He was minded to cast the thing into the stove unread. At last, however, muttering to himself, he thrust a forefinger under the flap and ripped the envelope open. A newspaper clipping that had been enclosed in the letter dropped to the floor. He read:
Dear Lee:After thinking the matter over very carefully, I've decided to release you from our engagement. If this pains you, as I fear it will, I'm extremely sorry, but I've discovered that we're not temperamentally suited to each other. You've failed, besides, so I understand, which further convinces me of that. And in addition, I've learned of late that I love another, who loves me. Therefore it's much better that I take this step, much better and much wiser—don't you think so? However, Lee, I shall always be your friend.It may interest you to know that this evening Mr. Gretzinger and I are to be married. Privately, with only a few close friends. We depart immediately after the ceremony for New York. Mr. Menocal is to pack my things at Sarita Creek, so you need not bother about them. I understand Imogene is visiting at the Graham ranch; I'm dropping her a note there telling her the news.With best wishes,Ruth.
Dear Lee:
After thinking the matter over very carefully, I've decided to release you from our engagement. If this pains you, as I fear it will, I'm extremely sorry, but I've discovered that we're not temperamentally suited to each other. You've failed, besides, so I understand, which further convinces me of that. And in addition, I've learned of late that I love another, who loves me. Therefore it's much better that I take this step, much better and much wiser—don't you think so? However, Lee, I shall always be your friend.
It may interest you to know that this evening Mr. Gretzinger and I are to be married. Privately, with only a few close friends. We depart immediately after the ceremony for New York. Mr. Menocal is to pack my things at Sarita Creek, so you need not bother about them. I understand Imogene is visiting at the Graham ranch; I'm dropping her a note there telling her the news.
With best wishes,Ruth.
Bryant lifted from the floor and read the clipping. It was a short announcement, evidently from a Kennard paper, of the prospective wedding that night of Miss Ruth Gardner, of Sarita Creek, and Mr. J. Senton Gretzinger, of New York.
When he had read this, Lee gently tilted and shook the envelope. But no diamond solitaire dropped out.
They were waiting in the sheriff's office in the court house in Bartolo. They were waiting for Mr. Menocal. Winship had sent a messenger for him. At one place in the room, handcuffed and tied, sat the evil-eyed Alvarez; at another sat Charlie Menocal, silent and apprehensive and with a sickly pallor showing under his dusky skin; and between them lounged Morgan. The sheriff and Bryant stood across the room conversing of the storm.
"I thought your goose was cooked when that blizzard hit us," Winship was saying.
"Froze, you mean," was Lee's smiling reply. "I thought so myself for a while. We've hammered along, however. To-night the last dirt goes out."
"That was an idea now—powder."
"It was Carrigan's, not mine. It saved us. The old man has forgotten more than I ever knew. Here's the banker now."
The door swung open, admitting Menocal, blinking from the snow's sheen. He bade the sheriff and the engineer good day, glanced sharply at them and then at the others. When his look encountered his son, his eyebrows went up.
"So you're home finally," he addressed him. "After two weeks' time!" His regard moved about from one to another of the trio. "What does this mean, Charlie? Who is thatfellow wearing handcuffs?" He paused, staring steadily at his son. "What have you been doing to bring you into Winship's office?" As Charlie continued to sit silent, he turned to the sheriff.
"I'll explain, Mr. Menocal, but what I have to say won't be pleasant hearing for you," Lee stated, at a nod from Winship. "Take this chair, if you please."
The banker sat down, heavily. He sighed, while his fat cheeks shook with a slight tremble.
"What has he done?" he asked, with his eyes fixed on an ink-well on the sheriff's desk.
Briefly and without temper Bryant related the circumstance of seeing Alvarez in Kennard one day during the previous summer, when the man appeared to be watching him. Charlie was also in town on that day. Alvarez was the man who had attempted to make the workmen drunk in camp on Christmas Eve, but he had escaped on that occasion. He had stolen into camp again on the afternoon preceding the blizzard and two hours after sundown had been captured seeking to fire the commissary tent. When made a prisoner, he had been searched. On his person were found several checks for sums ranging from fifty to one hundred dollars. Bryant drew the leather sack from his pocket, extracted the checks, and handed them to the banker.
"You see they are given by your son," said he. "I've questioned this Alvarez and he has finally admitted that he was employed by Charlie and instructed by him what to do. Your son, therefore, is the instigator of the attempted crime, and Alvarez, an ignorant and brutal outlaw from Mexico, was merely his tool. I pass over the matter of the whiskyand the petty inconveniences earlier caused me and my men. But here is an act of a different character, Mr. Menocal. The man's endeavour to fire our camp, had it been successful, would perhaps have resulted in the death of scores of men, as the storm broke shortly after and they would have been without shelter."
Charlie Menocal sprang to his feet.
"Before God, I didn't know he would choose that night!" he cried, passionately. "I meant only to stop their work!"
His father shook his head sadly.
"That makes no difference, my son; you planned a wicked deed," he said, in a barely audible voice.
Morgan pushed the young man back upon his chair and Bryant went on. As he proceeded, he had found it harder and harder to address the parent; and his task was no easier now. The eyes of the father had gone to the slender, sagging figure of his son and seemed to be the eyes of an expiring man; his plump cheeks were working under an excess of emotion; then his head went down suddenly as under the blow of a club.
"Because of the character of the act," Lee said, "it wasn't only a stroke at me but at every animal and man in the entire south camp. I want to make this clear in order to show how black and dastardly the thing was. Whether Charlie understood or intended the destruction of all the lives and property there is no excuse; it was a deed that would have carried terrible results in its train. I don't even let my mind conceive them. All this has followed, Mr. Menocal, from the single fact that your son disliked me in thebeginning. To that may be added an idea that I was depriving you of something to which I had no right, namely, the title to the Perro Creek canal appropriation. And there, I think, responsibility for his course touches you."
He paused to gaze at the Mexican, whose face had become drained of colour.
"Mr. Menocal, the water is mine," he continued, "and to-night some time it will be mine beyond all dispute, for then the ditch will be finished. So much for that. Some days ago we had a talk that, I believe, led us each to a better opinion of the other. I think that as a leader here in Bartolo and around about you're a force for good; you believe in law, order, and education; and I know, from what I've learned, that you carry many of the people on store accounts for long periods when crops are bad or when they are distressed by sickness. I'm confident you're endeavouring to elevate them so far as possible; and I admit frankly that I've modified very greatly my first estimation of you. That weighs in the scale against Charlie's actions.
"Then there's one kindness Charlie himself has done me, though he may not be aware of the fact. I'll not say what it is; let it suffice that it is the case. A very great kindness it was, indeed! I count that likewise in the opposite scale. And then there are other things to consider, one among them that after all no harm has come to me. The enmity he's held for me has simply recoiled upon his own head. All he has to show for it after months of hating and contriving is his position here in this room to-day—and a dead dog. Surely it must make plain to him that his course has been not only futile but foolish."
The engineer glanced at the young fellow. He sat in an attitude of despair that almost equalled his father's.
"Well, that brings me to the point," Bryant said. "You've been too indulgent with Charlie, Mr. Menocal, as you once acknowledged to me. You've given him too much money, too much admiration, too much head, and it has led him up against the bars of the state prison. The question is whether or not I shall open the gate and push him in, as at first I determined to do on securing the proof in this leather sack. If I thought he would keep on along his present line, I should say yes, merely as a matter of public policy, but I've had several days to think the thing over and have come to the conclusion he'll soon realize his folly, if he doesn't now. And another restraint should be the good name and the happiness of his father. I'm not vindictive, Mr. Menocal, and less on this day than I've ever been. I don't believe in causing people misery merely for the pleasure of inflicting it or because I happen to have the power. We all have enough to contend with, as it is. I don't propose to ruin your position here, and end your influence, and blast your life, by sending your son to the penitentiary. That would make me no happier, and would make a number of people infinitely wretched, while perhaps starting Charlie on the road to hell. Very likely so. I much prefer to see everyone cheerful and at work. Suppose we ship this fellow yonder back to Mexico—Winship can arrange that—and destroy the checks, and tear up this sheet of Charlie's record, so to speak. Only one or two persons besides ourselves know of the matter and I'll ask them to forget it."
Lee struck a match and ignited the checks, holding themwhile they burned until at last he dropped them on the floor, where they blazed, curled up in strips of black ash, and were no more. He glanced about at the others. Winship was picking his teeth with a quill toothpick, with his mind apparently far away on other matters. Morgan stolidly chewed tobacco and kept a wary eye on the bandit, Alvarez. Charlie sat pale, limp, gazing at nothing. The elder Menocal had lifted his eyes to Bryant, at whom he looked mistily; he appeared to have aged astonishingly, his cheeks having gone flabby, slack, and gray, while a slight tremour shook his head.
"That's all, I guess," Bryant said, briskly. "We'll just consider our relations established on the same footing they were before this occurrence."
He put out a hand, smiling. The banker struggled to his feet and clasped it in both of his.
"They shall not be on the same footing, but on a better one, Mr. Bryant, if it's in my power to make them so," he exclaimed, in a choked voice.
"That suits me right down to the ground, Mr. Menocal."
The Mexican was silent. His lips parted, quivered, and shut again. His hold on the engineer's hand tightened.
"I—I can't talk now, can't say what I wish to say," he said, mastered by feeling. "When I'm more myself, when I can talk—another time——" He ceased, but presently finished, "Another time I'll tell the gratitude in my heart. Now my shame for my son and for myself——Come, Charlie, take me home."
They went out. Winship came to life and crossing theroom dragged the outlaw Mexican to his feet, then pushed him over the floor and into the hall on his way to the cells in the basement. Morgan pulled on his hat. Bryant glanced at the paper ashes on the floor, then did likewise. It was time to get back to camp.
The first snowflakes of another storm were beginning to flutter down by the time the two men reached camp, and dusk had set in. On the drifted road from Bartolo, over which but few wagons had passed, travel was slow and they had consumed an hour and a half on their return. The torches were burning along the canal, appearing at a distance like winter fireflies, but the crews of workmen had gone to supper. Bryant and Morgan, when they drove down the street in camp, could hear them at their meal in the glowing mess tents—a subdued hubbub of plates and knives and voices.
Half an hour later they were pouring forth toward the horse tents, while the engineers were making their way along the torch-lit path to the stretch of undug canal.
"We'll allow fifteen minutes for them to get the teams out, then shoot," Carrigan said to Lee, as they moved along. "All the shots are in and double-fused. Doesn't appear to be any wind behind this snow."
The air, though cold, was still. The flakes were not yet falling heavily and they lay on the hard crust of snow as light as silk fluff. What might be coming down in another hour from the darkness overhead, however, could not be foretold, while if both a gale and a great fall of snow occurred the labour of the night would be increased a hundred-fold.
Bryant's anxiety was no longer on account of the time limit fixed by the Land and Water Board. He knew that since the revelations made in the sheriff's office the claimant Rodriguez would never press his case, even were the canal never completed. But he had the keen desire of a tired man to clean up the job and be done, and a pride in keeping faith with himself in accomplishing what he had sworn he should do, build the project in ninety days. He would never have it said by any one that he had failed in that. By Gretzinger, for example. Ruth in particular! She believed that he had already failed when she wrote her letter.
By the end of the quarter of an hour prescribed by Carrigan teams and workmen were coming along the snowy road in a long line. From the north camp also a string of animals in pairs was advancing by light of the torches. A warning shout sounded from the ditch section. Men retreated. Then a roaring boom burst upon the night, with other thunderous reports following in rapid succession, until it seemed that the mined earth cascading upward in the darkness was the bombardment of scores of cannon. The flames of the torches and the falling snow tossed and whirled at the percussion of air. Showers of clay rained upon the earth. Vibrations jarred the ground.
Then the companies of horses and men, fastening upon scrapers, hastened into the trench. The remaining strip that joined the two sections of canal had been blown out and now this was the final, culminating assault. When this two hundred and fifty yards of ditch line had been widened and deepened to correspond to the rest, water would flow ofsummers in a small river from the dam down to the broad acres of Perro Creek ranch.
Hour after hour the steady labour proceeded—plows ran; flat scrapers and wheeled fresnos followed, scooped up the earth, bore it to the banks above; horses tugged and strained; men toiled, pausing only to thaw their feet and hands at fires burning by the ditch or to drain great tin-cups of the scalding coffee that the cooks dipped from cans. And steadily the excavation widened and deepened hour by hour, the slope of the sides becoming apparent, the banks rising higher and the ditch assuming its desired shape and size. At eleven o'clock the cooks wheeled immense canisters of sliced beef and bread among the workmen, who seized the food and ate it as they worked. At midnight the plows were cutting near the bottom, and the work was going faster, as the frost did not strike this deep into the soil. At one o'clock in the morning, amid thickening snow, the last scraperfuls of dirt were going out, while the engineers, with their long rules, were checking depths and slopes.
"By golly, she's about done!" exclaimed Dave, who had been permitted to remain up on this eventful night and who had been moving about, here, there, and everywhere, in a great state of excitement. "By golly, she is, Lee!"
"Yes, by golly; the ditch you helped me survey, too."
"By golly, yes!" He had forgotten that.
The last dirt moved with a rush. Then, even as the teams were dragging the loads from the excavation, Carrigan passed to a foreman the word that announced the end of work. It ran along the canal from mouth to mouth, at first in a call but finally in a shout that swelled to a roar ofexultation. That roar rang over the snow and through the night like the cry of an army which has gained a walled city.
"Done!" said Bryant, to himself.
Back to the camps trooped the teams and men by the flare of the torches they carried in jubilation. Not a soul in all that company but felt the triumph beating in Lee's heart. Finished, built! Despite frost and snow they had driven the iron furrow through to the end, and on time. Toil-weary though they were, their spirits were light. They knew themselves fellow-workers in a redoubtable achievement.
Carrigan and Bryant were among the last to go. To the latter there was in the fact of completion a sense of unreality. As he took a final view of the ditch before setting out for camp, events raced through his mind—his coming, his first labours, the confused interplay of his life with those of the Menocals, McDonnell, Gretzinger, Carrigan, Imogene, Ruth, and Louise; the months of incessant toil; of brain-racking and body-wearing endeavour to force the canal forward; of unresting strife with frost and snow and earth, of being under a pitiless hammer. He could not easily realize that he was now free of all this.
"I have an empty feeling," he remarked to Carrigan.
"One always has a 'let-down' after a hard job," was Pat's sage rejoinder. "You'll feel restless for maybe a week now."
They went from the spot up the snowy road and turned in at Pat's shack for a smoke. Late as it was, neither felt the need of sleep as yet.
"Well, it's a comfort to know that we don't have to plug again at that ground in the morning," Lee remarked, with a sigh of satisfaction. He had his feet on the table, his body relaxed, and his pipe going.
"Yeah. The only disappointment I have," Pat said, "is not having lifted the bonds and stocks out of Gretzinger. If we hadn't been so pressed for time, we might have played him a little till he took the hook. I don't like his kind at all."
Bryant laughed.
"Why, he's the best friend I have," he exclaimed. "What do you think he did for me?"
"Well, what? Besides trying to shake you down?"
"Pat, he carried off and married my girl."
The contractor lowered his feet, placed his hands upon his knees, and gazed at Bryant, with brows down-drawn and under lip up-thrust.
"That good-for-nothing Ruth what's-her-name?" he demanded. In all the months of their association it was the first time he had ever spoken of her to Bryant.
"Ruth Gardner, yes."
Carrigan rose, gave Lee a long and solemn look, then went to a trunk in the corner of the room. This he unlocked and opened. From its interior he produced a black bottle.
"I don't take a drink very often," he announced, coming forward and setting the bottle on the table, "but this is one of the times. We'll take one to celebrate your luck."
About the middle of the next afternoon Lee Bryant was riding southward from camp on the main mesa trail. The road was difficult and his horse Dick made slow time along the snowy path broken by wagons through the drifts, but the rider let the animal choose his own gait, as he had done that hot July day when coming up from the south to buy the Perro Creek ranch. On reaching the ford Lee pulled rein. How different now the creek from on that burning afternoon of his encounter with Ruth Gardner and Imogene Martin! Snow covered its bed; the sands where he had knelt, the little pool, the foot-prints, lay hidden from sight. How much had happened since! And how different was his life! He had suffered much and learned much since that hour of meeting; and he should never henceforth view this spot without a little feeling of melancholy. The youth and two girls who drank there at the rill were no more: they had become other persons.
Presently he dismissed thoughts of this and set Dick wading across the ford. Yonder he now could see the three bare cottonwoods, with the low adobe house near by where he and Dave had lived and laboured at the surveys for the project. The bones of his dog Mike, too, rested there under the ground. This brought to mind the meeting with Louise upon the road—and it was Louise towhom at this moment he was going. He began to urge Dick to greater efforts. Once on a stretch of road, bare and wind-swept, he pushed him into a gallop. It seemed interminable, this snow-bound trail. But at last he crossed Sarita Creek (with but a single glance at the cañon's mouth where the two cabins stood untenanted and abandoned among the naked trees) and then covered the long miles to Diamond Creek, and rode up the lane between the rows of cottonwoods to the house, where Louise, who had perceived his approach from a window, appeared at the door to greet him.
"We were terribly alarmed for your safety the night of the blizzard," she said, "but the mail-man finally made his trip to Bartolo and back, and said you were still there and not blown away. And he also stated that you were working night and day."
"Not any more," said Lee, swinging from the saddle.
"You have finished! I can read it on your face!" she cried, joyfully.
"Yes; we threw out the last clod at one o'clock this morning."
"I needn't tell you that I'm proud and happy; you know that, Lee. Even happier than when I learned you were able to continue, at the time you supposed you were unable. Put up your horse and come in. You're half frozen."
Bryant endeavoured to discover from her face what he wished to know, but did not succeed. So he asked:
"Have you had your mail lately?"
"Not for three days. The mail-man made one trip and then the next snow closed the road again to Kennard."
Lee went off to stable Dick. On his return he found Louise at the door still waiting, and she helped him to remove his overcoat and scarf when they passed in to the fire. Then they pushed a divan forward and she bade him spread out his hands before the blaze.
"It wasn't so long ago that we agreed we mustn't see each other again, and here we are together," he stated, with a pretense of solemnity. He extended his hands to the heat and moved his fingers about to expel their numbness. "I don't know what your father would say if he knew all the circumstances."
"I—I don't know, either," Louise stammered, in dismay at the thought.
"How's Imogene?" he inquired.
"Improving slowly. All she needed was to get away from that horrid cabin and horrid—well, surroundings."
"And your father's here?"
"At one of the feed corrals, I think. He had all the cattle rounded up before the blizzard and held here and fed. A big task, with several thousand head."
"Then we're safe," said Lee.
Louise looked at him doubtfully. She knew not what to make of this talk and his portentous air, and felt a new apprehension rising in her mind.
"What is it? What has happened now, Lee?" she whispered.
But all at once he began to laugh. He caught her hand and holding it gazed, smiling, into her eyes. Then he drew from his pocket an envelope, which (still keeping prisoner the hand he had captured) he waved to and fro before her eyes.
"If I didn't know you well, I'd think you had lost your wits," she cried.
"I have—wits and heart both. With joy! Wait, I'll take the letter out so that you can read it. The only blessed thing I ever knew her to do! I bless her for it, at any rate." He pulled the letter and the clipping from their cover and laid them in Louise's hand. "Read, read the tidings!"
The girl's fingers began to tremble as her eyes flitted along the lines. But she read no more than the first part of the letter. She turned to him with her eyes misty, her face radiant.
"I could weep for happiness—but I'm not going to." She made a little dab with her handkerchief at her lashes. "Oh, Lee, to think you're free! And that now we may love each other!"
"I thought we did."
"Of course we did—but you know what I mean."
"You didn't read it all," said he. "You don't know yet the poor opinion she has of me."
Louise crumpled the letter in her hand and cast it into the flames.
"Nor do I want to know it," she exclaimed. "All I care about is my own opinion of you, and our love. That's enough. Perhaps we shall be all the happier for the little misery she caused us."
Her eyes dwelt proudly upon him, upon his face that showed new lines of strength, that was clear and calm, that revealed a spirit come to full manhood, that was luminous with the love she inspired. He had taken her hands and was regarding her tenderly.
"Ruth rendered me one service," said he. "She taught me that there's an appearance which may be mistaken for the substance. That shall be to her credit." He sat silent, smiling thoughtfully for a moment. Then he raised his eyes and drew Louise toward him. "But you, Louise, awoke real love."
His arms enclosed her fast and their lips met in a first kiss.
"We shall walk among the flowers and in the orchard again, Lee dear," she murmured, "as we did once before. And I shall bring you buttermilk as I did that morning—but there will be no Charlie Menocal."
"No. Charlie won't annoy us in the future."
"And when the snow is gone we'll ride along your canal——"
"Our canal now, sweetheart."
"Along our canal and see where you worked so hard and struggled and won, and I'll listen while you point here and there and tell of the obstacles overcome, and of all you did. We shall be gay and happy."
"As I'm happy now," he said, softly. "Do you know what I see there in the firelight? A building, a house—our home."
Louise's face lifted to his, all sweetness and trust.
"I see it, too," she murmured.
"On Perro Creek ranch," Lee continued, "with the sagebrush gone and in its place fields of grain and alfalfa spreading out to the horizon, with water rippling along in little canals and fat cows standing about, and contented farmers at work, and perhaps a railroad somewhere in the background,and ourselves in the foreground by our new home, where flowers are growing, too, and—and——"
Louise's arms slipped up and about his neck, until her cheek rested against his.
"You dream and then you build—you dream and make your dreams come true," she said. "You're my dreamer-builder."
Lee was smiling. The caress in her words, the warm touch of her cheek, her heart beating against his, all made his happiness complete.
"And your lover," he whispered.
Popular Copyright NovelsAT MODERATE PRICESAsk Your Dealer for a Complete List of A.L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright FictionAdventures of Jimmie Dale, The.By Frank L. Packard.Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.By A. Conan Doyle.After House, The.By Mary Roberts Rinehart.Ailsa Paige.By Robert W. Chambers.Alton of Somasco.By Harold Bindloss.Amateur Gentleman, The.By Jeffery Farnol.Anna, the Adventuress.By E. Phillips Oppenheim.Anne's House of Dreams.By L.M. Montgomery.Around Old Chester.By Margaret Deland.Athalie.By Robert W. Chambers.At the Mercy of Tiberius.By Augusta Evans Wilson.Auction Block, The.By Rex Beach.Aunt Jane of Kentucky.By Eliza C. Hall.Awakening of Helena Richie.By Margaret Deland.Bab: a Sub-Deb.By Mary Roberts Rinehart.Barrier, The.By Rex Beach.Barbarians.By Robert W. Chambers.Bargain True, The.By Nalbro Bartley.Bar 20.By Clarence E. Mulford.Bar 20 Days.By Clarence E. Mulford.Bars of Iron, The.By Ethel M. Dell.Beasts of Tarzan, The.By Edgar Rice Burroughs.Beloved Traitor, The.By Frank L. Packard.Beltane the Smith.By Jeffery Farnol.Betrayal, The.By E. Phillips Oppenheim.Beyond the Frontier.By Randall Parrish.Big Timber.By Bertrand W. Sinclair.Black Is White.By George Barr McCutcheon.Blind Man's Eyes, The.By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.Bob, Son of Battle.By Alfred Ollivant.Boston Blackie.By Jack Boyle.Boy with Wings, The.By Berta Ruck.Brandon of the Engineers.By Harold Bindloss.Broad Highway, The.By Jeffery Farnol.Brown Study, The.By Grace S. Richmond.Bruce of the Circle A.By Harold Titus.Buck Peters, Ranchman.By Clarence E. Mulford.Business of Life, The.By Robert W. Chambers.
Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.By Frank L. Packard.Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.By A. Conan Doyle.After House, The.By Mary Roberts Rinehart.Ailsa Paige.By Robert W. Chambers.Alton of Somasco.By Harold Bindloss.Amateur Gentleman, The.By Jeffery Farnol.Anna, the Adventuress.By E. Phillips Oppenheim.Anne's House of Dreams.By L.M. Montgomery.Around Old Chester.By Margaret Deland.Athalie.By Robert W. Chambers.At the Mercy of Tiberius.By Augusta Evans Wilson.Auction Block, The.By Rex Beach.Aunt Jane of Kentucky.By Eliza C. Hall.Awakening of Helena Richie.By Margaret Deland.Bab: a Sub-Deb.By Mary Roberts Rinehart.Barrier, The.By Rex Beach.Barbarians.By Robert W. Chambers.Bargain True, The.By Nalbro Bartley.Bar 20.By Clarence E. Mulford.Bar 20 Days.By Clarence E. Mulford.Bars of Iron, The.By Ethel M. Dell.Beasts of Tarzan, The.By Edgar Rice Burroughs.Beloved Traitor, The.By Frank L. Packard.Beltane the Smith.By Jeffery Farnol.Betrayal, The.By E. Phillips Oppenheim.Beyond the Frontier.By Randall Parrish.Big Timber.By Bertrand W. Sinclair.Black Is White.By George Barr McCutcheon.Blind Man's Eyes, The.By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.Bob, Son of Battle.By Alfred Ollivant.Boston Blackie.By Jack Boyle.Boy with Wings, The.By Berta Ruck.Brandon of the Engineers.By Harold Bindloss.Broad Highway, The.By Jeffery Farnol.Brown Study, The.By Grace S. Richmond.Bruce of the Circle A.By Harold Titus.Buck Peters, Ranchman.By Clarence E. Mulford.Business of Life, The.By Robert W. Chambers.
Popular Copyright NovelsAT MODERATE PRICESAsk Your Dealer for a Complete List of A.L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright FictionCabbages and Kings.By O. Henry.Cabin Fever.By B.M. Bower.Calling of Dan Matthews, The.By Harold Bell Wright.Cape Cod Stories.By Joseph C. Lincoln.Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.By James A. Cooper.Cap'n Dan's Daughter.By Joseph C. Lincoln.Cap'n Eri.By Joseph C. Lincoln.Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.By James A. Cooper.Cap'n Warren's Wards.By Joseph C. Lincoln.Chain of Evidence, A.By Carolyn Wells.Chief Legatee, The.By Anna Katharine Green.Cinderella Jane.By Marjorie B. Cooke.Cinema Murder, The.By E. Phillips Oppenheim.City of Masks, The.By George Barr McCutcheon.Cleek of Scotland Yard.By T.W. Hanshew.Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.By Thomas W. Hanshew.Cleek's Government Cases.By Thomas W. Hanshew.Clipped Wings.By Rupert Hughes.Clue, The.By Carolyn Wells.Clutch of Circumstance, The.By Marjorie Benton Cooke.Coast of Adventure, The.By Harold Bindloss.Coming of Cassidy, The.By Clarence E. Mulford.Coming of the Law, The.By Chas. A. Seltzer.Conquest of Canaan, The.By Booth Tarkington.Conspirators, The.By Robert W. Chambers.Court of Inquiry, A.By Grace S. Richmond.Cow Puncher, The.By Robert J.C. Stead.Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.By Rex Beach.Cross Currents.By Author of "Pollyanna."Cry in the Wilderness, A.By Mary E. Waller.Danger, And Other Stories.By A. Conan Doyle.Dark Hollow, The.By Anna Katharine Green.Dark Star, The.By Robert W. Chambers.Daughter Pays, The.By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.Day of Days, The.By Louis Joseph Vance.Depot Master, The.By Joseph C. Lincoln.Desired Woman, The.By Will N. Harben.
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