Uncle Sid and Winston, after leaving the office, went toward the Rio Vista. Winston was the first to break the silence. He spoke musingly.
"Helen doesn't absolutely know whether Elijah got that money or not. If she had known certainly, she would have told us. But she suspects that he got it and used it, or at least a part of it. There are only two who do know surely, Mellin and Elijah. Mellin has a strong hold on Elijah, or he couldn't have got that note from him. Elijah drew the money, converted it to his own use, and Mellin knows it and is making Elijah pay him to keep quiet."
"Well!" Uncle Sid stopped abruptly and thrust his walking stick into the sand. "Well!" he repeated, "what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to hunt Mellin down and make him give up." Winston's jaws set.
Uncle Sid smiled grimly.
"Well, young man, I'm all-fired rejoiced that you ain't a-huntin' me. I'm goin' a-huntin' too."
At the Rio Vista they parted. Uncle Sid stumped up to the hotel office.
"Say, senner," he was addressing the clerk, "Mrs. MacGregor ain't been sighted yet, has she?"
The clerk smiled affably.
"Not yet, Captain. Expect her to make port today. Any messages?"
"Yes, plenty, but I'll deliver 'em myself."
Mrs. MacGregor made port promptly and as promptly Uncle Sid began to deliver his message.
"Well, Eunice, it seems you've finally settled to the conviction that there's more money in a servant o' the Lord than in folks that's got handles to their names."
"What do you mean, Sidney?"
"What do you mean, Eunice, takin' your ward's money an' puttin' it into this wild-cat business?"
"I'm not aware that I have told you or any one else what I have done with Alice's money."
"I'm perfectly aware o' you, Eunice, an' I have been for a good many years. You ain't got a cent o' your own an' you've been spungin' off from Alice. She didn't seem to mind, so I didn't interfere; but this is different. You just back right out now or I'll make you." Uncle Sid's face was not pleasant to contemplate.
Mrs. MacGregor smiled complacently.
"It seems to me that you are very suddenly and deeply interested in my doings."
"I am!" Uncle Sid snapped out. "An' for two reasons. In the first place you are swindling Alice out o' her money, an' in the second, the good name o' the Harwoods is in danger. Either one is enough to rile my fightin' blood, an' take 'em both together, I'm fifty years younger'n my birthday calls for."
Mrs. MacGregor spoke coldly.
"You are very much mistaken, Sidney, if you think you are frightening me."
"I am mistaken. I never thought you a fool, I declare if I did! Not this kind. Accordin' to my notion, you've tried on a powerful lot o' different kinds o' fool, but I never thought you'd settle down to this."
Mrs. MacGregor vouchsafed no reply. She went to her closet, and began sorting various articles of clothing and laying them out on the bed.
"What are you up to now?"
"I'm going East on business."
Uncle Sid rose to his feet and walked to Mrs. MacGregor. Laying his hands on her shoulders, he turned her sharply till her eyes met his. The eyes that looked coldly into his had a well-bred, unruffled stare, exasperatingly insolent, exasperating, because they gave no open ground for resentment.
"Eunice, I'm going to make a fool of myself. I've got two hundred thousand laid up in the best kind o' securities. They bring me in ten thousand a year. You just get back that girl's money, an' I'll give you this so long as I live. If I go first, an' it's likely I will, I'll fix it so you'll get it so long's you live."
Mrs. MacGregor spoke calmly.
"Why didn't you say this to me before?"
"Because there's been no especial reason for my making a fool o' myself before."
Mrs. MacGregor, still looking into her brother's eyes, thought rapidly. Her regret that Uncle Sid had not spoken before was sincere. She would accept now if she could. She thought of accepting Uncle Sid's offer and then trying to free herself; but if she should fail, she knew that Uncle Sid would not hesitate to cut her off instantly, and without mercy. She was convinced that there was no way out of it. Elijah would fight against it, Mellin would oppose everything before he would let go his hold. More sincerely than she had ever regretted anything in her life, she regretted her inability to accept her brother's offer. There was only one way open—to go on. Her calm, cynical smile was more exasperating than her stare.
"Alice will be down from San Francisco in about two weeks. I want you to take care of her while I am East."
Uncle Sid was answered. He thrust his sister from him so violently, that she staggered to regain her balance, but the calm, insolent smile never left her face.
"I'll take care of her. I'll take care o' her, an' you too, an' that servant o' the Lord."
Uncle Sid stamped from the room. Mrs. MacGregor summoned a messenger from the office. He was instructed to secure a ticket that evening for the overland express. Then she resumed her preparations for departure. She had arranged all details with Elijah. The Palm Wells company had been fully organized, its officers chosen. To Mrs. MacGregor was entrusted the task of raising the necessary funds—for what? Both Mrs. MacGregor and Elijah had avoided these details.
Mrs. MacGregor was promptly on hand for the overland express, and it was with a great and growing sense of satisfaction and importance that she settled herself in her sleeper. Her journey to the East was not so pleasant as she had anticipated; but her hand was turned to her voluntary task, and she could not now go back if she would. She put aside disagreeable impossibilities and gave her thoughts to her future, the raising of money to further her schemes and Elijah's.
Uncle Sid had at once divined that his sister's first field of operations would be their native town and Elijah's. He accordingly took prompt measures to block her plans. He at once wrote to his banker, an old and trusted friend, giving him an outline of the situation and advising him against co-operation with Mrs. MacGregor. The keen business acumen which had enabled him to accumulate two hundred thousand in first-class securities, pointed his written utterances in keen-edged words which never missed their mark, and invariably carried conviction with them.
Many a mickle makes a muckle, and the seafaring mickles of Mrs. MacGregor's native town which had been so painfully accumulated through many years of toil, and towards which that astute lady had turned expectant and longing eyes, were now plunging her into the depths of despair.
The denizens of Fall Brook turned greedy eyes to the golden promises she offered them, their ears were always open, but the end was ever the same. The knots in the stockings were only tied the tighter because of their canny greed and because of her words which threatened to despoil them. Finally the promises of Mrs. MacGregor, made to a scant but influential few, of stock in the Palm Wells tract, as a bonus for persuading their fellows to invest, added zealous recruits to her cause. These, however, not only failed in positive results, but defeated her every hope of success. In a land where the equality of individuals was the breath of life, the arbitrary choice of the few to be the leaders of the many was an insult which no self-respecting New Englander could fail to resent.
The gray-haired banker was Mrs. MacGregor's last resort. Urged by messages from Elijah, at first urgent, then importunate, Mrs. MacGregor turned to the banker. He was tarred with the same stick as were his fellow citizens; moreover, he was in receipt of an extra stick from Uncle Sid. The letter that had traveled eastward with Mrs. MacGregor had received due consideration, and its contents had been judiciously distributed. With the same measure, with which for years she had measured her fellow townsmen, Mrs. MacGregor was being measured. Wounded pride, bitter, burning resentment, accompanied her on her return trip to California.
In any great and growing business, there is often a readjusting and shifting of duties from shoulder to shoulder, as one official after another discovers aptitude for a special line of work.
Thus it happened that, contrary to Helen's fears, no comment was excited either in the office itself or in Ysleta over Elijah's prolonged absence. In both places it was tacitly assumed that his new venture was consuming the greater part of his time. For some weeks most of the routine business transacted in Elijah's name had in reality been performed by Helen, so that it was easy for her to take upon herself the entire direction of the office work. In their intimate official relations, Helen had discovered Elijah's weak points, but this discovery had drawn her closer to him. In the multitudinous business details of the office, often petty and annoying, Elijah had shown a restless impatience, and an inability to straighten them out satisfactorily. He had discovered a lack of the subtle distinctions of honor and honesty, characteristic of a man of strong, rugged integrity. With the development of the Las Cruces to a point of assured success, there had grown up in Elijah an increasing sense of the magnitude of his work and of himself.
Helen had taken the details of the office upon herself and with infinite patience she had worked them into harmony. She had been Elijah's conscience in a thousand different ways that were buried from sight in the work as a whole. Sometimes patiently, more often impatiently, Elijah had rebelled against her insistent suggestions, but in the end he had yielded. To a certain extent Helen had been blinded as to the real Elijah by her preconceived notions of him. She had regarded him as a great man with great ideas. With this central thought she had looked leniently upon his faults, as weaknesses inseparable from greatness. With a loyal devotion, especially characteristic of women, she had largely submerged herself in Elijah. She had gradually come to believe in him almost as he believed in himself. The disintegrating effects of this belief upon her character were gradual and insinuating. She was deteriorating from the strong, sturdy sense of honor that had been her chief characteristic. Upon Elijah, the effects of her loyalty were bound to be equally disastrous. She was his ideal of womanhood. She was his devoted ally. The result was a growing belief that what he desired was right and that this right should not be questioned.
Beyond a vague, ill-defined consciousness that she was getting on dangerous ground, Helen had given little thought to what might be the end of her intimate relations with Elijah. He was a married man. She had met his wife. The meeting had had the sinister effect of developing her sympathy for Elijah in a new line.
In the affairs of the Las Cruces, Helen had been Elijah's conscience. He had repeatedly yielded to her judgment. She had experienced a glow of satisfaction in this that had strengthened the bonds between them. Of late, she had been conscious that her influence was becoming less potent, but she had not connected this fact with the advent of Mrs. MacGregor. The first indication that Elijah's actions were not as wholly in her keeping as she had assumed was her suspicion of his transaction with the Pacific Bank. This had startled her, but to a certain extent she had glossed it over.
When she learned, not through Elijah, but through the published fact, of Elijah's mortgage to Mellin, the veil of his influence was thinned. It had startled her, shocked her, but it had strengthened her determination to make the venture a success, even at the price of an open rupture when her strength would be pitted against Elijah's. She had no fear for results; Elijah had placed too many weapons in her hands which she could use against him. She would compel him, if her influence failed. If Elijah should force her to go to Seymour or Ralph, she was ready to take any consequences they might thrust upon her.
When she had learned, not by Elijah's voluntary confession, but by the confession which she had forced from him, that he had converted the company's money to his own use, and had in reality made her a party to it, the shock impelled her to open rupture and at once. Then came the reaction to pity for the strained, agonized face that pleaded more strongly for mercy than his words. Her thoughts were not deliberately logical, but vibrating from point to point.
Another swing of her mental pendulum and the confession of his guilty love came back to her with crushing, humiliating force. She could not forget the shame of it. Even to this day the pain was not lulled. But in the first withering humiliation, when the last remnant of the veil of her illusion had been torn away, the sense of self-preservation had been strong within her. The open rupture had come. From now on she must fight Elijah and alone, fight for her honor and his redemption if possible. In the days that followed she had forgiven Elijah, but she could not forgive herself without atonement. The forgiveness had not drawn her to Elijah, it had put him farther away. She forgave him in justice, for she felt that in some way, she did not see why, she could not reason why, but in some way, she had opened the road that had led to his declaration. Personalities were at an end between them; she had a right to this much; but in the Pico ranch transaction, the end was not yet. She revolted against it in her heart, but in this matter were involved more than herself and Elijah. She would see it through; she must.
Neither the guests of the Rio Vista nor the inhabitants of Ysleta were as much disturbed over Uncle Sid's illiterate speech as was his sister. None of these knew what Mrs. MacGregor knew, that a lifetime spent before the mast and on the quarter deck is apt to counteract, in forms of speech at least, even a careful early education. Not all Mrs. MacGregor's polished manners and studied words could move a human heart to a single throb, nor could Uncle Sid's uncouth motions and clipped speech chill the loyalty of his many friends. His quaint humor that touched lightly, though unerringly, upon the foibles of humanity, blinded no one to the shrewd eyes that looked with no uncertain light upon the line that divided right from wrong. In short, Uncle Sid was sought after and welcomed where his polished sister was shunned, avoided, and heartily disliked.
Thus it happened that when Helen had named a date for the long talked of trip to the dam a goodly number of Uncle Sid's admirers were ready to go with them. Winston had been duly notified and was ready for their entertainment.
Helen was nearly if not quite as popular as Uncle Sid, though on different grounds. Her air of reserve was wholly apart from the spirit of camaraderie that welcomed Uncle Sid, but there was yet a kindly and humane atmosphere surrounding her that was good to breathe. Her reserve, instead of repelling, attracted and inspired a confidence and loyalty that needed but an occasion to arouse it to open manifestation. Contrary to her fears, had every secret which she was trying to bury in the chambers of her heart been published, this loyalty would have stood forth in fierce array between her and condemnation.
Early on the morning of the appointed day a jolly party formed in line at the doors of the Rio Vista, and, reinforced by carriages from the town, streamed out into the desert, along the banks of the Sangre de Cristo, and paused where the last aqueduct of the great canal was nearly completed. Here all was bustle and hurry, but confusion was absent. Unshaped timbers came to men with squares and saws, ready hands took them, and when squares and saws had done their work, passed them to other hands that raised them on squeaking derricks; the groaning ropes delivered their burdens to trestles where they were swung and fastened in position. There were no misfits. This had been provided against by keen-eyed, eager-faced youths with blue prints and transits, who directed the squares and saws and plumbed the groaning trestles.
There were exclamations of surprise, of admiration, of approval from the visitors. Helen was profoundly moved. Winston's name was on every tongue, while Elijah was hardly mentioned. Back of the blue prints where the cut of every timber had been clearly drawn, where the position of every spike and bolt had been accurately defined, back of every spider-line in transits that unerringly fixed every placed timber, back of every motion of busy hands that moved out and in with no collision, Helen saw the engineer who had traced the drawings and had organized the work. Back of the engineer, she saw the man who had made this possible.
Helen was standing apart from the visitors. She was dumbly conscious that among these, like was gathering to like, even as she, though alone, was gathered to herself and apart from them all. One cluster, linked together by the common hope that this great work would even yet redeem their fallen fortunes; a second group, building other castles of cards from their former ruin; still another, unthinking, uncaring, unseeing, dancing, chattering, alive to the sunlight, alive to the bustle, alive to the enveloping spirit like particles of iron in the presence of a magnet, and as little conscious of the influences that were playing upon them. Every clink of hammer, every rasp of saw, every voice, exuberant or subdued, was speaking of the triumph of one man, the possible disgrace of another.
The clusters broke and, led by Uncle Sid, regathered about Helen.
"Look here, Miss Lonsdale," said one, "if you will allow a suggestion, just fold your arms and hump your shoulders and the picture will be complete—Napoleon before the pyramids of Egypt."
"I didn't suppose that basking in reflected glory made one a subject for cartooning; if it does, we'll all pose together."
"Don't be too modest, young woman," Uncle Sid broke in reprovingly, "a fog bank may hide the sun but it gets its back blistered doin' it."
"Shall we start on?" suggested Helen; "it's a long way yet to the dam."
The road followed along the line of the canal, affording a complete inspection of the work. Only the canal was level, cutting through rolls, bridging arroyos, and boring through rocky hills too deep for cuts. The country grew too rough for wagons as it neared the foot hills of the San Bernardinos, and here the road turned into the bed of the canal. There were occasional stretches where the bed was sandy; these were cemented to prevent loss of water by seepage. On the sides of deep gulches, the canal was cut in the steep banks, walled above and below to hold the stream in place. The work was inspiriting, exhilarating. It was the conquest of Nature, or was it the higher Nature asserting itself, selecting and assimilating that which had hitherto been uncalled into active existence? Perhaps no one of the party asked himself the question, yet each felt that it was a great work, a great idea, a daring one.
At the mouth of the cañon, the canal ended. Across the cañon was built a deflecting dam of solid masonry. Where the canal led into the dam, massive gates were placed by means of which the water from the great reservoir in the mountains could be turned into the canal or cut off from it at will. Apparently there was not a contingency but had been foreseen and provided for.
On a level spot of ground near the gates, a messenger from Winston awaited the party to say that he was unavoidably detained, but that he would expect them the following day. Tents and food were waiting, and the night was pleasantly spent. Only the master of it all was absent.
Early in the morning the camp was astir and breakfast disposed of, horses were saddled and the party under way. Winston was better than his word, for he met them part way down the trail. His welcome was an ovation. Men and women crowded around, each eager to take his hand and pour congratulations into his reluctant ears.
"I accept, by proxy, for the real man," was his reply.
Uncle Sid awaited his turn. His loyal old heart was bursting with pride over all he had seen. There was a suspicious brightness in the old man's eyes as, with Winston's hand clasped in both his own, he looked into his eyes.
"Ralph, my boy," he said, "I have no child of my own, but if I had, an' he'd done what you have, I'd want my heart steel-hooped to keep it from burstin'."
Winston's grip tightened on the knotty fingers.
"Thank you, Uncle Sid." Then withdrawing his hand, he slipped it through the old man's arm.
Uncle Sid stopped abruptly and thrust the hand aside, giving Winston an initial push.
"Now you go along where you're wanted. These folks are just burstin' full o' worship. It will do 'em good to let it out at a tin god, if they don't know any better. It's good for folks to worship somethin' besides themselves."
Through the long day that followed—it seemed long to Winston—Helen skilfully avoided him. Without seeming effort, she managed to be surrounded with others, giving Winston no word alone. Outwardly, she was her old buoyant self. Only to the keen eyes of Winston was her manner forced.
Towards night, Winston saw Helen and Uncle Sid standing together on one of the abutments of the dam. Without undue haste he joined them.
"Well, Helen, are you satisfied with the handiwork of your servant?"
"If you are my servant, why do you come into my presence without being bidden?"
"I asked my question first, and you haven't answered it."
"It strikes me that you are either presumptuous or hypocritical. Don't you think so, Uncle Sid?" She flashed her eyes toward Uncle Sid. There was a shade of annoyance in the look that she turned to Winston. "I believe you and Uncle Sid are fellow conspirators."
"Then I am not mistaken. You have avoided me today?"
"Suppose I have," she replied evasively.
"It's too late for that, Helen. You have given me rights and I claim them." Winston's voice was decided.
"You are harking back to barefoot rights. You perhaps remember that Uncle Sid said that these were only letters of introduction to shoes and stockings."
"Yes. And I humbly present them." Winston replied in the forced humor of Helen's words.
"But," protested Helen, "I have put away childish things, bare feet and all. See!" She thrust out a booted foot from beneath her skirt.
"That's only a boot, and I'm not in it."
"You're getting childish, Ralph, so you will have to go with the rest."
"I am willing, so long as I go with the foot."
Helen was walking slowly up the steep bank and through a thicket of scrubby pine. Uncle Sid had disappeared from sight. Winston laid a detaining hand on her arm.
"Wait, Helen, I have a great many things to say to you."
"This is a pleasure trip, Ralph. You can say things at the office." She turned and took a step forward, but only a step. Winston's hand was gentle but firm. Helen seated herself on a mat of pine needles. Her face was flushed with resentment. Was it resentment?
Winston noticed the heightened color. Its cause was a question with a doubtful answer, but he did not hesitate on that account.
"It's no use trying to deceive me, Helen. There is something troubling you, and seriously, too—"
"Suppose there is, may I not keep my troubles to myself if I choose?" She tried to speak firmly and finally.
Winston continued with no resentment and with no vacillation.
"If you are troubled about any affairs of the company, I ought to know; you should not keep it from me. If it is personal, I have no intention of forcing your confidence. I only want to ask you one thing. Don't you believe that I am your sincere friend?"
Helen strove to conceal her agitation. She longed with all her heart to meet half way the open loyalty that was offered her. She longed to show him that she appreciated it, but—how could she be frank with him without disloyalty to Elijah? Elijah had forfeited her respect, but was he wholly to blame? He had absolved her from the obligations of friendship, but there were other obligations that she could not put aside. Together they had assumed business responsibilities, together they must meet them. She longed for Winston's advice, assistance, but how could she accept either without baring the secret shame that was festering in her heart? Strive as she would, she could not wholly control her voice.
"You have always been my friend, Ralph. Please try to believe that I appreciate it. You can't know what it means to me and I can't tell you. Won't you trust me a little longer?" She tried to steady the deep black eyes that she raised to him.
Winston caught the hand that trembled on the matted needles.
"Always, Helen, always."
She gently withdrew her hand, rising to go.
"Thank you. You may not know what you are promising." There was a pathetic smile hovering over the trembling lips. "Let's stop where we are."
"No." Winston was standing beside her. "I know more than you think I do, Helen. Elijah Berl is a thief. You know it and I know it. He has involved you, in appearance at least. You are too honest, too loyal to leave him as he deserves to be left."
Helen rose to Elijah's defense.
"Not intentionally a thief, Ralph."
Winston's eyes flamed with indignation.
"He isn't an open, manly thief who steals and stands up to his act. He is a sneak who steals and unloads his punishment on others."
Winston's words smote hard. In no essential did they differ from those she had spoken to Elijah.
Winston waited for a moment, watching Helen's face.
"I know what you mean. He took the money from Mellin and appropriated it to his own use. He got you involved in the Pico deal. That isn't an open crime. It is a sneaking, cowardly crime, in that he is forcing you to bear a part of the odium."
Helen's voice faltered, but her eyes did not leave Winston's.
"That Pico business was begun before the Pacific failed. You are wrong there."
"I am not wrong," Winston burst in hotly. His indignation waxed against Elijah. "He is crooked from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. So long as it was between himself and me I could stand it, but when it comes to you, I will endure it no longer. He will quit or I will break him. I can and I will."
"You don't know all, Ralph, or you wouldn't say that." Helen's voice was firmer.
"I do know all. Don't I know that he has given the company his note, or pretended to, and secured it by his stock?"
Helen's eyes were on Winston.
"Do you know this?" She was honestly in doubt. Perhaps Elijah had confided in Winston after all.
"I have not seen the papers, but I know Elijah Berl. He has stilled his conscience without surrendering, one iota, his purpose. This note and security are in his own hands. When it comes to the point, he will find a new way to quiet what he calls his conscience."
"You do not know all, Ralph. You are unjust. This has gone far enough—too far." Helen spoke coldly. She felt compelled to, against the pleadings of her heart. She turned and began to move away.
Winston's hand was again on her arm, restraining her. She tried to free herself, but try as she would, she could not make the action final.
Winston's hand slipped down her arm till her hand rested in his.
"Helen, I would say all of this for the sake of friendship alone—"
She strove to draw her hand from his.
"Stop, Ralph, stop right there."
"I will not." Winston's grasp tightened, he was drawing her towards him in spite of herself. "There is more than friendship, Helen. There is love. I cannot tell you how much; you will have to let me teach you."
His arm was around her now, his eyes striving to look into her own. The pulse of his words, the light of his eyes, the touch of his hand, there was in all these the clear, strong definition between mine and thine. Mine to desire, mine to ask, mine to plead for my desires; thine to give or to withhold that which is all and more than all to me. My heart, my life, my love; thy acceptance of my offering. No selfish pleading, no imperative demand, only a right to ask in undoubting confidence that which it was hers to give or to withhold. She felt his breath on her cheek, the warm glow of his lips nearer and nearer. She could not put them away; her heart cried out against it. Her will to resist, to act as her conscience dictated, was weakening. Only to be at rest, as she was resting now, at peace, no doubts, no fears; she longed for what in strength of mind and purity of heart he was offering her.
His clasp grew closer. Why should she not accept? Her senses were reeling in an ecstasy of surrender that gives all and gains all in the giving. As in a delicious yet terrifying dream, she shrank closer to the protecting arms that would shield her forever.
"Tell me, Helen, that you love me, not as I love you, that is too much to ask, but tell me that you love me."
Her lips trembled in voiceless reply. How she longed to speak the words he desired her to utter. Why could she not? Then her eyes opened wide. Here was a clean heart and a pure life at her feet, strong, throbbing words pleading with her to accept the offering. What had she to give in return? What was she about to give? A stained heart; how deeply stained she did not, could not know, but stained, in exchange for a pure white soul.
She tore herself from his arms and stood before him, her hands outstretched against him. Her great black eyes were wide, and deep, and unfathomable. Only from their depths, a glow of longing love shone forth; of longing, sorrowing love, of sorrow for herself and of love for the man before her; yet love controlled by a will as strong as the strength of right could make it.
There was an answering light in the eyes that met her own. In them was pain and pleading, but no doubt. His hands reached out to hers that had put him away, but they dropped before they touched.
"Helen, your eyes have answered me." There was a deep throb of exultation in his voice. "But let me hear you speak."
She stood with pale face and laboring breath. Her voice shook with the intensity of her emotion.
"I love you, Ralph. More than I can tell you in a lifetime, I love you." She spoke in obedience to a power beyond her will to control.
Winston sprang toward her, but her hand rested on his breast. She could feel the strong, even throb of his heart and this strengthened her will to resist.
"Listen, Ralph!" Her voice was intense but low; every word pierced like pencils of light in deep waters. "I have been cruel, mercilessly, selfishly cruel. I longed to hear you say what you have said. All my life I shall remember it as a penance for the wrong I have done you."
"I will not listen to such words." He clasped the hand that rested on his breast, but she tore it away.
"Don't tempt me further, Ralph."
He was again close beside her.
"Tell me all, Helen. You have given me the right to know."
"I have not, I cannot. If I should tell you, you would despise me. If I granted your wish, all my life I should loathe myself."
Ralph stood with eyes undoubting, unconvinced, but he could go no farther.
"Is it forever, Helen, hopelessly forever?"
"Don't ask me, Ralph, but forgive me." Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. "I am afraid it is. Will you, can you forgive me?"
Winston's lips set. There was a determination in his eyes that was yet softened by a great love.
"I have nothing to forgive. I love you and I shall always love you. Nothing you have said or can say will change it or weaken it. You do not see clearly now. Some time you will. Then I shall claim you and you will come to me."
Helen could trust herself no further, nor could she still the throb of hope his words had kindled. Was she mistaken after all? Was her sin as she saw it, but a gigantic empty shadow resting on a vanishing cloud which the clear light of reason would melt away? There had been conviction in his words, "Sometime you will see clearly, then you will come to me."
She was to outward appearances her old self as she mingled once more with the visitors on the way back to Ysleta. The enthusiastic crowd declared that they would see to it that the completion of the great dam was duly celebrated, and with one accord they voted that Helen was to swing the last stone into place. Helen objected, but to no purpose. She was told that it had all been arranged between them and Winston.
Seymour did not arrive in Ysleta as soon as Winston and Uncle Sid had expected, yet there was no doubt that he had heard of the Pacific failure and the consequent loss of a considerable amount of the company's funds. There was also no doubt that the news of Elijah's transactions with Mellin had been transmitted to him. His non-appearance puzzled them somewhat, but the fact that he had communicated with no one, officially at least, partly explained the situation to them. It must be that he felt perfectly secure and was taking his own time in which to act. Uncle Sid had not been ruffled and he went so far as to advise Winston against worry.
"Seymour's fixin' things to do when he gets out here. What's time for him is time for us. Let's you an' me fix up things while he's thinkin' about it." And that is what they proceeded to do and very effectively.
As a matter of fact, a prosaic wash-out on the line had prevented Seymour's bodily presence in Ysleta, but it had hampered in no way the presence of his spirit, nor did it hamper his thoughts. The rumor of Elijah's defalcation had not disturbed Seymour seriously. He imagined he knew for what purpose the money had been diverted. He shrewdly guessed that it had been spent in the acquisition of new land. This was not displeasing, for the land could not get away and he could frighten Elijah into disgorging.
Seymour had been especially attracted by Winston. In the bottom of his heart, he had resolved at a fitting time to gather that young man to himself. His intentions were not born of purely philanthropic motives, for experience had taught him that greater heights can be scaled by the aid of others than by unassisted efforts. He felt sure that no one in California knew better what land was worth while and what was not, than Winston and Elijah; therefore, he again concluded that his money was really well invested. And so it happened that, after the wash-out had been repaired, he placidly resumed his journey.
Meanwhile Winston and Uncle Sid were at the Rio Vista.
"I think," Winston was saying, "that that wash-out has saved the day."
"I bet Mr. Seymour's been studyin' how to do things, an' while he's been studyin', we've been an' done 'em, that is, pretty near." Uncle Sid wheeled around in his chair and faced Winston. "Have you seen 'Lige lately?"
"No. I'm pretty sure that he's keeping out of sight purposely. I can't make anything out of him these days. He's taking an unusual amount of interest in my work lately. He's been from one end of the canal line to the other and I don't believe that there's a single stone or a shovelful of dirt in the whole dam that he doesn't know the size of; and yet I never run across him. I hear that he's giving the dam his especial attention just now."
"More than Helen?" Uncle Sid looked bluntly at Winston.
"Oh, that reminds me." Winston was trying to speak indifferently. "The dam will be finished next week. Helen is to swing the last stone into position. She said that she thought you would make up a party to go up with her."
"You'll start the first of the week? Yes, I guess I'll go." Uncle Sid was certain of it.
"Then I'll go up in a day or two and get things ready for you. The gates are closed, you know, and the reservoir is nearly full. The rains in the mountains have been unusually heavy this season."
"How are you makin' out with Mellin?"
Winston's smile was not pleasant to contemplate.
"I've got him all done but the finishing. He talked fight when I left him, but I think this will take it out of him." Winston held out a bundle of papers to Uncle Sid. "Do you want to look them over?"
Uncle Sid shook his head as he pushed the papers aside.
"I've got a parcel o' papers too. Betwixt the two of us, I guess we have got things pretty well straightened out."
"How does Helen feel about it now?"
"She's stickin' to 'Lige like a barnacle. She says that 'Lige meant all right an' would have done all right, if Eunice an' Mellin had let him alone. She didn't say so, but I guess she meant she'd a made him, herself."
Winston's expression was skeptical, but it softened as he answered.
"She would have tried, all right."
"She would have succeeded too, if Eunice had kept out." Uncle Sid spoke with unusual emphasis. "If there's anything worth savin' in a man, a good woman's bound to save it. Things have looked pretty black for 'Lige an' for Helen too, but they'll come out all right. I don't like 'Lige's cat-awaulin' any more than you do, an' you ain't seen the worst o' him yet, unless I miss my guess, an' you ain't seen the best o' him, neither. I can't understan' everything an' so I take some things on trust, an' I want to tell you this, Helen Lonsdale ain't the kind o' fish to bite on a bare hook, an' she bit hard on 'Lige."
"So did I. That is, I bit." Winston was thinking of the days when the Las Cruces was hair-hung. He was straight in word and deed. Right and wrong were too sharply defined in his mind to allow room for sympathy towards those differently constituted.
"I wish the whole thing was over," he burst out impatiently. "It makes me boil to have these Ysleta sharks looking cross-eyed at me."
Uncle Sid held up a warning hand.
"Don't think o' that, young man, don't think o' that. Just think how much worse you'd boil if you had anything to boil over. You go along now, an' do a little trustin' that counts. You needn't talk about who you are trustin' in, but 'twon't be any less appreciated for that."
After leaving the Rio Vista, Winston went directly to the office of the Las Cruces company. In spite of the fact that he knew his hope was beyond reason, he could not repress a thrill of excitement as he opened the door and entered the inner office. His first glance was toward Helen. Elijah's desk was closed and his chair vacant as he felt sure it would be. It was his first meeting with Helen since she had left him on the mountain. He shrank from the formal attitude which their official relations compelled him to assume and to which he knew Helen would strictly hold him. Yet there were no obstacles to the exchange of assurances which might flash between their meeting eyes. This was all he asked for, all he could hope for at present.
"Has Elijah been in this morning?" He looked at Helen as he spoke.
"No, Ralph. I hardly think that you expected he would be." Helen's eyes softened for a moment as they met Winston's, then they grew formal, but it was enough.
"No, I didn't. I only hoped that he might be. Have you any idea what he is up to?" Winston's tone was cynical.
Helen's face flushed painfully.
"You—" she began; then she paused. After all, Elijah was to blame. Winston's course had been as straight as the course of an arrow.
"I am a whited sepulcher. That is what you wanted to say, isn't it, Helen?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Because it's just what I am. I have been too hard on Elijah."
"I wish you had said something like this before—before it was too late."
"Too late?" he repeated. "What do you mean? Have you heard anything?" His face was anxious.
"No, I haven't. I only know that Elijah is thoroughly convinced that you have turned against him. That, and other troubles—Ralph, no man can stand the strain that he is under for long."
"You know Elijah as well as I do, perhaps better." Winston was profoundly agitated. "I would hunt him out and drag him home at once, if it were not for one thing."
"And that is?" Helen waited for Winston to continue. She knew that his words were a spoken thought, rather than addressed directly to her.
"So long as Seymour remains away, no one can speak with assurance. Elijah knows that. He needs to feel firm ground under his feet. No one can put it there now." He paused a moment, then continued. "I'll do my best to straighten it out for him."
A messenger entered the office and handed a yellow envelope to Winston. He read the message and dismissed the boy.
"Seymour will be here tomorrow. We will soon be in a position to set Elijah on his feet I hope." Winston hesitated a moment, then went on deliberately. "I thought of having Elijah hunted up at once; but now I think it will be best to wait." He looked questioningly at Helen.
"I think you are right," she replied briefly.
Winston returned to the Rio Vista and went directly to Uncle Sid's room.
"Things are coming to a climax." He handed the message to Uncle Sid.
The old man's face had lost its humorous look. His shaggy eyebrows were lowered, only two bright sparks flashed from beneath them, steely hard.
"This mess is in a fair way o' bein' settled now, an' it ain't a minute too soon, either. 'Lige ain't goin' to stand this always."
"What had we better do first?"
"You know Seymour. Meet him at the train and get him over to the office at once. I'll be there. I think we can settle the whole business in an hour." Uncle Sid's face relaxed into a grim smile. "He'll have to come to our terms."
"The main thing, after all, is to get there, and it begins to look as if we had done it."
There was a surprise to both in their immediate vicinity. The door opened without ceremony to admit Mrs. MacGregor. She was still in traveling costume. She nodded slightly to Winston, who rose as if to leave the room. Uncle Sid checked him.
"You stay right here, Ralph."
Mrs. MacGregor addressed Uncle Sid.
"I want a few minutes alone with you, Sidney, on business."
"Me an' Ralph are about as near one as they make 'em, I guess. You just go right on an' unburden your mind."
"The business to which I refer concerns you and me alone."
"Your ward and Helen Lonsdale are included, I guess. If they ain't, you'll have to wait. If they are, you go right on. You didn't raise enough money in Fall Brook to push you out of the Palm Wells mess. You take up the business right there."
Mrs. MacGregor looked at Winston with as much of an appeal in her glance as she could compel herself to make.
Winston settled himself even more firmly in his chair in compliance with Uncle Sid's request. Mrs. MacGregor did not attempt to conceal her annoyance, but she followed her brother's suggestion and came to the point.
"Yes, I did fail to raise the money in Fall Brook that I had expected to raise without difficulty, and I fancy I know why."
Uncle Sid chuckled with evident satisfaction.
"Consequently," Mrs. MacGregor continued, ignoring her brother's interruption, "the Palm Wells company is in precisely the same position now that it was when I left for the East."
"Ishould say that it was considerably steadier on its legs than it was. What's your opinion, Mr. Winston?"
"I should say so." Winston did not answer aggressively, his reply was perfunctory.
Mrs. MacGregor ignored Winston.
"I don't know what you mean, Sidney."
"Me'n Ralph knows. It ain't necessary you should know."
Mrs. MacGregor's patience was sorely tried, as Uncle Sid fully intended it should be, but she gave no visible signs of annoyance for two excellent reasons. In the first place, a display of emotion smacked of vulgarity; in the second place, she felt that all of her deep-laid schemes depended upon her perfect self-control.
"We are getting nowhere, Sidney. Let us come to the point at once. Our company is temporarily embarrassed and I feel that you are partially responsible for my not raising the money that I had expected, so I am coming to ask you to help us out. Not only is the success of the company at stake but the honor of our family name as well."
She would have gone farther, but Uncle Sid blazed in. He was quite unhampered by the fear of the vulgarity of displayed emotions.
"The honor of our name!" he exploded. "What Harwood in three hundred years was ever false to a trust? What Harwood but stood still in his tracks rather than even look at a crooked path? What Harwood ever used the weakness of his neighbor for his own good?"
"Sidney!" Mrs. MacGregor's voice trembled.
"Keep still! I'm on deck now!" Uncle Sid bent before his sister and shook his knotted fingers in her face. His eyes were blazing, his face rugose with deep, hard lines.
"Do you know what you've done, Eunice? You saw 'Lige Berl stumblin' betwixt right and wrong, an' for the sake of a few dirty dollars you pushed him over! That's what you did. You knew what our old New England name was worth to a man like 'Lige, and instead o' usin' it to pull him out o' the mud, you used it to push him in deeper. You congered a dyin' woman into trustin' her daughter's fortune to your hands, an' you've betrayed the woman an' stole her daughter deaf, dumb an' blind. Now you're in trouble, you're a comin' to me to keep the honor o' the Harwood name. I wanted to keep the honor o' the Harwood name, so I called on this young man to help me an' he's done it, because the same good, red blood is soakin' his bones an' muscles as has soaked the bones an' muscles o' the Harwoods. Betwixt us, we've got the company out o' trouble, an' betwixt us, we will keep it out. We'll get you out o' trouble too, and we'll keep you out o' this! Now we're goin' to hunt up 'Lige an' get him out o' trouble too. We hope he may be worth it."
Uncle Sid straightened and dashed a handkerchief over his swollen face. Mrs. MacGregor sat pale and silent. When Winston began to speak, she turned to him with lips that trembled on the verge of speech.
"I deeply regret the necessity of all this, Mrs. MacGregor, but there is no other way except before an open court." Winston briefly but clearly set forth the status of the Palm Wells company. He assured Mrs. MacGregor that Mellin had been effectually and forever silenced, and in confirmation of his words, showed Mellin's note, from which her name and Elijah's had been torn. "Now I am going to ask you to sign these papers; this done, the last obstacle will be removed from your brother's path."
"Suppose I refuse?"
Winston's face set.
"I advise you not to."
Mrs. MacGregor held out her hand for the papers. She affixed her name where Winston indicated.
"What next?"
Uncle Sid answered.
"There's nothin' more to keep you in California. Just go, an' when you want money within reason, let me know."
Mrs. MacGregor rose and turned to the door that led to her room. Winston was before her and held the door ajar, closing it behind her; then he faced Uncle Sid. The old man approached him and laid a clumsy but affectionate hand on his shoulder.
"I ain't worth a cuss at quotin' scripture, but it strikes me that it ain't every one who's yappin' 'Lord, Lord,' as gets into heaven. Now you go below an' tomorrow we'll lay alongside o' Seymour."
Winston was at his post when the great "Overland Express" rolled into the station at Ysleta, with clanging bell and coughing air-pump and dazzled sunbeams dancing from its varnish.
Winston was an engineer and he was not impervious to a stimulating thrill at the exhibition of power and progress of which the train was a type, from the ponderous, six-wheeled locomotive, to the last car of the shining train that it dragged. This thrill did not interfere with business and he had imperative, pressing business on hand. His quick eye singled out the man for whom he was waiting and almost as quickly he was by his side.
"Good morning, Mr. Seymour."
Without any haste, Seymour's grip was in his hand, and with no conscious volition on his part, Seymour was threading his way at Winston's side through the throng of disembarking passengers, those waiting for incoming friends, curious loafers, and rattling express trucks.
"Have you had breakfast?" Winston hardly paused, as they left the station and came out upon the gravelly, palm-fringed walk.
"Yes, and a good one too. The dining service has improved. Couldn't do much better in New York."
"That's a good deal for a New Yorker to say. It's worth money to the road; at least, it would be if they got hold of it."
"What's the program for today?" Mr. Seymour dropped pleasantries.
"If you're not tired, we'll go to the office at once. They are expecting us."
"Will Mr. Berl be there?"
"No. Not today."
"Hasn't he been notified."
"No."
"Why?" Seymour asked sternly.
"This, and much more, will come out at the meeting."
As Seymour swung along beside Winston, there was a meditative smile on his face. He was not accustomed to receiving curt answers to his inquiries. He had been watching Winston narrowly, and his first favorable impressions were being strengthened. Besides, he had lost no confidence in his own ability to take care of himself. They reached the office and entered.
Winston handed Seymour's grip to a waiting boy, and, without further ceremony, entered the private room. Uncle Sid and Helen were already there.
"Mr. Seymour, I think you have met Miss Lonsdale?"
Seymour greeted Helen with conventional affability; she was conscious of a piercing, though momentary, glance that seemed to read every nook of her soul.
"Captain Harwood, shake hands with Mr. Seymour." Winston made use of the hearty Western formula.
"Pleased to do so, Senner."
"Senner" was Uncle Sid's version of the stately Spanish señor, which had greatly taken his fancy. Neither the cordial "senner," nor the beaming smile, hid from Seymour the rectangular lines of the wrinkled face.
The party seated themselves, and before there was a suggestion of an embarrassing pause, Uncle Sid broke in. His glance shot from face to face then rested on Winston.
"We're cleared for action. Mr. Winston, it's your watch."
Seymour glanced appreciatively at Uncle Sid.
"You're naval, I see."
"Aye, aye, sir; from main truck to orange groves."
Winston began to speak. There was neither haste nor deliberation.
"There is no use in preliminaries. I take it, Mr. Seymour, that what brought you out here, was the theft of the fifty thousand dollars of the company's money?"
Seymour nodded curtly to Winston's question. Winston resumed.
"There's no use calling it by a softer name; but I submit that there were modifying circumstances which may appeal to you. Miss Lonsdale will submit them; Mr. Berl will not be here. No one knows exactly where he is. I am sure that he took the money without, at the time, realizing fully what his act would be called. I think I am right in saying that he is driven to desperation, now that he is brought face to face with his own interpretation of what he has done. If you insist, I am confident that he can be found within twenty-four hours, and that he will come here of his own accord, but I hope that you will not insist upon this step. When I find him, I want to be able to tell him exactly what he is to expect."
Without comment, Seymour turned to Helen.
"What are the modifying circumstances?"
Without a quaver, Helen met Seymour's piercing glance. She was alive to the fact that a single false step might mean ruin to Elijah, but she did not fear.
"For years, Mr. Berl has studied the conditions of orange growing, not only in this country, but in others. Previous to the organization of the Las Cruces company, he began a series of investigations as to the ranges of temperature. These investigations were not completed at the time this company was formed, farther than this. He had found that the greater part of the lands now held by the Las Cruces were in a belt where the temperature never went to freezing. He did not then know how much more extensive the belt was. At that time he transferred every foot of land which he controlled." Helen paused, looking at Seymour. He appeared politely patient, questioning the bearing of her words. She resumed.
"From this time he did not act alone, nor was he alone responsible for what was done. In my capacity of secretary, I discovered, what he did not tell you of, that is, the frostless belt. From maps, I found that the belt reached into territory not owned by the company, and I brought these facts to his notice. Whether rightly or not, this does not matter, he feared that I or others would make use of this knowledge. This fear led him to act at once without consulting the wishes of the company. There were movements on foot to secure this tract without knowledge of its special value, simply for its speculative value. Mr. Berl acted at once. At this time the Pacific Bank failed, and the fifty thousand dollars saved to the company through his influence,—I don't pretend to defend this,—was used by him for the purchase of the Pico ranch."
"One moment," Seymour interrupted. "Did Mr. Berl intend to restore this money?"
"I can only give you facts, Mr. Seymour, not opinions."
"Very well. But from your own showing, if other parties had secured this property, we would have had the revenue from the sale of the water and our money beside."
"I don't think that follows. But the actual fact is, that other parties did not get this tract and that Mr. Berl did."
"Has Mr. Berl got it now?"
"He has not."
Uncle Sid interrupted.
"I expect I can contribute some facts, Senner. The truth is, your company would have been fifty thousand dollars out, if it hadn't been for 'Lige Berl,—I don't defend him, either. As it is, you've got a bank account fatter than it was, an' I'm owner o' the Pico ranch."
"And our money having been risked without our consent, you are getting the sole benefit of it?" Seymour's voice was biting.
"That's just as you say, Senner. I'm goin' to let in a few others, Helen an' Ralph, an' we've no objections to you if you want to come in."
Seymour's face flushed angrily. He mistook the kindly old man's offer for a bribe.
"I've made money, but I've made it honestly, not by taking bribes."
Uncle Sid's face grew purple. His eyes shone from a maze of deep, hard lines.
"Look here, Mr. Seymour, I've got a name reachin' back three hundred years. You just shin up your jenny-logical tree an' shake out your ancestors, an' I'll match 'em as they fall, hides, an' horns, an' taller, an' what's more, if they line up better'n mine, I'll go along where you're more than half minded to send 'Lige."
Seymour was quick in thought and quick in action. He saw that he had been mistaken. A kindly, if somewhat cynical, smile softened his face.
"I beg your pardon, Captain. I won't put you to that trouble."
"No trouble at all, Senner, if 'twill ease you up any." Uncle Sid's face relaxed.
"I think you have all of the essential facts, Mr. Seymour," Winston began. "Mr. Berl took fifty thousand dollars of the company's money. It has been returned. According to the strict interpretation of the law, this restitution does not free Mr. Berl from its penalties. If you fail to prosecute, it will have the appearance of compounding a felony; that is, if Mr. Berl took the money with no intention of restoring it. Whether he had such intentions, no one, not even Elijah himself, can prove before the law. The question is, whether we will prosecute Mr. Berl, or whether we will forgive the past, and try to restore him to himself."
Winston looked fixedly at Seymour. There was an anxious hush as he ceased speaking. Seymour rested motionless with his eyes on the floor. At last he looked up.
"When I started out here, it was with the full expectation of finding you all more or less involved in this business. From what I have seen and heard since I have been in this office, I am prepared to say, without reservation, that my suspicions were groundless. So far as I am concerned, Mr. Berl is a free man with no shadow of fear. This affair can be kept strictly to ourselves with no injustice to any one. We will consider this episode in our history closed once and for all."
Uncle Sid's face was wreathed in smiles.
"I want to beg your pardon, Senner. You make me think of these prickly pears out here. They're mighty fine eatin' when you get the spines off 'em."
The fact that the way of the transgressor is hard, was being ground into the shrinking soul of Elijah. As yet, the grinding was of no avail because he refused to recognize that he was a transgressor. For years he had dreamed, and worked, and planned, and in it all he had been alone. Men would have called it alone, but not so Elijah. The Lord was with him. At least this was his fanatical belief. Alone, or with the still, small voice, not always interpreted aright, he had with infinite patience dreamed his dreams, wrought out his tasks as they came to him, and still alone, he had seen them shaping to a definite end. He had, like a solitary player, shuffled his cards, had dealt them and played in strict accordance with the game or modified them at will, and there was no one to say him nay. Even Amy had strengthened this growing habit of looking upon himself, his will and his desires as infallible.
Unconsciously he had carried this inflexible attitude of mind into the game, when necessity had compelled him to admit partners. He resented the insistence of others, that they should be considered as having rights equal to his own. He demanded unconditional surrender, implicit obedience to his will. He reasoned with a sophistical show of right that the great idea was his, that what he gave was given in the fullness of his heart, and that it was only base ingratitude that prompted the recipients to oppose and thwart him.
Winston had opposed and thwarted him in a thousand details, and though Elijah had outwardly yielded, he had not essentially changed, though he was learning many lessons. He had learned to distinguish between what Winston would accept and what he would reject, but involuntarily and unconsciously there was growing up within him a burning hatred of Ralph Winston. There was a seeming lack of sympathy in the rugged integrity of Winston that clove through the heart of things. Winston knew only north and south. If a needle swung to these points, it was right; if it did not, it was wrong, and he had no use for it.
Elijah was growing jealous of Winston. He said nothing, but he noticed that, in the field especially, and to a certain extent in the office, details were more and more referred to Winston, even by Helen. Winston's name was on every tongue. It seemed to Elijah as if profit, and honor, and prestige were slipping from him and falling upon Winston. He was being defrauded. It never occurred to him that Winston's complete surrender of heart, and soul and mind to the successful fulfilment of his dreams, all testified far more strongly than honeyed words of praise to the worthiness of the idea which he had conceived.
He had turned to Helen Lonsdale. With no less rugged ideas of right and wrong, they had been clouded in Helen with the dangerous sympathy of a woman's heart. With sympathy, Helen had softened the blows she had dealt him. To a certain extent she had kept him right, but because the blows had not pained, they lacked a compelling power. Her intuition, stimulated by her belief in him, in his essential greatness, had been quick to detect every changing mood; in her womanly sympathy, her efforts to soothe and comfort had been unstinted.
In spite of all condemning appearances, these influences were having an unconscious effect for good upon Elijah, until the advent of Mrs. MacGregor. She nursed his sense of wrong, stimulated his belief in himself, fed his morbidly craving soul with honeyed food that fattened it for the hand of the slayer.
Yet Mrs. MacGregor had missed her mark. She had counted upon a possible sometime awakening of Elijah, but before the awakening she had intended to have him fully in her power. She had not reckoned at its full value the impatient greed of Elijah; she had not reckoned on the womanhood of Helen Lonsdale which, though struggling in a fog of sinister influences, never lost consciousness of its own identity.
When, on the morning of his declaration to Helen, Elijah left the office, it was as one stricken with a numbing wound. He was not conscious of its meaning, only of the sickening absence of pain which, coupled with the knowledge of the wound, filled him with an unknown terror. As the meaning of it all slowly dawned upon him, the stinging, biting pain played full upon every tingling nerve. He became filled with blind, ungovernable, impotent rage. He raged against himself, against Helen, against Mrs. MacGregor. He would have returned to the office at once; what darker crime he might have committed, only imagination can suggest, but return was impossible. When the thought came to him, he was far beyond Ysleta, surrounded by desert sands that dragged at his feet till physical exertion was no longer possible. Burning with thirst, weakened by hunger, he threw himself upon the hot sands and watched with unconscious eyes the fierce sun sink into the Pacific.
It was here that a wandering vaquero chanced upon him. The simple Mexican knew naught of the delirium born of a frenzied mind, but he knew the delirium of blood thirst that lack of water brings upon the desert wanderer. With this knowledge and belief, he carried Elijah to his hut and nursed him back to life. If the strange señor chose to call upon the names of men and women whom he knew not, that was the señor's privilege, and it was his duty as a host to patter softly with bare feet on the dirt floor, and to bind the hot forehead with herbs which the desert gave. It was his duty as a host to bind with thongs the raving señor to his raw-hide couch, lest he should once more go out into the desert before his strength had returned.
As consciousness began to return to Elijah, his sense of injury took another form. He had been for several days in the Mexican's hut and no one had called for him or inquired. After all he had done for others, they had left him, turned from him in heartless ingratitude, in this his hour of need. He raged against Helen especially, but his rage changed first to an intense longing, then to a determination to see her again.
Toward the evening of the fifth day, he prevailed upon the Mexican to drive him to Ysleta. At the Rio Vista, having gone to his room, he called a servant and sent him with a message to Helen. She was not to be found. At the office he learned that Helen had gone out to the works and would be absent for several days. He would have followed, but he dared not. Her last words, the last look that he remembered so clearly, these told him only too plainly that she would not be forced, that—he dared think no further. He must work on her sympathy through an appeal. He returned to his room at the hotel and found what he had overlooked before, a package of papers on his table. They had been sent over from the office. A slip of paper in Helen's writing, "Elijah Berl, Rio Vista." He tore the string from the bundle in feverish haste. His fingers trembled as he shuffled the letters one by one. Not one was in Helen's hand. Again and again he went over them, then he gave up in despair.
With infinite patience, the Almighty has taught us by precept and example, that our destinies are in our own hands; that the punishment for failure that comes to us, is self-inflicted, and not from him, when in blind despair, we thrust aside a redemption that is waiting to make us whole. The smitten rock that quenched the thirst of Israel, the parted sea that gave them a way to safety, the column of smoke that reached into the day, the pillar of fire that made the darkness light, these may be fables; but they speak with a voice that cannot be stilled, telling us that in ages past, as in the present, an eye that sleeps not, watches over us; that hope is for us if we will.
Among the discarded letters, was one from Winston. It told of the plucked fangs of Mellin, of Uncle Sid's restoration of the stolen money, of the meeting with Seymour. It ended, "Come back, old man, we want you."
Late as was the hour when Elijah at last turned from his unopened letters, he rang for a servant and ordered a carriage to take him to his ranch. He could not go to the dam; the thought of idly waiting at the hotel was unendurable. He wanted to see some one, he must see some one. He had deliberately put Amy from him; but she did not know this. The black heartlessness of his proposed action did not once occur to him. Before leaving the hotel he wrote an appeal to Helen. He told her where he was going and that he would wait her answer.
At the ranch, he found Amy as of old. Eager, questioning hope leaped to her eyes as they rested on his face; then the hope died out to the dumb, patient waiting; the dumb, patient suffering of an animal that endures without question, without resentment. Through the long days that followed, she did her best to draw him from himself, from the fires that were consuming him. It was in vain. In vain, when she found him seated with his eyes fastened on the dusty trail from Ysleta, she slipped her hand in his and nestled close to him, inviting confidences that were never given, tendering sympathy that was not accepted, assuring him of unswerving confidence that nothing and no one could destroy.
He let no opportunity pass to send other appeals to Helen, but these too were unanswered. One day a messenger came. Elijah did not wait, but rushed to meet him. The message was not from Helen. Instead, a telegram. Mechanically he signed the receipt which the messenger held out; then he opened the envelope. The message was in cipher, but he knew each symbol. The messenger looked at him inquiringly. Elijah shook his head, "No answer," and the messenger rode away.
It did not matter to Elijah that the message was over a week old; the message itself was sufficient. "Have failed to raise the money. I start for California tomorrow."
Elijah felt that his return to Ysleta was hopelessly barred. Mrs. MacGregor was there now, Seymour was there, Helen was there. Like sneaking jackals, they were ready to fall upon him, wounded to the death. They would not leave him in peace. They would not leave him in peace even with what was his own. Nothing was left him but vengeance; how could he compass it?
Like the white flash of a thunderbolt, the transaction with Mellin came to him. Its sinister condition—"within three months after the water shall have been turned into the main canal of the Las Graces"—danced before his eyes. The words were clear and minatory, but there was a hidden meaning that he could not catch, that was pointing the way of deliverance. He strained forward as if to listen more clearly. The swollen veins on his forehead throbbed and beat; then he sprang to his feet—
"As God lives, that water shall not be turned on!"
The sun had set and darkness was falling, but day and night were alike to Elijah now. He was at the gates of the canal at the mouth of the cañon. The roar of the Sangre de Cristo was gone, only a trickle of water slipped by blackened boulders and gurgled as it fell into tiny pools, then wimpled and slid out toward the desert. Up through the trail that led to the dam, darkened by dense evergreens to a deeper shadow, he rode wildly. In the shadow of a great rock, he looked down upon the still rising water, black with depth. He saw the great tubes let in at the base, the wheels by which the gates were controlled, the wide, rock-paved waste weir that, leading from the reservoir, gave into the cañon below. He noted the broken earth, the clinging trees that hung over the weir. His eyes, calculating, merciless, rested on the trees. A gleam of triumph came to them. If the wheels were broken, the gates could not be opened, and the water was even now trickling over the weir. In a day or two, the whole volume of the Sangre de Cristo would pour through it. Just a little powder behind the retaining wall, and the whole bank would fall and choke the weir. Just a few hours and, the weir choked, the gates unopened, the whole volume of the river would creep over the coping of the dam, pick out grain by grain the unprotected earth, till the dam weakened, the mighty mass of stored water would rush in devastating waves down through the cañon, and the canal would be as if it had never been. The dream of a life, the labor of years, these lay in the hollow of his hand.