"Since I believe you mean what you say—since I think I understand what you mean—I am not offended! I am proud! Yes, proud if I can be like Brayley in some things, some things which count! If you do nothing beyond making a friend of that man your exile in this Western country of ours will have been worth while. But you will do something more. I did not ask you to come to me just to hear what you had to say about your trouble with Brayley. He told me before you came—told me that you had licked him, as you both put it, and that it served him right! That is your business and Brayley's, and I should keep out of it. But there was something else—I wonder if you think me meddlesome, Mr. Conniston? If Iammeddlesome?"
"If we are going to be friends, you and I—and you promised that you would let me make you my friend—hadn't we better drop that word?"
"Then I am going to tell you something. You are to go to work in the Valley. Brayley told you that? Do you guess why—have you an idea—why father is sending you over there?"
"I supposed because he is pushing the work—because he needs all the men there he can get, can spare from the Half Moon."
"I am going to tell you. And I am afraid that father would not like it, did he know. But I know that I am right. I may not see you again before you go—I am going into Crawfordsville in the morningfor a few days. What I tell you, you will remember, is in strict confidence—between friends?"
"In strict confidence," he repeated, seriously. "Between friends."
She leaned slightly forward, speaking swiftly, emphatically, earnestly:
"You have heard of Bat Truxton? He is in charge there of all the men, general superintendent of all the work. You will be put to work under him. You will be in a position to learn a great deal about the project in its every detail. Bat Truxton is an engineer, a practical man who knows what he has learned by doing it. And he is a strong man and very capable. Then there is Garton—Tommy Garton they call him. You will work with him. He, too, is an engineer, and he, too, knows all there is to know about the work."
She paused a moment, as though in hesitation. Conniston waited in silence for her to go on.
"Father is sending you to the Valley because he has begun to take an interest in you. Before the year is over there is going to be an opportunity for every man there to show what there is in him. He is giving you your chance, your chance to make good!"
Argyl got to her feet and stood looking away from him, out across the duck pond. Presently she turned to him again, smiling, her voice gone from grave to gay.
"The race is on, isn't it? The great handicap! And, anyway, I have given you a tip, haven't I? Now you are coming up to the house with me, and I'm going to make you a bandage for your broken hand."
She didn't stop to heed his protest, but ran aheadof him to the house. And Conniston, pondering on many things, saw nothing for it but to allow her to play nurse to him.
Saturday morning Greek Conniston pocketed the first money he had ever earned by good, hard work. Brayley handed him three ten-dollar gold pieces—his month's wage. Conniston asked for some change, and for one of the gold pieces received ten silver dollars. He knew that Mr. Crawford and Argyl had gone into Crawfordsville, so he gave one dollar to Brayley, saying: "Will you hand that to Mr. Crawford for me? I owe it to him for telegraph service on the first day I spent here." And then he made a little roll of the indispensable articles from his suit-case, tied it to the strings behind his saddle, and rode away across the fields toward Rattlesnake Valley.
He was to report immediately at the office of the reclamation work in Valley City. Following the trail he and Argyl had taken the other day, he rode into the depression, or sink, about the middle of that long, low hollow between the southern end and the clutter of uniform square buildings which was planned to grow into a thriving town in the heart of the desert.
Every foot of ground here now had a new personal interest for him. He studied the long, flat sweep of level land with nodding approval, trying to see just where the main canal should run, just how its course could be shaped most rapidly, most cheaply, most advantageously. For the mounds, the ridges where the winds had swept the sand into long winnows, he had a quick frown. After all, he realized suddenly, this desert was not the flat, even floor he had imagined it to be. A mile, twomiles to his right as he rode into the "valley" he could see a slow-moving mass of men and horses, could catch the glint of the sun upon jerking scrapers and plows. There the front ranks of Mr. Crawford's little army was pushing the war against the desert. There was where the brunt of Bat Truxton's responsibility lay.
To his left, still several miles away, was Valley City. He swung his horse toward the camp, which as yet was scarcely more than a man's dream of a town, and rode on at a swift gallop. Now more than ever he saw what some of the difficulties were in front of the handful of men scarring the breast of this Western Sahara. For a moment he could see the houses before him, even down to their doorsteps, and a moment later only the roofs peered at him over the crest of a gently swelling rise. Here the water, when it was brought this far, must be swung in a wide sweep to right or left, or else many days, perhaps many weeks, must be sacrificed to the leveling of a great sand-pile. He began to wonder if there was enough water in the mountains for so mammoth a project; if what of the precious fluid could be taken from the creeks and springs would not be drunk up by the thirsty sands as though it had been scattered carelessly by the spoonfuls, as a blotter drinks drops of ink. He even began to wonder uneasily if Lonesome Pete had been right when he had said that another name for such an attempt at reclamation was simple "damn foolishness." The water had not come yet; it was still running in its time-worn courses down the mountain-sides; but something else was being drunk up daily by the parched gullet of the dry country. And that something else was Mr. Crawford's money. His fortune was no doubt very large;it must run into many figures before Rattlesnake Valley grew green with fertility.
He came at last into the little town, passed the cottage where he had worked with Argyl, and drew up before a four-roomed, rough, unpainted building, with a sign over the door saying, "General Office Crawford Reclamation Company." Swinging down from his horse, which he left with reins upon the ground, he went in at the open door. Within there were bare walls, bare floor, and three or four cheap chairs. Under the windows looking to the south there ran a long, high table, covered with papers and blue-prints. Another long table ran across the middle of the room. At it, facing him, perched upon a high stool, a young man, a pencil behind each ear, his sleeves rolled up, was working over some papers. In one corner of the same room another young fellow, hardly more than a boy—eighteen or nineteen, perhaps—was ticking away busily at a typewriter.
The man in shirt-sleeves working at the second long table looked up as Conniston came in. He was a pale, not over-strong—looking chap, somewhere about Conniston's own age, his short-cropped yellow hair pushed straight back from a high forehead, his lips and eyes good-humored and at the same time touched vaguely with a tender wistfulness. Conniston imagined immediately that this was Garton, Bat Truxton's helper.
"You're Mr. Garton?" he said, voicing his impression as he came forward.
"No one else," Garton answered him, pleasantly. "Tom Garton at your service. And you're Conniston from the Half Moon?"
He put out his hand without rising. Connistontook it, surprised as he did so at the quick, strong grip of the slender fingers.
"I'm glad to know you, Conniston. Glad you're to be with us. Oh yes, I knew a couple of days ago that you were coming over. Mr. Crawford dropped in on us himself and told us about you. Have a chair."
They had shaken hands across the table. Now, as Conniston moved across the room to the chair at which Garton waved, the latter swung about on his high stool toward the boy at the typewriter.
"Hey there, Billy!" he called. "Come and meet Mr. Conniston. He's going to be one of us. Mr. Conniston, meet Mr. Jordan—Billy Jordan—the one man living who can take down dictation as fast as you can sling it at him, type it as you shoot it in, and play a tune on his typewriter at the same time!"
Stepping about the table to meet the boy who had got to his feet, Conniston received a shock which for a second made him forget to take young Jordan's proffered hand. For the first time now he saw Garton's body, which had been hidden by the table; saw that Garton had had both legs taken off six inches above the knees. He remembered himself, and tried to hide his surprise under some light remark to Billy Jordan. But Garton had seen it, and laughed lightly, although with a slight flush creeping up into his pale cheeks.
"Hadn't heard about my having slept with Procrustes? Well, you'll get used to having half a man around after a while. The rest do. I've gotten used to it myself. Now sit down. Have a smoke?" He pushed a box of cigarettes along the table. "And tell us what's the news on Broadway."
"You're a New-Yorker?"
"Oh, I've galloped up and down the Big Thoroughfare a good many times in the days of my youth," grinned Carton, helping himself to a cigarette. "I'm an Easterner, all right; or, rather, I was an Easterner. I guess I belong to this man's country now."
"What school?"
"Yale. '05."
"Why, that's my school! I was a '06 man."
"I know it." Garton nodded over the match he was touching to his cigarette. "You're Greek Conniston, son of the big Conniston who does things on the Street. But we didn't happen to travel in the same class. I was shy on the money end of it. Oh, I remember you, all right. I saw that record run of yours around left end to a touchdown. Gad, that was a great day! I went crazy then with a thousand other fellows. I remember," with an amused chuckle, "jumping up and down on a fat man's toes, yelling into his face until I must have split his ear-drum! Oh yes, I had two pegs in those days. The fat man got mad, the piker, and knocked me as flat as a pancake! I guess he never went to Yale."
For ten minutes they chatted about old college days, games lost and won, men and women they both had known in the East. And then, naturally, conversation switched to the work being done in Rattlesnake Valley. Garton's face lighted up with eagerness, his eyes grew very bright, he spoke swiftly. It was easy to see that the man was full of his work, pricked with the fever of it, alive with enthusiasm.
"You seem to be mightily interested in the work," Conniston smiled.
"I am. I am in love with it! A man can't livehere ten days and be a part of it without loving it or hating it. It's the greatest work in the world; it's big—bigger than we can see with our noses jammed up against it! It's a man's work. And thank God we've got the right man at the head of it!"
"Meaning Truxton?"
"Meaning the man who is the brain of it and the brawn of it; the heart and soul and glorious spirit of it; yes, and the pocket-book of it! That's John Crawford, a big man—the biggest man I ever knew. Who else would have the nerve to tackle a thing like this, to tackle it lone-handed? And to hold on to it in the face of opposition which would crush another man, and with the risk of utter financial ruin looming as big as a house, like a glorious, grim old bulldog! Oh, you don't know what it means yet; you can't know. Wait until you've been here a week, seeing every day of it a thousand dollars poured into the sand, a few square yards of sand leveled, a few yards of canal dug, and you'll begin to understand. Why, the whole thing as it stands is as dangerous as a dynamite bomb—and John Crawford is as cool about it as an anarchist!"
"You speak of opposition. I didn't know—"
Garton rumpled his upstanding yellow hair and laughed softly.
"I guess none of us know a great deal about it excepting John Crawford. And John Crawford doesn't talk much. Oh, you will learn fast enough all that we know about it. And now I suppose you'll be wanting to know where you fit into the machine. Bring any things with you—any personal effects?"
"A tooth-brush and an extra suit," Conniston laughed. "They're tied to my saddle outside."
"You can bring 'em in here. I have a room in the back of this shack. You're to share it with me, if you care to. You'll find a shed in the back yard where you can leave your horse. There's a barrel of water out there, too. And, by the way, you might as well learn right now not to throw away a drop of the stuff; it's worth gold out here. When you get back I'll go over things with you. Your first day's work, the better part of it, will be to listen while I talk."
Conniston unsaddled and tied his horse in the little shed, coming back into the office with his roll of clothes. Garton swung about upon his stool and pointed out the room at the back of the house which was to serve for the present as the sleeping-room for both men. There were two cots along opposite walls, a chair, and no other furniture. Conniston threw down his things upon the cot which Garton called to him was to be his, and came back into the office. Pulling a stool up to the table alongside of Garton, he began his first day's work for the reclamation project.
Tommy Garton spoke swiftly, clearly, concisely, explaining those essentials of the work in hand which Conniston must grasp at the beginning. Filled with an ardor no whit less than Mr. Crawford's, there seemed to be no single detail which he did not have at his fingers' ends.
Taking from the drawer of his table a map which bore his own name in the corner, he pointed out just where their source of water was, and just how it was to be brought down from the mountains into the "valley." He indicated where the work was being pushed now. He showed where the big dam had already been thrown across a steep-walled, rocky cañon; how, when the time came, a second dam (this purely a diversion weir) was to be constructed across a neighboring cañon, higher up in the mountains, deflecting the waters which poured down through it into the lower dam, and from it turning them into the main canal at the upper end of Rattlesnake Valley. He pointed out, five miles to the north of these two big dams, the place where a third was to be flung across yet another cañon, imprisoning a smaller creek and turning it toward the southwest to join the overflow of the others in the main canal. He ran over blue-print after blue-print, to show the type of construction work being done. He explained where there was leveling called for, where the canal must be turned aside.
"We'd bring her straight through, and d—n the little knolls," he cried, banging his fist down upon his table in sudden vehemence, "but there is a time-limit on this thing, Conniston. And we've got to get water here, right here in Valley City, when the last day is up. Not twenty-four hours late, either. No, not twenty-four minutes!"
He ran the back of his hand across his moist forehead, and sat staring out of the window as though he had forgotten Conniston's presence.
"What sort of a time-limit? I thought that Mr. Crawford was alone in this thing, that he had the rest of his lifetime to finish it in if he wanted to take that long."
Garton snorted.
"He's got until just exactly twelve o'clock, noon, on the first day of October. If he is five minutes late—yes, five minutes!—there'll be men right here holding stop-watches on the thing like it was a blooming foot-race!—he'll be busted, ruined, smashed, and the whole project a miserable abortion!" He paused a moment, biting the end of his pencil. And before he went on he had turned his eyes steadily upon Conniston's face, studying him. "If you're going to work with us, to get into it with your sleeves rolled up like Bat Truxton and Billy there and me and a few others of us, you might as well know in the beginning what's what in this scrap. For it is a scrap—the biggest scrap you ever saw, a fight to the finish, with one man lined up against—do you have any idea what John Crawford is bucking?"
Conniston shook his head. "I know virtually nothing of this thing, Garton."
"Well, I'll tell you. Single-handed that man isfighting the desert! And he'd beat it back, too, and conquer it and muzzle it and make it eat out of his hand if they'd only let him alone. But they won't, the cold-blooded highway robbers! He's got them to fight with his left hand while he hammers away at the face of the desert with his right! Who are 'they'? 'They' are a syndicate; organized capital. 'They' spell many millions of dollars ready to be spent to defeat John Crawford."
He stopped suddenly, frowning and gnawing at his pencil. Conniston was about to ask a question when Garton went on rapidly, such hot indignation in his tones that Billy Jordan dropped his hands from the keys of his machine to listen to what he had heard many a time before.
"You know already how Mr. Crawford built the town which is named after him? He made that town just as a man takes clay into his hands and makes a modeled figure out of it. And when the job was done he went to the Pacific Central & Western and showed them why it would pay them to build a narrow-gage railroad from Bolton, on the other side of the ridge, thirty miles through mountainous country. He had that planned out long before the first shack was put up in Crawfordsville. And he knew what he was doing. The P. C. & W. built the road and have run an accommodation train back and forth daily ever since. And they have made money at it hauling freight, merchandise from the main line, building-material, farming implements—everything which had to go into Crawfordsville; hauling farm produce from the new settlement back into Bolton.
"Because he had shown the P. C. & W. that the thing could be done on a paying basis, because itwasdone and did pay, the P. C. & W. listened to him when he made a second proposition to them. He went straight to Colton Gray, and Colton Gray listened to him. What Gray advises, the P. C. & W. does. In the end, after many interviews and much investigation and discussion, Crawford made Gray see the matter the way he saw it. The P. C. &. W. contracted to begin work on a line from Crawfordsville to Valley City and on across the desert to the main transcontinental railroad at Indian Creek the day that sufficient water to irrigate fifty square miles of land had been brought into this part of the 'valley.' It was agreed by both contracting parties that the water was to be brought to this spot by noon of October first, or all contracts became null and void.
"The day that Gray agreed for the P. C. & W. Mr. Crawford put men to work on the first preliminary survey. He had already the necessary water concessions. He had studied his ground, made his plans with a carefulness which overlooked nothing which a man could foresee, and had every reason to believe, to be positive, that he could have all the water he wanted in the valley a whole month before the first of October.
"And I tell you he could have done it if they had just let him alone! But they wouldn't. Within thirty days after the first shovelful of earth was turned there was a strong organization perfected to defeat him. Why? In the first place there is a certain bloated toad in our local puddle named Oliver Swinnerton who has his hatchet out on general principles for the Old Man. In the town of Bolton he's the mayor and the chief of police and the board of city fathers and the municipal janitor allrolled into one pompous, pot-bellied little body. He's got money and he's got brains. No sooner does word get about of the Old Man's contract with the P. C. & W. than Oliver Swinnerton gets busy. He went straight to Colton Gray, and at first he could do nothing with him. Gray had taken time for his investigations of Mr. Crawford's scheme, had been convinced that it was feasible, and now stood pat. But Swinnerton with his counter-scheme interested a lot of other capital, and through some of the men he got in with him he got the ear of some of the higher-ups on the P. C. & W. He even got his scheme into the private office of the president, and from the president word ran down to Gray. I think even Gray began then to get shaky in the knees. I tell you, Conniston, the Old Man's project is so big that until it is consummated there will always be a doubt in other men's minds whether the thing ever can be done. If it can't, if it proves impracticable to irrigate this country, to build first Valley City and then a string of settlements across the desert, why then of course there would be nothing in it for the P. C. & W. to run a spur across to Indian Creek.
"And Oliver Swinnerton made it his business to show the management of the railroad that the thing was impossible, that it was a mad fool's dream, that when the first day of October came there would be nothing accomplished because there never could be anything accomplished. He scored his point, and then he played his trump card. He showed that the same money which the railroad would have to spend in stringing rails across the sand here could be spent more advantageously in another direction.
"On the other side of Bolton there are grassy foothills, well watered—a big stretch of country verymuch like that about Crawfordsville. Already there are orchards there, considerable small farming, grain-raising and hay. Swinnerton planned to build a town out there in the heart of that fertile country where there are now a number of settlements and to have the P. C. & W. run a seventy-five-mile spur out that way. The management naturally will not stand for the expense of both roads at the same time, since both would be very largely in the nature of experiments. Swinnerton's scheme looked more promising than the Old Man's. Swinnerton got his contract with the railroad. And that contract says that if on the first day of October Mr. Crawford has not made good he will be given not a day's grace, but work will be begun on the other road into Swinnerton's country. Do you see now what I mean by opposition? Do you see what will happen if we don't come up to time on our end of the game? Swinnerton is so confident that he holds the winning hand that he has already founded his town, already sunk a pile of money in it. Somebody is going to go to the wall when the first day of October comes."
"But," demurred Conniston, "Swinnerton and his corporation are doing nothing actively to retard our work—can do nothing. If—"
"He isn't?" snorted Garton. "That's all you know about it! How do we get all of our implements, our supplies, all of our men? They come to us by rail, don't they? And that means they come to us over the P. C. & W., doesn't it? And the P. C. & W. is scared out of its life, praying every day to its little gods for Crawford's failure. What happens? We get delayed shipments, we wait for our stuff, and it lies sidetracked somewhere; we get our men stolen from us before they ever get to Bolton, and shuntedoff to work for the opposition! There are a hundred ways in which Swinnerton and the bigger men in with him can slip their knife into us every day of the week. And they are not missing very many bets, either. Oh, Gray's all right; he's square enough and willing enough to stand by his word. But he can't do everything. It takes time to get matters up to him, and it takes time for him to adjust them. And right now he's in San Francisco attending a railroad conference, and he'll be there fifteen days, I suppose. What sort of service do you suppose we get in the mean time? You get that idea out of your head that Swinnerton isn't doing anything actively to retard us. He's doing everything he can think of, and I told you at the jump that the man has brains."
As well as a man could understand it without actually going over the ground, Conniston learned that afternoon all that Bat Truxton's assistant could tell him. He learned, roughly, of course, how much had been done already, what remained to be done first, what could be allowed to wait until more men came to swell the forces now at work, what chief natural difficulties and obstacles lay across the path of the great venture.
Little Tommy Garton's enthusiasm was so keen a thing, so spontaneous, so whole-souled, that long before time came for the noon meal Conniston felt his own blood pounding and clamoring for action. Swiftly he was granted the first true glimpse which had ever come to him of the real nature of work. Such work as he was now about to engage in was so infused with the elements of hazard, of risk, of uncertainty, of opposition, that it was shot through with a deep, stern fascination. It was not drudgery, and almost until now he had looked upon all work asthat. It was a great game, the greatest game in the world. He already began to look forward to to-morrow, when he was to leave the office and go out upon the field of action with Bat Truxton with an eagerness such as he had felt in the old college days on the eve of the big Thanksgiving football game. Something of the spirit which had made old William Conniston the dynamic, forceful man of business which he had always been, and which had never before manifested itself in old Conniston's son, suddenly awoke and shook itself, active, eager, the fighting spirit of a fighting man.
At noon Billy Jordan pushed back his chair and got to his feet, stretching his arms high over his head.
"Time to eat," he said, picking up his hat. "Coming, Mr. Conniston?"
"And you?" Conniston asked of Garton.
"Oh, me!" laughed Garton. "I don't travel that far. Not until my new legs come. I had trouble with 'em," he explained. "Had to send 'em back to Chicago. I'm hoping," with a whimsical smile, "that they don't get sidetracked with the rest of our stuff on the P. C. & W. Go with Billy, Conniston. He'll show you where to eat."
He whirled about on his stool, squirmed suddenly over on his stomach, and lowered himself to the floor. Swinging the leathern-capped stumps of his legs between his hands, which he placed palm down on the floor, as a man may swing his body between crutches, he moved with short, quick jerks into the room where the two cots were. Conniston turned away abruptly.
With Billy Jordan he went nearly to the end of the short street before they came to a rude lunch-counter,set under a canvas awning, where a thin, nervous little man and his fat, stolid wife set canned goods and coffee before them. Billy produced a yellow ticket to be punched, Conniston paid his two bits, and they strolled back to the office. When Conniston suggested that they take something to Garton, Billy told him that a boy took him his meals.
There was so much to be got over that day, Conniston was so eager to learn what details he could, Tommy Garton so eager to impart them, that it was scarcely half-past twelve when the two men were back at the long table going over maps and blue-prints. There were no interruptions. An imprisoned house-fly buzzed monotonously and sullenly against a pane of glass, his drone fitting into the heavy silence on the face of the hot desert so that it became a part of it.
At four o'clock a handful of ragged children, barefooted, bronzed of legs and hands and faces, scampered by on their noisy way home from school. A pretty young woman in neat walking-habit and big white straw hat followed the children, smiling in through the open door at Garton, noting Conniston with a flash of big brown eyes and quickly dropping lids. Billy, in seeming carelessness, had wandered to the door when the children passed, and stepped outside, chatting with her for five or ten minutes.
"Miss Jocelyn," Garton told him. "Bat Truxton's daughter, and the village schoolmistress. Billy thinks he's rather hard hit, I fancy."
"I've heard of her," Conniston replied, frowning at the map he was holding flat on the table. "Dam Number Two is the one which is completed, isn't it? And Number Three is the smaller auxiliary dam? How about Number One, which seems to be the mostimportant of the lot? When do we go to work on that?"
Garton chuckled. "You're going to be as bad as I am, Conniston! Can't even stop to look at a pretty girl? The Lord knows they're scarce enough out here, too. Yes, Dam Number One is the important one of the lot. It will be the biggest, the hardest, and most expensive to build, and it will control the water-supply which is going to save our bacon."
Whereupon he, too, forgot Miss Jocelyn and Billy, and launched into further explanation. At six o'clock Billy Jordan covered his typewriter and put on his coat and hat. He came over to the table and leaned his elbow on it, waiting for Garton to finish something that he was saying.
"I'm going around to Truxton's a little while this evening," he said, trying to speak as a man of the world should, but flushing up under Garton's twinkling eyes. "If you find time dragging on your hands you might come along, Mr. Conniston. Miss Jocelyn"—he hesitated a moment—"Miss Jocelyn said I might bring you around."
Conniston thanked him and asked him to thank Miss Jocelyn, but assured him that instead of having time lagging for him he had more to do than he could manage. So Billy went on his way alone. Nor did he seem disappointed at Conniston's refusal to accompany him. It was only when it began to grow dusk and the boy brought Garton's supper that Conniston got up and went down the street to his own solitary evening meal at the lunch-counter.
It was after nine o'clock, and Conniston was lying on his cot in the little rear room of the office-building listening to Tommy Garton talk about reclamation—it seemed the only thing in the world he cared totalk about during working-hours or after—when the outside door was flung open and a man's heavy tread came through the office and to their sleeping-room.
"That'll be Truxton," Garton said. "Wants to see you, I guess."
The heavy tread came on through the office, and the door to Garton's room was flung open with as little ceremony as the front door had been. In the light of a kerosene-lamp upon the chair near his cot Conniston saw a short, squat, heavy-set man of perhaps forty-five, very broad across the forehead, very salient-jawed, his mustache short-cropped and grizzled, his mouth large and firm-lipped, his eyes steady and keen as they turned swiftly upon Conniston from under shaggy, tangled, iron-gray brows. The man had nodded curtly toward Tommy Garton, and then stood still in the doorway regarding young Conniston intently.
"You're Conniston."
It was a positive statement rather than a question, but Conniston answered as he sat up on the edge of his cot:
"Yes. I'm Conniston."
"All right." Truxton removed the lamp from the one chair in the room, placed it upon the window-sill, and sat down, pulling the chair around so that he faced Conniston. "You're goin' to work with me in the mornin'. Now, what do you know?"
His manner was abrupt, his voice curt. Conniston felt a trifle ill at ease under the man's piercing gaze, which seemed to be measuring him.
"Not a great deal, I'm afraid. You see, I—"
"I thought you were an engineer?"
"I am—after a fashion. Graduate of Yale—"
"Ever had any actual, practical experience?"
"Only field work in college."
"Ever had any experience handlin' men? Ever bossed a gang of men?"
"No."
"Ever do any kind of construction work?"
"In college—"
"Forget what you did with a four-eyed professor standin' over you! Ever build a bridge or a grade or a dam or a railroad?"
"No." Conniston answered shortly, half angrily.
"Then," grunted Truxton, plainly disgusted, "I'd like to know what the Old Man meant by sendin' you over here! I can't be bothered teachin' college boys how to do things. What I need an' need bad is an engineer that can do his part of the day's work."
"Look here!" cried Conniston, hotly. "We all have to begin some time, don't we? You had your first job, didn't you? And I'll bet you didn't fall down on it, either! It's up to you. If you think I'm no good, all right. If you give me my work to do I'll do it."
"Itain'tup to me. The Old Man sent you over. You go to work in the mornin'. If I was doin' it I wouldn't put you on. I don't say you won't make good—I'm just sayin' I wouldn't take the chance. I'll stop here for you at four o'clock in the mornin'." He swung about from Conniston and toward Garton. "How're they comin', Tommy?"
All of the curt brusqueness was gone from his tone, the keen, cold, measuring calculation from his eye. With the compelling force of the man's blunt nature the whole atmosphere of the room was altered.
"First rate, Bat," Tommy answered, cheerfully. "How's the work going?"
"Good! The best day I've had in two weeks. We get to work on those seven knolls to-morrow. You remember—Miss Argyl calls 'em Little Rome."
"What have you decided? Going to make a detour, or—"
"Detour nothin'. I'm goin' right straight through 'em. It'll take time, all right. But in the end we'll save. I'll cut through 'em in four days or four an' a half."
"And then—it's Dam Number One?"
Truxton swore softly. "If I can get the men, it is! Swinnerton stole my last gang—seventy-five of 'em. The blamed little porcupine offered 'em two bits more than we're payin' an' grabbed every one of 'em. The Old Man has wired Denver for a hundred more muckers. Swinnerton can't keep takin' men on all year. He's got more now than he knows what to do with. I guess this gang 'll come on through. As soon as they come, Tommy, I'll have that big dam growin' faster'n you ever saw a dam grow before."
For half an hour the two men talked, and Conniston lay back listening. In spite of Bat Truxton's sour acceptance of him, Conniston began to feel a decided liking for the old engineer. After all, he told himself, were he in Truxton's place he would have small liking for putting a green man on the job. He realized that there was nothing personal in Truxton's attitude toward him. Truxton was not looking for a man, but for an efficient, reliable machine, one that had already been tested and found to be strong, trustworthy, infallible.
Again the question had been put to him, "What have you done?" And it was nobody's fault but his that he had done nothing.
"I wish you had two legs, Tommy," Truxton said, when at last he got up and went to the door. "You an' me workin' together out there—well, we'd make things jump, that's all."
Tommy laughed, but his sensitive mouth twitched as though with a sharp physical pain.
"Oh, I'm doing all right inside," he answered, quietly. "Somebody's got to attend to this end of the game. And Conniston will be on to the ropes in a few days. He'll help you make things jump."
Truxton made no answer. For a moment he stood frowning at the floor. Then he turned once more to Conniston for a short, intent scrutiny.
"You have your blankets ready, Conniston," he said, shortly. "You'll sleep on a sand-pile to-morrow night."
And he went out, slamming the door behind him.
At half-past three, Conniston, awakened with a start by the jangle and clamor of Tommy Garton's little alarm-clock, got up and dressed. At the lunch-counter the man who had been fidgety yesterday and was merely sleepy this morning set coffee and flapjacks and bacon before him. Before four he had saddled his horse, rolled into a neat bundle a blanket and a couple of quilts from the cot upon which he had slept last night, tied them behind his saddle, and was ready for the coming of Bat Truxton. Then Truxton on horseback joined him. Conniston mounted, acknowledged Truxton's short "Good mornin'," and rode with him away from the sleeping village and out toward the south.
"Tommy's told you somethin' about what we got ahead of us?" Truxton asked, when they had ridden half a mile in silence.
"Yes. We went over the whole thing together as well as we could in a day's time."
"That's good. If any man's got a head on him for this sort of thing, that man's Tommy Garton. He'd make it as plain as a man could on paper, without goin' over the ground. To-day we're tyin' into those seven sand-hills I mentioned last night. I've got two hundred men workin' there. So they won't get in each other's way I've divided 'em up in four gangs, fifty men to the gang. There's all kinds of men in that two hundred, Conniston, and about thebiggest part of your day's work will be to sort of size your men up. I've divided 'em, not accordin' to efficiency, but partly accordin' to nationality an' mostly accordin' to cussedness. I'm givin' you the tame ones to begin on. I'll take care of the ornery jaspers until you get your hand in. But I can't spare more'n a day or two. Then it'll be up to you. You'll have to swing the whole bunch, if you can. An' if you can't it'll be up to you to quit! Oh, it ain't so all-fired hard, not if you've got the savvy. I've got a foreman over each section that knows what he's doin' an' will do pretty much everything if you can furnish the head work."
"Where is the trouble with them? What do you mean by the ornery ones? They're all here because they want to work, aren't they? If they get dissatisfied they quit, don't they?"
Truxton looked at him curiously. "You got a lot of things to learn, Conniston. Just you take a tip from me: You keep your eyes an' ears real wide open for the next few days an' your mouth shut as long as you can. Tommy explained to you about the opposition? About what Oliver Swinnerton is doin' an' tryin' to do?"
"Yes."
"Then you remember that; don't overlook it for a minute, wakin' or sleepin'. It'll explain a whole lot."
When they rode into the camp at Little Rome the two hundred men employed there were just beginning to stir. Conniston's eyes took in with no little interest the details of the camp. There was one long, low tent, the canvas sides rolled up so that he could see a big cooking-stove with two or three men working over it. This, plainly enough, was the kitchen. From each side of the door a long line oftwelve-inch boards laid across saw-horses ran out across the level sand. Upon the parallel boards were tin plates stacked high in piles, tin cups, knives and forks, and scores of loaves of bread. There were in addition perhaps twenty tin buckets half filled with sugar.
Scattered here and there upon the sand, some not twenty feet from the tent, some a hundred yards, some few with a little straw under them, the most of them with their blankets thrown upon the sand or upon heaps of cut sage-brush, were Truxton's "muckers." They lay there like a bivouacking army, their bodies disposed loosely, some upon their backs, still sleeping heavily; many just sitting up, awakened by the clatter of the cook's big iron spoon against a tin pan.
Behind the tent, picketed in rows by short ropes, were the horses and mules. And lined up to the right of the tent were twenty big, long-bodied Studebaker wagons, each with four barrels of water. Two more wagons at the other side of the tent were piled high with boxes and bags of provisions.
Truxton and Conniston unsaddled swiftly, and after staking out their horses, Conniston throwing his roll of bedding down behind the tent, they walked around to the front. Already most of the men were up, rolling blankets or hurrying to the rude tables. Several of them had gone to the aid of the cooks, and now were hurrying up and down between the parallel boards, setting out immense black pots of coffee, great lumps of butter, big pans of mush, beans, stewed "jerky," and potatoes boiled in their jackets. The men who had rolled out of their beds fully dressed, save for shoes, formed in a long line near the tent door and moved swiftly along the tables, taking up knives,forks, plates, and cups as they went, helping themselves generously to each different dish as they came to it. Many stopped at the farther ends of the boards, standing and eating from them. Many more took their plates and cups of coffee away from the tables and squatted down to eat, placing their dishes upon the sand. There was remarkably little confusion, no time lost, as the two hundred men helped themselves to their breakfast. They did not appear to have seen Truxton; they glanced swiftly at Conniston and seemed to forget his presence in their hunger.
Never had Conniston seen a crowd of men like these. There were Americans there, and from the broken bits of conversation which floated to him he knew that they hailed from east, west, north, and south. There were Hungarians, Slavonians, Swedes—heavy, stolid, slow-moving men whose knowledge of the English language rose and set in "damn" and "hell." There were Chinamen and Japs—a dozen of the slant-eyed, yellow-faced Orientals—the Chinamen all big, gaunt men with their queues coiled about their heads. There were Italians, the lower class known to the West as "Dagoes." And almost to the last man of them they were the hardest-faced men he had ever seen.
There was a big, loose-limbed giant of an Englishman who walked like a sailor, who carried a great white scar across his cheek and upper lip, and who wore a long unscabbarded knife swinging from his belt. There was a wiry little Frenchman who showed a deep scar at the base of his throat, from which his shirt was rolled back, and who snarled like a cat when another man accidentally trod upon his foot. Conniston saw a dozen faces scarred as though byknife-cuts; twisted, evil faces; dark, scowling faces; faces lined by unbridled passions; brutal, heavy-jawed faces.
But if their faces showed the handiwork of the devil, from their chins down they were men cast in the mold of the image of God. From the biggest Dane standing close to six feet six inches to the smallest Jap less than five feet tall, they were men of iron and steel. Quick-eyed, quick-footed, hard, they were the sort of men to drive the fight against the desert.
Breakfast finished, the men dropped their cups and plates into one of two big tubs as they passed by the tent, their knives and forks into another, and went quietly and promptly to work. Each man had his duty and went about it without waiting to be told. They filled buckets at the water-barrels and watered their horses; they harnessed and hitched up to plows and scrapers; half a dozen of them hitched four horses to each of six of the wagons whose barrels had been emptied, and swung out across the plain toward the Half Moon for more water.
Truxton beckoned to Conniston and led him toward the south. And suddenly, coming about the foot of a little knoll, Conniston had his first glimpse of the main canal.
Here it was a great ditch, ten feet deep, thirty feet wide, its banks sloping, the earth which had been dragged out of it by the scrapers piled high upon each side in long mounds, like dikes. Truxton stood staring at it, his eyes frowning, his jaw set and stern.
"There she is, Conniston. A simple enough thing to look at, but so is the business end of a mule. This thing is goin' to make the Old Man a thousandtimes over—or it's goin' to break him in two like a rotten stick."
The workmen were coming up, driving their teams with dragging trace-chains to be hitched to the scrapers and big plows standing where they had quit work the night before. Truxton, tugging thoughtfully at his grizzled mustache, watched them a moment as they "hooked up" and dropped, one behind another, into a long, slow-moving procession, the great shovel-like scrapers scooping up ton after ton of the soft earth, dragging it up the slope where the end of the ditch was, wheeling and dumping it along the edge of the excavation, turning again, again going back down into the cut to scoop up other tons of dirt, again to climb the incline to deposit it upon the bank. Here Conniston counted forty-nine teams and forty-nine drivers. One man—it was the big Englishman with the scarred lip and cheek and the unsheathed knife—was standing ten feet away from the edge of the ditch, his great bare arms folded, watching.
"That's one of your foremen," Truxton said, his eyes following Conniston's. "Ben, his name is. He knows his business, too. He'll take care of this gang for you while you come along with me. I'll show you your other shift."
They followed a line marked by the survey stakes for a quarter of a mile past the camp. Here another fifty men were at work; and here, where the top of the sand had already been scraped away, a harder soil called for the use of the big plows before the scrapers could be of any use. The foreman here, a South-of-Market San-Franciscan by his speech, shouted a command to one of the drivers and came up to Truxton.
"Whatcher want to-day?" he demanded. "Ten foot?"
"Nine," Truxton told him, shortly. "Nine an' a half by the time you get to that first stake. Nine three-quarters at the second. Can you get that far to-day?"
The foreman turned a quid of tobacco, squinted his eye at the two stakes, and nodded.
"Sure thing," he said.
And then he turned on his heel and went back to the point he had quit, yelling his orders as he went.
"Another good man," Truxton muttered. "Thank the Lord, we've got some of them you couldn't beat if you went a thousand miles for 'em."
Still farther on was the third gang, and beyond that the fourth. These hundred men were at work on the "Seven Knolls." And there Truxton himself would superintend the work to-day. He stopped and stood with Conniston upon one of the mounds, from which they could see all that was being done. And with slow, thoughtful carefulness he told Conniston all that he could of the work in detail.
"You do a good deal of watchin' to-day," he ended. "Ben an' the Lark—that's what they call that little cuss bossin' the second gang—listen to him whistle an' you'll know why—know well what to do. Right now an' right here the work's dead easy, Conniston. Only don't go an' let 'em drive you in a hole where you have to admit you don't know. You'vegotto know."
The work here was in reality so simple that men like Ben and the Lark grasped it quickly. Conniston had little trouble in seeing readily what was to be done. The details Truxton furnished him.
When noon came they ate with the men. And at one o'clock Truxton called Ben and the Lark aside and told them shortly that Conniston was the new engineer and that they were to take orders from him. Whereupon Conniston took upon himself the responsibility of "bossing" a hundred men, the biggest responsibility which he had ever taken upon his care-free shoulders.
He had seen the slow, measuring glances which both of his two foremen had bestowed upon him when Truxton told them; knew that they accepted him as their overseer because they took orders from Truxton, but saw in their faces that they reserved judgment of him personally until such time as they could see how much or how little he knew. He was not greatly in fear of the outcome. The work was running so smoothly, there were so few possible difficulties to come up now, that it seemed to him that all he had to do was to stand and watch.
And at first he did little but watch and, as Truxton had suggested, try to study his men. He saw that both the Lark and Ben said very few words, that when they did speak they barked out short, explosive commands surcharged with profanity, that when they interfered there was a good reason for it, that their commands were obeyed without hesitation and without question. Not once in two hours did either of them so much as look toward him. And the long processions of men and horses came and went, scooped and dumped their big scraper-loads, and swung back into the ditch, each man of them moving like a machine.
It was after three o'clock when he noticed something which he would have seen before had he been used to the work and the men. He saw the longstring of scrapers come to a halt for perhaps two minutes; saw that the cause of the halt was a big Northlander who had stopped just as he came upon the bank and was working over at race-chain which seemed to be causing trouble. In a moment he started up again, the other scrapers began to move, and Conniston dismissed the matter as of no consequence. This was the gang over which Ben was foreman. He glanced quickly at the big Englishman and saw that his eyes were upon the Northlander. Again, not twenty minutes later, came a second brief stoppage, again the Swede was working over a trace-chain—and now Ben had swung about and was striding toward Conniston.
"Hi say there," he said, as he came to Conniston's side. "Bat says Hi'm to take horders off you. Do you want me to 'andle those Johnnies? Hor do you figure on a-stepping in? Hi?"
"What do you mean?" demanded Conniston, a bit puzzled. "I haven't interfered with you, have I?"
"No. Hi just want to know, you know. Hi 'andle 'em my wi, hor Hi quit, you know."
"You are to do just as you have always done," Conniston told him, shortly. "If you can handle them, all right. Go to it. If you need any help—What's the matter?"
"Hi don't awsk any 'elp," muttered Ben. "Just one man—"
"You mean that Swede with the big white mare in the lead?" interrupted Conniston, quickly.
Ben looked at him swiftly. Grunting an answer which Conniston did not catch, he turned and went back along the edge of the ditch.
The Swede was again coming up the bank. At the top he did as he had done more than once before:turned out in a wide circle, letting two men pass him. The Englishman strode swiftly toward him.
"Hi, there, you big Swede!" he yelled, his words accompanied by a volley of insulting epithets born in the slums of London. "Wot you trying to do? Want the 'ole works to pawss you w'ile you rest? You blooming spoonbill, get inter that! Step lively, man!"
The Northlander's heavy, slow-moving feet stopped entirely as he turned a stolid face toward the foreman.
"I bane to like I tam plase," he muttered, slowly. "Yo bane go hell."
The big Englishman sprang back, swept up a broken pick-handle half buried in the sand, and leaped forward. As he leaped he swung the bit of heavy, hard wood above his head. The Swede dropped his reins and threw up his arms to guard himself, but the pick-handle, wielded in a great, sinewy right hand, beat down his arms and struck him a crashing blow across his forehead. Conniston heard the thud of it where he stood. The Swede's arms flew out and he went down like a steer in a slaughter-house.
"You bloody spoonbill!" cried the Englishman, standing over the prostrate body. "Wot are you laying down for? Get hup, hor Hi'll beat the bloody 'ead hoff your bloody shoulders! Get hup!"
Slowly, weakly, reeling as he got upon his knees, the Swede rose to his feet. A great, smoldering, cold-blooded wrath shone in his blue eyes, mingled with a surly fear. He made no motion toward the man who stood three feet from him threatening him. Nor did he stir toward his fallen reins. Instead he turned half about toward the camp.
"I bane quit," he muttered, thickly. "I bane get my time."
"Quit!" yelled Ben—"quit, will you!"
The Swede muttered something which Conniston did not catch. Ben took one short, quick step forward, swinging his pick-handle high above his head. For a moment the Swede paused, hesitating. And then, again muttering, he stooped, picked up his reins, and swung his team back into the cut.
The other men had all stopped to watch. Now Ben swung about upon them, his voice lifted in a string of cockney oaths, commanding them not to stand still all day, but to get to work. At almost his first word the teams began to move again, the men laughing, calling to one another, jeering at the defeated Swede, or merely shrugging their shoulders. And Greek Conniston, his face still white from what he had just witnessed, began to see, although still dimly, what it was he had taken into his two hands to do.
He glanced down at his hands. The middle finger of the right one, with which he had struck Brayley's heavy cheek-bone, was swollen to twice its natural size, stiff and sore. The nails were broken and blackened. There were a dozen scratches and little cuts. The palms were hard and calloused, with bits of loose skin along the base of the fingers where blisters had formed and broken and healed over.
He lifted his head, and his speculative eyes ran back along the ditch. The work was again running smoothly, quietly, save for the clanking of the scrapers and the men's voices calling to their horses and mules, each man intent upon his own duty, the face of the desert as peaceful as the hot, clear arch of the sky above.
Three days passed, four, a week, and still no word came of the men for whom the "Old Man" had wired to Denver. Conniston had nearly forgotten them. His day was from daylight until dark, often until long after dark. Upon more than one evening, after the men had had their suppers and crawled into their blankets, he and Truxton had sat in the tent at the cook's rude table, a lantern between them, figuring and planning upon the next day.
He began to notice a vague change in the older engineer as the days went by. At first he was hardly conscious of it, at a loss to catalogue it. But before the middle of the week he realized that each evening found Truxton more irritable, more prone to explode into quick rage over some trifle. The man's eyes began to show the restless fever within him, and some sort of an unsleeping, nervous anxiety. Throughout the days the men stood clear of him. His flaming wrath burst out at a blundering mistake or at a man's failure to follow to the last letter some short-spoken instructions. It was only one night when Conniston made careless mention of Oliver Swinnerton, and Truxton flew into a towering, cursing rage, that he began to believe that he saw the real reason for Truxton's growing ill temper.
"The thievin', mangy, pot-bellied porcupine!" Truxton had shouted, banging his fist down upon thecook's table so hard that the lantern jumped two inches in the air. "I'll just naturally rid the earth of him one of these days. Those men ought to have arrived from Denver three days ago. How am I ever goin' to get anything done, an' no men to work for me? With Colton Gray gone an' the rest of the P. C. & W. thieves playin' into that scoundrel Swinnerton's hands, where do we get off? We send for a hundred men, an' it saves Swinnerton the trouble an' expense of a wire. By now every man jack of them is makin' fences an' buildin' houses for him, or I'm the worst-fooled man in the country." And he swung off into a string of curses which would not have been unworthy of Ben the Englishman.
One afternoon when they had run the ditch through the Seven Knolls and were cutting rapidly through a level stretch with a double line of smaller hills a mile ahead of the foremost team, Truxton came striding along the ditch to where Conniston was standing.
"Think you can handle all four gangs without me for the rest of the afternoon?" he asked, as he came to Conniston's side.
"Yes," answered Conniston. "I can handle them."
Truxton laughed softly.
"You're comin' ahead, youngster. Wouldn't have wanted the job a week ago, would you? I believe you could handle 'em, too. But I'll do it this trip. I want you to go to the office for me. See Tommy and run over these figures with him. I told you last night that I was sure of 'em. To-day I'm gettin' balled up. Tell him that I'm puttin' a gang on that double line of hills first thing in the mornin'. Run over the thing with him and verify our figures. If there's anything left of the afternoon when you getthrough you can take it off an' see the sights in Valley City. Find out how they're fixed for water an' grub an' wood. Tommy's got all that dope at the tip of his tongue. An' be back here the first thing in the mornin'."
He went back to his work, and Conniston hurried away, decidedly glad for the change of work. Just to grip his horse between his knees, to swing out alone across the rolling fields, to drink deep of the untroubled stillness of the wide places, to be an independent, swiftly moving figure with nothing to break the silent harmony of the still, hot sky above and the still, hot sands beneath—a harmony which the soul leaped out to meet—brought a quiet, peaceful content. The day was serene and perfect, like yesterday and to-morrow in this land of dreary barrenness and of infinite possibility; the faint blue of the cloudless sky met the gray monotone of the earth between two mounds in front of him; and as his horse's hoofs fell noiselessly, as though upon padded felt, his sensation was that of drifting across the wide sweep of a gently swelling ocean toward a landlocked sea of pale turquoise.
It was shortly after four o'clock when he rode into Valley City. He passed the one-room school-house, with its distinctive little belfry and flag-pole, and a glance in at the open windows told him that the children had been dismissed. At the corner of the building he came suddenly upon a saddled horse biting and stamping at the flies which defied swishing tail and savage teeth. Half smiling, he stopped. He had recognized the horse as a Half Moon animal, one he had ridden several times, and thought that he could guess who was inside paying his respects to the schoolmistress. Even as he paused JocelynTruxton came out, opening her white parasol. And in all the holiday regalia of shaggy black chaps, bright-blue neck-handkerchief, and new Stetson hat, Lonesome Pete followed her.
Pete, as he emerged from behind the parasol, saw Conniston and called a hearty "Hello, Con!" to him. And Conniston turned his horse and rode back to the front steps.
"Miss Jocelyn says as how she ain't been interdooced," Lonesome Pete was saying, his hat turning nervously in his hands, his face flushing as he met Conniston's eyes. "Shake han's with Mr. Conniston, Miss Jocelyn."
Miss Jocelyn lifted her dropped eyelids with a quick flutter, favored Conniston with a flashing smile, banished her smile to replace it with a pouting of pursed lips, and said, archly:
"I have half a mindnotto shake hands with Mr. Conniston! If he had wanted to meet me he would have come with Billy Jordan the other night."
But, none the less, she finished by putting out a small, gloved hand, and Conniston, leaning from the saddle, took it in his.
"I was sorry, Miss Truxton," he said, lightly. "Didn't Jordan tell you? Garton and I had a lot to do that night, and worked late. It was very kind of you to say that I might come."
"If you had wanted to comeverymuch—" she said, shaking her head saucily. "Youwould have found time to come, wouldn't you, Pete?"
Lonesome Pete, his spurred boots shifting uneasily, put on his hat, noticed immediately that Conniston still held his in his hand, snatched it off again, spun it about upon a big forefinger, and grinned redly.
"I sure would, Miss Jocelyn," he declared with great emphasis.
Miss Jocelyn turned back to lock the school-house door, and then came down the steps and into the road.
"I'll go git my hoss an' walk along," Lonesome Pete said, and hurried around to the back of the house.
"Are you going my way, Mr. Conniston?"
Conniston said that he was, and swung down, walking at her side and leading his horse.
"If you reallydocare to come to see me," Jocelyn said, quickly, before the cowboy had rejoined them, "you may call this evening."
Conniston thanked her, and, not to seem rude, said that he would drop in after he and Tommy Garton had finished their work. Jocelyn smiled at him brightly.
"You may come early, if you like. I am sure that you will have a whole lot of things to tell me about the progress you and papa are making with the ditch. I'msointerested in the work, Mr. Conniston."
Pete had taken up his horse's dragging reins and led him into the street. Jocelyn, her chin a trifle lifted, her air more than a trifle coquettish as she smiled at Conniston, pretended not to see her red-headed adorer. Walking between the two men, she even tilted her parasol so that it did no slightest good in the world in the matter of protecting her from the sun, but served very effectively in shutting out Lonesome Pete. Conniston laughed and talked lightly with her, vastly amused at the situation and the discomfiture upon her ardent lover's expressive face. And so, with Pete trudging along in silence, unnoticed, they came to the office and stopped,Jocelyn and Conniston still talking to each other, Lonesome Pete tying and untying knots in his bridle-reins.
"Can't you give up enough of your precious time to walk on home with me? I have some icy cold lemonade waiting for me," she tempted.
"I'm sorry. I'd like to, but I've got a lot of work to get over with Garton—"
Only three or four doors from the office was the little cottage which he had helped Argyl to prepare for her father. Even while he was making his excuses he saw the door open, and Argyl herself, lithe and trim in her gray riding-habit, step out upon the tiny porch.
"I beg pardon," he broke off, suddenly. "I—Will you excuse me?"
And, jerking his horse's reins so that the animal started up after him at a trot, he strode down the street, his hat off, his face lifted eagerly to Argyl's. A moment later he was holding her hand in his, oblivious of Jocelyn, Pete, Valley City, everything in the world except the girl with the big gray eyes, the girl whom he had seen through his shifting day-dreams.
When the cowboy and the schoolmistress passed him Lonesome Pete was talking once more and she was being very gracious to him, but Conniston had no eye for such trifles. Jocelyn nodded a bit stiffly to Argyl, and, smiling at Conniston, cried gaily, "You won't forget, Mr. Conniston!"
But he had already forgotten. He had not hoped to see Argyl for many days yet, perhaps many weeks, and the unexpected sight of her thrilled through him, driving all thoughts of Jocelyn out of his mind. And when in a few minutes he was forced to rememberthat he had business with Garton he left reluctantly and with a promise to have dinner at six o'clock with her and her father.
Tommy Garton he found as cheerful as a cricket and heartily glad to see him. Billy Jordan had looked out as Jocelyn and her two escorts came by, and now was back at his typewriter, pounding the keys for dear life, the ticking and clicking of his machine keeping time to "Yankee Doodle," which he was whistling softly. He, too, shook hands, but his cheerfulness was of a grade noticeably inferior to Garton's. And immediately he went back to his machine and his rhythmical pounding.
Conniston was of a mind to get the business of the day done with before six. The first part of his errand took up the greater part of an hour. Then Garton reported upon the other matter which Truxton had wanted ascertained. There was water enough to last four days. Provisions were holding out well, but soon there would be a need for fresh supplies of sugar, flour, and jerked beef. There was enough of canned goods at the general store to last for a month, a fresh shipment having been recently received—two big wagon-loads from Crawfordsville.
"I expect Mr. Crawford to drop in on us some time before dark," Garton said, as he put away carefully into a drawer the papers he had taken from it during the consultation. "Miss Argyl is already here. Stopped in a minute to let us know that the Old Man is coming."
"Yes, I know. I saw her a minute just before I came in."
They chatted for a while longer, until Conniston saw by his watch that it was six o'clock. Then he got up and reached for his hat.
"You'll spend the night with me, Conniston," Tommy Garton offered. "I've got plenty of bedding; a man doesn't suffer for covers these nights. Drop in as soon as you and Billy get through supper. I think that I can beat you a game of crib."
"Much obliged, Garton. But I may not run in for an hour or so. Miss Crawford has asked me to eat with them to-night."
"Oh." There was a great lack of expression in Garton's monosyllable, but as he swung about upon his stool, bending over the box of cigarettes which he swept up, Conniston thought that he saw a little twitch as of pain about the sensitive lips. Not understanding, feeling at once that he would like to say something and not knowing what to say, he went slowly to the door. As he was going out Garton called to him, his voice and face alike as cheerful as they had been throughout the afternoon.
"I say, Conniston. Remember me to Miss Argyl, will you? She's a glorious girl. I never saw her match. She's got the same capability for doing big things that her father has. I said the other day that he was the whole brain and brawn of this war for reclamation. I ought to have been kicked. Do you know that the whole project, from its inception, has been as much hers as his? Why, that girl has ridden over every foot of this valley, knows it like a book. Dam Number Three, that auxiliary dam, is her idea. And a rattling good idea, too. The men call it 'Miss Argyl's Dam.' Better brush up on your engineering before you talk reclamation with her, old man. She's read all the books I've got. A glorious girl, Conniston."
Conniston came back into the room.
"See here, Garton," he said, gently. "Why don'tyou come along. She told me that she wanted you, that she had asked you and—"
Garton waved an interrupting hand, smiling quickly. But Conniston saw that his face looked tired.