Brandon of the Engineers Part 32

"Well," said the Spaniard, "I think you and the man, Payne, should watch over your friend, but it might be better if you did not tell him you are doing so or ask him any questions, and I would sooner you did not mention this interview. If, however, anything suspicious happens again, it might be an advantage if you let me know. You can send word to me at the hotel."

"Not at Kenwardine's?"

Don Sebastian gave him a quiet glance, but Jake thought it was keenly observant and remembered how, one night when a messenger entered Kenwardine's patio, Richter, the German, had stood where he obstructed the Spaniard's view.

"No," he said, "I should prefer the hotel. Will you promise?"

"I will," Jake answered impulsively. "However, you seem to suggest that I should leave my partner to grapple with this thing himself and I don't like that. If he's up against any danger, I want to b.u.t.t in. d.i.c.k's no fool, but there are respects in which he's not very keen. His mind's fixed on concrete, and when he gets off it his imagination's sometimes rather weak----"

He stopped, feeling that he must not seem to censure his friend, and Don Sebastian nodded with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I think I understand. There are, however, men of simple character and no cunning who are capable of going far and sometimes surprise the friends who do not know them very well. I cannot tell if Senor Brandon is one of these, but it is not impossible. After all, it is often the clever man who makes the worst mistakes; and on the whole I imagine it would be wiser to leave your comrade alone."

He got up and laid his hand on Jake's arm with a friendly gesture. "Now I will put you on your way, and if you feel puzzled or alarmed in future, you can come to me."

CHAPTER XXI

d.i.c.k MAKES A BOLD VENTURE

Some delicate and important work was being done, and Stuyvesant had had his lunch sent up to the dam. Bethune and d.i.c.k joined him afterwards, and sat in the shade of a big traveling crane. Stuyvesant and d.i.c.k were hot and dirty, for it was not their custom to be content with giving orders when urgent work was going on. Bethune looked languid and immaculately neat. His speciality was mathematics, and he said he did not see why the man with mental talents should dissipate his energy by using his hands.

"It's curious about that French liner," Stuyvesant presently remarked. "I understand her pa.s.sengers have been waiting since yesterday and she hasn't arrived."

"The last boat cut out Santa Brigida without notice," Bethune replied.

"My opinion of the French is that they're a pretty casual lot."

"On the surface. They smile and shrug where we set our teeth, but when you get down to bed-rock you don't find much difference. I thought as you do, until I went over there and saw a people that run us close for steady, intensive industry. Their small cultivators are simply great. I'd like to put them on our poorer land in the Middle West, where we're content with sixteen bushels of wheat that's most fit for chicken feed to the acre. Then what they don't know about civil engineering isn't worth learning."

Bethune made a gesture of agreement. "They're certainly fine engineers and they're putting up a pretty good fight just now, but these Latins puzzle me. Take the Iberian branch of the race, for example. We have Spanish peons here who'll stand for as much work and hardship as any Anglo-Saxon I've met. Then an educated Spaniard's hard to beat for intellectual subtlety. Chess is a game that's suited to my turn of mind, but I've been badly whipped in Santa Brigida. They've brains and application, and yet they don't progress. What's the matter with them, anyway?"

"I expect they can't formulate a continuous policy and stick to it, and they keep brains and labor too far apart; the two should coordinate. But I wonder what's holding up the mail boat."

"Do they know when she left the last port?" d.i.c.k, who had listened impatiently, asked with concealed interest.

"They do. It's a short run and she ought to have arrived yesterday morning."

"The Germans can't have got her. They have no commerce-destroyers in these waters," Bethune remarked, with a glance at d.i.c.k. "Your navy corralled the lot, I think."

d.i.c.k wondered why Bethune looked at him, but he answered carelessly: "So one understands. But it's strange the French company cut out the last call. There was a big quant.i.ty of freight on the mole."

"It looks as if the agent had suspected something," Stuyvesant replied.

"However, that's not our affair, and you want to get busy and have your specifications and cost-sheets straight when Fuller comes."

"Then Fuller is coming back!" d.i.c.k exclaimed.

"He'll be here to-morrow night. I imagined Bethune had told you about the cablegram he sent."

"He didn't; I expect he thought his getting a scratch lunch more important," d.i.c.k replied, looking at his watch. "Well, I must see everything's ready before the boys make a start."

He went away with swift, decided steps through the scorching heat, and Stuyvesant smiled.

"There you have a specimen of the useful Anglo-Saxon type. I don't claim that he's a smart man all round, but he can concentrate on his work and put over what he takes in hand. You wouldn't go to him for a brilliant plan, but give him an awkward job and he'll make good. I expect he'll get a lift up when Fuller has taken a look round."

"He deserves it," Bethune agreed.

Though the heat was intense and the glare from the white dam dazzling, d.i.c.k found work something of a relief. It was his habit to fix his mind upon the task in which he was engaged; but of late his thoughts had been occupied by Clare and conjectures about the Adexe coaling station and the strange black-funnel boat. The delay in the French liner's arrival had made the matter look more urgent, but he had now an excuse for putting off its consideration. His duty to his employer came first. There were detailed plans that must be worked out before Fuller came and things he would want to know, and d.i.c.k sat up late at night in order to have the answers ready.

Fuller arrived, and after spending a few days at the works came to d.i.c.k's shack one evening. For an hour he examined drawings and calculations, asking Jake a sharp question now and then, and afterwards sent him away.

"You can put up the papers now," he said. "We'll go out on the veranda.

It's cooler there."

He dropped into a canvas chair, for the air was stagnant and enervating, and looked down at the cl.u.s.tering lights beside the sea for a time. Then he said abruptly: "Jake seems to know his business. You have taught him well."

"He learned most himself," d.i.c.k answered modestly.

"Well," said Fuller with some dryness, "that's the best plan, but you put him on the right track and kept him there; I guess I know my son. Has he made trouble for you in other ways?"

"None worth mentioning."

Fuller gave him a keen glance and then indicated the lights of the town.

"That's the danger-spot. Does he go down there often?"

"No. I make it as difficult as possible, but can't stop him altogether."

Fuller nodded. "I guess you used some tact, because he likes you and you'd certainly have had trouble if you'd snubbed him up too hard.

Anyway, I'm glad to acknowledge that you have put me in your debt. You can see how I was fixed. Bethune's not the man to guide a headstrong lad, and Stuyvesant's his boss. If he'd used any official pressure, Jake would have kicked. That's why I wanted a steady partner for him who had no actual authority."

"In a sense, you ran some risk in choosing me."

"I don't know that I chose you, to begin with," Fuller answered with a twinkle. "I imagine my daughter made me think as I did, but I'm willing to state that her judgment was good. We'll let that go. You have seen Jake at his work; do you think he'll make an engineer?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.k, and then recognizing friendship's claim, added bluntly: "But he'll make a better artist. He has the gift."

"Well," said Fuller, in a thoughtful tone, "we'll talk of it again. In the meantime, he's learning how big jobs are done and dollars are earned, and that's a liberal education. However, I've a proposition here I'd like your opinion of."

d.i.c.k's heart beat as he read the doc.u.ment his employer handed him. It was a formal agreement by which he engaged his services to Fuller until the irrigation work was completed, in return for a salary that he thought remarkably good.

"It's much more than I had any reason to expect," he said with some awkwardness. "In fact, although I don't know that I have been of much help to Jake, I'd sooner you didn't take this way of repaying me. One would prefer not to mix friendship with business."

"Yours is not a very common view," Fuller replied, smiling. "However, I'm merely offering to buy your professional skill, and want to know if you're satisfied with my terms."

"They're generous," said d.i.c.k with emotion, for he saw what the change in his position might enable him to do. "There's only one thing: the agreement is to stand until the completion of the dam. What will happen afterwards?"