In Exile and Other Stories Part 19

"Helping you to mend it, at the risk of his life, because you made him,"

Nancy answered quickly.

"Helping to mend a hole he made himself, so there would be a nice little break in the morning."

The subject rested there, till Travis, forced to take the defensive, asked:--

"Do you believe me?"

"Believe what?"

"What I have just told you about your father?"

"Oh," she said, "it makes no difference to me. I knew my father pretty well before I ever saw you. If you think he was doing that, why, I suppose you will have to think so. But even if he was, I don't call that any reason you should half drown him, and make him work himself to death beside."

"But the water was warm! And I did the work. What was it to tread dirt for an hour or so on a summer's night? Wasn't he in the ditch when I found him?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," said Nancy. "I know that you kept him there."

"Well, I hope he'll keep out of the ditch after this. Working at ditches at night isn't good for his health. But you needn't be alarmed about him this time; I think he'll recover. But remember this: last night I was the company's watchman; I had an ugly piece of work to do and I did it; but, fair play or foul, whatever may happen between your father and me, remember, it is only my work, and you are not in it."

"Well, I guess I'm in it if my father is," said Nancy, "and that is something for you to remember."

"Oh, hang the work and the ditch and all the ditches!" thought Travis; yet it was the ditch that had put color and soul and meaning into his life,--that had given him sight of Nancy. And it was not his work nor his convictions about it that stood between them now; it was her woman's contempt for justice and reason where her feelings were concerned. The case was simple as Nancy saw it; too simple, for it left him out in the cold. He would have had it complicated by a little more feeling in his direction.

"Well, have I got your answer?" she asked. "Father said I was to bring an answer, but not to let you come."

"He need not be afraid," said Travis bitterly. "If he will leave my ditch-banks alone, I shall not meddle with him. Tell him, if there are no more breaks there will be nothing to report. This break is mended--the break in the ditch, I mean."

"Then you will not tell?" Nancy stole a look at him that was half a plea.

"You would even promise to like me a little, wouldn't you, if you couldn't get the old man off any other way?" he mocked her sorrowfully. "Well, I had rather have you hate me than stoop to coax me, as I've seen girls do"--

He might be satisfied, she pa.s.sionately answered; she hated him enough. She hated his work, and the hateful way he did it.

"You are an unmerciful man!" she accused him, with a sob in her voice. "You don't know the trouble my father has had; how many years he has worked, with nothing but his hands; and now your company comes and claims the water, and turns the river, that belongs to everybody, into their big ditch. I'd like to know how they came to own this river! And when they have got it all in their ditch, all the little ditches and the ponds will go dry. We were here years before any of you ever thought of coming, or knew there was a country here at all. It's claim-jumping; and not a cent will they pay, and laugh at us besides, and call us mossbacks. I don't blame my father one bit, if he did break the ditch. If you are here to watch, then watch!--watch me! Perhaps you think I've had a hand in your breaks?"

Travis turned pale. He had made the mistake of trying to reason with Nancy, and now he felt that he must go on, in justice to his case, though she was far away from all his arguments, rapt in the grief, the wrath, the conviction, of her plea.

"You talk as women talk who only hear one side," he replied. "But you people down here don't know the company's intentions; they don't ask, and when they do they won't believe what they are told. That talk against companies is an old politicians' drive. This country is too big for single men to handle; companies save years of waiting. This one will bring the railroads and the markets, and boom up the price of land. The ditch your father hates so will make him a rich man in five years, if he does nothing but sit still and let it come.

"As for water, why do you cry before you are hurt? n.o.body can steal a river. That is more politicians' talk, to make out they are the settlers'

friends. We are the settlers' friends, because we are the friends of the country's boom; it can't boom without us. Why should _I_ believe in this company? I'm a poor man, a settler like your father. I've got land of my own, but I can see we farmers can't do everything for ourselves; it's cheaper to pay a company to help us. They are just peddlers of water, and we buy it. Who owns the other, then? Don't we own them just as much as they own us?

"Come, if you can't feel it's so, leave hating us at least till we have done all these things you accuse us of. Wait till we take all the water and ruin your land. Most of these farmers along the river have got too much water; they are ruining their own land. So I tell your father, but he thinks he knows it all."

"He is some older than you are, anyhow."

"He is too old to be working nights in ditches. Tell him so from me, will you?"

"Oh, I'll tell him! I don't think you will be troubled much with us around your ditch, after this. I went to the bridge last night because I thought you were nice, and a friend. I had a respect for you more than for any of the others. I might have come to think better of the ditch; but I've had all the ditch I want, and all the watchmen. Never, till I die, shall I forget how my father looked," she pa.s.sionately returned to the charge. "An old man like him! Why didn't you put me in and make me tread dirt for you?

The water was _warm_; and I'm enough better able than he was!"

"I'll get right down here and let you tread on me, and be proud to have you, if it will cure the sight of what you saw me do last night. I was mad, don't you understand? I have to answer for all this foolishness of your father's, remember. It had to be stopped."

"Was there no way to stop it but half drowning him, and insulting him besides?"

"Yes, there is another way; inform the company, and have him shut up in the Pen. _I_ thought I let the old man off pretty easy. But if you prefer the other way, why, next time there's a break, we can try it."

"I'm sure we ought to thank you for your kindness," said Nancy. "And if we are Companied out of house and home, and father made a criminal, we shall thank you still more. Good-morning."

Their eyes met and hers fell. She turned away, and he remounted and rode on up the ditch, angry, as a man can be only with one he might have loved, down to those dregs of bitterness that lurk at the bottom of the soundest heart.

III.

He was but an idle watchman all that day, so sure he was that the ditch was right and Solomon the author of all his troubles; and Solomon was "fixed"

at last. Weariness overcame him, and at the end of his beat he slept, under the lee of the ditch-bank, instead of returning to his camp.

Next morning he was riding along at his usual pace when it struck him how incredibly the ditch had fallen. The line of silt that marked the water's normal depth now stood exposed and dry, full two feet above its running, and the pulse of the current had weakened as though it were ebbing fast.

He put his horse to a run, and lightened ship as he went, casting off his sack of oats, then his coat and such tools as he could spare; he might have been traced to the scene of disaster by his impedimenta strewing the ditch-bank.

The water had had hours the start of him; its work was sickening to behold.

A part of the bank had gone clean out, and the ditch was returning to the river by way of Solomon Lark's alfalfa fields. The homestead itself was in danger.

He cut sage-brush and tore up tules by the roots, and piled them as a wing-dam against the outer bank, and heaped dirt like mad upon the mats; and as he worked, alone, where forty men were needed, came Nancy, with glowing face, flying down the ditch-bank, calling the word of exquisite relief:--

"I've shut off the water. Was that right?"

Right! He had been wishing himself two men, nay, three: one at the bank, and one at the gates, and one carrying word to Finlayson.

"Can I do anything else?"

"Yes; make Finlayson's camp quick as you can," Travis panted over a shovelful of dirt he was heaving.

"Yes; what shall I tell him?"

"Tell him to send up everything he has got; every man and team and sc.r.a.per."

Nancy was gone, but in a few moments she was back again, wringing her hands, and as white as a cherry-blossom.

"The water is all down round the house, and father is alone in bed crying like a child."

"There's nothing to cry about now. You turned off the water; see, it has almost stopped."

"Can I leave him with you?"

"Great Scott! I'll take care of him! But go, there's a blessed girl. You will save the ditch."