The Vision of Elijah Berl Part 19

"In a week my answer came. Just five sentences. 'You are going at your work the wrong way. You are asking it questions. By and by your work will ask you questions. Then you're getting on. Keep at it.'"

"And the line?" persisted Uncle Sid.

"Oh, the line? I made the profile and sent it in. My old man came up and looked it over. He was in a hurry as usual. 'You have laid out the line; now go ahead and build it', then he was off."

"You built it?"

"Yes, after a fashion. It helped to wash the gold out of the Yuba river sand till the anti-debris laws headed it off. Then I came down here."

"How did you happen to hit in with Elijah Berl?"

"He was the only man in Southern California who was doing anything that was worth while."

"Yes, it is worth while." Uncle Sid brought down his open hand upon his knee with a resounding slap. Then he laid his hand on Ralph's with emphasizing beats, looking earnestly into his face. "Don't you let go, either, or it won't be worth shucks."

Ralph returned the Captain's earnest look.

"I'll hang on," he answered briefly.

"That's right. You stick to it. You an' Helen Lonsdale are goin' to make this thing go, if it's a goin'."

"I think I appreciate what Helen is doing as well as what Elijah has done; she's the life of the whole business."

Uncle Sid appeared to take up Ralph's words. Then he changed his mind, speaking reminiscently.

"I've known 'Lige Berl ever since he was so high an' before." Uncle Sid measured Elijah's former height with his hand. "He's a queer mixture. He was always a mixture of ideas an' prayer meetin's an' the flesh pots of Egypt. You can't no more help commendin' his prayer-meetin' moods than you can help cussin' his lickin' the flesh pots. He ain't changed a bit out here. He'll just look at you with his eyes wide open an' you'll feel like a man that's just got religion an' you won't suspect that he's picked your pocket till you put your hand in to pay your grocer's bill."

Ralph smiled grimly.

"There's not much profit in talking about this. But--well, you know 'Lige all right."

"Wait a minute, I ain't through." Uncle Sid's eyes were fixed on Ralph like a steel needle pointing to a magnet. "Money's the root of evil, but there's a power of good in the roots if they're used right. I've got quite a bunch of the roots handy. You're goin' to need them, an' young man, they're at your call when you say so, an' if I ain't mistaken, it won't be long either."

"Thank you." Ralph answered briefly. "I'll remember."

The Captain did not drop his eyes, but they softened.

"You've known Helen Lonsdale for a long time, haven't you?"

"Ever since she was a little girl."

"An' you're a friend of hers?"

"Yes." Ralph did not say how much more than a friend she was coming to be to him.

Uncle Sid felt the repellent air of Ralph's changed mood more than his rather curt reply, but he held doggedly to his point.

"Smallpox is a mighty mean disease an' you don't always know that you're a catchin' it till it breaks out."

Ralph rose to his feet. Uncle Sid was breaking ground that he had thought about, but which he had not yet brought himself to touch.

"Helen has always been able to take care of herself and I don't think she will allow any one to suggest that she can't do it now."

Uncle Sid was on his feet too, his hand on Ralph's shoulder.

"Helen's a woman, Ralph. I don't know much about women, but I do know that a man like 'Lige Berl and a woman like Helen Lonsdale is a mighty dangerous mixture, an' the woman's bound to get the worst of it. Helen's goin' to need friends who'll stand by her, an' I guess when you think it over, you'll agree with me."

Ralph made no reply, but he did as the Captain had said he would do. He thought it over and the seed did not fall on stony or barren ground.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The coming of Mrs. MacGregor was a turning point in Elijah's life. In the New England community where he had been born and reared, the family of Eunice MacGregor had stood first, and now in California, circ.u.mstances had already paved the way for the hold which she was to have upon him. Much as he had despised the boomers and their methods, as exemplified in the handling of Ysleta lots, when he came to dwell among the manipulators, familiarity with the men had modified and finally all but eliminated this feeling. In Ysleta, Elijah's scheme, for so it was regarded, was looked upon as a fairly shrewd move in the speculative field. When the Las Cruces Company was formed and work on the great Sangre de Cristo dam and ca.n.a.l was actually begun, they saw Elijah only as they saw themselves, a schemer after unearned money. In the end, Elijah came to be regarded as a smooth, shrewd man who possessed qualities worthy of a better cause.

The duties which had compelled Elijah to make his headquarters in Ysleta, had also compelled a more intimate a.s.sociation with the men of the town. He was consulted as to their plans and indirectly encouraged in his own. He never for a moment dreamed that his surroundings were insidiously dangerous, or that his a.s.sociates were infected with a moral dry rot, more to be feared than a running sore. These men were engaged in buying and selling. They bought with the expectation of selling for more than they gave. Ysleta was growing. He who bought today could sell tomorrow at a big advance, or the day after at a still greater. To be sure there were chances of failure, but nothing was certain. Were there not thousands and thousands of persons who preferred to take chances with the possibility of sudden and great profit? To put it at its worst, if fools had money which they were bound to get rid of, might not Ysleta furnish the opportunity as well as the next place? This was the dry rot which was infecting Elijah.

Day by day, almost hour by hour the possibilities of his scheme grew upon him. There were thousands upon thousands of acres of land, still barren and worthless, that needed only water to make them fertile as the gardens of the G.o.ds. There were other streams fed by the melting snows of the San Bernardinos, that rushed and roared among the mountains; only to be swallowed up by the dry sands of the desert in summer, or to tear a desolate and desolating path in the early spring. The idea of impounding the floods in the mountain recesses was his own; if not strictly his own, then his own by right of first demonstration. These lands were valueless as they were. If he could only gain them, bring water to them, plant them with fruit trees, what might they not bring him? Honor above the highest, wealth beyond the greatest, would be his.

He had made a beginning. The great Sangre de Cristo dam was almost a fact; only a few more cubic yards of stone and mortar, then the gates would be closed and the reservoir begin to fill. Even now ditches were being cut to lead water to his fields, thousands of trees were on his ranch ready to be transplanted.

He had made a beginning, but what a paltry one in the face of possibilities. There was the Pico ranch. Even that was not paid for.

When paid for, how was it to be developed? The company had the water; he had the land. The land was worthless without the water. They could wait; he couldn't. He was president of the company; but he was powerless. He raged at the idea. A thought occurred to him and it grew in strength.

The company owed its existence to him; in some way it should make acknowledgment. He needed money. He thought of the fifty thousand dollars in his private box in the company's vault. He had intended to deposit it in San Francisco, but one thing after another had prevented.

Was it providential? The Pacific bank had failed. In their statements fifty thousand dollars was unaccounted for. The company's pa.s.s-book was again in the office; but it did not show a balance within fifty thousand dollars. Mellin and himself were the only ones who knew why. The company owed more to him than he would ever receive, beside, he himself was a heavy stockholder, and he had a perfect right to do what he would with his own. Still, his way was not clear. Fifty thousand dollars was not enough. Without more, what he had was useless. He would wait. If he failed to raise the money, this would be a sign to him that his course was not approved.

Since his first meeting with Mrs. MacGregor and Uncle Sid, Elijah had sought out Mrs. MacGregor and she had artfully made this easy for him.

In these interviews, she had skilfully drawn from him the story of his life in California, his present condition and his future hopes. She was daily convinced of her wisdom in seeking out Elijah. There yet remained the pleasing task of benefiting herself by her wisdom.

Mrs. MacGregor was an intellectual woman. She had not been born that way; she had deliberately achieved it. Nature had denied her personal charms. Her forehead was high and broad, and no amount of coaxing was sufficient to induce her straight, black hair to drape itself in a graceful suggestion of a Psychic brow. Being denied Psyche, she boldly a.s.sumed Minerva and bent her energies toward living the part.

In her youth, women's colleges were not, and even if they had been, the straitened circ.u.mstances of the rural lawyer whose misfortune it was to be her father, would have denied her the privileges they offered. Having exhausted the fount of wisdom whose waters were curbed by the local female seminary, she turned on her father with the filial affection of youthful arachnids, who upon being hatched into life, suck their parent dry and then leave the useless skeleton and strike out into their individual careers. Under his tuition, she learned to translate Virgil, to construe Homer and to solve equations in a way that filled his harrowed soul with pride. She mastered the seductive syllogisms of Plato and Socrates, descended on Kant and gaining confidence, began on her own account to rattle the dry bones of scholastic philosophy till their rhythmic clatter suggested the wisdom that close attention denied.

Eunice mated with another aspiring soul. This other was a brilliant alumnus from one of the leading New England universities. He was poetic and soulful; but at the same time erratic and uncertain. These latter attributes were even more p.r.o.nounced after the marriage than before.

Eunice had deliberately cut him out from the bunch, to use the vaquero's expression, and, to continue the figure, had adroitly roped him. The roping in had resulted very shortly in mutual disenthralment. The result was frequent and prolonged separations, on which occasion, each went his own way. Eunice, on her part, enjoyed a satisfaction which was ever present. She used the "Mrs." as a kind of letter of marque which enabled her to make piratical descents upon society in general in a manner which would not be tolerated in the more attractive but often compromising "Miss."

She sought the acquaintance of professors, judges and governors in her own country, and gilded t.i.tles in foreign lands.

It was in one of her earlier cruises in foreign waters that Mrs.

MacGregor had captured her most valuable prize. In a secluded Swiss port, she had run across a wealthy widow whose husband had come thither in search of health and had unfortunately lost his life in a mountain climbing accident. Mrs. Telford was overawed by the irresistible armament of the designing Eunice and had surrendered unconditionally.

Her health was feeble and on her deathbed she had entrusted her orphaned daughter as well as her daughter's fortune to the guardianship of Eunice MacGregor. This proved a most acceptable trust to Eunice. In the first place, it made her financially independent of her husband, and in the second place, it gave her the opportunity to exercise the talent in the proper rearing and training of a child, which the Lord in his infinite wisdom has denied to mothers and has bestowed in such unstinted measure upon those to whom motherhood has been denied.

Her ward developed ideas with the years that came to her. She saw clearly the more glaring defects of Mrs. MacGregor's character, but never suspecting dishonesty, she left to her guardian the stewardship of her large fortune. She regarded it as an easy way of discharging a debt and enabling Mrs. MacGregor to receive as a stipend what she might hesitate to accept as a gift.

On her part, Mrs. MacGregor had taken full measure of her maturing ward.

She knew that sooner or later, marriage was a certainty and that with marriage her stewardship would cease. She was, therefore, casting about her to make the most of her tenure of office. She had heard of Elijah's success in California and her heart was profoundly moved. She quickly became convinced that California was the opportunity for which she had so long and anxiously waited, and to California she accordingly betook herself accompanied, somewhat to her surprise, by Uncle Sid. Mrs.

MacGregor was not wholly pleased with the idea of being accompanied by her nautical brother; but then--who of us is unhampered by undesirable relatives?