Under Handicap Part 17

Conniston sat back and watched the man who spoke of city building as of the making of a summer home. Mr. Crawford was leaning forward in his chair, his cigar between his fingers, his eyes very steady upon Conniston's.

"But now," he went on, his eyes clear, but his brows drawn over them, "we come to something different--entirely different. Out yonder in the lap of the desert is what they call Rattlesnake Valley. It is no valley at all, merely a great depression, a sort of natural sink. It is twenty miles wide, forty miles long. I have found no drop of water within thirty miles of it, no single spring, no creek. It is nothing but sand--dry, barren, unfertile sand--five hundred square miles of it, to look at it. And right there, in the heart of that sink, I am going to build a town."

He spoke quietly, his voice low, no hint of boastfulness in his tone, no hint of doubt. He spoke as a man who has studied his ground and who knows both the difficulties which lie ahead of him and the possibilities. Conniston, seeing only the impossibility, the madness of such a project, looked questioningly from him to the girl. Argyl's face was flushed, her eyes were very bright with an intense eager interest.

"It sounds so big," Conniston hesitated, his gaze coming back to the older man's face. "So daring, so impossible!"

"It is big! Bigger than I have even hinted at. It is daring. Of course, I take a chance of sinking everything I have out there and finding only failure in the end."

He shrugged his shoulders, and Conniston noticed for the first time how big and broad they were.

"But it is not impossible. It is merely the repet.i.tion of such work as has been done successfully in the Imperial Valley. The stuff which looks to be sand--barren, unfertile sand--is the richest soil in the world. Put water on it and you can raise anything. Reclamation work is a fairly new thing with us, Conniston. Men have been content heretofore to squat in the green valleys and let the desert places remain the haunts of the horned toad and coyote. But now the green valleys are filling up, and there are hundreds of thousands of square miles like the country you rode over from Indian Creek to the Half Moon which are calling to us. To redeem them from barrenness, to do the sort of work which our friends have done in the Imperial Valley, is pioneer work. The pioneers ever since Adam, be it the Columbuses of early navigation or the Wrights of aerial navigation, have always taken the long chances. They are the ones who have suffered the hardships, and who, often enough, have been forgotten by the world in its mad rush along the trail they have opened. But they are the men who have done the big things. The pioneers are not yet all gone from the West, thank G.o.d! And their work is reclamation work!"

"And it's for the work over there that you want an engineer?"

"Yes. I want him bad, too. Do you happen to know one?"

"I know one. I won't say how much good he is, though. I'm an engineer myself."

"You!" It was Argyl's voice, surprised but eager.

"My father is a mining engineer. He always wanted me to do something for myself, you know." Conniston laughed softly. "He sent me to college, and since I didn't care a rap what sort of work I did, I took a course in civil engineering to please him. Civil, instead of mining," he added, lightly, "because I thought it would be easier."

"Had any practical experience?" demanded Mr. Crawford. Conniston shook his head. "It's too bad. You might be of a lot of use to me over there--if you'd ever done anything."

Conniston colored under the plain, blunt statement. There it was again--he had never done anything, he had never been anything. His teeth cut through his cigarette before he answered.

"I didn't suppose that you could use me." He still spoke lightly, hiding the things which he was feeling, his recurrent self-contempt.

"I don't suppose, that I know enough to run a ditch straight. I've been rather a rum loafer."

Mr. Crawford smiled. "I suppose you have. But you are young yet, Conniston. A man can do anything when he is young."

There was the grinding of wheels upon the gravel outside, a man's voice, and then a man's steps.

A moment later Roger Hapgood, immaculate in a smartly cut gray suit and gloves, came smiling into the library, his hand outstretched, his manner the manner of a man so thoroughly at home that he does not stop to ring. He did not at first see Conniston half hidden in his big chair. But Conniston saw him, was quick to notice the air of familiarity, the smile which rested affectionately upon Mr. Crawford and ran on, no doubt meant to be adoring and certainly was very soft, to Argyl--and Conniston was seized with a sudden desire to take the ingratiating Roger Hapgood by the back of the collar and kick him upon the seat of his beautifully fitting trousers.

"Good evening, Mr. Crawford. I ran in on a little business for Mr.

Winston. Ah, Miss Argyl! So glad to see you."

His little hand, which had been swallowed up in one of Mr. Crawford's, and which emerged rosy and crumpled, was proffered gallantly to the girl. And then Hapgood saw Conniston.

"Oh, I say," he stammered, a very trifle confused. "It's Conniston. I didn't know--"

His pale eyes, under nicely arched brows, went from father to daughter as though Roger Hapgood were willing to admit that anything which they thought fit to do was all very right and proper, but that he was none the less surprised to find them entertaining one of the hired men.

"Yes, I'm still with the Half Moon," Conniston said, still nettled, but more amused, making no move to rise or put out his hand. "How are you, Roger?"

"How do, Conniston?" replied Mr. Hapgood, the rising young lawyer.

Conniston idly wondered what had made his friend go to work. On the surface the reason seemed to be Argyl. Yet Hapgood showed a new side, a determination most unusual in him. Later Conniston was to know, to understand.

"And you like it?"

"Immensely. You ought to try it, Roger!"

Hapgood shuddered. "Couldn't think of it. A lark, no doubt, but I haven't the time for larks nowadays. I'm in the law." He turned to Mr.

Crawford. "Thanks to you. Fascinating, and all that, but it does keep a man busy. I hated to disturb you to-night," with an apologetic smile at Argyl, "but Mr. Winston thought that the matter ought to be brought up before you immediately."

He was bursting with importance, some of which seemed to have popped out of his inflated little being and now protruded from an inside pocket in the form of some very legal-looking papers.

Mr. Crawford, upon his feet, said bluntly: "If we've got business, Hapgood, we'd better be at it. Let's go into the office. Argyl, you will excuse us? And you, Mr. Conniston?"

He went out. Hapgood tarried a moment for a lingering look at Argyl.

"You will excuse us, Miss Argyl? I'll hurry through with this as fast as I can."

"I say, Roger," Conniston called after him, "I want to congratulate you. I'm immensely glad that you have gone to work." He turned to the girl who was watching them with thoughtful eyes. "Miss Crawford, what do you say to a little stroll out on the front lawn while these men of business transact their weighty affairs? It's the most wonderful night you ever saw."

CHAPTER X

When morning came, Conniston was the last man to crawl out of his bunk. At breakfast he was the last man to finish. He dawdled over his coffee until the cook stared curiously at him, he used up a great deal of time b.u.t.tering his hot cakes, he ate very slowly. Only after every other man had left the table did he push his plate aside and go out into the yard. His manner was unusually quiet this morning, his jaw unusually firm, his eye unusually determined. He saw with deep satisfaction that all of the Half Moon men except Lonesome Pete and Brayley had ridden away upon their day's work. The red-headed cowboy was even now going down to the corrals, a vacant look in his blue eyes, the corners of a little volume sticking out of his hip-pocket, his lips moving to unspoken words. Brayley was going through the fringe of trees toward the house, evidently to speak with Mr. Crawford upon some range business. Conniston strolled slowly down toward the corrals, stopping and loitering when he had got there.

Now and then he caught a glimpse of Lonesome Pete mending his saddle just within the half-open stable door, but for the most part his eyes rested steadily upon the little path which wriggled through the grove and toward the house. He made and smoked a cigarette, tossing away the burned stub. He glanced at his watch, noticed that he was already half an hour late in going to work, and turned back toward the house, his expression the set, even, placid expression of a man who waits, and waits patiently. Five minutes pa.s.sed--ten minutes--and he stood still, making no move to get his horse and ride upon his day's duties.

And then, walking swiftly, Brayley came out of the trees and hurried, lurching, toward the corral.

"What are you waitin' for?" he cried, sharply, when twenty paces away.

"Ain't you got nothin' to do to-day?"

Conniston made no answer, turning his eyes gravely upon Brayley's face, waiting for the man to come up to him.

"Can't you hear?" called Brayley again, more sharply, coming on swiftly. "What are you waitin' an' loafin' here for?"

"I want to talk with you a minute." Conniston's voice was very quiet, almost devoid of expression.

"Well, talk. An' talk fast! I ain't got all day."

Brayley was standing close to him now, his eyes boring into Conniston's, his manner impatient, irritated. For just a moment Conniston stood as though hesitating, leaning slightly forward, balanced upon the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. Then he sprang forward suddenly, without sign of warning, taking the big foreman unawares, throwing both arms about the stalwart body, driving the heavier body back with the impact of the one hurled against it. Brayley, standing carelessly, loosely, his feet not braced, but close together, unprepared for the attack, fell heavily, lifted clean off his feet, born backward, and slammed to the ground with the breath jolted out of him, Conniston on top of him.

"You d--n coward!" he bellowed, as his breath came back into his body.

"Sneakin' coward!"

He bunched his great strength and hurled it against the man, who clung to him. Still he was at a disadvantage, being under the other and having both arms locked to his side by the clinging embrace which held him powerless. For a moment the two men lay writhing and twisting upon the ground, half hid in their quiet struggle by the dust which puffed up from the dry ground about them. Then, as Brayley again gathered his strength in a mighty effort to rid himself of the man who held him down, Conniston loosened his hold, springing back and up to his feet.

And in each hand Conniston held one of Brayley's guns. A quick gesture, and as Brayley rose to his feet he saw his two revolvers flying skyward, over the high fence and into the big corral.

"You got 'em!" Brayley cried, hoa.r.s.e with anger. "Shoot, you coward--an' be d--d to you!"

For answer Conniston jerked his own gun from his belt, tossing it to lie with Brayley's two in the dust of the corral.