Under Handicap Part 28

Conniston shook his head slowly, turning his eyes away from the face which a glance had shown him was drawn with quick anxiety.

"Drive to the tent, Joe!" commanded Mr. Crawford, his voice very stern.

Conniston watched them as their horses leaped forward in the slack traces, saw Mr. Crawford jump down, enter the tent, saw him come out again and spring back into the buckboard.

"Now, Joe," as he got down beside Conniston, "you can unhook your horses. I am going to be here this morning."

Joe drove away to where the camp horses had been picketed. And Mr.

Crawford turned to Conniston.

"This is going to make it hard, Conniston," he said, slowly, his face and voice alike very grave. "It is the one thing which I had hoped would not happen. But we've got to make the most of it." He paused suddenly, and his keen eyes ran thoughtfully from one to another of the four gangs of men. "They're working all right," he ended, his eyes coming back to Conniston's.

"Yes. They're good men. The four foremen are as capable as a man could ask for."

"Were they working this way when you got here?"

"No. They were waiting for orders."

Mr. Crawford nodded, making no reply.

"I don't know," Conniston offered after a moment, "that there is any immediate call for worry. I think that I can handle them until Truxton gets around--"

"Truxton won't get around!"

"You mean--"

"That the moment he is sober enough to know anything he will know that he is discharged!"

"But we can't get along without him. He is the one man--"

"We shall have to get along without him. I have told him that if he touched whisky again on this job he could go."

"But would it not be better to wait a few days--to give him a chance to sober up?"

"Conniston, I have never found it necessary to break my word. I am through with Truxton. And if my last hope of success goes with him he must go just the same. I am sorry for the man--the poor fellow can't help these periodic drunks of his. But I am through with him."

Conniston frowned into the eyes which were fixed intently upon him.

"You know best. I am ready to do what I can to help out. I think I can promise you to keep the work going until you can get a man to take his place."

Mr. Crawford bent a long, searching regard upon him. And when he spoke it was slowly, sternly.

"What am I paying you, Conniston?"

"Forty-five dollars a month."

"All right. I'll give you seventy-five dollars a week to take Bat Truxton's place for me--not for a few days, but until the first day of October. Will you do it?"

A hot flush spread over Conniston's face, and surged away, leaving it white.

"Do you think that I can do it?"

"I am not the one to think. You are. You know what the work is, what it means. Can you do it?"

And Conniston stared long out across the wide sweep of the desert, his lips set hard in white, bloodless lines, before he answered, briefly:

"Yes."

"It's a big job, Conniston, and, frankly, I wouldn't put it into your hands if I had a man I thought better qualified to carry it on. A big job! I wonder if you know how big? You will hold the whole fate of this country in the palm of your hand, to make or to mar. You will hold in the palm of your hand my whole life-work. For if you succeed I succeed. And if you fail, all hope of reclamation here dies, still-born, and I am a ruined man. Understand what you are to do? I cannot even stay here to help you. I will leave to-night for Denver. I can't send another man in my place. Would to G.o.d that I could! I must go myself; I must raise money--fifty thousand dollars at the very lowest figure. And when I come back I shall bring the money with me, and I shall bring at least five hundred more men. And you will have to oversee the work of seven hundred men then; you will have to drive this ditch night and day; you will have to complete two big dams. And you will have to do that before the first day of October. It is a big job, Conniston. Can you do it?"

Conniston wet his dry lips and hesitated.

"Mr. Crawford, it is a big job. I do not even know that the thing is possible. I believe that it is. I do not know, I cannot know, if I can do it. I believe that I can. If you have a better man, if in Denver or anywhere else you can find a better man, put him in Truxton's place. If you can't, if you want me to go ahead with the work, I'll do it."

"Then that is settled. Confer often with Tommy Garton. If you need advice while I am away, go to him. But remember that in all things it will be up to you to make the final decision. There can be no sharing of responsibility."

"Then," said Conniston, with quiet decision, "I want an absolute and unrestricted authority here. I want the power to take on new men, to fire old men, to raise wages, to do what I think wise and best. I want every man working for you to know that he is under my orders, and that there is no recourse from my judgment. I want to be able to call upon the Half Moon outfit, if I find it necessary, just as you would call upon them."

"You are asking a great deal, Conniston."

"I am asking everything."

"And you can have what you ask!"

"To begin with, I shall want a man here to take my place if I find it necessary to be away at all. I want Brayley here, and right away."

"Brayley is the best man on the Half Moon. You can have him."

"Thank you. There is one further thing."

"Name it."

"I do not draw a cent of wages until the first day of October. Then if I have water in the valley I get it in a block. If I do not have water--I don't touch it!"

A curious little smile flitted across Mr. Crawford's lips.

"You are in a position to dictate, Conniston. Let it be as you say."

"And now, if you have no immediate orders for me, I want to get to work. I am going to shift the gang under the Lark out yonder, in front of the others. He's the best pace-maker I've got."

"Go ahead. I'll be here until noon."

Unconsciously squaring his shoulders as he went, Conniston strode away toward the ditch.

CHAPTER XVII