Under Handicap Part 31

"Afraid?" he laughed, taunting, jeering them, all discretion swept away from him. "Why don't you send some more men? There might be a little whisky left--if you hurry!"

He saw Ben and Mundy stir uneasily, saw them glance at each other, at the barrel with its shattered staves and gushing liquor, at the men whom they were self-elected to lead, and back to him. He saw the Lark and the man Peters standing close together, talking earnestly, seeming to argue with growing heat. And as the wave of hot blood left him and he grew cool and his saner judgment came back to him he called out to them sternly, but not threateningly, not mockingly:

"Ben! Mundy! you, Peters! and you, Lark! what's the use? Hasn't this thing gone far enough? You can kill me, but what good will it do? Your whisky is spilled, and you can't get it back. You know the wages I offered you fellows yesterday. You can go back to them, and nothing said. I have five hundred more men coming from Denver. They can take your jobs if you like. You can go to Swinnerton, but when he knows that I have fired you he won't take you on. You know that he is just taking men to keep us from getting them. You'd be fools to give up your jobs now. What's the word, boys? Will you go back to work, Ben?

And you, Peters? And you, Mundy and the Lark? Shall I tell the cook to get coffee ready? Talk up lively. What is it?"

A rumbling chorus of murmurs rose up to greet him. The men were sullen, and they snarled openly at him. But he could see that already the thing had gone further than the more law-abiding spirits had thought to see it go. A sudden soberness had fallen upon many of them, and with it a cooler sanity. They broke into quick talk everywhere up and down the line. He could see that no longer at least were they united against him. He could see that the argument between Peters and the Lark was strong, heated. And he hoped and prayed that good might come of it and of the brief hesitation.

Suddenly the Lark broke away from his comrades and ran forward.

Conniston, ever watchful, ever suspicious, covered him with his rifle.

But the Lark was grinning, and as he came closer he lifted his two hands.

"I'm with you!" he shouted. "I got a bellyful of this here racket.

An'," with a glance over his shoulder, "I got a bellyful of that rotgut, too. Besides, it's all gone. How about coffee, boys?"

"And you, Mundy? How about you?" Conniston called, quickly. "Do you want to keep your job at the wages I offered you yesterday? Or shall I put another man in your place? Quick, man! Speak up!"

Mundy hesitated, glancing at Ben before he answered. And then slowly he stepped out to where the Lark already stood.

"I'll keep my job," he grunted, sullenly.

"Please, sir," grinned the Lark, shaking his hand high above his head like a ragged urchin in school, "kin I go git a drink? Water, I mean,"

he finished with widening grin.

"Yes," answered Conniston, trying to keep from his eyes the gladness which was surging up within him. "Come this way first. There--stop.

Now throw your gun toward me. You've got some sense. Now go get your water."

Ben came forward; and slowly, reluctantly, with evil, red-rimmed eyes, Peters. And, as the Lark had done, they tossed their revolvers to the sand near Conniston's wagon and trudged off toward the nearest water-wagon. A dozen men followed them. Gradually the line broke up as the call of water grew imperative to parched throats.

From the corner of his eye Conniston saw these men go to the first wagon, tilt up the barrels, and go to the next. And suddenly he heard a great shout go up from them--a shout no longer of anger, but of sheer surprise.

In the bottom of every barrel there was an auger-hole. There was not a single drop of water in camp!

In a flash of inspiration Conniston saw the thing which he must say.

"Who wants to go to work for Swinnerton now?" he cried. "You know whose work this is; you know who is trying to block every move we make. You know as well as I do that it was Swinnerton, or one of the men working for Swinnerton, the same man who got Bat Truxton drunk, who has given you your whisky--and taken away your chasers! And you know as well as I do how many miles it is to water."

The rest of the men had flung down their guns and rushed to the empty barrels. Already the burning thirst engendered by the raw, vile whisky was making them lick their dry lips, making their throats work painfully. They pulled over barrel after barrel, seeking to find that somewhere there was a cupful of water. And they found none.

"It's Swinnerton's gang you have to thank for this, boys," Conniston shouted again, seeing and taking his opportunity. "Swinnerton, who wants to break us like a rotten stick. He will be a millionaire many times over if he breaks us. And if we put our work across, if we make a go of it, Swinnerton will be the rotten stick!"

He stopped suddenly and watched them. And as often as he heard them curse him he heard them curse Swinnerton.

"Ben," he cried, when he had waited for them to understand what he had said, "get the harness on some horses and take one of the wagons to Valley City. Take a couple of men with you. Go to the general office and ask for Tommy Garton. Tell him we've got to have water. You, Lark, take the rest of the wagons as fast as you can send your horses to the Half Moon for more water. Take what men you need. Cook, see if you have enough water in your tent to do any good. And then get us something to eat. Ben will be back from Valley City before you know it. The rest of you fellows better lie around and chew tobacco until water comes. We'll get an early start to-morrow to make up for lost time. Peters, you and Mundy see that somebody looks out for the men that are hurt. Take them to the tent. They get first water if the cook has any. If not, Ben, you take them with you to Valley City."

His orders came with staccato precision. There was no tremor of doubt in his tones. And there was no slightest hesitation in obeying the orders from the man who was again "boss." Ben shouted out his own commands to two men who stood close to him, and they ran for the horses. The Lark was at the same time snapping out his orders, and the men he called by name hurried for horses, and many hands made quick work of the hitching-up. Other fingers whittled plugs, wrapped them about with bits of sack, and drove them tight into the holes in the barrels. The cook sped to his tent, found a bucket half full of water, and was drinking thirstily when Mundy jerked it from his hands.

"None of that, you sneakin' skunk!" he shouted. "Them guys as got hurt gets the first show."

The fellow Conniston had shot in the thigh, and the man whom he had seen a companion strike with a knife, cutting him deeply in the neck, were carried into the tent, water thrust up to their parched lips, their wounds bound swiftly and gently. The Chinaman Mundy rolled over with his foot.

"Deader 'n h.e.l.l," he grunted. "Might as well leave him where he is until plantin'-time."

Once more order had grown quietly out of chaos. The men stood here and there talking, chewing tobacco, cursing the thirst which as the minutes dragged by grew ever more tormenting. Already the sun had rolled upward above the flat horizon. Already the desert heat had leaped out at them. A dozen men climbed upon Ben's wagon, thinking to go to Valley City with him to get water there. But he drove them back, threatening them with his big fists and c.o.c.kney oaths, and they dropped down and watched him as the wagon, rocking and swaying and lurching, was drawn away from them by galloping horses.

At a sharp word from Conniston two of the men brought the broken barrel which had contained whisky to where the discarded revolvers lay glinting in the early light and tossed them into it. And then Brayley came.

"What's up, Con?" he asked, swinging down from his panting horse, his keen eyes taking in the fading excitement, the general idleness. And then, as he stooped forward and looked into the barrel: "Good heavens!

What _is_ the matter?"

In a few words Conniston told him. For a moment Brayley said nothing, shaking his head and eying him curiously.

"You sure got your nerve, Con," he said, simply, after a minute.

Conniston laughed shakily. Again a sinking nausea made him faint and dizzy. He could remember now the way the nose of his revolver had sunk into the Chinaman's stomach, could see again all of the horror of the thing which he had done.

"I'm sick, Brayley," he said, unsteadily. "The thing will drive me mad. I--I had to kill a man--and I can't forget how he looked!"

"How you managed to stop 'em jest killing _one_ gets me. Where is he?"

Conniston nodded to the wagon and turned away shuddering. The Half Moon foreman strode over to the wagon and looked closely at the limp body. And then he came to Conniston with long strides.

"h.e.l.l," he grunted, disgustedly. "I thought you said you'd killed a man! That's only a c.h.i.n.k!"

CHAPTER XIX

The few barefooted, tattered urchins of Valley City had scampered homeward through the quiet street, swept along upon the high tide of glee. Bat Truxton had got drunk again; Mr. Crawford had fired him; Miss Jocelyn had gone away with him to Crawfordsville; there was every reason for their glad optimism to see a long vacation before them.

What was the importance of reclamation somewhere off in the misty future when vacation, unexpected and thence all the more delectable, smiled upon them now?

"Mr. Crawford has been just as mean to poor papa as he could be," Miss Jocelyn had confided to them, in tear-dampened scornfulness. "Papa doesn't want me to teach, anyway. And"--with a sniff and a toss of her head--"we'll be in town now where we can enjoy ourselves."

It is not a pretty thing to contradict a lady, but certainly if Miss Jocelyn's papa made the remark which she attributed to him it must have been at some time prior to his return from the camp to Valley City; prior, too, to his exit from Valley City to Crawfordsville. For her papa went out of the Valley reclining wordlessly upon a thick padding of quilts in the bed of a big wagon, with his few household effects so arranged about him as to screen him from the sun and the curious gaze of a chance pa.s.ser-by, and in no condition to express himself upon any matter whatever.

There was in Crawfordsville, upon a pleasant, shady avenue, a little vine-covered cottage belonging to Bat Truxton, and thither the big wagon conveyed him, his scornful daughter, and his few household effects. And there shortly after twilight upon the third day after the closing of school in Valley City Mr. Roger Hapgood, sartorially immaculate in shining raiment, glorious as to tie and silken socks, presented himself.

Miss Jocelyn Truxton, a big, yellow-hearted rose peeping forth at him from a carefully careless profusion of brown hair, came out upon the porch at his knock, smiled at him saucily, and offered him her hand.

"How do you do, Mr. Hapgood? We didn't expect you again so soon. I thought that maybe you had forgotten us." And then, blushing prettily over the hand which Mr. Hapgood was still holding ardently in his, "Won't you come in?"

Mr. Hapgood, having a.s.sured her that he should forget all else in the world before he forgot her, called her attention to the fact that it was a deucedly fine evening, and that it would be too bad to lose any of it by going into the house. His smile and eloquent eyes pointed out that there was a not uncomfortable rustic bench, large enough to accommodate two nicely, at the cozy, vine-sheltered end of the porch.

"And how is Mr. Truxton?" he asked, his tone gently solicitous, when they were seated.

"I have had Dr. Biggs call since you were here," she told him, a.s.suming the pose which a certain Broadway favorite had discovered (the photograph of the leading lady in this particular pose had been cut from the latest theatrical gazette which now lay upon the sitting-room table; it is denied us to enter the room set aside for Miss Jocelyn to see if the picture be pinned to the wall over her dresser!)--a pose which was not lost to the appreciative and admiring eyes of Mr. Hapgood. "Dr. Biggs says that papa's is a high-strung, nervous disposition which at times makes the taking of--of a little alcohol absolutely necessary. And that the--the stimulant is liable to upset him. It is entirely a nervous trouble, and in a few days, with perfect rest, he will be well again."