Under Handicap Part 33

He thought that he should have heard from Mr. Crawford by now, and yet no word had reached him. When the day's work had been done upon the dam he rode the ten miles into Crawfordsville and inquired at the Western Union office for a telegram. No, nothing had come. The next day he was as short-spoken as Bat Truxton had been the day before Hapgood had tempted him, as irritable. He saw half a dozen men struggling with a great rugged ma.s.s of rock, and cursed them for their slowness. And then he turned away from the Lark's curious eyes, biting his lips. For he knew that they were doing all that six big iron-bodied men could do, and that he was not fit.

Again that night he rode to Crawfordsville. He thought that the telegraph agent grinned maliciously as he tossed a yellow envelope upon the counter.

"Sign here, Mr. Conniston," he said.

Conniston signed and, stepping outside, read the words which drove a groan to his lips:

"WILLIAM CONNISTON, Jr.,

"General Supt., Crawford Reclamation, Crawfordsville.

"No success yet. May have to go to St. Louis for the money.

Hope to have men in four or five days.

"JOHN W. CRAWFORD."

He did not see Jocelyn Truxton in front of the post-office as he rode past, did not see Hapgood come out of the two-story building and join her. He saw only the days which were rushing down upon him, offering him a broken, blunt weapon to fight a giant.

Never once had Conniston doubted as he doubted now. Never before had all glint of hope been lost in rayless blackness. If he had the five hundred men, _if he had them now_, there was a fighting chance. But if he must wait another week before they came--

To-day the telephone line had been completed to Valley City. All day he had looked forward to a talk with Argyl. Now he swept by the little office without lifting his head. He could not talk with her; he could not talk with Tommy Garton even. They would know soon enough, and they would know from other lips than his.

That night he slept little, but sat staring at the stars, searching stubbornly to find his lost hope, struggling over and over to see the way. And all that he could see was a long, dry, ugly cut in the desert, a vain, foolish, stupid thing; Mr. Crawford a ruined, broken man; Argyl smitten with sorrow and disappointment; himself the vanquished leader of a mad campaign; Oliver Swinnerton and his servitors flushed with victory. Still he fought to find the way, and shut his lips tight together, and strove to shut from his mind the pictures which his insistent fancy painted there. And when morning came and he walked to the dam which was taking form, pale, worn with the fatigue of the night after the fatigue of the day, he snapped out his orders half viciously, and watched with a hard smile while his handful of men resumed their mammoth task.

"Take it from me"--the Lark was regarding him curiously--"you better go git some sleep, or it's goin' to be a redwood box for yours."

The sun had just pushed a shining edge of its burning disk over the mountain-tops when Conniston suddenly cried out like a man awaking from the clutch of a frightful nightmare, and pointed with shaking finger to the road winding up the canon.

"What's up, 'bo?" asked the Lark, swinging upon him.

"I don't know," Conniston said, harshly. "I--guess I'm just seeing things. Look!"

A wagon had crept around a turn in the road, and its long bed was close packed with the forms of men standing upright, their hands upon the back of the high seat or upon one another's shoulders to steady themselves as the wagon pitched and lurched over the ill-defined road.

Around the bend another wagon, similarly loaded with a human freight which taxed the strength of four puffing horses, came into view. And behind that another and another--

"Am I seeing things?" snapped Conniston, his hand biting into the Lark's shoulder. "What is that?"

"Them," grunted the Lark, wriggling like an eel in Conniston's grip, "is your five hundred new guys, or I'm a liar! An' fergit you're the strong man in a sideshow doin' stunts with a rag doll--"

But Conniston did not hear him. Already he was running toward the wagons. And there was a light in his eyes which had not been there for many days. A little, youngish man, sandy of hair, with bird-like brightness of eye and the grin of a sanctified cherub, swung down from the seat of the foremost wagon, lifted his hand, thereby stopping the laboring procession, and came forward to meet Conniston.

"I want to talk with the superintendent," he said, as the two men met.

"Where is he?"

"I'm the superintendent. I'm Conniston. You want me?"

"All right, Mr. Conniston. I'm Jimmie Kent."

He put out his hand, which was painfully small, but which gripped Conniston's larger hand like a vise. "There are your five hundred men.

Or, to be exact, five hundred and five. I started with five hundred and seven. Lost two on the road."

"But," interrupted Conniston, staring half incredulously at him, "Mr.

Crawford's telegram--"

Jimmie Kent laughed.

"Mr. Crawford kicked like a bay steer over that telegram. And in the end, when he wouldn't put his name to a lie, I did the trick for him."

"But why?"

"Simply, sir, because I am under contract to deliver five hundred men into your hands. Simply because the telegraph agent in Crawfordsville belongs body and soul, bread and b.u.t.ter, to our esteemed friend Mr.

Oliver Swinnerton. Know Oliver personally? Capable man, charming host, but the very devil to buck when he has his back aloft! And they tell me that he is playing high this trip. It was just as well, don't you think, that I sent that wire? Had Oliver known that this consignment of hands was coming, and when they were coming--well, I don't know how he would have managed it, but one way or another he would have come mighty close to taking them off my hands. And now," whipping a big, fat note-book from his pocket, "will you sign right there?"

Kent removed the cap from a gold-filigreed fountain-pen, handed it with a bit of paper and the note-book to Conniston, and pointed out where the signature was wanted. And Conniston set his name down under a statement acknowledging the receipt from James Kent of five hundred and five men, "in good and satisfactory shape."

"Thank you, Mr. Conniston," as he blotted and returned the doc.u.ment to his breast pocket. "Perhaps, however, you would have preferred to have counted before signing?"

"That's all right. I'll take your word for it. If there aren't five hundred, there are as good as five hundred. And thank G.o.d, and you, Jimmie Kent, that they are here!"

"Need 'em pretty bad? Well, I'm glad I got 'em to you in time. And you might as well know how I did it. I unloaded my men at Littleton, two hundred miles east of here. And then I chartered a freight and sneaked 'em into Bolton at night. Got into Bolton last night, and came right out. I don't believe," with a genial grin, "that our friend Oliver knows a thing about it yet. I do believe that that wire to you at Crawfordsville has got him sidetracked."

Conniston called the Lark to him.

"I am going to put two hundred more men to work right here and right now," he said, swiftly. "You get double salary to act as general foreman over the two hundred and fifty. Divide your old gang of fifty into five parts, ten each. Break up the new gang of two hundred into five sections, forty men to a section. Then put ten of our old men to work with each section of forty, making, when that is done, five gangs, fifty men to the gang. Understand?"

The Lark nodded, his eyes bright.

"Then pick out from your old gang the five best men you have. No favoritism--understand me? The five best men! You know them better than I do. I want them to do the sort of thing you have been doing, each of them to act as section boss, under you, over fifty men. Send them to me. And get a move on!"

The Lark shot away, losing no time in question or answer. A moment later five big, strapping fellows stood before Conniston, eying him curiously.

"You fellows," Conniston told them, bluntly, "are to act as section bosses. You are to get the wages the Lark here has been getting. You are to get the same money I offered him for every day between the first of October and the day we get water into the Valley. You are to take orders from him and no questions asked. You can hold your jobs just as long as you do the work. If you can't do the work you'll get fired and another man put in your place. Come along with me. And you,"

to the Lark, "come too."

He swung off toward the wagons, the five men and Jimmie Kent following him. At the first wagon he called to the men to "climb out." As they clambered down the men in the other wagons got to the ground and came forward.

"I want forty men," Conniston called. "Walk by me single file so I can count."

When the fortieth had pa.s.sed him he raised his hand.

"You," he said to the one of the new foremen nearest him, "take these forty men, add ten of the old section to them, and go to work on the dam. Wait a minute. Have you boys had any breakfast?"

They had not.

"Go to the cook, then," he ordered. "Tell him to give you the best he can sling out at quick notice. Tell him that there will be one hundred and sixty more to feed. I'll send for more grub right away."

The men pa.s.sed on to the cook's tent, and one after another Conniston counted off the other sections of forty and sent them to be fed.

"The rest of you," he called to the three hundred men who had watched their fellows move away, "go to the Valley. You can loaf until we scare up something to eat for you and until the horses rest a bit.