Under Handicap Part 42

"We lose, my boy." His voice was as steady as it had been before, but Conniston saw that his lips quivered despite the iron will set to keep them steady. "And it could not be helped. And Conniston, my boy, my son," his tones ringing out so that all there could hear, "I am proud of you, and proud that I may call you my son!"

"Greek! Poor Greek!" Argyl was clinging to him, everything lost to her but a great pity for him. "Is it to be only defeat, after all?"

"Defeat!"

He whirled about, his clenched fist raised high above his head, his body rigid, his haggard face dead white. "Defeat!" He laughed, and Argyl shivered at the strange tone in his laughter. "Defeat!" he cried a third time. "We have five days!"

He was upon a boulder, standing where all men might see him, might hear him. And his voice as it rang out through the roar of the leaping water was sharp, clear, decisive, confident.

"Here you, Lark! Rush fifty men with crowbars to the Jaws! Make the rest of your men hitch up to their plows and sc.r.a.pers and rush them to the Jaws as fast as their horses can run! Send me five good men.

Pete," as Lonesome Pete's red head surged forward through the crowd of working-men, "come here!"

Pete came, and came running.

"Get on your horse. Kill him getting to Miss Argyl's Dam. Open the gates there and turn the water into the ca.n.a.l. And for G.o.d's sake hurry!"

And Lonesome Pete, with one wild yell of understanding, fled. The Lark had swung about, calling upon his men by name, and as he called fifty big, quick-eyed men leaped forward to fall quickly into the sections bossed by the men whose names the Lark was shouting. The dirt and stones had not ceased rolling and rattling down the rocky walls of the canon when fifty men with picks and crowbars were rushing along its banks to the Jaws. And as Greek Conniston hurled his orders at the Lark and the Lark s.n.a.t.c.hed them up, shouting to the men about him, horses were hitched to plows and sc.r.a.pers and driven, galloping, to the Jaws.

The five men for whom Conniston had called and whom the Lark had selected came to him quickly.

"Get into Mr. Crawford's buckboard," he called, sharply, to two of them. "Drive to Dam Number Two and open the gates there, turning every bit of water you can into the ca.n.a.l! You three men get saddle-horses.

You," to one of them, "rush to Crawfordsville and telephone to Tommy Garton. Tell him what has happened. Tell him to send me two hundred men on the run. _On the run_, do you hear? Tell him to tie Bill Wallace up and put two men to watch out for him. Now go! And you two fellows get your horses saddled and bring them here and wait for orders."

He got down from the boulder, and as he did so Mr. Crawford came to his side.

"Do you mean, Greek," he said, anxiously, "that there is a chance yet?"

"A chance? Yes! There is more than a chance! We are going to make a go of it. Listen: Truxton put in his foundations here, and I went ahead with the superstructure for the simple reason that here is a perfect dam-site, here are solid rock walls and creek-bed that would hold any concrete structure in the world. And up there at the Jaws you have to contend with shale, full of seams, in places lined with clay. And right there I am going to make a rock-filled dam, and make it fast!

It's going to be a temporary job and a makeshift, but it's going to sling the water into a flume that will carry it back into the old cut and down into the Valley. And it will do until Mr. Colton Gray and his people are satisfied."

The man who had accompanied Mr. Crawford and Jimmie Kent from Crawfordsville came forward and put out his hand.

"Mr. Conniston," he said, quickly, "I am Colton Gray. And I am already satisfied. If my influence is worth anything the P. C. & W. is going to stand by its old contract. And I believe that when I tell the P. C.

& W. what I know they will complete what you have done and inform Mr.

Oliver Swinnerton that they can have no further dealings whatever with a criminal of his type."

Conniston shook hands with him warmly.

"Thank you. But you are going to have no points to strain. We are going to have water, plenty of water, in Rattlesnake Valley before the first day of October."

Conniston left them and ran to join his men at the Jaws. Never had he heard of a dam to match the one he saw growing under his eyes. There was no time for scientific perfection of work; here and now was only a crying need for an obstruction, any kind of an obstruction which would withstand the great and growing pressure of water, which would drive it up to the banks, which would turn it into the flume which was being made for it even as the dam grew. Trees were lopped down, great, tall pines, their branches shorn off with flashing ax-blades, the trunks cut into logs upon which many men laid hold.

In the bed of the creek between the Jaws the logs were laid as one lays logs to build him a log house. Sand and gravel and rock went rattling and hissing into the log-surrounded s.p.a.ces, piled high and higher, with the water backing angrily up against it. Boulders were rolled down from the mountain-side, hurled into the bottom of the canon by blasts of giant powder and dynamite, gripped with rapidly adjusted log-chains, and dragged to their places by straining horses.

Steadily the dam rose, and steadily the muddy water crept up with it.

Men toiled in the bed of the stream with the foaming, coffee-colored water washing about their hips, seething as it climbed up to their great, hairy, panting chests. With no thought of finishing the breakfast which they had barely begun, they worked upon the banks with sweaty, hot bodies and calm, cool minds. Stripped to their waists, almost naked many of them, black with dirt and running sweat, they strained and strove against the rising stream. The morning died, noon came, and Conniston had a dozen men distribute sandwiches and hot coffee. The afternoon wore on and brought with it the men whom Tommy Garton had sent.

Then Conniston called to every man of the hundred who had toiled for him since sunrise to drop his tools. In their places he put a hundred new men. And again the work went on in great strides, and the strange dam rose swiftly. The other men whom Garton had sent, Brayley with them, he put to work to begin the restoration of the broken dam, that the thing which the hapless Hapgood had torn down might be ready against the time of need after the first of October. For he could find no place for more than a hundred men working between the Jaws and upon the banks above them.

Night had come down upon the mountain-slopes. Argyl and Conniston were standing by a sinking camp-fire talking quietly. Lonesome Pete, returned from his errand, had gone into the grove at the edge of which their fire burned for fresh fuel. There came to them through the silence the clatter of hoofs; the vague, shadowy form of horse and rider rose against the sky-line, and Jocelyn Truxton threw herself to the ground. Moaning hysterically, she ran to Argyl!

"Argyl, Argyl," she cried, stopping abruptly, her two hands pressed to her breast, "I am so wretched! I don't deserve to live! I have been so mean, so little--" She broke off into pa.s.sionate weeping.

Argyl went swiftly to her, putting her arms about the girl's shaking shoulders.

"Jocelyn, dear," she said, softly. "Don't!"

"I have been wicked, wicked!" Jocelyn was sobbing. "They told me what has happened--about the dam--about Roger Hapgood!" She broke off, shuddering.

"But," Argyl was saying, trying to soothe her, "that is not your fault, Jocelyn."

"Oh!" cried Jocelyn, wildly. "You don't know. It was I, I who suggested the horrible thing to Roger Hapgood. It is I who am to blame for everything."

"Hush, child! You have been a naughty little girl, that is all. You didn't know what it was that you were doing--and you are not a bit to blame!"

"And--and--and I have been such a little fool! I have just been a vain, conceited little fool. And I hated you--because I knew all the time that you were prettier than I am. And--and I was ashamed of Pete, and I made fun of him--and now he has gone away and--and I love him. I don't care if he has got red hair and can't read! I love him--so there!"

Lonesome Pete, coming back with his armful of firewood, dropped it, and for a moment stood staring from one to another, his mouth wide open. And then, forgetful of Conniston, pushing Argyl away as he came forward, he took Jocelyn's quivering form into his arms and drew her close to him.

"Miss Jocelyn," he cried, suddenly, "I ain't goin' away! Don't you think it. An' you ain't to blame for nothin' whatever! You're jest a little girl as has made a slip or two--who in h.e.l.l ain't, huh?"--with belligerent, flashing eyes--"an' I'll dye my hair any color you say as you like better 'n red!"

"I am going East to-morrow, Mr. Conniston." Jimmie Kent was speaking, his eyes very keen. "Before I go I'd like to make you a proposition.

First, do you know what firm it is I represent? Maybe you have heard of the W. I. R.? That means the Western Improvement and Reclamation Company. The board of directors met the other day in Denver, and against his protest made Mr. Crawford its first vice-president. The company plans on the reclamation of many thousands of square miles of sand and sage-brush in Colorado and Nevada. The company wants a competent engineer to act as general superintendent of all of its operations. Do you want the job? Who am I to offer it to you?" He laughed softly. "Oh, I'm just its president."

Filled to bursting with hopeful toil, the days ran by. Again it was night, the night before the first day of October. With the desert about them, with the stars low flung in the wide arch of heaven, Argyl and Greek Conniston stood at the edge of a deep ca.n.a.l which ran with water to its level banks. And as they spoke to each other, looking down into the future which belongs to them, contented, confident, eager for the coming of the Great Day, a boy rode up to them upon a s.h.a.ggy pony and called:

"Mr. Conniston?"

"Yes," Greek answered. "What is it?"

It was a telegram. He read it by the light of the match he had swept across his thigh. Argyl, bending forward, read it with him. It was from New York.

"Mr. WILLIAM CONNISTON, Jr.,

"Superintendent Crawford Reclamation,

"Rattlesnake Valley.

"Good boy! Congratulations. They tell me you win.

"WM. CONNISTON, Sr."

Conniston, the bit of yellow paper crumpled between his fingers, turned to Argyl.