YOU'D BETTER MAKE IT NINETY.
Fifteen years of a changing age left few marks on Rubio City. Luxurious
overland trains, filled with tourists, now stopped at the depot where,
under the pepper trees, sadly civilized Indians sold Kansas City and
New Jersey-made curios--stopped and went on again along the rim of The
King's Basin, through San Antonio Pass to the great cities on the
western edge of the continent. But the town on the banks of the
Colorado, in an almost rainless land, had little to build upon. Still
on the street mingled the old-timers from desert, mountain and plain;
from prospecting trip, mine or ranch; the adventurer, the promoter, the
Indian, the Mexican, the frontier business man and the tourist.
But there were few of the citizens of Rubio City now who knew the story
of the baby girl whom Jefferson Worth and his party had found in La
Palma de la Mano de Dios. For, though Rubio City was changed but little
since that day when Texas Joe brought the outfit with the child safely
out of the Desert, the people came and went always as is the manner of
their moving kind. The few "old-timers" who remained had long ceased to
tell the story. No one thought of the young woman, who rode down the
street that afternoon, save only as the daughter of Jefferson Worth.
As she passed, the people turned to follow her with their eyes--the
"old-timers" with smiles of recognition and picturesque words of
admiring comment; the townspeople with cheerful greetings--a wave of
the hand or a nod when they caught her eye; the strangers from the East
with curious interest and ready kodaks. Here, the visitors told
themselves, was the real West.
"How interesting!" gasped a tailor-made woman tourist to her escort.
"Look, George, she is wearing a divided skirt and riding a man's
saddle! And look! quick! where's your camera? She has a revolver!"
That revolver, a dainty but effective pearl-handled weapon, was a gift
to Barbara from her "uncles," Texas and Pat; and though ornamental was
not for ornament. The girl often went alone, as she was going to-day,
for a long ride out on the Mesa, and the country still harbored many
wild and lawless characters.
But the tailored woman tourist did not need to urge George to look.
There was something about the girl on the quick-stepping, spirited
horse that challenged attention. The khaki-clad figure was so richly
alive--there was such a wealth of vitality; such an abundance of young
woman's strength; such a glow of red blood expressed in every curved
line and revealed in every graceful movement--that the attraction was
irresistible. To look at Barbara Worth was a pleasure; to be near her
was a delight.
At the Pioneer Bank the girl cheeked her horse and, swinging lightly to
the ground, threw the reins over the animal's head, thus tying him in
western fashion. As she stood now on the sidewalk laughing and chatting
with a group of friends, who had paused in passing to greet her, her
beautiful figure lost none of the compelling charm that made her, on
horseback, so good to look at. Every movement and gesture expressed
perfect health. The firm flesh of her rounded cheeks and full throat
was warmly browned and glowing with the abundance of red blood in her
veins. Though framed in a mass of waving brown hair under a wide
sombrero, her features were not pretty. The mouth was perhaps a bit too
large, though it was a good mouth, and, as she laughed with her
companions, revealed teeth that were faultless. But something looked
out of her brown eyes and made itself felt in every poise and movement
that forced one to forget to be critical. It was the wholesome,
challenging lure of an unmarred womanhood.
"Oh, Barbara, how could you--how _could_ you miss last Thursday
afternoon at Miss Colson's? We had a perfectly lovely time!" cried a
vivacious member of the little group.
"Yes indeed, young lady; explanations are in order," added another.
"Miss Colson didn't like it a bit. She had an exquisite luncheon, and
you know how people depend upon your appreciation of good things to
eat!"
"Well, you see," answered Barbara, turning to pat her horse's neck as
the animal, edging closer to her side, rubbed his soft muzzle coaxingly
against her shoulder, "Pilot and I were out on the Mesa and he said he
didn't want to come back. Pilot doesn't care at all for afternoon
parties, do you old boy?"--with another pat--"so what could I do? I
didn't like to hurt Miss Colson's feelings, of course, but I didn't
like to hurt Pilot's feelings either; and the day was so perfect and
Pilot was feeling so good and we were having such fun together! I guess
it was a case of 'a bird in the hand,' or 'possession being nine
points,' you know; or something like that. Only for pity's sake, girls,
don't tell Miss Colson I said that."
They all laughed understandingly and the vivacious one said: "I guess
it was possession all right. Could anything on earth induce you to give
up your horse and your desert, Barbara?"
Inside the bank Jefferson Worth, with his customary careful, exact
manner, was explaining to a small rancher that it was impossible to
extend the loan secured by a mortgage on the farmer's property.
Personally Mr. Worth would be glad to accommodate him. But the loan had
already been extended three times and there were good reasons why the
bank must call it in. The farmer must remember that a bank's duty to
its stockholders and depositors was sacred. It was not a question of
the farmer's honesty; it was altogether a question of Good Business.
The farmer was agitated and presented his case desperately. Mr. Worth
knew the situation--the unforeseen circumstances that made it
impossible for him to pay then. Only two months more were needed--until
his new crop matured. He could not blame Mr. Worth, of course. He
understood that it was business, but still--The farmer searched that
cold, mask-like face for a ray of hope as a man might hold out his
hands for pity to a machine. He was made to feel somehow that the
banker was not a man with human blood, but a mechanical something,
governed and run by a mighty irresistible power with which it had
nothing to do save to obey as a locomotive obeys its steam.
Jefferson Worth began explaining again in exact, precise tones that the
loan, wholly for business reasons, was impossible, when Barbara entered
the bank. As the girl greeted the teller in front, her voice, full and
rich, with the same unconscious power that looked out of her eyes and
spoke in every movement of her body, came through the bronze grating at
the window and carried down the room. Jefferson Worth paused. With the
farmer he faced the open door of his apartment. Every man in the place
looked up. The desk-weary clerks smilingly answered her greeting and
turned back to their books with renewed energy. The cashier
straightened up from his papers and--leaning back in his
chair--exchanged a jest with her as she passed.
"Oh, excuse me, father, I thought you were alone. How do you do, Mr.
Wheeler? And how is Mrs. Wheeler and that dear little baby?"
The man's face lighted, his form straightened, his voice rang out
heartily. "Fine, Miss Barbara, fine, thank you. All we need in the
world now is for your father to give me time enough on that blamed note
to make a crop."
Barbara Worth was just tall enough to look straight into her father's
eyes. As she looked at him now the banker felt a little as he had felt
that night in the Desert, when the baby, whose dead mother lay beside
the dry water hole, shrank back from him in fear.
"Oh, I'm sure father will be glad to do that," the girl said eagerly.
"Won't you father? You know how hard Mr. Wheeler works and what trouble
he has had. And I want some money, too," she added; "that's what I came
in for."
The farmer laughed loudly. Jefferson Worth smiled.
"But I don't want it for myself," Barbara went on quickly, smiling at
them both. "I want it for that poor Mexican family down by the wagon
yard--the Garcias. Pablo's leg was broken in the mines, you know, and
there is no one to look after his mother and the children. Someone must
care for them."
They were interrupted by a clerk who handed a paper to the banker.
"This is ready for your signature, sir."
Jefferson Worth's face was again a cold, gray mask. Methodically he
affixed his name to the document. Then to the clerk: "You may give Miss
Worth whatever money she wants."
The employe smiled as he answered: "Yes, sir," and withdrew.
Barbara turned to follow. "Good-by, Mr. Wheeler. Tell Mrs. Wheeler I'm
going to ride out to see her soon. I haven't forgotten that good
buttermilk you see."
"Good-by, Miss Barbara, good-by! I'll tell the wife. We're always glad
to see you."
The farmer could not have said that Jefferson Worth's face changed or
that his voice altered a shade in tone as they turned again to the
business in hand. "I guess we can fix you out this time, Wheeler. Sixty
days, you say? You'd better make it ninety so you will not be crowded
in marketing your crop."
Quickly the black horse carrying Barbara passed through the streets to
the outskirts of the city, where the adobe houses of the earlier days,
with tents and shacks of every description, were scattered in careless
disorder to the very edge of the barren Mesa. Beyond the wagon yard
Barbara turned Pilot toward a whitewashed house that stood by itself on
the extreme outskirts. Her approach was announced by the loud barking
of a lean dog and the joyful shouts of three half-naked Mexican
children; and as the horse stopped a woman appeared in the low doorway.
"Buenas dias, Senorita," she called; then, still in her native tongue:
"Manuel, take the lady's horse. You Juanita, drive that dog away. This
is not the manner to receive a lady. Come in, come in, Senorita. May
God bless you for a good friend to the poor. Come in."
Everything about the place, although showing unmistakable signs of
poverty, was clean and orderly, while the manner of the woman, though
quietly respectful and warmly grateful, showed a dignified
self-respect. In one corner of the room, on a rude bed, lay a young man.
The girl returned the woman's greeting kindly in Spanish and, going to
the bedside, spoke, still in the soft, musical tongue of the South, to
the man. "How are you to-day, Pablo? Is the leg getting better all
right?"
"Si, Senorita, thank you," he replied, his dark face beaming with
gladness and gratitude and his eyes looking up at her with an
expression of dumb devotion. "Yes, I think it gets better right along.
But it is slow and it is hard to lie here doing nothing for the mother
and the children. God knows what would become of us if it were not for
your goodness. La Senorita is an angel of mercy. We can never repay."
The people were of the better class of industrious poor Mexicans. The
father was dead, and Pablo, the eldest son, who was the little family's
sole support, had been hurt in the mine some two weeks before. Barbara
visited them every few days, caring for their wants as indeed she
helped many of Rubio City's worthy poor. For this work Jefferson Worth
gave her without question all the money that she asked and often
expressed his interest in his own cold way, even telling her of certain
cases that came to his notice from time to time. So the banker's
daughter was hailed as an angel of mercy and greatly loved by the same
class that feared and cursed her father.
For a little while the girl talked to Pablo and his mother cheerfully
and encouragingly, with understanding asking after their needs. Then,
placing a gold piece in the woman's hand and promising to come again,
she bade them--"Adios."
For a short distance Barbara now followed the old San Felipe trail
along which, as a baby, she had been brought by her friends to
Jefferson Worth's home. But where the old road crosses the railroad
tracks, and leads northwest into The King's Basin, the girl turned to
the right toward the end of that range of low hills that rims the
Desert.
As her horse traveled up the long gradual slope in the easy swinging
lope of western saddle stock, the view grew wider and wider. The sun
poured its flood of white light down upon the broad Mesa, and away in
the distance the ever-widening King's Basin lay, a magic, constantly
changing ocean of soft colors. Nearer ahead were the hills, brown and
tawny, with blue shadows in the canyons shading to rose and lilac and
purple as they stretched their long lengths away toward the lofty,
snow-capped sentinels of the Pass. Free from the city with its many
odors, the dry air was invigorating like wine and came to her rich with
the smell of the sun-burned, wind-swept plains. The girl breathed
deeply. Her cheeks glowed--her eyes shone. Even her horse, seeming to
catch her spirit, arched his neck and, in sheer joy of living,
pretended to be frightened now and then at something that was really
nothing at all.
At the foot of the first low, rounded hill Barbara faced Pilot to the
northwest and bade him stand still. Motionless now the girl sat in her
saddle, looking away over La Palma de la Mano de Dios. It was to this
point that Barbara so often came, and as she looked now over the miles
and miles of that silent, dreadful land her face grew sad and wistful
and in her eyes there was an expression that the Seer sometimes said
made him think of the desert.
Gentle Mrs. Worth had lived just long enough to leave an indelible
impression of her simple genuineness upon the life of the child, who
had come to take in her heart the place left vacant by the death of her
own baby girl. Since the loss of her second mother the girl had lived
with no woman companion save the Indian woman Ynez, and it was the Seer
rather than Jefferson Worth to whom she turned in fullest confidence
and trust. The childish instinct that had led the baby to the big
engineer's arms that night on the Desert had never wavered through the
years when she was growing into womanhood, and the Seer, whose work
after the completion of the S. and C. called him to many parts of the
West, managed every few months a visit to the girl he loved as his own.
To Mr. Worth who, as far as it was possible for him to be, was in all
things a father to her, Barbara gave in return a daughter's love, but
she had never been able to enter into the life of the banker as she
entered into the life of the engineer. So it was the Seer who became,
after Mrs. Worth, the dominant influence in forming the character of
the motherless girl. His dreams of Reclamation, his plans and efforts
to lead the world to recognize the value of that great work, with his
failures and disappointments, she shared at an early age with peculiar
sympathy, for she had not been kept in ignorance of the tragic part the
desert had played in her own life. Particularly did The King's Basin
Desert interest her. She felt that, in a way, it belonged to her; that
she belonged to it. It was _her_ Desert. Its desolation she shared; its
waiting she understood; something of its mystery colored her life;
something within her answered to its call. It was her Desert; she
feared it; hated it; loved it.
Often as Barbara sat looking over that great basin her heart cried out
to know the secret it held. Who was she? Who were her people? What was
the name to which she had been born? What was the life from which the
desert had taken her? But no answer to her cry had ever come from the
awful "Hollow of God's Hand."
Before Barbara had left her home that afternoon a man, walking with
long, easy stride, followed the San Felipe trail out from the city on
to the Mesa. He was a tall man and of so angular and lean a figure that
his body seemed made up mostly of bone somewhat loosely fastened
together with sinews almost as hard as the frame-work. His face, thin
and rugged, was burned to the color of saddle leather. He was dressed
in corduroy trousers, belted and tucked in high-laced boots, a soft
gray shirt and slouch hat, and over his square shoulders was the strap
of a small canteen. His long legs carried him over the ground at an
astonishing rate, so that before Barbara had left the Mexicans the
pedestrian had gained the foot of the low hill at the mouth of the
canyon.
With remarkable ease the man ascended the rough, steep side of the
hill, where, selecting a convenient rock, he seated himself and gave
his attention to the wonderful scene that, from his feet, stretched
away miles and miles to the purple mountain wall on the west. So still
was he and so intent in his study of the landscape, that a horned-toad,
which had dodged under the edge of the rock at his approach, crept
forth again, venturing quite to the edge of his boot heel; and a
lizard, scaling the rock at his back, almost touched his shoulder.
When Barbara had left the San Felipe trail and was riding toward the
hills, the man's eyes were attracted by the moving spot on the Mesa and
he stirred to take from the pocket of his coat a field glass, while at
his movement the horned-toad and the lizard scurried to cover.
Adjusting his glass he easily made out the figure of the girl on
horseback, who was coming in his direction. He turned again to his
study of the landscape, but later, when the horse and rider had drawn
nearer, lifted his glass for another look. This time he did not turn
away.
Rapidly, as Barbara drew nearer and nearer, the details of her dress
and equipment became more distinct until the man with the glass could
even make out the fringe on her gauntlets, the contour of her face and
the color of her hair. When she stopped and turned to look over the
desert below he forgot the scene that had so interested him and
continued to gaze at her, until, as the girl turned her face in his
direction and apparently looked straight at him, he dropped the glass
in embarrassed confusion, forgetting for the instant that at that
distance, with his gray and yellow clothing so matching the ground and
rock, he would not be noticed. With a low chuckle at his absurd
situation he recovered himself and again lifting the glass turned it
upon Barbara, who was now riding swiftly toward the mouth of a little
canyon that opened behind the hill where he sat.
Suddenly with an exclamation the young man sprang to his feet. The
running horse had stumbled and fallen. After a few struggling efforts
to rise the animal lay still. The girl did not move. With long, leaping
strides the man plunged down the rough, steep side of the hill.
When Barbara slowly opened her eyes she was lying in the shadow of the
canyon wall some distance from the spot where her horse had stumbled.
Still dazed with the shock of her fall she looked slowly around,
striving to collect her scattered senses. She knew the place but could
not remember how she came there. And where was her horse--Pilot? And
how came that canteen on the ground by her side? At this she sat up and
looked around just in time to see a tall, gaunt, roughly-dressed figure
coming toward her from the direction of the canyon mouth.
Instantly the girl reached for her gun. The holster was empty.
The man, quite close now, seeing the suggestive gesture, halted; then,
coming nearer, silently held out her own pearl-handled revolver.
Still confused and acting upon the impulse of the moment before,
Barbara caught the weapon from the out-stretched hand and in a flash
covered the silent stranger.
Very deliberately the fellow drew back a few paces and stretched both
hands high above his head.
"Who are you?" asked the girl sharply.
"A white man," he answered whimsically, adding as if it were an
afterthought, "and a gentleman."
"But why---What---How did I get here? Where did you come from?"
"I was up on the hill back there. I saw your horse fall and went to you
the quickest way. You were unconscious and I carried you here out of
the sun."
"I remember now," said Barbara. "We were running and Pilot fell. He
must have stepped into a hole." She put up her free hand to her
forehead and found it wet. Her eyes fell on the canteen and the color
came back into her face with a rush. "But you haven't told me who you
are," she said sternly to the man who still stood with hands uplifted.
"I'm a surveyor going south with a party on some preliminary work. We
arrived in Rubio City this morning expecting to find the Chief, who
wrote me from New York to meet him here with an outfit. He has not
arrived and there was nothing to do so I walked out on the Mesa to have
another look at this King's Basin country."
Barbara knew that the Seer had been called to New York by some
capitalists who had become interested in the financial possibilities of
the reclamation work. At the stranger's explanation of his presence she
regarded him with excited interest. "Do you mean--Is it the Seer whom
you expected to meet? Are you--with him?"
The young man smiled gravely. "I was sure that it was you," he
answered. "You are the little girl whom we found in the desert."
"And you"--burst forth Barbara, eagerly--"you must be Abe Lee!"
The surveyor answered whimsically: "Don't you think I might take my
hands down now? I'm unarmed you know and you could still shoot me if
you thought I needed it."
In her excitement Barbara had forgotten that she still held her weapon
pointed straight at him. She dropped the gun with a confused laugh. "I
beg your pardon, A--Mr. Lee. I did not realize that I was holding up
my"--she hesitated, then finished gravely--"my only brother."
A quick glad light flashed into the sharp blue eyes of the surveyor.
"You have not forgotten me then?"
"Forgotten! When father and the Seer and Texas and Pat and you are all
the--the family I have in the world." Her lips quivered, but she went
on bravely: "The Seer has told me so many things about you and I have
thought about you so much. But I did not realize, though, that you were
a big, grown-up man. The Seer always speaks of you as a boy and so I
have always called you my brother Abe as I call Texas and Pat my
uncles. But I think you might have come to see me sometimes. Why didn't
you come straight to me this morning instead of tramping 'way out here
alone?"
Abe Lee was silent. How could he explain the place in his life that was
filled by the little girl whom he had known for the two years that the
building of the railroad had kept him with the Seer in Rubio City? How
could she understand the poverty and grinding hardship of his boyhood
struggle when the only time he could snatch from his work he must spend
on his books, while she was growing up in the banker's home? He was
more alone in the world than Barbara. Save for the Seer he had no one.
Texas and Pat he had met at intervals when they came together on some
construction work, and always they had talked about her; while the
engineer had often told him of Barbara's interest in her "brother"; and
sometimes the Seer even shared with him her letters. But all this had
only served to emphasize the distance that lay between them. It was not
a distance of miles but of position--of circumstances. The nameless
little waif of the desert had become the daughter of Jefferson Worth.
The child of the mining camp was--Abe Lee. So when, at last, his work
had brought him to Rubio City again he shrank from meeting her and had
gone out on to the Mesa to look away over La Palma de la Mano de
Dios--to be alone.
Barbara, seeing his embarrassment at her question, guessed a part of
the reason and gently sought to relieve the situation. "I think we had
better find my horse and start for home now," she said.
The thin, sun-tanned face of the surveyor was filled with sympathy as
he replied: "I'm sorry, but your pony is down and out."
"Down and out! Pilot? Oh! you don't mean--You don't---"
Abe explained simply. "His leg was broken and he couldn't get up. There
was nothing that could possibly be done for him. He was suffering so
that I----It was for that I borrowed your gun."
For a long time she sat very still, and the man, understanding that she
wished to be alone, quietly went a little way up the canyon around the
jutting edge of the rocky wall. Deliberately he seated himself on a
boulder and taking from the pocket of his flannel shirt tobacco and
papers, rolled a cigarette. A deep inhalation and the gray cloud rose
slowly from his lips and nostrils. Stooping he carefully gathered a
handful of sharp pebbles and--one by one--flipped them idly toward the
opposite side of the canyon. Another generous puff of smoke and a
second handful of pebbles followed the first. Then rising he dropped
the cigarette and went back to her.
"I think we should be going now"--he hesitated--"sister."
She looked up with a smile of understanding. "Thank you--Abe. Can we go
back over the hill there, do you think? I--I don't want to see him
again."
Together they climbed the low hill at the mouth of the canyon from
which he had seen the accident, the girl resolutely keeping her eyes
fixed ahead so as not to see the dead horse on the plain below. When
the top of the hill was between them and the canyon she made him stop
and together they stood looking down and far away over the wide reaches
of The King's Basin.
"Isn't it grand? Isn't it awful?" she said in a low, reverent tone. "It
fairly hurts. It seems to be calling--calling; waiting--waiting for
some one. Sometimes I think it must be for me. I fear it--hate it--love
it so." Her voice vibrated with strong passion and the surveyor,
looking up, saw her wide-eyed, intense expression and felt as did the
Seer that somehow she was like the desert.
"Do you come out here often?" he asked curiously.
"Yes, often," she answered. "I could not get along without my Desert
and this is the finest place to see it. The Seer always comes out here
with me when he can. Do you think that land will ever be reclaimed?"
She faced him with the question.
"Why, no one can say about that, you know," he answered slowly. "There
has never been a survey."
"Well," she declared emphatically, "I know. It will be. Listen! Don't
you hear it calling? I think it's for that it has been waiting all
these ages."
The surveyor smiled as one would humor a child. "Perhaps you are
right," he said.
"Now you are laughing at me," she returned quickly. "They all do;
father and the Seer and Texas and Pat. But you shall see! I believe,
though, that the Seer thinks that I am right, only he always says as
you do that there has never been a survey; and sometimes I think that
even father--away down in his heart--believes it too."
All the long walk to Barbara's home they talked of the Desert and the
Seer's dreams of Reclamation; and Abe told her how at last those
"stupid capitalists," as Barbara called them, had opened their eyes.
The great James Greenfield himself had read an article of the Seer's on
"Reclamation from the Investor's Point of View" and had written him. As
a result of their correspondence the engineer had gone to New York; and
now a company organized by Greenfield was sending him south to look
over a big territory and to report on the possibilities of its
development.
When they arrived at Barbara's home they found the Seer himself. The
fifteen years had made no perceptible change in the general appearance
of the engineer. His form was still strongly erect and vigorous, but
his hair was a little gray, and to a close observer, his face in repose
revealed a touch of sadness--that indescribable look of one who is
beginning to feel less sure of himself, or rather who, from many
disappointments, is beginning to question whether he will live to see
his most cherished plans carried to completion--not because he has less
faith in his visions, but because he has less hope that he will be able
to make them clear to others.
When the evening meal was over the surveyor said good-by, for the
expedition was to start in the morning and he had some work to do. When
he was gone Barbara joined her father and the engineer on the porch.
"Here they are," she said. "Haven't I kept them nicely for you?" She
was holding toward the Seer a box of cigars.
"Indeed you have," returned the engineer in a pleased tone, helping
himself to a cool, moist Havana. "You are a dear, good girl."
Jefferson Worth did not use tobacco, but it was an unwritten law of the
household that the Seer, when he came, should always have his evening
smoke on the porch and that Barbara should be the keeper of supplies.
She liked to see her friend's strong face brought suddenly out of the
dusk by the flare of the match and to watch the glow of the cigar end
in the dark while they talked.
"And what do you think of your brother Abe, Barbara?" the big engineer
asked when his cigar was going nicely. "Didn't he talk you nearly to
death?"
The girl laughed. "I guess he didn't have a chance. I always do most of
the talking, you know."
The Seer chuckled. "Abe told me once that most of the time he felt like
an oyster and the rest of the time he was so mad at himself for being
an oyster that he couldn't find words to do the subject justice."
"I think he is splendid!" retorted Barbara, enthusiastically.
"He is," returned the engineer earnestly. "I don't know of a man in the
profession whom I would rely upon so wholly in work of a certain kind.
You see Abe was born and raised in the wild, uncivilized parts of the
country and he has a natural ability for his work that amounts almost
to genius. With a knowledge of nature gained through his remarkable
powers of observation and deduction, I doubt if Abe Lee to-day has an
equal as what might be called a 'surveyor scout.' I believe he is made
of iron. Hunger, cold, thirst, heat, wet, seem to make no impression on
him. He can out-walk, out-work, outlast and out-guess any man I ever
met. He has the instinct of a wild animal for finding his way and the
coldest nerve I ever saw. His honesty and loyalty amount almost to
fanaticism. But he is diffident and shy as a school girl and as
sensitive as a bashful boy. I verily believe he knows more to-day about
the great engineering projects in the West than nine-tenths of the
school men but I've seen him sit for an hour absolutely dumb, half
scared to death, listening to the cheap twaddle of some smart
'yellow-legs' with the ink not dry yet on their diplomas. Put him in
the field in charge of a party of that same bunch, though, and he would
be boss to the last stake on the line or the last bite of grub in the
outfit if he had to kill half of them to do it. I guess you'll think
I'm a bit enthusiastic about my right hand man," he finished, with a
short, apologetic laugh, "and I am. It's because I know him."
He struck another match and Barbara saw his face for an instant. As the
match went out she drew a long breath. "I'm glad you said that," she
said softly. "I wanted you to. I'm sure he has earned it."
Then they talked of the Seer's new expedition that would start south at
daybreak, and it seemed to Barbara that the very air was electric with
the coming of a mighty age when the race would direct its strength to
the turning of millions of acres of desolate, barren waste into
productive farms and beautiful homes for the people.
At daybreak the girl was up to tell the Seer good-by. "I wish," she
said wistfully, as she stood with him a moment at the gate, "I wish it
was _my_ Desert that you and Abe were going to survey."
The engineer smilingly answered: "Some day, perhaps, that, too, will
come."
"I know it will," she said simply.
And as she stood before him in all the beautiful strength of her young
womanhood, the Seer felt that sweet, mysterious power of her
personality--felt it with a father's loving pride. "I believe you do
know, Barbara," he said; "I believe you do."