THE MASTER PASSION--"GOOD BUSINESS."
When Jefferson Worth left headquarters camp that morning, his purpose
was to ride over a part of the territory lying southeast of the old San
Felipe trail between the sand hills and the old beach-line. He had
covered practically all of the land on the western side of the ancient
sea-bed, from the delta dam at the southern end north to the lowest
point in the Basin, and southward again on the eastern side as far as
the old trail. There remained for him to see only this section in the
southeast.
It was nearly noon when the banker, from a slight elevation that
afforded him a view of the surrounding country, recognized the group of
sand hills and, by the general course of Dry River, distinguished the
spot where the San Felipe trail crosses the deep arroyo. Occupied with
his thoughts, he had ridden farther from camp than he had realized. He
should turn back. But the distant scene of the desert tragedy called
him. He became possessed of a desire to visit once more the spot that
was so closely associated with the child, who had so strangely come
into his life and whom he loved as his own daughter.
An hour later he dismounted to stand beside the water hole where, with
his companions, he had found the dead woman with the empty canteen by
her side. The incidents of that hour were as vivid in the banker's
memory as if it had all happened only the day before. He remembered how
Texas Joe had lifted the canteen and, inverting it, had held out to
them his finger moistened with the last drop of water in the
cloth-covered vessel; and how he and his companions, standing by the
dead body of the woman, had turned to each other in startled awe at the
coyotes' ghostly call in the dusk. He heard again with thrilling
clearness the baby's plaintive voice: "Mamma, mamma! Barba wants drink.
Please bring drink, mamma. Barba's 'fraid!"
Going a short way up the wash, he stood with uncovered head on the very
spot where he had knelt with out-stretched hands before the big-eyed,
brown-haired baby girl, who, crouching under the high bank, shrank back
from him in fear. He saw the frightened look in her eyes and heard the
sweet voice cry: "Go 'way! Go 'way! Go 'way!" Then he saw the
expression on the little face change as Pat and Tex and the boy tried
to reassure her; saw her hold up her baby hands in full confidence to
the big engineer; and felt again the pain and humiliation in his heart.
Why had the baby instinctively feared him? Why had she turned from him
to the Seer? Why, he asked himself bitterly, had she always feared him?
Why did she still shrink from him? For Barbara did shrink from him,
unconsciously--unintentionally--but, to Jefferson Worth, none the less
plainly now than when he knelt before her that night in the desert. And
it hurt him now as it had hurt him then; hurt the more, perhaps,
because Barbara did not know--because her attitude was instinctive.
Still living over again the incidents and emotions of that hour in the
desert night, he walked back to the crossing and, leading his horse,
climbed the little hill out of the wash to the spot where, with Texas
and Pat, he had rendered the last possible service to the unknown
woman, who had given her life for the life of the child--the child that
was his but not his. Long ago he had marked the grave with a simple
headstone bearing the only name possible--the one word: "Mother"--and
the date of her death.
Then mounting again, he rode swiftly along the old trail toward the
sand hills in the near distance. The great drifts, in the years that
had passed, had been moved on by the wind until the wagon and all that
remained of the half-buried outfit were now hidden somewhere deep in
its heart. But the general form of the sand hill was still the same.
Dismounting, Mr. Worth tied his horse to a scraggly, half-buried
mesquite and, taking his canteen from the saddle, climbed laboriously
up the steep, sandy slope. He would look over the country from that
point and then make straight for camp, for it was getting well on in
the afternoon. From the top of the hill he could see the wide reaches
of The King's Basin Desert sweeping away on every side. At his feet the
bare sand hills themselves lay like huge, rolling, wind-piled drifts of
tawny snow glistening in the sunlight with a blinding glare. Beyond
these were the gray and green of salt-bush, mesquite and greasewood,
with the dun earth showing here and there in ragged patches. Still
farther away the detail of hill and hummock and bush and patch was lost
in the immensity of the scene, while the dull tones of gray and green
and brown were over-laid with the ever-changing tints of the distance,
until, to the eyes, the nearer plain became an island surrounded on
every side by a mighty, many-colored sea that broke only at the foot of
the purple mountain wall.
The work of the expedition was nearly finished. The banker knew now
from the results of the survey and from his own careful observations
and estimates that the Seer's dream was not only possible from an
engineering point of view, but from the careful capitalist's
standpoint, would justify a large investment. Lying within the lines of
the ancient beach and thus below the level of the great river, were
hundreds of thousands of acres equal in richness of the soil to the
famous delta lands of the Nile. The bringing of the water from the
river and its distribution through a system of canals and ditches,
while a work of great magnitude requiring the expenditure of large sums
of money, was, as an engineering problem, comparatively simple.
As Jefferson Worth gazed at the wonderful scene, a vision of the
changes that were to come to that land passed before him. He saw first,
following the nearly finished work of the engineers, an army of men
beginning at the river and pushing out into the desert with their
canals, bringing with them the life-giving water. Soon, with the coming
of the water, would begin the coming of the settlers. Hummocks would be
leveled, washes and arroyos filled, ditches would be made to the
company canals, and in place of the thin growth of gray-green desert
vegetation with the ragged patches of dun earth would come great fields
of luxuriant alfalfa, billowing acres of grain, with miles upon miles
of orchards, vineyards and groves. The fierce desert life would give
way to the herds and flocks and the home life of the farmer. The
railroad would stretch its steel strength into this new world; towns
and cities would come to be where now was only solitude and desolation;
and out from this world-old treasure house vast wealth would pour to
enrich the peoples of the earth. The wealth of an empire lay in that
land under the banker's eye, and Capital held the key.
But while the work of the engineers was simple, it would be a great
work; and it was the magnitude of the enterprise and the consequent
requirement of large sums of money that gave Capital its opportunity.
Without water the desert was worthless. With water the productive
possibilities of that great territory were enormous. Without Capital
the water could not be had. Therefore Capital was master of the
situation and, by controlling the water, could exact royal tribute from
the wealth of the land.
Knowing James Greenfield and his business associates as he knew them,
familiar with their operations as he was and knowing that they
represented the power of almost unlimited capital, Jefferson Worth
realized that they would plan to share in every dollar of wealth that
The King's Basin lands could be made to produce. Already, his trained
mind saw how easily, with the vast power in their hands, this could be
brought about. And these men, recognizing his peculiar value in such an
enterprise as this, wanted him to join them.
It was a triumphant moment in the life and business career of the
western banker, the culmination of long, hard years of unceasing toil,
of unfaltering devotion to business, of struggle and disappointments,
of small victories and steady advance gained at the cost of sacrifice
and hard fighting. This proposed alliance with the great eastern
capitalists opened the door and invited him into the company of the
real leaders of the financial world. As one of the powerful corporation
that would literally hold the life of the future King's Basin in its
hand, the multitudes of toilers who would come to reclaim the desert
would be forced to toil not only for themselves but for him. A part of
every dollar of the millions that would be taken from that treasury by
the labor of the people would go to enrich him.
The financier's thoughts were interrupted by a sound. He turned to see
his horse tugging at the bridle reins, snorting in fear. The man
started quickly down the hill, but before he could cover half the
distance that separated him from his mount the frightened animal broke
the reins and, wheeling about, disappeared down the trail on a wild
run. At the same instant a coyote trotted leisurely out from under the
lee of the sand drift and, with a side glance over his shoulder at the
banker, slipped around the point of the next low ridge.
The man knew that to catch his horse would be impossible. The animal
would not stop until he reached his companions at the feed-rack in
camp. He knew also that to attempt to find his way to headquarters such
a distance and on foot, with night so near at hand, would be worse than
folly. He would only exhaust his strength and make it harder for his
friends to find him before his water, which could not last another day,
should give out. Someone, he knew, would take his trail in the morning.
The only thing he could do was to wait--to wait alone in the heart of
this silent, age-old, waiting land.
Somewhere in those forgotten ages that went into the making of The
King's Basin Desert, a company of free-born citizens of the land, moved
by that master passion--Good Business, found their way to the banks of
the Colorado. In time Good Business led them to build their pueblos and
to cultivate their fields by irrigation with water from the river and
erect their rude altars to their now long-forgotten gods. Driven by the
same passion that drove the Indians, the emigrant wagons moved toward
the new gold country, and some financial genius saw Good Business at
the river-crossing near the site of the ancient city. At first it was
no more than a ferry, but soon others with eyes for profit established
a trading point where the overland voyagers could replenish their stock
of supplies, sure to be low after the hundreds of miles across the wide
plains. Then also, in obedience to Good Business, pleasures heard the
call, saloons, gambling houses and dance halls appeared, and for profit
the joys of civilization arrived in the savage land. Good Business sent
the prospectors who found the mines, the capital that developed them
and the laborers who dug the ore. Good Business sent the cattle barons
and their cowboys, sent the speculators and the pioneer merchants. Good
Business sent also, in the fulness of time, Jefferson Worth.
Of old New England Puritan stock, Worth had come through the hard life
of a poor farm boy with two dominant elements in his character: an
almost super-human instinct for Good Business, inherited no doubt, and
an instinct, also inherited, for religion. The instinct for trade, from
much cultivation, had waxed strong and stronger with the years. The
religion that he had from his forefathers was become little more than a
superstition. It was his genius for business that led him, in his young
manhood, to leave the farm, and it was inevitable that from making
money he should come to making money make more money. It was the other
dominant element in his character that kept him scrupulously honest,
scrupulously moral. Besides this, honesty and morality were also "good
business."
Seeking always larger opportunities for the employment of his small,
steadily-increasing financial strength, Mr. Worth established the
Pioneer Bank. Later, as he had foreseen, the same master passion
brought the great railroad with still larger opportunities for his
money to make more money. And now the same master passion that had
driven the Indian, the emigrant, the miner, the cowman, the banker and
the railroad was driving the eastern capitalists to spend their moneyed
strength in the reclamation of The King's Basin Desert. It was Good
Business that led Greenfield and his friends to seek the co-operation
of the western financier. It was Good Business that called to Jefferson
Worth now as he saw the immense possibilities of the land.
As truly as the ages had made the barren desert with its hard, thirsty
life, the ages had produced Jefferson Worth, a carefully perfected,
money making machine, as silent, hard and lonely as the desert itself.
With apparently no vices, no passions, no mistakes, no failures, his
only relation to his fellow-men was a business relation. With his
almost supernatural ability to foresee, to measure, to weigh and judge,
with his cold, mask-like face and his manner of considering carefully
every word and of placing a value upon every trivial incident, he was
respected, feared, trusted, even admired--and that was all. No; not
all. By those who were forced, through circumstances--business
circumstances--to contribute to his prosperity and financial success,
he was hated. Such is the unreasonableness of human kind.
Business, to this man as to many of his kind, was not the mean, sordid
grasping and hoarding of money. It was his profession, but it was even
more than a profession; it was the expression of his genius. Still more
it was, through him, the expression of the age in which he lived, the
expression of the master passion that in all ages had wrought in the
making of the race. He looked upon a successful deal as a good surgeon
looks upon a successful operation, as an architect upon the completion
of a building or an artist upon his finished picture. But to a greater
degree than to artist or surgeon, the success of his work was measured
by the accumulation of dollars. Apart from his work he valued the money
received from his operations no more than the surgeon his fee, the
artist his price. The work itself was his passion. Because dollars were
the tools of his craft he was careful of them. The more he succeeded,
the more power he gained for greater success.
But extremely simple in his tastes, lacking, with his lack of
education, knowledge of the more costly luxuries of life, with the
habits of an ascetic, Jefferson Worth could not evidence his success;
and success hidden and unknown loses its power to reward. It is not
enough for the engineer to run his locomotive; he must have train loads
of goods and passengers to carry to some objective point. It is not
enough for the captain to have command of his ship; he must have a
port. Self to Jefferson Worth meant little; his nature demanded so
little. Nor could Mrs. Worth in this fill the need in her husband's
life, for her nature was as simple as his own. But a child, whose life
could be part of his life, filling out, supplementing and complementing
his own nature; a child who, dependent upon him, should have all the
training that he lacked, who should share his success and for whom he
could plan to succeed--a child, an heir, would fill the blank in his
empty career. For a brief time he had looked forward to a child of his
own blood. Then the death of the baby and the ill health of his wife
had left him hopeless. He continued his work because he knew no life
apart from his work.
Then came the little girl so strangely the gift of the desert. The
banker's mind, trained to act quickly, had grasped the possibilities of
the situation instantly as he ran with his companions to answer the
call of that childish voice. From the moment when he knelt with
outstretched hands and pleading words before little Barbara, he had
never ceased trying to win her. Mrs. Worth, knowing that she could not
be with him many years, had said: "You need her, Jeff," and he did need
her.
But Jefferson Worth knew that Barbara was not his. She shrank from him
as instinctively and unconsciously as she had drawn back that night of
her mother's death when he knelt before her in the desert. As she had
turned to the Seer then, she turned from the banker now. And now, far
more than then, his lonely heart hungered for her; for with the years
his need of her had grown. Envied of foolish men as men so foolishly
envy his class, the banker knew himself to be destitute, an object of
their pity. The poorest Mexican in his adobe hut, with his half-naked,
laughing children, was more wealthy than he.
Jefferson Worth, that afternoon on the very scene of the tragedy that
had given Barbara to him, realized that in the land before him he faced
the greatest opportunity of his business career. He realized also that
he was as much alone in his life as he was alone in the silent, barren
waste that surrounded him. Would La Palma de la Mano de Dios, which had
given him the child that was not his child, give him wealth that still
never could be his?
At last, from his place on the sand drift that held the secret of
Barbara's life, he saw the sun as it appeared to rest for a moment on
the western wall before plunging down into the world on the other side.
Watching, he saw the purple of the hills deepen and deepen and the
wondrous light on the wide sea of colors fade slowly out as the colors
themselves paled and grew dim in the misty dusk of the coming night.
Slowly the twilight sky grew dark, and into the velvet plain above came
the heavenly flocks until their number was past counting save by Him
who leadeth them in their fields. Against the last lingering light in
the west that marked where the day had gone, the mountains lifted their
vast bulk in solemn grandeur as if to bar forever the coming of another
day. Closing about him on every hand, coming dreadfully nearer and
nearer, the black walls of darkness shut him in. In the cool,
mysterious breath of the desert, in the grotesque, fantastic, nearby
shapes and monstrous forms of the sand dunes, in the mysterious phantom
voices that whispered in the dark, Jefferson Worth felt the close
approach of the spirit of the land; the calling of the age-old, waiting
land--the silent menace, the voiceless threat, the whispered promise.
And there, alone--held close in The Hollow of God's Hand as the long
hours of the night passed--the spirit of the man's Puritan fathers
stirred within him. In the silent, naked heart of the Desert that,
knowing no hand but the hand of its Creator, seemed to hold in its
hushed mysteriousness the ages of a past eternity, he felt his life to
be but a little thing. Beside the awful forces that made themselves
felt in the spirit of Barbara's Desert, the might of Capital became
small and trivial. Sensing the dreadful power that had wrought to make
that land, he shrank within himself--he was afraid. He marveled that he
had dared dream of forcing La Palma de la Mano de Dios to contribute to
his gains. And so at last it was given him to know why Barbara
instinctively shrank from him in fear.
With the coming of the day the banker went a little way back on the
trail where the vegetation was not entirely covered by the drifting
sand, and there gathered materials for a fire. Later, when he judged
his friends would be in sight, he fired the pile and, watching the
tall, thick column of smoke ascend, awaited the answer. In a little
while it came, faint and far away, the report of Texas Joe's
forty-five. Soon he heard the sound of voices calling loudly and,
following his answer, the swift hoof-beats of galloping horses; and Tex
and Abe, leading another horse appeared.
But the Jefferson Worth who rode back to camp with his friends, there
to be greeted and congratulated by the party, was not the same
Jefferson Worth who had left camp the morning before, though no one
congratulated him because of that.
It was three weeks later when a portly, well-fed gentleman entered the
Pioneer Bank in Rubio City and asked of the teller: "Is Mr. Worth in?"
The man on the other side of the counter looked through his grated
window at the speaker with unusual interest. And in the teller's voice
there was a shade of unusual deference as he replied, "Yes, sir."
"Tell him that Mr. Greenfield is here."
At the magic of that name every man in the bank within sound of the
speaker's voice lifted his head and turned toward the face at the
window.
"Yes, sir. Come this way, sir."
A door in the partition opened and the visitor was admitted to the
sacred precincts behind the gratings, the bars and the plate glass. As
he moved down the room past counters and desks, every eye followed him
and there was an electrical hush in the atmosphere like the hush that
marks the massing of the forces in Nature before a conflict of the
elements.
Jefferson Worth looked up as the imposing figure of the great financier
appeared on the threshold of his room, and at the name of James
Greenfield carefully pushed back the papers he had been considering and
rose. The movement, slight as it was, was as though he cleared his
decks for action. The clerk, withdrawing, carefully, closed the door.
The two men shook hands with much the air of two wrestlers meeting for
a bout. For a moment neither spoke. Each knew that in the silence he
was being measured, estimated, searched for his weakness and his
strength, and each gave to the other this opportunity as his right. No
time was wasted in idle preliminaries. These men knew the value of
time. No formal words expressing pleasure at the meeting were spoken.
They tacitly accepted the fact that pleasure had not called them
together.
James Greenfield was a fair representative of his class. His full,
well-colored face with carefully clipped gray mustache, bright blue
eyes and gray hair, was the calmly alert, well-controlled, thoughtful
face of power: not the face of one who does things, but of one who
causes things to be done; not the face of one who is himself powerful,
but of one who controls and directs power; such a face as you may see
leaning from the cab of a great locomotive that pulls the overland
limited, or looking down at you from the bridge of the ocean liner. It
was courageous, but with a courage not personal--a courage born rather
of an exact knowledge of the strength and duty of every bolt, rivet and
lever of the machine under his hand. It was confident, not in its own
strength, but in the strength that it ruled and directed.
Jefferson Worth motioned toward a chair at the end of his desk and
seated himself. The man from the East found himself forced to make the
opening.
"Mr. Worth," he said, "we find it very difficult to understand your
attitude toward our company. We do not see why you decline our
proposition. Your own report gives every reason in the world why you
should accept and you suggest no reason at all for declining. Frankly,
it looks strange to us and I have come out to have a little talk with
you over the matter and to see if we could not persuade you to
reconsider your decision, or at least to learn your reasons for
refusing to go in with us. Your report and your answer to our
proposition are so conflicting that we feel we have a right to some
definite reason for your unexpected decision."
As he spoke, the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation
Company tried in vain to see behind the mask-like face of the man in
the revolving chair. His failure only excited his admiration and
respect. Instinctively he recognized the genius before him, and his
desire to add this strength to his forces increased.
"My report was satisfactory?" The words were absolutely colorless.
"Very. It was exactly what we wanted. With your opinion, confirming our
engineer's statements, we felt safe to go ahead with the organization
of the Company and have already set the wheels moving toward actual
work. It is because you so unhesitatingly and so strongly commend the
project as warranting our investment that we cannot understand your
refusal to share the profits of our enterprise."
He paused for an answer, but was forced to continue. "Let me explain
more fully than I could outline in my letter just what we propose
doing. The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company, Mr. Worth, will
not confine its operations simply to furnishing water for the
reclamation and development of these lands. That is no more than the
beginning--the basis of our operations. With the settlement and
improvement of the country will come many other openings for profitable
investments--townsites, transportation lines, telephones, electric
power, banking and all that, you understand. Our connections and
resources make it possible for us to finance any industry or operation
that promises attractive returns, while our position as the originators
of the whole King's Basin movement and the owners of the irrigation
system will give us tremendous advantage over any outside capital that
may attempt to come in later, and will make competition practically
impossible."
"I figured that was the way you would do it," was the unemotional reply.
More than ever James Greenfield wanted this man. He considered
carefully a few minutes, with no help from Jefferson Worth, then tried
again. "If you feel that our proposition to you is not liberal enough,
Mr. Worth, I am prepared to double our offer."
If the financier from New York thought to startle this little western
banker with a proposal that was more than princely he failed. His words
seemed to have no effect. It was as though he talked to a marble figure
of a man.
"I appreciate your proposition, but must decline it."
"May I ask your reason, sir?"
"I must decline to give any."
The other arose, the light of battle in his eyes, for to James
Greenfield's mind there could be only one possible meaning in the
answer. "That is, of course, your privilege, Mr. Worth," he said
coldly. And then with the weight of conscious power he added: "But I'll
tell you this, sir: if you think you can enter The King's Basin in
opposition to our Company you're making the mistake of your life. We'll
smash you, with your limited resources, so flat that you'll be glad for
a chance to make the price of a meal. Good day, sir!"
"Good day."
Before the great capitalist was out of the building, Jefferson Worth
was bending over the papers on his desk again as though declining to
accept flattering offers from gigantic corporations was an hourly
occurrence.