SIGNS OF CONFLICT.
Not a line of Jefferson Worth's countenance changed as the tall
surveyor, pushing his way through the crowd about the new arrivals,
greeted him. But Abe Lee felt the man from behind his gray mask
reaching out to grasp his innermost thoughts and emotions.
"Where is the hotel?"
Abe explained that the rough board shelter that bore that name was full
to the door. People were even sleeping on the floor. "But there is room
in our tent, Mr. Worth," he finished and led the way out of the crowd.
To the surveyor's eager questions the banker answered that Barbara was
visiting friends in the Coast city.
When they had reached the tent and Abe had found and lighted a lantern,
Mr. Worth said--and his manner was as though he were continuing a
conversation that had been interrupted only for a moment--"well, I see
you stayed."
At his words the surveyor, who was filling a tin wash-basin with fresh
water that his guest might wash away the dust of his journey, felt the
hot blood in his cheeks. Before answering he pulled an old cracker-box
from under a cot in one corner of the canvas room and, rummaging
therein, brought to light a clean towel. When he had placed this
evidence of civilization beside the basin on the box that did duty as a
wash-stand, he answered: "I quit the Company this afternoon."
"Why?"
"Because I won't do the kind of work the Company wants." The surveyor
spoke hotly now. The man busy with the basin of water made no comment,
and Abe continued: "Mr. Worth, they are putting in the cheapest
possible kind of wooden structures all through the system, even at
points where the safety of the whole project depends on the control of
the water. The intake itself is nothing but the flimsiest sort of a
makeshift. One good flood, such as we have every few years, and there
wouldn't be a damned stick of it left in twelve hours. You remember
what the grade is from the river at the point of the intake this way
into the Basin and you know how water cuts this soil. If that gate goes
out the whole river will come through; and these settlers, who are
tumbling over each other to put into this country every cent they have
in the world, will lose everything."
"The Company takes its chances with the settlers, doesn't it?"
"The Company takes mighty small chances compared to the risk the
settlers are carrying. As a matter of fact, Mr. Worth, it is the people
who are building this system; not the Company at all. To prove up on
these desert claims the government compels them to have the water. They
can't use the water without paying the Company for the right. After
they have bought the water rights then they must pay for every
acre-foot they use. All Greenfield and his bunch did was to put up
enough to start the thing going and the people are doing the rest. The
Company knows the risk and stakes a comparatively small amount of
capital. The settlers know nothing of the real conditions and stake
everything they have in the world. If the Company would tell the people
the situation it would be square, but you know what would happen if
they did that. No one would come in. As it is, the Company, by risking
the smallest amount possible, leads the people to risk everything they
have and yet the Greenfield crowd stands to win big on the whole stake."
Mr. Worth was drying his slim fingers with careful precision. "I
figured that was the way it would be done. That's the way all these big
enterprises are launched. The first work is always done on a promoter's
estimate. Later, when the business justifies, the system will be
strengthened and improved."
"Which means," retorted the surveyor, "that when the Company has taken
enough money from the settlers, whom they have induced to stake
everything they have on the gamble by letting them think it is a sure
thing, they will use _a part of it_ to give the people what they
_think_ they are getting now."
The banker laid the towel carefully aside and disposed of the water in
the wash-basin by the primitive method of throwing it from the tent
door. Then he spoke again: "The people themselves could never start a
work like this, and if there wasn't a chance to make a big thing
Capital wouldn't. It's the size of the profit compared with the amount
invested that draws Capital into this kind of a thing. If the Company
had to take all the chance in this project they would simply stay out
and the work would never be done. This feature of unequal risk is the
very thing, and the only thing, that could attract the money to start
this proposition going; and that's what people like you and the Seer
and Barbara can't see. Holmes and Burk can't help themselves. It's
Greenfield and the Company, and they are just as honest as other men.
They are simply promoting this scheme in the only way possible to start
it and the people will share the results."
"Holmes and Burk are all right, except that they're owned body and soul
by the Company," said Abe quickly. "But Greenfield and the men who
engineered this thing look to me like a bunch of green-goods men who
live on the confidence of the people."
"The people will gain their farms just the same," returned the
financier. "They wouldn't have anything without the Company."
The surveyor shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you may be right, Mr.
Worth; but I've had all I can stand of it."
Again Jefferson Worth looked full into the younger man's eyes and Abe
felt that Something behind the mask reaching out to seize the thoughts
and motives that lay back of his words: "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Punch steers or get a job in a mine somewhere, I reckon.
I'm going somewhere out of this. I've had enough of promoter's
estimates."
"Suppose you stay and work for me."
Abe Lee sprang to his feet. "Work for you? Here? I thought you had
refused to go into this deal?"
"I declined to join Greenfield's Company," said the banker exactly.
"Do you mean, Mr. Worth, that you are going to operate in the Basin
independently, knowing the Company's strength and the whole situation
as you do?"
"I have decided to take a chance with the rest," was the unemotional
answer. "I sold out of the bank and cleaned up everything in Rubio City
last week."
"But what are you going into here?"
"I can use you if you want to stay," came the cautious answer.
"Stay? Of course I'll stay!"
It was characteristic of these men that nothing was said of salary on
either side. Extinguishing the lantern, Abe led the way out into the
night. The darkness was intense and unrelieved save by the thin broken
line of twinkling lights from the windows of the buildings, which gave
them the direction of the main street, and the few dull glowing tent
houses, whose tenants were at home. Overhead the desert stars shone
with a brilliance that put to shame the feeble efforts of the
earth-men, while about the little pioneer town the desert night drew
close with its circling wall of mystery.
Did Jefferson Worth think, as he stumbled along by the surveyor's side,
of that other night in The Hollow of God's Hand, when he had faced,
alone, the spirit of the land?
"This town needs an electric lighting system," he said in his colorless
voice.
When Jefferson Worth had finished supper in the shack restaurant he
proposed cautiously that they look around a little. The street was
lined with teams and saddle horses, their forms shadowy and indistinct
in the dark places of vacant lots or where buildings were under
construction, but standing forth with startling clearness where the
light from a store streamed forth. The sidewalk was filled with men
from the ranches and grading camps, who had come to town after sunset
for their mail or supplies so that no hour of the day should be lost to
the work that had called them into the desert; and these ever-shifting
figures passed to and fro through the bands of light and darkness,
gathered in groups in front of the stores and dissolved again, to form
other groups or to lose themselves in the general throng. Every moment
a wagon-load of men, a party of horsemen, or a single rider would
appear suddenly and mysteriously out of the night, while others,
leaving the throng to depart in like manner, would be swallowed up as
mysteriously by the blackness. In the center of the picture and the
very heart of the activity was the general store opposite the office of
The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company.
Deck Jordan had opened his store in the days when Kingston was still a
supply camp. No one knew much about Deck or how he had guessed that the
camp would become the chief town in the new country. He was a pleasing,
capable, but close-mouthed man, who knew what to buy, paid his bills
promptly and--with one exception--conducted his business on a cash
basis.
The exception to the cash rule was in favor of the Company's employes.
It was on Deck's initiative that an arrangement was made with Mr. Burk
by which the Company men received credit at the store, the amount of
their bills being deducted from their wages each month by the Company
paymaster. It was this plan that, by giving Deck practically all of the
trade from the hundreds of Company employes, had increased his business
so rapidly. To the thoughtful Manager, also, the plan seemed good. He
foresaw how, with the Company thus controlling the bulk of the
merchant's business, he could, when the proper time came, "persuade"
Deck to enter into a still "closer" arrangement--thus carrying out the
Good Business policy of the Company. That very afternoon Mr. Burk had
decided the time had come and had so written Mr. Greenfield.
Leisurely Jefferson Worth and his companion worked their way through
the crowd and into the store where Deck and his helpers were toiling to
supply the various needs of a small army of customers. From the open
doors and from the big implement shed in the rear of the building, a
steady stream of provisions, clothing, dry goods, hardware, blankets,
harness and tools flowed forth.
In the midst of the confusion Deck himself was holding an animated
conversation with a would-be purchaser. "I'd be mighty glad to
accommodate you, Sam, if I could, but you know we're running this store
on a cash basis and I can't break my rules. If I begin with you I'll
have to do it for everybody and I can't."
"You don't make these Company men pay cash. Anybody--Injuns, greasers
or anything else--gets what he wants and no questions asked if he works
for the Company."
"But that's different, you see," explained Deck. "We have an
arrangement with the Company by which they hold out from each man's pay
the amount of my bills against him."
"I understand that, but you'll find out that it's the rancher's trade
that'll keep you going. We'll be here long after these ditchers an'
mule skinners have left the country and we'll have money to spend.
You'll find, too, that when things _do_ begin to come our way we'll
stand by the store that'll stand by us now when we've got everything
goin' out an' nothin' comin' in."
Deck, over the shoulder of the rancher, saw Jefferson Worth and the
surveyor, who with several others had drawn near, attracted by the loud
tones of the farmer. Abe thought that he caught a look of recognition
as Deck's eyes fell on his companion but the banker gave no sign.
The merchant, answering his customer, said: "I know you are right about
that part of it, Sam, and I'd like to back every rancher in this Basin
if I could. But I can't."
"Why not? Ain't you runnin' this store?"
Before Deck could reply, to Abe's astonishment the quiet voice of
Jefferson Worth broke in. "You are improving a ranch of your own near
here?"
The settler turned sharply. "You bet I am, Mister; leastwise, I'm
tryin' to, and if workin' from sun-up 'til dark an' livin' on nothin'
til I can make a crop will pull me through I'll make it."
"I suppose the heaviest expense is all in getting started?" asked Mr.
Worth, as if seeking to verify an observation.
"It sure is," replied the pioneer. "There's the outfit you've got to
have--work-stock an' tools; you've got to build your ditches and grade
your land; and you've got to buy water rights and pay for your water;
and you've got to make your payments to the government. Then there's
feed for your work-stock and yourself, an' there ain't nothin' to bring
in a cent 'til you can make a crop. The farmers that are comin' into
this country ain't got a great big pile of ready money stacked away,
Mister, an' they're mighty apt to run a little short the first year.
When our home merchants, who expect to make their money off from us,
won't even trust us for a few dollars' worth of provisions 'til we can
get a start, I'm damned if it ain't tough."
"But everyone is a stranger in this new country," said Mr. Worth. "How
can a merchant know whether a man will pay or not? I suppose there are
ranchers coming in here who would beat a bill if they could. The
merchants have to pay for their goods or close up."
"I reckon that's all so," returned the other. "And of course everybody
knows that there never was such a thing as dishonest store-keepers.
Merchants don't never beat anybody with short weight and all that?"
This raised a laugh in which Deck joined as heartily as anyone. Even
the banker smiled coldly as he asked: "What did you say your name was?"
"Didn't say; but it's Sam Warren."
"Where is your ranch?"
"Six miles north on the Number One main."
"Well, Mr. Warren, I've been considering this proposition and I've got
it figured out like this. We all want to make what we can in this new
country; that's what we came in for. This store can't get along without
the ranchers' support and you ranchers can't get along without the
store. We've all got to pull together and help each other. I don't
believe that many of the men who come into this Desert to actually
settle on and improve the land are the kind of men who beat their
bills. I figured to run on a cash basis only until things got started
and sort of settled down, you see. I know that you people need credit
until you get on your feet. From now on you come here--for whatever you
actually need, you understand--and we'll carry you for any reasonable
amount until you get something coming in. All we ask in return is that
you ranchers do as you say and stand by us when you do get on top."
At Jefferson Worth's simple and quietly spoken words a hush fell over
the group of men. Abe Lee looked at his companion in amazement. Sam
Warren turned from the stranger to the store-keeper and back to the
stranger. The man behind the counter was smiling broadly as if enjoying
the situation.
When no one could find a word with which to break the silence, Deck
Jordan said: "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Jefferson Worth, the owner of this
store. George!" he called to a passing clerk, "give Sam whatever he
wants as soon as you can get around to it, and charge it."
At this such a yell went up from the bystanders that a crowd from the
outside rushed in, and as the word passed and others voiced their
approval as loudly, the Manager of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation
Company in his rooms across the street thought that another fight was
on.
The Manager was not far wrong in his conclusion.