"It's an easy graft; it's done everywhere, and I know it'll work here
like a breeze."
Graft was a raw word and Symes's face hardened slightly, but he waited
to hear her out.
"You're putting a big force of men on the ditch, I understand. How
many?"
"About five hundred."
"Give me a medical contract."
So that was it? His eyes lit up with understanding. She wanted to make
money--through him? Her tone and attitude was not exactly that of a
person asking a favor. A faint smile of derision curved his lips. She
saw it and added--
"I'll give you a rake-off."
He resented both the words and her tone, but she only laughed at the
frown which appeared for a moment.
"You're 'out for the stuff,' aren't you?" she demanded. "Well, so am I."
He regarded her silently. Had she always been so coarse of speech, he
wondered, or for some reason he could not divine was she merely throwing
off restraint? Brushing the ashes from his cigar with deliberation, he
inquired non-committally--
"Just what _is_ your scheme?"
"It's simple enough, and customary. Take a dollar a month out of your
employees' wages for medical services and I'll look after them and put
up some kind of a jimcrow hospital in case they get too bad to lie in
the bunk-house on the works. I can run in some kind of a cheap woman to
cook and look after them and you bet the grub won't founder 'em. Why,
there's nothin' to it, Mr. Symes--I can run the joint, give you two bits
out of every dollar, and still make money."
Symes scarcely heard what she said for looking at her face. It seemed
transformed by cupidity, a kind of mean penuriousness which he had
observed in the faces of persons of small interests, but never to such a
degree. "She's money mad," Grandmother Kunkel had said; the old woman
was right.
He was not squeamish, Andy P. Symes, and it was true that he was "out
for the stuff," but the woman's bald statement shocked him. Upon a few
occasions Symes had been surprised to find that he had standards of
conduct, unsuspected ideals, and somehow, her attitude toward her
profession outraged his sense of decency. If a minister of the gospel
had hung over his Bible and shouted from the pulpit "I'm out for the
stuff!" the effect upon Symes would have been much the same.
Until she thrust her sordid views upon him he had not realized that he
entertained for the medical profession any deeper respect than for any
other class of persons engaged in earning a livelihood, but now he
remembered that the best physicians he had known had seemed to look upon
their life-work as a consecration of themselves to humanity and the most
flippant among them, as men, had always a dignity apart from themselves
when they became the physician, and he knew, too, that as a class they
were jealous of the good name of their profession and sensitive to a
degree where anything affected its honor. The viewpoint now presented
was new to him and sufficiently interesting to investigate further;
besides it shed a new light upon the woman's character.
"But supposing the men object to such a deduction," he said tentatively.
"There's little sickness in this climate and the camps are sanitary."
"Object? What of it!" she argued eagerly. "They'll have to submit if
you say so; certainly they're not goin' to throw up their jobs for a
dollar. Work's too scarce for that. They can't kick and they won't kick
if you give 'em to understand that they've got to dig up this dollar or
quit."
"But," Symes evaded, "the most of this work is let to contractors and
it's for them to determine; I don't feel like dictating to them."
"Why not?" Her voice quavered with impatience. "They want new contracts.
They'd make the arrangement if they thought it would please you?"
"But," Symes answered coolly, "I don't know that it would please me."
He saw the quick, antagonistic glitter which leaped into her eyes, but
he went on calmly--
"Where the work is dangerous and the force is large your scheme is
customary and practicable, I know, but upon a project of this size where
the conditions are healthy, there is nothing to justify me in demanding
a compulsory contribution of $500 a month for your benefit."
She controlled her temper with visible effort.
"But there will be dangerous work," she urged. "I've been over the
ground and I know. There'll be a tunnel, lots of rock-work, blasting,
and, in consequence, accidents."
"That would be my chief objection to giving you the contract."
"What do you mean?"