Ysleta was booming and was being boomed. Avenues of graded sand, cleared
of their desert growth, stretched in prim right angles far out into the
horizon. White posts with staring, black numerals heralded city lots and
bounded patches of cactus and chaparral which were thus protected from
further molestation, and gave asylum to gophers and prairie dogs who had
not lost their wits in the booming hubbub for the sole reason that
nature had given them none to lose. Straining teams dragged great
ploughs that tore through matted roots and turned furrows which slid
back behind the parting share. Other sweating horses pulled scrapers of
sand from dusty hummocks and plumped their loads in dustier hollows.
Rows of bedraggled palms trailed out behind gangs of burrowing men or
gathered in quincunx clumps where a glaring signboard proclaimed a city
park. Thumping hammers and clinking trowels were raising uncouth
buildings around the central plaza, adding other grotesque monstrosities
to those which had already attained perfection in every detail that
rebelled against a sense of beauty. Throngs of men and women trailed
ankle deep through the new-turned sand and broke up into knots of
animated discussion, or paused before a map of Ysleta to listen to a
perspiring real estate agent repeating with tireless enthusiasm "the
beauties of eternal sunshine in a land where burning heat and blasting
cold never entered; a land where perennial spring went hand in hand with
perennial autumn, where seed time and harvest trailed side by side,
where dividing lines between summer and winter solstice were but
meaningless numerals in the cycles of succeeding years; a land that for
untold ages had slumbered and waxed fat with accumulated richness and
where the sun had stored its genial warmth against the day when
suffering humanity should wake to the knowledge of what California was
and hasten to enjoy her stored up treasures."
Blaring trumpets and booming drums accompanied aligned men, gorgeous
with purple and gold; beribboned four-in-hands with varnished carriages
trailed along behind, and a brazen-throated herald proclaimed a
bounteous repast free to all who would honor his master by partaking.
"Fall in! Fall in!" and knots of men balanced to the swing of the band
and wheeled into line, choked with dust, blinded with dust, and covered
with dust which the tearing ploughshares had softened up, and which
eager feet were beating into the air.
Into this bustle and blare, Elijah Berl rode as he had ridden many times
of late. Unmoved, save for a contemptuous pity, he looked down upon the
hurrying crowd, crazed by the lust of wealth, who bought today to sell
tomorrow, each knowing that some would be caught in the reaction that
was sure to come, but each steadfast in the confidence that his own good
sense would protect him from the general ruin. He looked down to where
the Sangre de Cristo, no longer an impetuous torrent, seeped lazily
through its bed of shining sand; at the mass of tangled shrubs and
clinging vines quickened by its waters into a riotous growth that
blossomed and fruited in the sensuous sun. Over his shoulder, he looked
at the distant slopes from which he had come. At the open door of a
redwood cottage he dismounted and entered.
"Hello, Ralph!"
At the salutation, Winston's compact athletic figure straightened from
his drawing-board.
"Oh, hello, Elijah! You're just the man I wanted to see."
"Have you decided yet?" Elijah's voice was eager.
"Do you still want me?"
"Yes. It's tomorrow now. If this is too soon, tomorrow and tomorrow are
yet to come."
"Well, Elijah, if it's all right, my answer is yes."
Elijah took Winston's hand in both of his own; his eyes spoke the words
his tongue could not utter.
"It's going to be uphill work, Elijah, but I guess we'll manage it."
"Of course we will." Elijah was striding up and down the little office.
He paused and looked thoughtfully out of the window.
"This hasn't got into your blood yet, eh?" he jerked his thumb toward
the hustling street.
"Not much! It would be fun to watch this racket if a fellow hadn't a
conscience. Do you know, I'm getting to believe that men and things are
built on the same lines. The sweeter the wine, the sharper the vinegar,
and you may pound my head for a drum if the smartest man doesn't make
the biggest kind of a fool."
"I guess that's so, if he lets himself go. I'm not going to let go."
Winston looked at Elijah with an expression that might be interpreted as
jocular or serious.
"Hold tight. I've seen men as sharp as you, crowding another fellow out
and blowing hot air into his balloon."
"Are you getting scared on my account?" Elijah smiled, looking at
Winston with confident half-closed eyes.
"No. If your bearings begin to smoke, I'm going to cool you off. It
isn't going to be all lavender and roses, Elijah. You'll find me a
pretty trying party at times, I give you fair warning."
Elijah turned from the window, looking straight at Winston.
"I'm going to begin right now. I've been at work all night. Now cool off
and let's get to work."
Winston sat down before the drawing-board.
"Here's the map of the canal line. It isn't inked in yet, but you can
see how it's going to come out. There must be two long tunnels; but
that's no great matter. It's one of three things. Tunnels, aqueducts, or
inverted siphons. It's a toss-up between tunnels and aqueducts, so far
as cost is concerned. Siphons will cost about half, but you know what a
choke or a break means, so out go siphons."
"You favor tunnels?"
"By all means. The ditch line is shortened by them, anyway. You'll save
there."
Elijah gazed long and lovingly at the map, then looked up with a
relieved sigh.
"Just a little dam will turn the whole stream into the canal."
"Yes. Just a little dam. That's easy." Winston drew a dust cloth over
the map and weighted it down. "I wish I could get reliable data on the
size of the dam it will take to turn some of this fool-money into a
channel of common sense. What I am afraid of is, that when this boom
breaks, the fools who have not been ruined, will be too badly scared to
put money into government bonds, let alone an irrigation plant, and
before they recover their wits, they'll either forget that there is such
a place as California, or use it to slug themselves with when they feel
another fool attack coming on."
"You leave that to me. I've got something more to show than a sand-flat
pegged full of white stakes. Oranges will do better than that. Dry
hillsides at nothing a square mile are going to be a thousand an acre
when we get water on them."
"Let up, Elijah. Keep your chips off from that spot. That's a safer
proposition than Ysleta lots with hot-air values, but it's the same kind
of a wheel after all. If you once get the hum of it in your ears you'll
go to pieces like all the rest."
"Are your estimates completed?"
"Yes; ready to be typed. You think they'd better be typed first, don't
you?"
"Yes. We can have them printed afterward. I don't want anything
gorgeous. Just plain, conservative figures. I have my statement of what
has been done in the three years on my ranch. There is just one thing I
have left out. It would be a telling thing to put in, but I think we can
use it to better advantage by keeping it to ourselves."
"What's that?"
Elijah drew a neatly folded sheet from his pocket. It was filled with
columns of figures.
"It's an idea of my own. What do you think of it?"
Winston looked rapidly over the sheet, then gave a low, meditative
whistle.
"Are you sure of this?"
"Dead sure. I've been making observations with self-registering
thermometers. That's the result." Elijah pointed to the sheet.
"A frostless belt!" Winston snatched the sheet from his drawing-board
and bent over the map, one finger on the sheet, the other eagerly
tracing lines on the surface of the map. "That's the greatest thing yet!
There is a big fortune for all of us in that alone."
Elijah half closed his eyes, his teeth bared with a smile suggestive of
malice.
"May I offer you some of your advice to me?"
"Certainly, and I'll take it too, when I need it. But say, Elijah, what
in the name of the immortals do you want to leave this out for? It's the
most telling thing we've got."
Elijah's eyes narrowed closely.
"I haven't got control of the whole belt yet. That's one thing. Another
is, that when orange lands get under way, there's going to be a demand
that the frostless belt isn't going to supply."
Winston's face set.
"You don't mean that you are going to sell lands for orange ranches that
you know won't grow oranges?"
"I don't _know_ that they won't grow oranges," Elijah answered doggedly.
"I only know what will."
"You are going to let people find that out at their own expense?"
"Why not? That's the way I got my information."
There was a contemptuous look on Winston's face.
"Well, I'll be hanged. God does move in a mysterious way, if you are a
fair sample of his stamping ground."
Elijah's face set with resentment. He straightened his lips for an angry
retort, but restrained himself. He answered sullenly.
"I tell you, I don't know that the land won't grow oranges. I only know
what will. I'm going to get control of this frostless belt. I found it
and there's nothing wrong in taking advantage of it. Why not tell the
Mexicans who own it now and are glad to sell for a dollar an acre, that
their land will grow oranges and that it's worth a thousand?" There was
a triumphant note in his last words.
Winston was ready to dismiss this phase of the question.
"Don't ask me. You settle that between you. I notice that the Almighty
isn't a hard one to manage when you take him in your lap and reason with
him. He usually comes around to your way of thinking."
Elijah's puritanism blinded his eyes to Winston's sarcasm. He saw only
the apparently sacrilegious blasphemy of his words. He stood aghast as a
superstitious heathen before his smitten idol. His five years of
struggle in the West had changed him in no essential point. It had only
given room for the full development of the motive that had lain dormant
in his former cramped surroundings. Side by side, yet wholly independent
the one of the other, his faith in Divine guidance, his reverence for
God, his New England land-hunger, his greed for wealth, his lust for
power, had grown and were growing with every new opportunity. He had
learned to keep in the background, to some extent, the expression of his
fanatical beliefs, not because his personal faith had waned, but in
reality because he saw that Divine guidance had less convincing weight
with others than the logic of hard, common sense. He learned only that
which he wished to learn, believed only that which he wished to believe,
did only that which he wished to do; not because of conscious hypocrisy,
but because his very faith in God's guidance had blinded his eyes to its
recognition and forbidden him to question his own desires.
Elijah thought quickly. Even Winston was hardly aware of the pause that
ensued after his last words.
"We're drifting from our point. The water question comes first. The
other can come up later."
"A good deal later, I hope," Winston replied drily. "Let's get over to
Miss Lonsdale's office. She's doing my clerical work now."
Winston was not slow in noting signs and he had seen a good many in his
relations with Elijah which had disquieted him. He went steadily on his
way, however, confident in his own strength. He gathered a few papers in
his hand and with Elijah went out into the street. They entered another
redwood cottage that bore a sign, announcing, "Helen Lonsdale,
Stenographer, Typewriter and Notary Public."
"Miss Lonsdale, my friend, Mr. Berl. We want some work done right away.
Can you attend to it?"
Miss Lonsdale acknowledged the introduction, swept aside a litter of
papers, stripped a half-written page from her machine, drew forth a
note-book, and, after pushing her cuffs from her wrists, assumed a
waiting attitude.
Winston addressed Elijah.
"I guess you're fixed now. You go on with Helen and I'll get back to my
work. If you need me, I'll come in." Then he left the office.
Elijah had all but forgotten his business in the contemplation of the
girl before him. It was with an almost unconscious feeling of resentment
that he heard Winston call her familiarly "Helen."
"I am afraid, Miss Lonsdale," he began, when he was interrupted.
"You can call me Helen. Every one does. It saves time. Time is money,
pretty fast too, just now." The words were spoken with a light ripple.
It faintly occurred to Elijah that he had heard something like her
laughter before. There was a suggestion of fresh, crisp air, the opening
of spring, of young green plants pushing through the black soil beside
New England brooks. There was a further suggestion that very hard stones
in the brook caused the soft ripples. One look in the great, liquid,
black eyes that absorbed everything and gave back nothing, took away the
disagreeable impression and replaced it with one more agreeable. There
was no perceptible pause, for while Elijah's thoughts were busy with
Helen Lonsdale, his hands were assorting his papers. He turned to Helen.
"I was going to say, that I am afraid this work will be rather dry."
Helen vouchsafed no reply, but, with eyes now bent upon her note-book
and pencil ready poised for action, waited for Elijah. He began rather
slowly and awkwardly. He was unaccustomed to dictation, and besides he
was conscious of Helen Lonsdale's beauty; but more and more rapidly he
went on, as he forgot all else in the absorbing interest of his subject.
He sorted paper from paper, went from point to point, clearly and
logically, down to the last figure that Winston had given him. He hardly
noted the flying fingers and moving hand that drew lines, and hooks, and
dots, and dashes with the graceful ease and regularity of an inanimate
machine. At length he paused, folding his papers.
Helen threw down her pencil and straightened her cramped fingers.
"Well!" she exclaimed. "You have given me the time of my life! I was on
the point of calling you off once or twice; but I didn't. I'll read it
over to you now and see if I have made any mistakes."
Elijah's face was eager, partly from Helen's indirect praise, but more
from the enthusiasm of his subject.
"Aren't you tired?" he asked.
"Tired!" she repeated. "This doesn't make me tired. It's more fun than a
toboggan slide. It's these everlasting drones who make me tired. Fellows
who haven't anything to say and who don't know how to get at it." She
took her note-book and began reading rapidly. Elijah listened, watching
her through his narrowed eyes. She laid her note-book down.
"How is it?"
"Perfect. You've got everything."
"That's a great piece of work you've got blocked out." Helen's voice was
approving.
"The work is not mine."
"No?" Helen's eyes were opened wide.
"No." Elijah's face drooped in reverent lines. "It has been given me to
do."
"A-a-h!" Helen dared to commit herself no farther. She could not trust
her eyes even. Her lids veiled them and her face assumed a look of
non-committal interest. Elijah was a new species. She had no pigeonhole,
even in the wide experience of her limited years, ready made into which
she could thrust him.
Elijah felt impelled to go farther. He wanted to look again into the
great, black eyes. He steered boldly into a sea where many a time before
no less confident mariners had as boldly entered and had come to grief.
He told of his coming to California, of his life after reaching his
goal, and how, little by little, the great work he was engaged upon had
been revealed to him. He did not speak freely at first, only when he saw
recognition and appreciation in Helen's face. If she was surprised at
the freedom with which Elijah spoke to her, she was too wise to show it.
Though not heralding the fact, she never tried to conceal that she was
not in business for her health or from purely philanthropic motives. She
was no innocent fledgeling, nor was her knowledge purchased with
sacrifice. Individuality was the atmosphere which surrounded her; an
atmosphere where everyone was somebody or nobody. She was simply
determined to be somebody. She was beautiful. She knew that. She had a
clear, alert mind, a quick grasp, a ready tact, a capacity for throwing
herself heart and soul into any work that came to her hands to do. She
valued these as effective tools with which to shape her ambition, to
individualize herself, to get on in the world. She had a heart; but of
this she was not conscious. She had innate honesty and she was a woman.
It had never occurred to her that a woman's heart and a woman's sense of
honor were liable to become paradoxes with the certain death of one. She
looked frankly at Elijah, not concealing her interest.
"Your work is the kind of thing that's going to save this part of
California." Helen spoke with conviction.
"You don't approve of all this?" Elijah glanced toward the bustling
street.
"No. You've been giving me figures, now I'll give you some. This city,
two miles wide, is laid out in streets three miles long. Sixty blocks
long and forty wide; two thousand four hundred blocks. At one hundred
dollars a front foot (that was the price, a few minutes ago), Ysleta is
selling at the rate of two hundred and fifty-three million, four hundred
and forty thousand dollars, unimproved."
Elijah looked at her in surprise. She too had been thinking in figures
for herself.
"Who gave you these figures?"
Helen laughed. She had noted Elijah's surprise and had divined its
cause.
"Wait. That isn't all. Before there can be any solid returns in this
investment, it will have to be trebled at least, for sewers, pavements,
sidewalks, and buildings. We will leave out odd hundred thousands, only
millions count now." She smiled. "Seven hundred and fifty million
dollars at least. Let's see about the population. At five hundred and
twenty to the block, Ysleta should have a population of one million, two
hundred and forty thousand. Quite a neat little town for a new country!"
Elijah's surprise grew. Helen was not even consulting notes.
"The total population of California isn't a million today. Most of these
are miners, the next greater part live in towns. Hardly half are engaged
in agriculture. How would Ysleta be fed, where would it get money to
pay?"
Elijah's face showed still greater surprise.
"What put these figures into your head?"
Helen laughed sarcastically.
"I was advised to invest in building lots, so I looked the matter up. I
am giving you these figures so you can see that I know how to appreciate
what your work means." Her face sobered. She screwed paper and carbons
into her machine and opened her note-book. She did not raise her eyes
from her work.
"Don't wait, Mr. Berl. I'll have the work done in three hours."
Elijah left the office half dazed. Every word of Helen Lonsdale smote
hard and deep. Not alone because of their surprising nature, but because
his own work had never before appeared so worth while. Heretofore it had
only appeared great in itself. Now it stood out gigantic by contrast. He
was pleasantly conscious of another element that was entering his life
for the first time; the sympathetic interest of an intelligent woman.
Punctually at the appointed time, Elijah returned. Helen was still
busily at work.
"Am I too soon?" he asked.
She handed him a neatly enclosed package.
"That's all right, I think. Do you want to open an account, or will this
be all?"
Elijah spoke very deliberately.
"I will open an account. I shall have more work."
"Very well. I send out monthly statements to my regular customers." Her
eyes were again following her note-book, her fingers working at the
rattling keys.