October. And the last golden leaves twirling down from cottonwood and
aspen and mountain maple; the lofty brown peaks fresh powdered with
snow; the air dazzling, keen, heady like wine; frost a-sparkle of
mornings on stone, fence-post, roof, with a rainbow coruscation of
diamonds; clear, high moons; marvellous, moonlit nights.
It was the middle of the month. Three weeks previous, with the bonds
sold and the injunction suits dismissed, the contractor employed had
unloaded his outfit at Kennard, moved up the Pinas River, raised in a
day his camp at the mouth of the cañon above Bartolo, and begun his
task. This man, Pat Carrigan, had been in Bryant's mind from the
first: a Pueblo contractor of Irish extraction, born in a railroad
camp, trained on a dump, and now grizzled and aging but unequalled in
handling men, in keeping them satisfied, in moving dirt. In his time
he had turned off jobs from Maine to California, from Wisconsin to
Texas. Already along the hillside a yellow gash was deepening from the
dam site through the fenced fields where ran the right of way; while
in the Pinas, low at this season, the traverse section of the river
bed had been cleaned out and the base of the dam was building of
stones and brush.
Late on a certain afternoon Ruth Gardner and Imogene Martin stood
waiting by a gray runabout at the edge of the camp. A storm was
sweeping up the Ventisquero Range from the south, one of the autumn
storms that marked the change of seasons, enveloping, as it advanced,
the gray peaks one after another in its fog and trailing over the mesa
gauzy brown streamers of rain. In the west the sun still shone
unobscured, but with its light failing to a chill saffron glare as the
cloud expanded over the sky.
Bryant and another man, a newcomer in the last few days, an engineer
from the East representing the bondholders, were walking toward the
girl from the dam. As the men walked, they engaged in rather spirited
argument.
"You'd better hurry, you two," Ruth called. "Don't you see that rain
coming? Imo and I want to reach home, Mr. Gretzinger, without being
soaked."
Bryant's companion waved an assuring hand without ceasing his rapid
and forceful statement addressed to his fellow. Half a head shorter
than Lee, he was of stockier build, a man somewhere near thirty-five
or six years of age, with hair tinged with gray above his ears. Both
in manner and speech he exhibited by turns superficial gayety, latent
cynicism, and an egregious assumption. When Lee had introduced him to
the young ladies at Sarita Creek, he had made himself at home in three
minutes. He had the latest witticisms of restaurants and theatres, the
newest stories, the most recent slang; his clothes were of the
autumn's extreme mode; he was intelligent if frankly materialistic;
and he interested, amused, and diverted the two girls. From his gay
and airy talk they gathered that he had been married and divorced,
that the West might have the scenery but New York had the bright
lights; that money could buy anything from food to fame; and that
"movies" were a bore. To the girls he was like a breath from the
metropolis itself, that hard, throbbing, restless, glaring, convivial,
avid, fascinating city in which is centred everything of wealth and
misery, everything intense and abnormal, and everything to satisfy the
desires. But the effect upon the girls was different. Imogene, though
entertained, continued calm, unimpressed, unenvious; Ruth, however, as
she listened and asked questions, the better they became acquainted,
was bright-eyed and excited. "Don't you think him a remarkable man?"
she had exclaimed to Imogene. "So experienced, so polished, so--well,
everything." This was after his second visit, which he made without
Bryant, stopping on his way from the dam camp to Kennard where he made
the chief hotel his headquarters. Imogene had replied, "Oh, he's
amusing company, and he can't be accused of being diffident, at least.
But I wonder if he would wear well. His divorced wife's opinion would
be valuable on that point, I fancy." That had caused Ruth to sniff.
She said, "You heard his explanation; they didn't agree and so they
just separated. That was sensible. When two people find they're not
compatible, they shouldn't live together a minute. And I shouldn't be
surprised if she was a cat."
Gretzinger's speech as he and Bryant advanced toward the girls and the
gray runabout was quick, determined, and uncompromising. His fleshy,
aggressive face, that lacked the tan of his companion's, was fixed in
dogmatic lines. From time to time he switched his gauntlets against
the skirt of his fashionably cut ulster with lively impatience.
"I certainly demand that these changes be made and shall recommend to
the bondholders," he was saying, "that they also insist on them."
"Can't help it if you do," was Lee Bryant's reply. "I know what I'm
talking about: concrete is necessary. No irrigation engineer to-day
who knows his business would think of anything else. Mr. McDonnell's
man approved its use, the state engineer likewise. The latter wouldn't
allow the change even should I ask it."
"Pah! He'd not concern himself either way. I know how these state
officers run things. Leave it to me; I'll arrange the matter."
"Not with my consent. And he'll never grant the change over my
opposition."
Gretzinger gave his knee an angry slap.
"I tell you it must be different, Bryant. In addition to the bonds my
men have their share of stock. They consider this stock bonus as part
of their investment. It is. And they intend to see that that stock
earns every dollar--every dollar, do you understand?--that's to be
made out of the project. I'm here to protect their interests, and
shall do it."
"Well?"
"Now, Bryant, be reasonable. It means more profit in your own pocket,
too. You're no philanthropist pure and simple, I take it, and want to
make money out of this thing. So agree to this change. You'll make a
saving both in time and cash. Carrigan's contract doesn't include the
building of these drops; you plan to do that yourself; and if you
substitute wood for concrete in these drops and in the gate-frames,
it would lessen the labour cost, the material cost, the freighting
cost, the----"
"And in five years the wood will have rotted and then concrete will
have to be put in after all," Lee interrupted. "More than that, the
water will undercut wooden drops, then rip the devil out of the canal
along the ridge, making the cost of rebuilding ten times what it is
now and very likely causing a water shortage in the middle of an
irrigating season so that the farmers' crops will be a dead loss.
Fine! I suppose you didn't allow yourself to think that far."
"Why should I?" Gretzinger retorted. "It's not our business to figure
on all the calamities that may occur in the next fifty years, or the
next ten, or the next five. We build the canal, then it's up to the
farmers to keep it in shape after we turn it over to them. If anything
happens, that's their lookout and the lookout of the engineer in
charge."
The two had come to a halt just out of earshot of the runabout. Bryant
could discover on the speaker's face no other expression than a fixed
intent to maintain his view.
"Leaving out the injustice of such a course----"
"Injustice, nothing!" the New Yorker derided. "This is cold business.
The project must be built as cheaply as possible in order to give the
investors the largest return. My father is one of them, and when he
puts money into a thing he wants all out of it that's coming to him.
So do his associates."
"Let me finish what I started to say," Lee remarked. "Aside from what
purchasers of land under this canal scheme have the right to expect,
and what they would suffer from a disaster, it hits our own pockets in
the end. Poor construction always turns out to be expensive
construction. Aside from the initial cash payments from buyers, all we
have from them will be notes--mortgage notes that can be paid only by
crops from the land. The water insures these crops. Let the canal
system go smash, and where are these notes? Nowhere. I don't propose
to lose fifty or sixty thousand dollars for a short-sighted gain of
ten."
Gretzinger laughed, then tapped the other's shoulder with a
forefinger.
"Do you imagine for a minute we'll keep the paper?" he inquired.
"Well, I should say not! We'll discount it ten, and if necessary
twenty, per cent. to make a quick clean-up and be out. A mortgage
company in the East will attend to that part of the business. These
mortgages run for ten years; you certainly don't think we'll sit
around that long waiting for our money and profits. The discount will
make the paper attractive to small investors, among whom it will be
peddled and who want long-time securities. And you'll profit from that
along with the rest of us; we couldn't leave you out if we wished."
"No, you can't leave me out of your calculations," said Bryant,
grimly.
"You see now, I hope, why it's to your interest as well as ours to
make the change I suggest," Gretzinger continued. "It will equal the
amount of the discount. In a year or so we'll all be out from under
with bonds and stock liquidated dollar for dollar. In other words,
with our profits in cash in the bank instead of in notes."
"And somebody else holding the sack, eh?" Bryant's aquiline nose came
down a little as he asked the question. "No, Gretzinger, you haven't
persuaded me, and you never will by that argument. A pretty rotten
scheme, that of yours. I shall go right ahead and use concrete."
"Then you don't intend to consider bondholders as having a voice in
matters?"
"No."
"Well, they're stockholders as well."
"Minority stockholders, that's all," Lee stated, coolly. "You've said
this is a matter of cold business. Very well; I'm the majority
stockholder and have the control. I consider it cold business to build
the drops of concrete as planned. I consider it cold business and good
business to provide the farmers with a safe system. And I shall do
that."
Again came Ruth's call, urging Gretzinger to hurry. He answered and
spoke a last word to Bryant, with a suddenly altered mien.
"You're an obstinate devil, Lee," he exclaimed, cheerfully. "I'll have
to think up some new arguments to get you over, I find. Now I must run
along, or the ladies will be up in arms--and not my arms, either."
Bryant helped him to button the curtains on the hood of the car, found
an instant when he could press Ruth's hand unobserved and murmur a
word in her ear, and stated that if the rain did not last he would run
down (he had picked up a second-hand Ford in Kennard) to Sarita Creek
after supper.
"I don't see half enough of you," Ruth said, giving him a pat on the
cheek with the gloved finger that now wore a diamond solitaire. To Mr.
Gretzinger she continued, "If you get us home without a wetting, you
may stay and eat with us; but if you don't, why, you can go straight
on to town."
Off the car sped down the trail toward Bartolo where it would gain the
well-travelled mesa road, a hand thrust through the curtains waving
back at Bryant.
The engineer did not go to Sarita Creek that night, for the rain
settled into a steady drizzle that lasted until well toward morning.
After supper he went, however, to the adobe dwelling of the Mexican
who once had warned him from his field. The man's seven-year-old boy
had fallen from a horse the day previous and fractured a leg; half
fearfully, half recklessly, the parent had come running to camp for
medical aid; and Lee had despatched the camp doctor, a young fellow
recently graduated, to treat the injury. Bryant was admitted into the
house. The youngster, he learned, was resting comfortably and had been
visited by the doctor that afternoon. Lee was even conducted to the
bedside, where the boy's leg thick with splints and wrappings was
exhibited for his benefit.
"The doctor, he said I was to speak to you about his pay," the Mexican
stated after a time, when he and Bryant had talked awhile in Spanish.
Bryant waved the words aside.
"There's no charge, nothing," said he. "I was delighted to send the
doctor. I hope your son improves rapidly. The physician will continue
to pay you calls until the boy no longer requires them. Those are very
pretty geraniums you have in the window, señora. Are they fragrant?"
Lee crossed the room and bent his face above them.
The man's wife rubbed her hands together under her apron with much
pleasure. Thus politely for him to notice and praise her flowers! In
her heart, as in the heart of her husband, there formerly had been
resentment at this white canal-builder for cutting their field with a
big ditch, an occurrence which the county judge somehow had stupidly
permitted. But now she did not know what to feel. Yesterday he had
sent them a doctor for nothing, and this evening was smelling her
flowers admiringly. He could not be exactly a monster. Removing one
hand from beneath her apron, she inserted a finger-nail in her black
hair and scratched her scalp, considering the subject. Winter was
coming, too. Food would be needed--and besides, she long had desired
one of those loud phonographs at Menocal's store, and also needed a
new stove. She perceived that her husband was staring at Bryant's back
with a thoughtful air. Undoubtedly he was thinking the same thing as
she.
"You yet want men and teams for your work, señor?" she inquired.
"All I can get."
"If a man falls sick while at work, would he have the services of the
doctor?"
"Yes, without charge. There will be work on the dam most of the
winter, where the building is only a matter of stone and brush. I can
use all who want employment. Then in the spring there will be the
digging of the ditch on the mesa."
"Five dollars for a man and his team, is it not so?" the Mexican
inquired.
"Yes."
"What if a man's wife or children fall sick?" the woman asked.
Bryant hid a smile at this shrewd bargaining. Yet he was perceiving an
opportunity. There were no Mexicans at work on the project; one and
all they had held off. Likewise they refused to sell him grain and
hay, which necessitated the hauling of feed from a distance. But now
this accident to the boy might prove a heaven-sent chance to break
Menocal's monopoly of influence.
"In case of sickness in the man's family, the doctor shall attend
free," he stated.
The woman took thought afresh.
"And if the man's horses are taken sick?"
"Nay, he's not a horse doctor," said Lee, smiling. And even the woman
smiled.
"But there's another matter. I fear it prevents," the man remarked.
"It is a note for fifty dollars that the bank holds against me. If I
work, Menocal will make trouble about that. I think we had best talk
no more of employment."
"Suppose I advance the amount in case he does, letting you work out
the debt. I could keep, say, two dollars out of each day's five until
you owed nothing."
"That would be agreeable to me, señor. But what if he then refuses to
sell me goods from his store?"
"You can buy at the commissary," Lee said. "Why should you lose five
dollars a day because of Menocal's bad feeling for me? You remain
idle--but does he pay you, or feed you? And the wages I offer you, and
the doctor's services, and the other accommodations, I also offer to
other Mexicans who will work. You may tell them so. Remember, there
will be teaming on the ditch until it freezes up, then work on the dam
throughout the winter, then scraper work on the mesa in the spring.
Five dollars a day coming in the door! You can buy meat and flour and
clothes and tobacco and candy for the children and a new wagon and
pictures of the Madonna, yes, all. But now I must go."
"But Menocal would be very angry," said the man, with a shake of his
head.
Bryant bade them good-night and departed. He went up the muddy road
through the wet darkness to the camp. Domination of the native mind by
Menocal appeared too strong for him to break.
But to his surprise next morning the Mexican came driving his team
into the camp. Lee sent him to Pat Carrigan, who gave him a scraper
and set him to work on the ditch. Toward noon the engineer encountered
him moving dirt from the deepening excavation; the sight had an
amusing feature. The man, Pedro Saurez, laboured in his own field
building the canal at about the spot where he had warned Bryant away
when surveying.
When Saurez beheld Lee, he grinned and removed the cigarette from his
lips.
"It will be a fine ditch, this," was his remark.