The predicted cold weather came, bringing winter in earnest. The frost
went deeper into the ground and construction grew slower, but the days
continued fine and without gales, those fierce and implacable winds
that sometimes rage over the frozen mesa hours at a time under a dull,
saffron sun, sharp as knives, shrieking like demons, and driving man
and beast to cover. They had not yet been unleashed.
Night work was begun, amid a flare of gasolene torches that gave a
weird aspect to the plain. The yellow lights; the moving, shadowy
forms of the workmen and horses; the cries and shouts--all made a
scene gnome-like in character. Frost gleamed upon the earth in a
silvery sheen under the torches' smoky flames. The headquarters
building and the mess tents now glowed from dusk until dawn. Fires
where workmen could warm their cheeks and hands were burning
continually, fed from the great piles of wood brought from the
mountains. And so by day and by night, without halt and despite cold,
the restless life was maintained and the toil kept going and the hard
furrow driven ahead.
With the approach of Christmas the advance of the project was marked.
The dam was nearing completion, with its long, gently inclined,
upstream face constructed of smooth cobbles--a slope up which any vast
and sudden rush of cloudburst water would slide unchecked to the crest
and harmlessly pass over. All of the drops, as well as the head-gate
and flood weirs, were finished, standing as if hewn out of solid white
stone. The miners had blasted out a channel through the reef of rock,
and gone. From the dam the canal section all along the hillside and
following the ridge, from drop to drop, and out to a point on the mesa
a mile beyond, was excavated, a great clean ditch; while from Perro
Creek the canal ran northward for six miles to the main camp, curving
in the great arc that constituted its line. Three and a half miles,
and complements, constructed at one end; six miles at the other.
Between, five miles of unbroken mesa. Seven weeks remained for the
small camp working down from the north and the great camp pushing from
the south to dig through those miles and meet--seven weeks; but in the
most bitter season of the year.
It seemed that it was with infinitely greater effort that the two
sections of the canals were forced ahead each day. The surface of the
ground was like stone, only by repeated attempts pierced by plows and
torn apart; while the subsoil immediately froze if left unworked. The
weaker labourers began to break: the scrawny Mexicans, the debilitated
white men, the drifters and the dissatisfied; and they left the camps.
These the labour agencies found it harder and harder to replace as the
cold weather persisted, so that the force showed a considerable
diminishment.
A few days before Christmas Gretzinger paid Bryant a visit. He had not
been to camp for a week and therefore on this occasion examined the
progress of work with care, studying the rate of excavation and
calculating the result.
"You'll just about make it through, Bryant, if nothing happens to put
a crimp in your advance," he stated when he was about to take his
departure from the office, where he and Lee conferred.
"Yes," said Bryant.
"And if anything should happen, then good-bye canal."
"That doesn't necessarily follow," said Lee, calmly.
Gretzinger ignored this reply. He thrust an arm into his fur-lined
overcoat and began to draw it on. That evening he was leaving Kennard
for New York, and now was desirous of returning to town by noon, where
he had a luncheon engagement with Ruth Gardner. He had casually
mentioned to Bryant that the girls had gone the day before to the
McDonnells for the holidays.
"My people were certainly handed a phony deal here," he remarked
shortly, as he buttoned the coat collar about his throat.
"Questionable title to the water! Extravagance and poor management!
Rotten project all through! If I had lined this thing up, I should
have learned what I actually had before a cent was expended. But of
course if the thing goes smash, we in the East have to stand the loss;
you're losing no cash, you have nothing in it but a shoestring. Well,
I'm expecting you to put your back into the job and do no loafing and
pull us out of the hole you've got us into."
Bryant's face remained impassive.
"I'll attend to my end," said he, "if the bondholders take care of
theirs. They'll have to dig up more cash."
"What's that!"
"More money, I said."
"They'll see you in hell before they do."
"Then that's where they'll look for payment of their bonds. You're not
fool enough, are you, to imagine a system can be built in winter and
under high pressure for what it could be constructed in summer and not
in haste? Strange the idea never occurred to you before--you,
Gretzinger, irrigation expert, though you never saw an irrigation
ditch till you came West. The sixty thousand dollars from bonds and
twenty thousand more I've put with it will be gone sometime next
month. Possibly I can stretch it out to the first of February. After
that, the bondholders will have to come forward to save their
investment."
Gretzinger unbuttoned his overcoat and sought his cigarette case. His
scowl as he struck a match was lighted by vicious gleams from his
eyes.
"Why didn't you stop work when you received notification from the
state engineer of the Land and Water Board's action?" he demanded.
"When you yet had the bulk of the money?"
"I preferred to continue."
"And now you're sinking it all."
"It costs money to move frozen dirt," said Bryant.
"Well, I tell you the bondholders won't put up another penny
unless----" The Easterner paused, growing thoughtful. Some minutes
passed before he resumed: "There's one condition on which they'll do
it, and I'll guarantee their support."
"And the condition?"
"That you surrender your stock to them."
"For the twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars more that will be
needed? My shares representing a hundred thousand? And I presume I
should have to withdraw altogether."
"Naturally," Gretzinger responded. "I should then take charge."
Bryant's expression exhibited a certain amount of curiosity.
"Do you really think you could finish the ditch on time?" he inquired.
A slight sneer was the answer. Gretzinger was one not given to wasting
time with men of Bryant's type.
"How about it? Am I to take back to New York with me your agreement to
this?" he asked, curtly.
The other spread his feet apart and hooked his thumbs in his coat
pockets and directed his full regard at the speaker.
"You think you have me in a hole, Gretzinger," he said. "You propose
to take me by the throat and shake everything out of my pockets and
then throw me aside. Well, I'm in a hole, no use denying that. But you
haven't me by the throat and you're not going to loot me. If I go
broke, it won't be through handing over what I have to you and your
gang of pirates, just make up your mind to that."
"Then you intend to wreck this project. A court action will stop that,
I fancy."
"The only court action you can demand is a receivership for the
company, and not until my money-bag is empty at that," Lee rejoined,
coolly. "And the time will expire and the company be a shell before
it's granted, at the rate courts move."
The New Yorker considered. Finally he began to re-button his
overcoat.
"I'll leave the offer open," said he. "I was uncertain before about
returning, but I'll probably do so now. You'll find as the pinch comes
that my proposition will look better--and we might pay you two or
three thousand so you'll not go out strapped. Besides, if we took over
and completed the project, it would save your face; you wouldn't be
wholly discredited; you would be able to get a job somewhere
afterward. Might as well make the most you can for yourself out of a
bad mess. Think it over, Bryant." He set his cap on his head with a
conclusive air.
Lee pointed at a chair by the table.
"Sit down for a moment; there's another matter." He crossed to his
desk, put his hand in a drawer for something, and came back. "Look at
that," he said, tossing a revolver cartridge on the table before
Gretzinger.
The man picked it up and turned it over between thumb and finger,
examining it with mingled surprise and curiosity.
"What about it?" he questioned.
"I understand you're interested in a certain young lady," Bryant
stated, smoothly.
Gretzinger straightened on his seat, flashing his look up to the
other's. A sudden tightening of his lips accompanied the action and he
ceased to revolve the cartridge he held.
"I'll not discuss my personal affairs with you or----"
"When they touch mine, you will," was the answer.
"Are you jealous?" Gretzinger asked after a pause, with a trace of
insolence. "Believe you are. I thought, along with your other
shortcomings, you weren't capable of even that. Now that we're
talking, I'll say that I've taken Ruth round and found her
entertaining. What about it? And I've given her my opinion of the way
you've run this work, because she asked for it. I told her that you
had botched the business from the beginning. I told her you were
unpractical, incompetent, small-gauged, and lightweight, and would
make a failure of everything you touched. There you have it all.
Well?"
Bryant's brows twitched for an instant.
"I guessed as much." He stood staring in silence at the table, but
presently brought himself to attention. "Honour is something you don't
understand. So I thought that bullet might focus your mind on possible
consequences."
"What's all this rot!"
Lee leaned forward with his fists resting on the table and his eyes
probing Gretzinger's.
"If any harm comes to Ruth through you, that bullet will pay it out,"
he said, harshly. "You've felt its weight. It's forty-four calibre,
plenty heavy enough to do the business. I can smash a potato at thirty
paces. One shot is all I shall ask. I won't do any hemming and hawing
over the matter, or----"
Gretzinger sprang up.
"See here, Bryant!" he cried.
"Or advertising in the newspapers," the other went on, in a level
tone. "I'll attend to your case, quickly and quietly. Here, or in New
York, or wherever you are. That's all."
Gretzinger had gone a little pale. He was nervously drawing on his
cap.
"Listen to me for a moment----"
"I said that's all. Get out." And Bryant's mien brooked no
temporizing.
It was of Lee's nature not to brood on such matters. He had given the
warning and must await the issue. Meanwhile, the burden of work and
the needs of the project would afford sufficient occupation for his
mind.
Christmas came. Bryant had ordered that labour cease for twenty-four
hours, as the gruelling fight of weeks had worn down the spirit of the
men. A holiday would rest them, while a big turkey dinner and
unlimited cigars and pails of candy would put them in a good humour.
At dark on the afternoon before the day shift at both camps ceased
work, the horses were stabled, the torches left unlighted, the fires
along the ditch allowed to die down, and the project was idle. A light
skift of snow had fallen during the morning, whitening the earth, but
the clouds had passed away, so that the still air and clear sky gave
promise of a fine morrow.
Christmas Eve, however, did not lapse without a disturbing incident.
About supper time Dave came running to Bryant and Pat Carrigan in
Lee's shack. He had seen workmen going furtively into a tent in
numbers that aroused his curiosity, and had crept unseen under the lee
of the canvas shelter, where, lifting the flap, he beheld in the
interior a keg on the ground and a Mexican, by light of a candle,
serving labourers whisky in tin cups.
"Whisky in camp!" Lee roared. "Come with me, Pat." The two men, guided
by Dave, strode down the street. Before the tent indicated they halted
to listen. The shelter glowed dimly; formless shadows stirred on its
canvas walls; and from within came low, guarded voices and once a
muffled laugh.
Jerking the flaps apart Bryant entered, followed by the contractor. He
forced an opening through the group of workmen by a savage sweep of
his arms and came to the keg, where the Mexican at the moment was
bending down and holding a cup under the spigot. When the man
perceived the engineer, he leaped up. The fellow's short, squat figure
and stony expression had for Bryant a vague familiarity--that face
especially, brown, stolid, brutal, with a fixed, snake-like gaze.
But Lee had no time to speculate on the Mexican's identity. The liquor
was the important thing. The man stood motionless, holding in his left
hand the half-filled cup that gave off a pungent, sickening smell of
whisky; his eyes were intent on the engineer. Behind Lee, Carrigan was
already herding the others from the tent.
"Where did you get that stuff?" Bryant demanded. But as the Mexican
only shook his head, he changed to Spanish. "Trying to start a big
drunk here?"
"To-morrow is a fête day, señor," was the reply. "A friend made me a
present; I share it with the others. Besides, in cold weather it keeps
one warm."
"How long have you worked here?"
"Three days."
"There's a camp order: 'No liquor allowed in camp.' You can't say that
you don't know it, for it's posted everywhere on placards in English
and in Spanish."
He received no response. A faint shrug of the shoulders, perhaps. The
Mexican's glistening, sinister eyes, on the other hand, continued as
rigid as orbs of polished agate, and his face as expressionless.
"Well, we'll lock you up and see if we can learn who your 'friend' is
that sent this barrel in," Lee stated.
There was a slight movement of the man's elbow.
"Watch him--his right hand!" Pat cried, sharply.
The hand had darted swiftly to the fellow's hip, but Bryant's fist was
as quick. It shot up, catching the man's jaw and hoisting him off his
feet. Next instant the engineer had disarmed the prostrate ruffian.
"The Kennard jail for you," said he, in English. "A bad _hombre_, eh!
Up with you, quick."
But what followed neither the engineer nor the contractor anticipated.
With a lightning-like roll of his body the man vanished under the side
of the tent. When the others rushed out in search of him he had made
good his escape; and a search through the dark camp would be useless.
They therefore emptied the keg upon the ground, extinguished the lamp,
and returned to Lee's office. Though the Mexican had got away, they
nevertheless had put a foot on the malicious scheme.
All at once Dave, who was walking at Bryant's and Pat's heels up the
street, exclaimed:
"I've got that greaser's number now! We saw him once at the depot in
Kennard, Lee. He was watching you, remember?"
"I guess you're right; I recall him."
"Bet that old devil in Bartolo put him up to this." Dave asserted.
"Tut, tut, kid! Language like that on Christmas Eve! Charlie
might--but not his father, I imagine."
Dave, however, was not altogether to be suppressed.
"Well, I don't put anything past either of them," he sniffed.