After a long night, during which he slept little and thought much,
Conniston rose early, breakfasted at the little lunch-counter, and
without waking Tommy Garton rode swiftly toward Truxton's camp. He
hastened, for although it was still early morning it was time for work
to begin upon the ditch.
From the top of a knoll half a mile out of camp he could look down
into the little hollow where the men and teams should be already at
their daily grind. A little frown gathered his brows as he saw instead
that the horses were standing at their stakes in a long row, that the
men were gathered together in clumps, obviously idle. And even then he
had no way to guess what new trouble had come to the Great Work.
Shooting his spurs into his horse's panting sides, he swept down the
gentle slope of the sand-hill and galloped straight toward the cook's
tent. He saw that not only were the men idle, but that they gave no
evidence of an intention to go to work. He saw, too, that they looked
at him as he rode among them, that they watched him curiously, that
many of them were laughing.
Fifty paces from the tent he came upon his two foremen--Ben the
Englishman and the Lark--talking in low tones with the two foremen who
had worked under Truxton's eye.
"What's the matter?" he called, sharply, angrily, although he did not
know it. "Where's Truxton?"
"Inside the tent," the Lark answered him, shortly.
And, asking no further questions, waiting for no explanation,
Conniston swung down from his horse, hurried to the tent, flung back
the flap, and entered. Only then did the truth dawn on him, and he
staggered back as though a man had struck him a stunning blow full in
the face.
The air in the tent was reeking and foul with the fumes of cheap
whisky. At the little table Bat Truxton sat slouched forward, his face
hidden in the arm he had flung out as he slipped forward. An empty
quart bottle lay on its side at his elbow. A second bottle, with an
inch of the amber fluid in it, stood just beyond his clenched fist.
Truxton made no sign, did not so much as stir, as Conniston dropped
the flap of canvas and stood over him. His breath came heavily,
saturated with whisky. Conniston laid a rude hand upon the slack
shoulder, shaking it roughly. Still Truxton did not lift his head, did
not even mutter as a drunken man is apt to do in his stupor. With the
full purport of this thing upon him, Conniston was driven to a fury of
rage. He jerked Truxton's head back and slapped him across the face
until his fingers tingled. Now Truxton's eyes opened, red-rimmed,
bloodshot, fixed in a vacant, idiotic stare. And before Conniston
could speak the eyes were closed again, the head had sunk forward upon
the table.
"My God!" cried Conniston, feeling now only a great despair upon him,
seeing only the death to all hopes of success for the reclamation
project with Truxton lost to it. He started to leave the tent, and
suddenly swung about again, grasping Truxton's two shoulders in his
hands.
"It ain't no go, pardner. He's very--hic--drunk!"
He had not seen the other man, had seen little enough but the
sprawling, inert figure. It was the camp cook. And as Conniston turned
upon him he saw that this man's face was flushed, that he was little
better than Truxton. And if he needed further indication of the reason
for the cook's plight it was not far to seek. The man held in his left
hand, thrust clumsily behind him, a third bottle, half empty.
"You, too!" shouted Conniston. "Drop that bottle, and drop it quick!"
The cook, with a drunken assumption of dignity, tried to straighten
up, grasping his bottle the more firmly.
"Who're you?" he leered. "G'wan; chase yourself. I ain't throwin'
away--"
He did not finish. Conniston stepped forward quickly and jerked the
bottle out of the cook's hand, hurling it against the stove, where it
broke into a score of pieces. The bottle upon the table he treated in
similar fashion.
"Now," he said, sternly, "you get to work and get something cooked for
the men. Haven't even a fire, have you?" He stepped close to the cook
again, thrusting his face close up to the other's. He did not know his
own voice, which had gone suddenly hoarse and low, as he went on: "You
have a fire going in two minutes. Where are your helpers? And you have
breakfast on the tables in half an hour, or I give you my word I'll
come back here and beat you half to death!"
He turned and went out with no single look behind him, glad to be out
in the open, thankful for the fresh air, which he drew deep down into
his stifling lungs. And, realizing only that nothing could be done
with Truxton for the present and that he himself was next in command,
he hastened to where the four foremen were standing, grinning at him.
"Get your men busy," he snapped at them. "Ben, send some men up to the
tent to help get something to eat. Let them put on anything. If the
cook doesn't get coffee ready in fifteen minutes let me know. All of
you have your men hook up their teams. They can do that while
breakfast is getting ready. And hurry!"
The men looked at him curiously, then at one another. Ben was the
first to move.
"Aye, aye, sir," he said, with a grin, lifting his hand from his hip
to his forelock, and dropping it to his hip again as he walked away.
The others followed.
"Hold on!" cried Conniston, suddenly, before they had gone ten paces.
"Do all of the men know about this?"
The men laughed. "They ain't blind," explained one of them.
"And do they know--does any one of you know--where he got the whisky?"
They shrugged their shoulders. Only the Lark answered.
"I know, pal," he said, slowly. "I seen it."
"All right. You wait a minute. I want to talk with you. You other
fellows get busy."
The little San-Franciscan dropped back and waited. Conniston came up
with him and demanded shortly:
"Tell me about it."
"It was last night, 'bo, about 'leven o'clock, I guess. It was sure
some dark, too, take it from me. I woke up thirsty as a water-front
bum, an' beat it for the water-barrel. Comin' back, I come past the
tent. Bat was in there figgerin' when I went to the wagon. When I come
back he was talkin' to another guy. I stops an' listens, just for fun,
you know. The other guy I hadn't never saw. An' he said as how Mr.
Crawford had sent him out to ask how everything was runnin'. Purty
soon he puts a bottle on the table an' says, 'Have one?' Bat says
'No,' but you could see with one eye shut an' in the dark o' the moon
as he wanted it worse 'n I'd wanted the water I walked clean over to
the barrel to git. The stranger has one, an' fills a glass an' shoves
it under Bat's nose. An' if any longshoreman I ever seen had saw the
way ol' Bat put that red-eye under his vest he'd 'a' died with
jealousy. I knowed as how there wouldn't be nothin' in it for me, so I
went an' got another drink of water an' hit the rag-pile. That what
you wanted to know, 'bo?"
"Who was the man?" Conniston insisted. "What did he look like?"
"That's dead easy. I'm sure the gumshoe when it comes to pipin' a man
off so's I got his photograph in my eye. He was a little cuss an'
dressed to kill, with gloves on, an' all that. He was skinny an' pale
an' weak-eyed-lookin'."
"That will do!" cut in Conniston, brusquely. "And now get your men
going. We've got a day's work ahead of us."
A little more than fifteen minutes later Conniston himself pounded one
of the cook's pans as a summons to breakfast. The cook, surly,
glowering as he moved, set forth the big pots of coffee.
Less than half an hour after he had ridden into the idle camp
Conniston saw the two hundred men resume their work of yesterday as
though nothing unusual had happened, saw the teams string out in the
four sections of the ditch where Truxton had left off, watched the
long lines of scrapers and plows cutting into the soft soil, scooping
it out and piling it upon the banks of the canal.
He climbed to a little knoll from which he could glance over them
before and behind the ditch-cutters. Yonder, toward Valley City,
Truxton's two foremen were directing their men with the same
quick-eyed, steady competence which they had manifested under the eye
of the older engineer. From them he turned to the men working under
Ben and the Lark. There, too, was machine-like regularity; there, too,
each man, each straining animal was in its place, putting forth its
utmost of capability.
There came to the man who watched an irritating sense of his own
uselessness: the work was going forward with great, swinging, rhythmic
effectiveness. This thing had leaped out upon him unawares, and he was
half afraid of the responsibility which had fastened itself upon his
shoulders. For, after all, Greek Conniston had not yet entirely found
himself, was not sure of himself.
Brow drawn and anxious, watchful, deeply thoughtful, Conniston did not
see Mr. Crawford until the buckboard driven by Half-breed Joe had
stopped close behind him. He wheeled about, startled at Mr. Crawford's
voice.
"Good morning, Conniston. How's the work going?"
"All right, I hope." He came to the buckboard and, resting his hand
upon the wheel, looked up into the face of the man who was to learn of
another savage blow dealt to the hopes of his project.
"Where is Truxton?" Mr. Crawford was standing up in the wagon, looking
as Conniston had looked at the sweep of work being done.
"He--" Conniston hesitated. "He's in the tent."
Mr. Crawford turned suddenly upon him, his eyes narrowing.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, hurriedly.
Conniston shook his head slowly, turning his eyes away from the face
which a glance had shown him was drawn with quick anxiety.
"Drive to the tent, Joe!" commanded Mr. Crawford, his voice very
stern.
Conniston watched them as their horses leaped forward in the slack
traces, saw Mr. Crawford jump down, enter the tent, saw him come out
again and spring back into the buckboard.
"Now, Joe," as he got down beside Conniston, "you can unhook your
horses. I am going to be here this morning."
Joe drove away to where the camp horses had been picketed. And Mr.
Crawford turned to Conniston.
"This is going to make it hard, Conniston," he said, slowly, his face
and voice alike very grave. "It is the one thing which I had hoped
would not happen. But we've got to make the most of it." He paused
suddenly, and his keen eyes ran thoughtfully from one to another of
the four gangs of men. "They're working all right," he ended, his eyes
coming back to Conniston's.
"Yes. They're good men. The four foremen are as capable as a man could
ask for."
"Were they working this way when you got here?"
"No. They were waiting for orders."
Mr. Crawford nodded, making no reply.
"I don't know," Conniston offered after a moment, "that there is any
immediate call for worry. I think that I can handle them until Truxton
gets around--"
"Truxton won't get around!"
"You mean--"
"That the moment he is sober enough to know anything he will know that
he is discharged!"
"But we can't get along without him. He is the one man--"
"We shall have to get along without him. I have told him that if he
touched whisky again on this job he could go."
"But would it not be better to wait a few days--to give him a chance
to sober up?"
"Conniston, I have never found it necessary to break my word. I am
through with Truxton. And if my last hope of success goes with him he
must go just the same. I am sorry for the man--the poor fellow can't
help these periodic drunks of his. But I am through with him."
Conniston frowned into the eyes which were fixed intently upon him.
"You know best. I am ready to do what I can to help out. I think I can
promise you to keep the work going until you can get a man to take his
place."
Mr. Crawford bent a long, searching regard upon him. And when he spoke
it was slowly, sternly.
"What am I paying you, Conniston?"
"Forty-five dollars a month."
"All right. I'll give you seventy-five dollars a week to take Bat
Truxton's place for me--not for a few days, but until the first day
of October. Will you do it?"
A hot flush spread over Conniston's face, and surged away, leaving it
white.
"Do you think that I can do it?"
"I am not the one to think. You are. You know what the work is, what
it means. Can you do it?"
And Conniston stared long out across the wide sweep of the desert, his
lips set hard in white, bloodless lines, before he answered, briefly:
"Yes."
"It's a big job, Conniston, and, frankly, I wouldn't put it into your
hands if I had a man I thought better qualified to carry it on. A big
job! I wonder if you know how big? You will hold the whole fate of
this country in the palm of your hand, to make or to mar. You will
hold in the palm of your hand my whole life-work. For if you succeed I
succeed. And if you fail, all hope of reclamation here dies,
still-born, and I am a ruined man. Understand what you are to do? I
cannot even stay here to help you. I will leave to-night for Denver. I
can't send another man in my place. Would to God that I could! I must
go myself; I must raise money--fifty thousand dollars at the very
lowest figure. And when I come back I shall bring the money with me,
and I shall bring at least five hundred more men. And you will have to
oversee the work of seven hundred men then; you will have to drive
this ditch night and day; you will have to complete two big dams. And
you will have to do that before the first day of October. It is a big
job, Conniston. Can you do it?"
Conniston wet his dry lips and hesitated.
"Mr. Crawford, it is a big job. I do not even know that the thing is
possible. I believe that it is. I do not know, I cannot know, if I
can do it. I believe that I can. If you have a better man, if in
Denver or anywhere else you can find a better man, put him in
Truxton's place. If you can't, if you want me to go ahead with the
work, I'll do it."
"Then that is settled. Confer often with Tommy Garton. If you need
advice while I am away, go to him. But remember that in all things it
will be up to you to make the final decision. There can be no sharing
of responsibility."
"Then," said Conniston, with quiet decision, "I want an absolute and
unrestricted authority here. I want the power to take on new men, to
fire old men, to raise wages, to do what I think wise and best. I want
every man working for you to know that he is under my orders, and that
there is no recourse from my judgment. I want to be able to call upon
the Half Moon outfit, if I find it necessary, just as you would call
upon them."
"You are asking a great deal, Conniston."
"I am asking everything."
"And you can have what you ask!"
"To begin with, I shall want a man here to take my place if I find it
necessary to be away at all. I want Brayley here, and right away."
"Brayley is the best man on the Half Moon. You can have him."
"Thank you. There is one further thing."
"Name it."
"I do not draw a cent of wages until the first day of October. Then if
I have water in the valley I get it in a block. If I do not have
water--I don't touch it!"
A curious little smile flitted across Mr. Crawford's lips.
"You are in a position to dictate, Conniston. Let it be as you say."
"And now, if you have no immediate orders for me, I want to get to
work. I am going to shift the gang under the Lark out yonder, in front
of the others. He's the best pace-maker I've got."
"Go ahead. I'll be here until noon."
Unconsciously squaring his shoulders as he went, Conniston strode away
toward the ditch.