A certain old football phrase rang day and night in Conniston's brain,
"_It is anybody's game!_" Anybody's game! For there was a chance for
success in the Great Work, and he saw that chance clearly, and fought
hard for it. If everything went smoothly now, if Mr. Crawford gave him
five hundred more men, if there were no unforeseen obstacles set in
his way, no smashing accidents, he would see the ditches in
Rattlesnake Valley filled with water by the last day of September. He
had figured on everything, he had sat late into many a night after the
grind of a twelve or fifteen hour day, frowning over details,
calculating to the cubic yard what he must do each and every day,
going over his calculations with a care which missed no detail. And he
knew that he could play this game safely and win--if they would only
let him alone! And still he knew that it was anybody's game. Could
Swinnerton block him in some way which he could not foresee, could
Swinnerton make him lose a single day's work, could Swinnerton steal
his five hundred men as he had stolen men in the past, it was
Swinnerton's game.
Brayley was driving the work in the Valley now. Tommy Garton had his
new legs from Chicago, and from the seat of a buckboard, sometimes
from the ground where his crutches sank into the soft sand, he advised
Brayley and watched the work. Conniston was in the mountains, and the
Lark with fifty men was with him.
Once in Deep Creek, with the site of Dam Number One before him,
Conniston studied long before he gave the order to the Lark to begin
work. Here were the stakes of Truxton's survey, here were the
foundations already laid, here was a nature-made dam-site. He had not
needed the stakes to show him the spot. And still he hesitated.
Here, where plans had been made for the chief dam, Deep Creek belied
its name. It ran clear and untroubled over a gentle slope, widening
out until from edge to edge of the water it measured close upon forty
feet. Still farther back upon either hand the sides of the cañon stood
in perpendicular walls thirty feet high. Above the site the walls
widened gradually until they formed a pocket, flat-bottomed, half a
mile wide. Still farther up the creek's course these natural walls
grew steadily closer together until perhaps three-eighths of a mile
deeper in the cañon they drew so close together that there was
scarcely more than the width of an ordinary room between them.
It was this point--the Lark had been here with Bat Truxton when the
survey was made and called it the "Jaws"--that inspired Conniston's
hesitation. Here was a second dam-site, and not until he had studied
both long and carefully, with a keen eye to advantage and
disadvantage, did he give the word to begin work.
If it were only a question of a site, with time not an element to
success, he would have chosen as Truxton had done and without a
second's doubt. Had he had only to consider the building of a dam
across Deep Creek in the shortest possible time, he would have chosen
the site at the Jaws. But the thing which he wanted now was the
largest possible dam in the shortest possible time. There was a pocket
above the Jaws, but it was shorter, narrower. And above it the
creek-bed plunged downward, at times broken into perpendicular
waterfalls, until, yonder at a sharp bend, the water as it now frothed
through its narrow, rocky cañon was on a level with the top of the
Jaws. He needed to take out water in vast quantities, countless
millions of gallons of it, to turn into the ditches thirty miles away
across the dry desert.
"The one question," he told himself, as he stood upon a boulder whence
he could overlook the two sites, "is, can I get the dam finished where
Bat Truxton planned it--get it done in time?"
And in the end he told himself that if the five hundred men came he
could have his dam completed in time; and that if the five hundred men
did not come the whole task before him was hopeless. Then he waved his
hand to the Lark, and the Lark shouted a command which set fifty idle
men to work before the echoes of his voice had died away between the
rocky walls of the cañon.
The materials he should require--the lumber for the great flume which
was to turn the water from the weir into the cut which was to be made
across the spine of the ridge separating Deep Creek from the wider
cañon through which Indian Creek shot down upon the uplands of the
Half Moon, the kegs of giant powder, the horses and implements--he had
brought with him or had conveyed hither yesterday from Crawfordsville.
He knew that in a very few days now the main canal would be completed,
stretching like a mammoth serpent over the five miles of rolling
hills through which it twisted intricately to avoid rocky ridges and
knolls to follow natural hollows; that when at last Dam Number One
should be an actuality of stone and mortar, with the water rising high
above the flood-gates through which he could send it hissing and
boiling into the flume, the way was open to shake his victorious fist
in the face of nature itself, to drive water across thirty miles of
desert and into the heart of Rattlesnake Valley.
Upon one thing Conniston had set his heart before he had been
twenty-four hours in Bat Truxton's shoes. He would forget the date
which had been marked in red numerals since his first talk with Tommy
Garton; he would not think once of the first day of October. He would
have everything in readiness upon the twenty-fifth day of September.
He knew that the water would at first run slowly through the dry
canals, that the thirsty soil would drink up the first of the precious
gallons, that he must allow himself those five days in order that he
play safe. And now that he had seen the scope of the work to be done,
now that he felt that he could manage without the auxiliary dam until
after the first of October, that the two dams here on Deep Creek and
Indian Creek would give him enough water to keep to the terms of the
contract, he believed that he would have everything in readiness by
the twenty-fifth of September.
For this he had hoped, at first half heartedly; for this he was now
working. Besides the inducements he had offered his men he now
promised them a wage of once and a half for overtime. That meant that
from the first light of morning until dark, with often less than an
hour off at noon, they worked day after day. They fought with the
uneven bed of the stream, they fought with great boulders, until their
arms ached in their sockets and their scanty clothing was drenched
with sweat. Conniston, while he urged them on to do all that was in
them, marveled that they did not break down under the strain.
Nor did he spare himself. Many a night during the swift weeks which
followed he had no more than three or four hours' sleep.
Until the Lark yelled to his men to "knock" off at night, Conniston
labored with them. Then, when they had rolled heavily into their
blankets, he more than once had saddled his horse and ridden down
along the foothills across the stretch of sand and to Valley City to
advise with Garton, to learn how the work was going there, to plan and
order for the days to follow. He grew gaunt and nervous and
hollow-eyed. Heavier and heavier the load of his responsibility rested
upon his shoulders. Nearer and nearer came the end of the time
allotted to him, and always the things still to do loomed ahead of him
like mountains of rock. He went for two weeks without shaving, and
scarcely realized it. His hands grew to be like the hands of his men,
torn and cut and blackened with dirt ground into the skin. His boots
were in strips before he thought of another pair; his clothes were
ragged. He thought only of the Great Work.
In the Present, which came to him with tight-clenched, iron fingers
gripping the promise which he must rend from them with the strength of
brain and brawn, there was only the Great Work. The Past extended back
only to the day when Bat Truxton had fallen and he had been called to
take the place of command; and since then there had been only the
Great Work. And the Future, mocking him now, smiling upon him the next
day, then hiding her face in her misty veil, held high above his head
the success or the failure of the Great Work.
And as he grew haggard and tense-nerved and unkempt, little lines
formed about the corners of his mouth which would have told William
Conniston, Senior, that there had been wrought in his son a change
which was not of the body, not of the mind alone, but even of the
secret soul.
He thought that he should have heard from Mr. Crawford by now, and yet
no word had reached him. When the day's work had been done upon the
dam he rode the ten miles into Crawfordsville and inquired at the
Western Union office for a telegram. No, nothing had come. The next
day he was as short-spoken as Bat Truxton had been the day before
Hapgood had tempted him, as irritable. He saw half a dozen men
struggling with a great rugged mass of rock, and cursed them for their
slowness. And then he turned away from the Lark's curious eyes, biting
his lips. For he knew that they were doing all that six big
iron-bodied men could do, and that he was not fit.
Again that night he rode to Crawfordsville. He thought that the
telegraph agent grinned maliciously as he tossed a yellow envelope
upon the counter.
"Sign here, Mr. Conniston," he said.
Conniston signed and, stepping outside, read the words which drove a
groan to his lips:
"WILLIAM CONNISTON, Jr.,
"General Supt., Crawford Reclamation, Crawfordsville.
"No success yet. May have to go to St. Louis for the money.
Hope to have men in four or five days.
"JOHN W. CRAWFORD."
He did not see Jocelyn Truxton in front of the post-office as he rode
past, did not see Hapgood come out of the two-story building and join
her. He saw only the days which were rushing down upon him, offering
him a broken, blunt weapon to fight a giant.
Never once had Conniston doubted as he doubted now. Never before had
all glint of hope been lost in rayless blackness. If he had the five
hundred men, _if he had them now_, there was a fighting chance. But if
he must wait another week before they came--
To-day the telephone line had been completed to Valley City. All day
he had looked forward to a talk with Argyl. Now he swept by the little
office without lifting his head. He could not talk with her; he could
not talk with Tommy Garton even. They would know soon enough, and they
would know from other lips than his.
That night he slept little, but sat staring at the stars, searching
stubbornly to find his lost hope, struggling over and over to see the
way. And all that he could see was a long, dry, ugly cut in the
desert, a vain, foolish, stupid thing; Mr. Crawford a ruined, broken
man; Argyl smitten with sorrow and disappointment; himself the
vanquished leader of a mad campaign; Oliver Swinnerton and his
servitors flushed with victory. Still he fought to find the way, and
shut his lips tight together, and strove to shut from his mind the
pictures which his insistent fancy painted there. And when morning
came and he walked to the dam which was taking form, pale, worn with
the fatigue of the night after the fatigue of the day, he snapped out
his orders half viciously, and watched with a hard smile while his
handful of men resumed their mammoth task.
"Take it from me"--the Lark was regarding him curiously--"you better
go git some sleep, or it's goin' to be a redwood box for yours."
The sun had just pushed a shining edge of its burning disk over the
mountain-tops when Conniston suddenly cried out like a man awaking
from the clutch of a frightful nightmare, and pointed with shaking
finger to the road winding up the cañon.
"What's up, 'bo?" asked the Lark, swinging upon him.
"I don't know," Conniston said, harshly. "I--guess I'm just seeing
things. Look!"
A wagon had crept around a turn in the road, and its long bed was
close packed with the forms of men standing upright, their hands upon
the back of the high seat or upon one another's shoulders to steady
themselves as the wagon pitched and lurched over the ill-defined road.
Around the bend another wagon, similarly loaded with a human freight
which taxed the strength of four puffing horses, came into view. And
behind that another and another--
"Am I seeing things?" snapped Conniston, his hand biting into the
Lark's shoulder. "What is that?"
"Them," grunted the Lark, wriggling like an eel in Conniston's grip,
"is your five hundred new guys, or I'm a liar! An' fergit you're the
strong man in a sideshow doin' stunts with a rag doll--"
But Conniston did not hear him. Already he was running toward the
wagons. And there was a light in his eyes which had not been there for
many days. A little, youngish man, sandy of hair, with bird-like
brightness of eye and the grin of a sanctified cherub, swung down from
the seat of the foremost wagon, lifted his hand, thereby stopping the
laboring procession, and came forward to meet Conniston.
"I want to talk with the superintendent," he said, as the two men met.
"Where is he?"
"I'm the superintendent. I'm Conniston. You want me?"
"All right, Mr. Conniston. I'm Jimmie Kent."
He put out his hand, which was painfully small, but which gripped
Conniston's larger hand like a vise. "There are your five hundred men.
Or, to be exact, five hundred and five. I started with five hundred
and seven. Lost two on the road."
"But," interrupted Conniston, staring half incredulously at him, "Mr.
Crawford's telegram--"
Jimmie Kent laughed.
"Mr. Crawford kicked like a bay steer over that telegram. And in the
end, when he wouldn't put his name to a lie, I did the trick for him."
"But why?"
"Simply, sir, because I am under contract to deliver five hundred men
into your hands. Simply because the telegraph agent in Crawfordsville
belongs body and soul, bread and butter, to our esteemed friend Mr.
Oliver Swinnerton. Know Oliver personally? Capable man, charming host,
but the very devil to buck when he has his back aloft! And they tell
me that he is playing high this trip. It was just as well, don't you
think, that I sent that wire? Had Oliver known that this consignment
of hands was coming, and when they were coming--well, I don't know how
he would have managed it, but one way or another he would have come
mighty close to taking them off my hands. And now," whipping a big,
fat note-book from his pocket, "will you sign right there?"
Kent removed the cap from a gold-filigreed fountain-pen, handed it
with a bit of paper and the note-book to Conniston, and pointed out
where the signature was wanted. And Conniston set his name down under
a statement acknowledging the receipt from James Kent of five hundred
and five men, "in good and satisfactory shape."
"Thank you, Mr. Conniston," as he blotted and returned the document to
his breast pocket. "Perhaps, however, you would have preferred to have
counted before signing?"
"That's all right. I'll take your word for it. If there aren't five
hundred, there are as good as five hundred. And thank God, and you,
Jimmie Kent, that they are here!"
"Need 'em pretty bad? Well, I'm glad I got 'em to you in time. And you
might as well know how I did it. I unloaded my men at Littleton, two
hundred miles east of here. And then I chartered a freight and sneaked
'em into Bolton at night. Got into Bolton last night, and came right
out. I don't believe," with a genial grin, "that our friend Oliver
knows a thing about it yet. I do believe that that wire to you at
Crawfordsville has got him sidetracked."
Conniston called the Lark to him.
"I am going to put two hundred more men to work right here and right
now," he said, swiftly. "You get double salary to act as general
foreman over the two hundred and fifty. Divide your old gang of fifty
into five parts, ten each. Break up the new gang of two hundred into
five sections, forty men to a section. Then put ten of our old men to
work with each section of forty, making, when that is done, five
gangs, fifty men to the gang. Understand?"
The Lark nodded, his eyes bright.
"Then pick out from your old gang the five best men you have. No
favoritism--understand me? The five best men! You know them better
than I do. I want them to do the sort of thing you have been doing,
each of them to act as section boss, under you, over fifty men. Send
them to me. And get a move on!"
The Lark shot away, losing no time in question or answer. A moment
later five big, strapping fellows stood before Conniston, eying him
curiously.
"You fellows," Conniston told them, bluntly, "are to act as section
bosses. You are to get the wages the Lark here has been getting. You
are to get the same money I offered him for every day between the
first of October and the day we get water into the Valley. You are to
take orders from him and no questions asked. You can hold your jobs
just as long as you do the work. If you can't do the work you'll get
fired and another man put in your place. Come along with me. And you,"
to the Lark, "come too."
He swung off toward the wagons, the five men and Jimmie Kent following
him. At the first wagon he called to the men to "climb out." As they
clambered down the men in the other wagons got to the ground and came
forward.
"I want forty men," Conniston called. "Walk by me single file so I can
count."
When the fortieth had passed him he raised his hand.
"You," he said to the one of the new foremen nearest him, "take these
forty men, add ten of the old section to them, and go to work on the
dam. Wait a minute. Have you boys had any breakfast?"
They had not.
"Go to the cook, then," he ordered. "Tell him to give you the best he
can sling out at quick notice. Tell him that there will be one hundred
and sixty more to feed. I'll send for more grub right away."
The men passed on to the cook's tent, and one after another Conniston
counted off the other sections of forty and sent them to be fed.
"The rest of you," he called to the three hundred men who had watched
their fellows move away, "go to the Valley. You can loaf until we
scare up something to eat for you and until the horses rest a bit.
I'll send right away to Crawfordsville--"
"Mr. Conniston," interrupted Jimmie Kent, "in those two wagons back
there is a lot of grub. And tools," he added. "Mr. Crawford had me
pick them up in Littleton."