Never had Conniston known a busier forenoon, never a happier. The
fatigue, the despondency, the utter hopelessness of the early morning
was swept away. He felt a new life course through his veins, there
came a fresh elasticity to his stride, his voice rang with confidence.
For he was as a leader of a lost hope within the walls of a
beleaguered city to whom, when all hope was gone, reinforcements had
come.
He felt that now nothing could tire him in body or in mind, nothing
drive from his heart his glorious conviction of success to come.
And yet he had no faintest idea how busy the day was to be. When two
hours had passed and the wagons carrying three hundred men had started
for the Valley, Conniston had the two hundred and fifty men at Deep
Creek working with a swiftness, an effectiveness which would have told
a chance observer that they had been familiar many days with the work.
He was to leave them before noon, to hurry on horseback to overtake
the wagons that he might personally oversee the arrangements to be
made upon their coming into the Valley. And there was much to be done,
many specific orders to give the Lark, before he dared leave.
Upon the dam itself he put a hundred men to work. The remaining
hundred and fifty he set to building the great flume which was to
carry the stored water for five hundred yards along the ridge, then
into the cut in the crest of the ridge and into Dam Number Two. He saw
that he must have more horses, more plows and scrapers. But for the
present he could do without them. There was blasting to be done upon
the rugged wall of the cañon, there were tall pines bunched in groves,
many of which must come down before the flume could be completed or
the ditch made. And men with axes and crowbars and giant powder were
set to their tasks.
Everywhere he went the Lark dogged his heels, listening intently to
the orders which his superior gave him.
"The main thing," Conniston told him, when he had outlined the work as
well as he could, "is to keep your men working! Don't lose any time.
I'll be back as soon as I can make it, some time to-morrow, and if you
don't know how to handle anything that comes up put your men on
something else. The dam has got to be made, the flume has got to be
built, the cut has to be dug, a lot of trees and boulders have to come
out. You will have enough to keep you busy."
"Do you know, Mr. Conniston," Jimmie Kent told him, as they sat down
together for a bite of lunch, "I've got a hunch. A rare, golden
hunch!"
Conniston laughed--he was in the mood to laugh at anything now--and
asked what the rare "hunch" was.
"Just this: there's going to be some fun pulled off in this very same
neck of the woods before the first of October! And, by Harry, I'd like
to see it! Have you any objection to my sort of roosting around and
keeping my bright eye on the game? Oh, I don't want a salary; I'll pay
for my grub, and you can have my valuable advice gratis. Can I stick
around?"
When Conniston told him that he should be glad to have him stay, and
as his and the company's guest, Jimmie Kent beamed.
"That's bully of you! If you don't mind, and we can scare up a horse
for me, I'd like to ride into Valley City with you? I can send a wire
from there to my firm asking for an indefinite vacation. Oh, they'll
grant it, all right. They want a man like me in their business."
It was after one o'clock, work was in progress, and Conniston and
Jimmie Kent swung into their saddles and started for Valley City.
Before they had ridden a mile down the mountainous road Conniston
heard Kent whistle softly, and ahead of them, coming to meet them, saw
a light pole buggy swiftly approaching. A moment later and the man
driving had stopped his horses and was looking with small, shrewd eyes
into Conniston's.
He was a short man, round of face, round of eyes, round of stomach.
Very fair, very bland, very red under the flaming sun, the sweat
trickling down his face and upon the crumpled white of his
shirt-bosom. His eyes were mildly surprised as they rested upon Kent.
They were only smiling as they returned to Conniston.
"I was looking for Mr. Conniston, the superintendent," he said, in a
soft, fat voice. "Can you direct me--"
"I am Conniston. And I am in a very big hurry. What can I do for you?"
The man in the buggy swelled pompously.
"I am Oliver Swinnerton," he said, with dignity. And then suffering
what he might have been pleased to consider austerity to melt under a
soft, fat smile, "Glad to know you, Conniston. Shake!"
He put out a soft, fat hand. Conniston stared at him in amazement.
"Swinnerton!" he cried, sharply. "Oliver Swinnerton! And what in the
world do you want with me?"
When it was obvious that Conniston was not going to lean forward in
the saddle to take his hand Mr. Swinnerton withdrew it to mop his
moist forehead.
"Oliver Swinnerton," he repeated, nodding pleasantly. "And I wanted to
talk with you about"--his left eyelid, red and puffy, drooped, and his
right eye squinted craftily--"about reclamation."
"I can't imagine what common interests you and I have in reclamation.
And I am in a hurry."
Oliver Swinnerton chuckled as at a rare jest.
"How do, Kent?" was what he said, having seen Jimmie Kent, it would
seem, for the first time. "And what might you be doing in this part of
the country?"
Jimmie Kent's voice was as pleasant as Swinnerton's had been.
"Maybe you remember how you did me up in the matter of the Bolton town
lots, Mr. Swinnerton? Well, I am just sticking around for the fun of
seeing some one do you up."
Mr. Swinnerton's chuckle was softer, oilier than before. He smiled
upon Kent as though the sandy-haired man were in truth the apple of
his eye.
"Always up to your little repartee, ain't you, Jimmie? Well, well! And
now, Mr. Conniston--Jimmie, you'll pardon us?--may I have a word in
private with you?"
"No," Conniston flared out, "you may not! I don't know you, Mr.
Swinnerton, and I don't want to."
Only a something akin to the hurt surprise of a child in voice and
look alike as Swinnerton queried softly:
"No? Pray, why not? What have I done, Mr. Conniston?"
"You have proven yourself a scoundrel!" burst out Conniston, angrily.
"A fair fight in the open is one thing. Such cowardly means as you
take to gain your ends is another. And if you will turn your horses
and drive back off of Crawford territory I'll be glad to see the back
of you."
For a moment Swinnerton stared at him in stupefaction. And then he
broke into a delighted giggle which drove the tears into his eyes.
Jimmie Kent looked from one to the other, and then, whistling softly
to himself and saying no word, rode on down the road.
"I don't know what you are gurgling about," Conniston said, shortly.
"But if you will follow Mr. Kent and get off and stay off this land I
shall be much obliged to you."
Mr. Swinnerton wiped the tears from his eyes and gasped from the
depths of his mirth:
"You'll do, Conniston! He, he! Oh, you'll certainly do!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," snapped Conniston. "But I
tell you what I will do if you don't get out of here. I'll just
naturally pitch you out!"
"I'd never have guessed it," chuckled Swinnerton. "Never in the world.
I'd never even have thought of such a thing. Conniston, it's the
bulliest scheme I ever heard of! How you managed it so easily--"
"Managed what?" Conniston's curiosity, in spite of him, had for the
moment the upper hand of his anger. "What do you mean?"
"Close-lipped, eh? Close-lipped to the end! That's business--mighty
good business, too. Oh, you'll do."
"Are you going to tell me what you mean? I tell you I haven't any time
to waste, and I want to see your back, and see it moving, too. If you
have anything to say, say it quick."
"That's the stuff, Conniston. Close-lipped to the end. But," and with
a glance over his shoulder at Jimmie Kent, now out of hearing, and
leaning a pudgy arm upon a pudgy knee as he smiled confidentially into
Conniston's frowning face, "ain't it pretty close to the end now?"
"I give you my word, Swinnerton, that if you can't tell me straight
out what you are driving at, off of this land you go."
The stern assurance of Conniston's tone seemed to surprise Swinnerton.
"Come, come," he said, rather sharply. "What's the use of this
shenanigan? Can't I see through clear window-glass? Am I a fool? Oh, I
didn't guess, I didn't know that such a man as you were alive; I
didn't so much as know your name until yesterday. But--know a man
named Hapgood?" And his eyes twinkled again.
"Yes," bluntly. "What about him?"
"Oh, nothing much. Only he told me about you. And now what he didn't
guess I know, Mr. William Conniston, Junior."
"And, pray, what might that be?"
"Want me to tell you, eh? Want to be sure that I know, do you? Want to
see if Oliver Swinnerton is a fool, blind in both eyes? All right."
His voice dropped yet lower, and he blinked with cunning eyes as he
finished. "You are up to the same game I am! You are going to slip the
knife into John Crawford clean up to the hilt. You are going to make a
bluff at getting work done until the last minute, and then you are
going to have nothing done. You are going to throw him into my hands
like I would throw a sick pup into a ditch."
"Am I?" asked Conniston, coolly, mastering the sudden desire to take
this little fat man into his two hands and choke him. "You know a
great deal about what I intend to do, Mr. Swinnerton. And now, if you
are not through talking your infernal nonsense, I am through listening
to it. There is room to turn right here. Understand?"
"But--" began Swinnerton, only to be cut short with:
"There are no buts about it!"
He stooped, seized the bit of one of Swinnerton's horses, and jerked
it about into the road.
"Get out!"
"I tell you," yelled Swinnerton, "Conniston or no Conniston, you can't
bluff me. Do you hear?"
Conniston made no reply as he jerked the horses farther around. When
their heads were turned toward the way which Swinnerton had come he
lifted his quirt high above his head. Oliver Swinnerton went suddenly
white and raised his arm to protect his face. But only Conniston's
laugh stung him as the quirt fell heavily across the horses' backs.
The buggy lurched, the horses leaped forward; Oliver Swinnerton's
surprised torrent of curses was lost in the rattle of wheels, his red
face obscured in the swirling dust.
"I wonder what he was driving at?" muttered Conniston as he watched
the horses race down the road.
Jimmie Kent, reining his horse aside as Swinnerton swept by him,
smiled and called, pleasantly:
"Good-by, Oliver. Seem to be in a hurry!"