"Who was it?"
It was Mr. Crawford's voice, calm, expressionless. Conniston and Argyl
swung about, the horror of the thing which they had seen still
widening their eyes, and saw Mr. Crawford, Jimmie Kent, and a man whom
Conniston took to be Colton Gray.
"Hapgood," he answered, his eyes going back to the tumult of water
sweeping away the hopes of many men.
Mr. Crawford stepped forward and put his hand on Conniston's arm.
"We lose, my boy." His voice was as steady as it had been before, but
Conniston saw that his lips quivered despite the iron will set to keep
them steady. "And it could not be helped. And Conniston, my boy, my
son," his tones ringing out so that all there could hear, "I am proud
of you, and proud that I may call you my son!"
"Greek! Poor Greek!" Argyl was clinging to him, everything lost to her
but a great pity for him. "Is it to be only defeat, after all?"
"Defeat!"
He whirled about, his clenched fist raised high above his head, his
body rigid, his haggard face dead white. "Defeat!" He laughed, and
Argyl shivered at the strange tone in his laughter. "Defeat!" he cried
a third time. "We have five days!"
He was upon a boulder, standing where all men might see him, might
hear him. And his voice as it rang out through the roar of the leaping
water was sharp, clear, decisive, confident.
"Here you, Lark! Rush fifty men with crowbars to the Jaws! Make the
rest of your men hitch up to their plows and scrapers and rush them to
the Jaws as fast as their horses can run! Send me five good men.
Pete," as Lonesome Pete's red head surged forward through the crowd of
working-men, "come here!"
Pete came, and came running.
"Get on your horse. Kill him getting to Miss Argyl's Dam. Open the
gates there and turn the water into the canal. And for God's sake
hurry!"
And Lonesome Pete, with one wild yell of understanding, fled. The Lark
had swung about, calling upon his men by name, and as he called fifty
big, quick-eyed men leaped forward to fall quickly into the sections
bossed by the men whose names the Lark was shouting. The dirt and
stones had not ceased rolling and rattling down the rocky walls of the
cañon when fifty men with picks and crowbars were rushing along its
banks to the Jaws. And as Greek Conniston hurled his orders at the
Lark and the Lark snatched them up, shouting to the men about him,
horses were hitched to plows and scrapers and driven, galloping, to
the Jaws.
The five men for whom Conniston had called and whom the Lark had
selected came to him quickly.
"Get into Mr. Crawford's buckboard," he called, sharply, to two of
them. "Drive to Dam Number Two and open the gates there, turning every
bit of water you can into the canal! You three men get saddle-horses.
You," to one of them, "rush to Crawfordsville and telephone to Tommy
Garton. Tell him what has happened. Tell him to send me two hundred
men on the run. _On the run_, do you hear? Tell him to tie Bill
Wallace up and put two men to watch out for him. Now go! And you two
fellows get your horses saddled and bring them here and wait for
orders."
He got down from the boulder, and as he did so Mr. Crawford came to
his side.
"Do you mean, Greek," he said, anxiously, "that there is a chance
yet?"
"A chance? Yes! There is more than a chance! We are going to make a go
of it. Listen: Truxton put in his foundations here, and I went ahead
with the superstructure for the simple reason that here is a perfect
dam-site, here are solid rock walls and creek-bed that would hold any
concrete structure in the world. And up there at the Jaws you have to
contend with shale, full of seams, in places lined with clay. And
right there I am going to make a rock-filled dam, and make it fast!
It's going to be a temporary job and a makeshift, but it's going to
sling the water into a flume that will carry it back into the old cut
and down into the Valley. And it will do until Mr. Colton Gray and his
people are satisfied."
The man who had accompanied Mr. Crawford and Jimmie Kent from
Crawfordsville came forward and put out his hand.
"Mr. Conniston," he said, quickly, "I am Colton Gray. And I am already
satisfied. If my influence is worth anything the P. C. & W. is going
to stand by its old contract. And I believe that when I tell the P. C.
& W. what I know they will complete what you have done and inform Mr.
Oliver Swinnerton that they can have no further dealings whatever
with a criminal of his type."
Conniston shook hands with him warmly.
"Thank you. But you are going to have no points to strain. We are
going to have water, plenty of water, in Rattlesnake Valley before the
first day of October."
Conniston left them and ran to join his men at the Jaws. Never had he
heard of a dam to match the one he saw growing under his eyes. There
was no time for scientific perfection of work; here and now was only a
crying need for an obstruction, any kind of an obstruction which would
withstand the great and growing pressure of water, which would drive
it up to the banks, which would turn it into the flume which was being
made for it even as the dam grew. Trees were lopped down, great, tall
pines, their branches shorn off with flashing ax-blades, the trunks
cut into logs upon which many men laid hold.
In the bed of the creek between the Jaws the logs were laid as one
lays logs to build him a log house. Sand and gravel and rock went
rattling and hissing into the log-surrounded spaces, piled high and
higher, with the water backing angrily up against it. Boulders were
rolled down from the mountain-side, hurled into the bottom of the
cañon by blasts of giant powder and dynamite, gripped with rapidly
adjusted log-chains, and dragged to their places by straining horses.
Steadily the dam rose, and steadily the muddy water crept up with it.
Men toiled in the bed of the stream with the foaming, coffee-colored
water washing about their hips, seething as it climbed up to their
great, hairy, panting chests. With no thought of finishing the
breakfast which they had barely begun, they worked upon the banks
with sweaty, hot bodies and calm, cool minds. Stripped to their
waists, almost naked many of them, black with dirt and running sweat,
they strained and strove against the rising stream. The morning died,
noon came, and Conniston had a dozen men distribute sandwiches and hot
coffee. The afternoon wore on and brought with it the men whom Tommy
Garton had sent.
Then Conniston called to every man of the hundred who had toiled for
him since sunrise to drop his tools. In their places he put a hundred
new men. And again the work went on in great strides, and the strange
dam rose swiftly. The other men whom Garton had sent, Brayley with
them, he put to work to begin the restoration of the broken dam, that
the thing which the hapless Hapgood had torn down might be ready
against the time of need after the first of October. For he could find
no place for more than a hundred men working between the Jaws and upon
the banks above them.
* * * * *
Night had come down upon the mountain-slopes. Argyl and Conniston were
standing by a sinking camp-fire talking quietly. Lonesome Pete,
returned from his errand, had gone into the grove at the edge of which
their fire burned for fresh fuel. There came to them through the
silence the clatter of hoofs; the vague, shadowy form of horse and
rider rose against the sky-line, and Jocelyn Truxton threw herself to
the ground. Moaning hysterically, she ran to Argyl!
"Argyl, Argyl," she cried, stopping abruptly, her two hands pressed to
her breast, "I am so wretched! I don't deserve to live! I have been
so mean, so little--" She broke off into passionate weeping.
Argyl went swiftly to her, putting her arms about the girl's shaking
shoulders.
"Jocelyn, dear," she said, softly. "Don't!"
"I have been wicked, wicked!" Jocelyn was sobbing. "They told me what
has happened--about the dam--about Roger Hapgood!" She broke off,
shuddering.
"But," Argyl was saying, trying to soothe her, "that is not your
fault, Jocelyn."
"Oh!" cried Jocelyn, wildly. "You don't know. It was I, I who
suggested the horrible thing to Roger Hapgood. It is I who am to blame
for everything."
"Hush, child! You have been a naughty little girl, that is all. You
didn't know what it was that you were doing--and you are not a bit to
blame!"
"And--and--and I have been such a little fool! I have just been a
vain, conceited little fool. And I hated you--because I knew all the
time that you were prettier than I am. And--and I was ashamed of Pete,
and I made fun of him--and now he has gone away and--and I love him. I
don't care if he has got red hair and can't read! I love him--so
there!"
Lonesome Pete, coming back with his armful of firewood, dropped it,
and for a moment stood staring from one to another, his mouth wide
open. And then, forgetful of Conniston, pushing Argyl away as he came
forward, he took Jocelyn's quivering form into his arms and drew her
close to him.
"Miss Jocelyn," he cried, suddenly, "I ain't goin' away! Don't you
think it. An' you ain't to blame for nothin' whatever! You're jest a
little girl as has made a slip or two--who in hell ain't, huh?"--with
belligerent, flashing eyes--"an' I'll dye my hair any color you say as
you like better 'n red!"
* * * * *
"I am going East to-morrow, Mr. Conniston." Jimmie Kent was speaking,
his eyes very keen. "Before I go I'd like to make you a proposition.
First, do you know what firm it is I represent? Maybe you have heard
of the W. I. R.? That means the Western Improvement and Reclamation
Company. The board of directors met the other day in Denver, and
against his protest made Mr. Crawford its first vice-president. The
company plans on the reclamation of many thousands of square miles of
sand and sage-brush in Colorado and Nevada. The company wants a
competent engineer to act as general superintendent of all of its
operations. Do you want the job? Who am I to offer it to you?" He
laughed softly. "Oh, I'm just its president."
* * * * *
Filled to bursting with hopeful toil, the days ran by. Again it was
night, the night before the first day of October. With the desert
about them, with the stars low flung in the wide arch of heaven, Argyl
and Greek Conniston stood at the edge of a deep canal which ran with
water to its level banks. And as they spoke to each other, looking
down into the future which belongs to them, contented, confident,
eager for the coming of the Great Day, a boy rode up to them upon a
shaggy pony and called:
"Mr. Conniston?"
"Yes," Greek answered. "What is it?"
It was a telegram. He read it by the light of the match he had swept
across his thigh. Argyl, bending forward, read it with him. It was
from New York.
"Mr. WILLIAM CONNISTON, Jr.,
"Superintendent Crawford Reclamation,
"Rattlesnake Valley.
"Good boy! Congratulations. They tell me you win.
"WM. CONNISTON, Sr."
Conniston, the bit of yellow paper crumpled between his fingers,
turned to Argyl.
"In the only thing which counts--to the uttermost--do I win, Argyl
dear?"
And Argyl, lifting her eyes to him frankly, proudly, held out her
hands.
THE END