George C. Shedd

“ Bryant's eyes blazed suddenly.
"Great God, you talk as if she were to marry the canal!" he exclaimed. He glowered for a time. "I see now what you mean. You believe she would marry me if I win out with the ditch. Being practical, she would accept money as a substitute for love. That reminds me: she herself once declared that if circumstances necessitated she could take a rich man for his riches." Bryant uttered a harsh laugh. "My Lord, I was frightened lest in a fit of anguish at losing my love she should go to the devil!" Again he yielded to an outburst of laughter that made Imogene shudder. ”

“ Yes, the fight was on. The fight to secure and keep horses, to get and hold workmen, to feed and use them both mercilessly, to press them ahead like a shaft of steel, to drive them forward under lash, mile by mile, rod by rod, foot by foot, forcing a channel through the resistant earth and across the mesa—a fight to outwit frost, to outstrip time, to outreach and overcome the impossible.
Bryant himself was everywhere, now at the dam, now with the carpenters, now at Perro Creek. Morgan, in charge of the north camp, succumbed to Bryant's own restless energy and matched it. ”

“ There the cooks were peeling potatoes and mixing great pans of biscuit dough and exchanging jests, while here in the shack a fight was going on for a life.
Bryant saw again that unshaven, heavy-faced workman, with the terribly mangled arm, whom he had brought hither. Poor devil! Some oversight, some carelessness, some mistake on the part of himself or another; and if not a dead man, then one-armed for the rest of his days. He, Bryant, could not consider these accidents with Pat Carrigan's philosophic calm—a calm acquired from decades of camp tragedies and disasters. ”

“ To-day the camps were to hurl themselves at that short remaining strip of earth and tear it out; the furrow so long pressed ahead through the iron ground was to be brought to an end; the enemy, frost, was to be conquered at last. When he thought of the inexorable labour done under heart-breaking conditions, in spite of cold and wind and snow, and with sufferings and deprivations little considered. Bryant felt for the workmen, rough though they were, a strong affection. They had done the bitter work.
"Out goes the chunk to-day," was Pat's greeting that morning. ”

“ A spirit of eagerness, almost of enthusiasm, pervaded the crews that first went forth in the cold to work at the drills. It was the final attack, and they went from their steaming breakfast with jests and laughter that rang back over the snow. Sixteen below zero, and they laughed! Bryant had a sudden conviction that nothing could stop such men—neither weather, nor elements, nor fate itself. They were heroes not to be daunted. They swung the hammer of Thor against the earth and were worthy of an epic. ”

“ Only an insignificant stream of water ran, one day, in the stony creek bed that meandered out upon the mesa, and it appeared under the hot July sun and among the hot stones for all the world like a rivulet of liquid glass. That was all the mesa had to show, only its endless gray sagebrush and the creek bed almost dry—unless one should reckon the three parched cottonwood trees beside the stream, a little way down from the cañon, and the flat-roofed adobe house near by, and the empty corral behind built of aspen poles. ”

“ In a land where men saddle a mount to ride a few hundred yards, the singular coincidence excited their curiosity. They wondered why the fellow walked, as doubtless he was wondering the same thing of them. But as they drew nearer they perceived the pedestrian to be not a man but a woman; and when they met Bryant recognized in her the girl who had sat by Charlie Menocal in his automobile at the ford. ”

“ There's no limit to her selfishness and miserable hypocrisy. Our efforts and consideration haven't restrained her a particle, and she will tread the road she chooses irrespective of our desires or feelings. What fools we've been! You and I, Imogene Martin, aren't going to chase a will-o'-the-wisp any longer. We've wasted enough time on this delusion of saving Ruth Gardner; if she's to be saved, she must save herself—and if she will not do that, then the whole world together is of no avail. ”

“ With hatred in his heart and a wicked glitter in his eyes, Charlie Menocal went down the steps to his automobile, feeling the need of a victim, preferably the engineer. Bryant had insulted him at the ford; he was attempting to rob him and his father; he had insolently threatened the elder Menocal; he stopped at nothing; and now he was intruding here and deceiving Louise with his arrogant pretentions. He came on Dave, standing beside the car and examining the latch of a door. ”

“ Two minutes later Gretzinger's car was gone with a swirl of the headlights as it circled and with a sudden roar of its exhaust. Lee extinguished the light and closed the cabin. To him that little house seemed poignant with tragedy; and he knew, whatever came, his foot would never be set in it again.
He found Imogene sitting beside her sheet-iron stove, wrapped in a quilt and coughing.
"I heard your car come after his; I knew it was you," she greeted him.
Lee regarded her closely.
"You're sick," he said. "You ought to be in bed. ”

“ The crews of the north camp, being fewer, got away first; and thither Bryant plowed through the snow with them to see all made safe. When he returned, Carrigan was just herding the last man and team toward the main camp. Together the contractor and the engineer extinguished the torches, then made their way, carrying a flare with them, toward the glow showing at the edge of the camp, where an oil-soaked bale of hay burned as a guide. At their backs the wind and snow blew with gradually increasing strength. ”

“ The man by the stove glared at the seated contractor during the prolonged period of study as if he hoped his look would consume him.
"How much?" he questioned a second time, impatiently.
Pat looked up at Gretzinger from under his bushy eyebrows with a steely glint showing. The lines of his weather-beaten face had hardened.
"I don't like you," he stated. "I don't like you at all. When I work for people I don't like, it costs them money. I like you less and less all the time. If I go ahead and finish the ditch, I'll be liking you so little that I'll be hating myself. ”

“ The two women he had beheld at a distance had now reached the ford. Their ponies snuffing water immediately dipped into the creek bed and crossed its sandy bottom with quickened steps. Young women the riders were, scarcely more than girls, it seemed to Bryant; wearing divided khaki skirts and white shirt waists and wide-brimmed straw hats tied with thongs under their chins. In this region where white men were none too numerous, and women of their own kind scarcer yet, and girls scarcest of all, the presence here of the pair aroused in the young fellow a lively interest. ”

“ With her, it seemed, he was in a worse predicament than he had been when faced with the problem of his ditch; for that he had found an answer, found something to take hold of. But she was not like the mesa, to be mastered by sheer will and incessant labour. Character is intangible, and he found himself balked. One cannot lay hands on the desires in a heart and pluck them out, or on the spirit and twist it straight.
His bitterness became acute when some time later Charlie Menocal came driving with Ruth along the rutted trail by the canal to where he stood inspecting a new drop. ”

“ They made the rounds of the horse tents packed with animals, the mess tents packed with workmen—with those men only come and those newly aroused from sleep and gathered here—of the shacks, the hospital, the engineers' headquarters and the big commissary tent, all crowded with white men and Mexicans, steaming with moisture, smoking cigarettes and pipes, giving off a rank smell of clay and human bodies and wet clothes and horses, who talked and laughed and waited restlessly. ”

“ But about eleven o'clock Bryant felt a cool puff of air on his cheeks, light and of brief duration. It was followed by a second, this time quicker and stronger, blowing from the northwest and sending the snow a-scurry in a slanting fog of flakes past the flames of the torches. He studied this change for a moment, then sought out Carrigan.
"Time to make a break for cover," he announced. "Wind is coming and the devil will be to pay when once it picks up all this loose snow." ”

“ Each morning the engineer and the contractor marked with care the fall of the thermometer during the night, examined the frost upon the grass and tested its depth in the soil. They watched the barometer like hawks. They observed every cloud along the Ventisquero Range. They studied the wind, the sun, the sky. But the weather held fair. So calm was the air that at times sounds of the dynamite blasts at the granite outshoot, where a pair of miners were clearing a path for the canal, came travelling down to Perro Creek.
"The Lord surely has his arms around us," said Pat, one morning. ”

“ It's Charlie Menocal I've more in mind. He talks openly against my project; he calls me a thief and a ruffian; he's an avowed enemy. Yet you run around with him as if that were of no importance, as if it made no difference. The scoundrel no doubt counts it a brilliant bit of smartness to carry about in his car the fiancée of the man he hates, and brags of it. It reflects on us both, Ruth. ”

“ Imogene gave him a strange look.
"She is waiting," said she.
"For marriage?"
"No, to see how you succeed. Oh, to have to say these things is dreadful, Lee!" she exclaimed. But Bryant brushed this aside with a gesture almost august in its indifference. "If you finish your project on time, she will be ready for the ceremony," the girl went on. "If you fail, she'll postpone it until you're able to provide more than just a roof, a chair, and a broom. Her very words! Love must not prevent people from being practical, from her viewpoint. ”

“ Some cynic has said the only mistake in life a man can make is "to go broke." Bryant did not realize until afterward the irony lurking in the penumbra of the talk with Menocal. He was broke, unable to proceed, even while he listened to the banker's commendation. The workmen were busy, it was true, and the horses were pulling loaded fresnos, and plows were cutting the trench deeper; but that was an expiring motion, a last falling gesture. Only a few wretched dollars lay at the bottom of the money chest. ”

“ You either jump without first looking, or you wait until it's too late. You don't pay attention strictly to what's immediately under your hand, but waste your energy wondering if you can't get rich from something out of your reach. That's what has been the trouble with you in the sheep business, I imagine. Here when I offer you a farm for a ranch that's slipping through your fingers, you at once get greedy. Most of the time you don't know your own mind; you hesitate and speculate and vacillate and worry. Why, you deserve to lose your ranch and your sheep and everything else. ”

“ Charlie said it was impossible. Everyone said it was impossible."
"Everyone except my contractor and me," Lee interjected, smiling a tight smile.
The other nodded. "Except you, yes. And you're showing us that after all it's not impossible. I shall never say again that anything is impossible. If I ever have a big ditch to build, I shall insist, Mr. Bryant, that you take charge. Then I would say, 'I should like to have it built so and so, and by such a time,' and sit down at my desk and think no more of it, knowing it would be built." ”

“ When he kissed her a thrill of passionate desire answered, as when on that fragrant evening in the cañon he first had fiercely pressed her lips. This was happiness—happiness. If it could but last forever!
"And my love is yours, too, Lee," she exclaimed, so earnestly that he felt his heart quiver. "I want to be happy; I want to be loved; I don't want to live a life of just dreary commonplaceness, alone, uncared for, with no outlook, with no prospect of joys. I want the most there is in happiness—every girl wants that ”

“ We all have enough to contend with, as it is. I don't propose to ruin your position here, and end your influence, and blast your life, by sending your son to the penitentiary. That would make me no happier, and would make a number of people infinitely wretched, while perhaps starting Charlie on the road to hell. Very likely so. I much prefer to see everyone cheerful and at work. Suppose we ship this fellow yonder back to Mexico—Winship can arrange that—and destroy the checks, and tear up this sheet of Charlie's record, so to speak. ”

“ 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 Mexican ex-bandit jingled some dollars in his trousers' pockets.
"I have enough to eat and drink," said he. "If the paper is good, if you will give me gold for it, then I will wait until I return. As you say, it's not so heavy to carry."
"Bring it to me when you return. Mr. Menocal is very wealthy, very rich. He has much land and many sheep. Besides, he owns a bank full of gold and silver. The paper is good."
Alvarez was impressed. He stood in thought.
"Those sheep and that bank full of money! In Mexico we would form a company of revolutionists and help ourselves," he said. ”

“ Bryant had alighted and was arranging the blankets about Imogene. Charlie's voice spoke, rather truculently:
"I told you I was coming for you, didn't I? Now see what a position that leaves me in! People think you're coming. I promised to bring you."
"Then you were too presumptuous," Louise said. "Now go. You're only making a bad matter worse."
"See here, Louise——"
"You had my refusal and I've repeated it a dozen times," she interrupted, indignantly. "Must I shut the door in your face to silence you? And here's another car. Have some regard for my personal feelings, sir." ”

“ Nothing stirred on its one long street, lined with scarcely a break on either side by mud-plastered houses that made a continuous brown wall, marked at intervals by a door or pierced by a window; nothing stirred, neither in front of Menocal's large frame store at the upper end of it, with the little bank adjoining, nor before the small courthouse grounds across the way, where the huge old cottonwoods spread their shade, nor along the entire length of the beaten street down to Gomez's blacksmith shop and Martinez's saloon across from each other at the lower end ”

“ Menocal senior is a gentleman, and a friend. Now I hope you'll not think me too talkative, but an explanation was necessary; and as far as Charlie Menocal is concerned, I'd be pleased if I never saw his face again. To knock your young friend over so heartlessly! You treated him with altogether too much leniency, Mr. Bryant."
"I never do my fighting in the presence of ladies," Lee remarked, with a grin. "In fact, I try to confine my combats to those of wits." ”

“ Going constantly with Gretzinger, who's so despicable that he tries to use her as a tool to reach and corrupt you, or Charlie Menocal, who's your out-and-out enemy, it's too much for me, Lee. And uncle and aunt are furious with me for staying. She listen to me? Ruth listens neither to me nor any one." She rose and came close to Bryant. "You're right to marry her immediately. If you two love each other, that is." ”

“ Pat at last threw away the cigar that refused to draw.
"With men and teams enough I could build a ditch to tide-water in that time," said he, with sudden energy. "Men and scrapers, scrapers and men—that's all. You can rip the insides out of any dirt job on earth if you have the crews. Of course, it takes money, big wages, to get and hold them."
"Money! What do I care for that if we build the canal? How much more will it take? How much will you need?" ”

“ One fear alone lurked in his heart, that some young American might come along who would win her interest; and earlier in the summer he had a decided uneasiness lest Bryant prove to be the man. The scoundrelly engineer, however, had fallen head over heels in love with Ruth Gardner, so that Charlie's mind was relieved on that point. To his knowledge, Louise and Bryant had never met—which was as it should be. ”

“ She would presently see the real values of things; Charlie Menocal's monkey tricks would no longer amuse her, and she would perceive what a shallow harlequin he was, while she would comprehend Gretzinger's vicious, unprincipled sophistry and turn in disgust from the man. She was inexperienced, that was all.
"It will be good to be back once more where one has plenty of room," Louise Graham remarked. "In that liking, you see, I'm a genuine Westerner. That's what I missed most when at school in the East, at Bryn Mawr—space. I wanted my big mountains and wide mesa and long, restful views. ”