Harold Bell Wright

“ Jefferson Worth spoke in his exact way. "Even if he is not here this is all the Seer's work."
And just then from a distance up the old wash came the weird, unnatural cry of a coyote. It was as though the spirit of the desert spoke in answer to the banker's words.
"Yell, ye sneaking thievin' imp. Yer time in this counthry is about up!" exclaimed the Irishman with a growl of deep satisfaction. And again out of the shadow the soft, plaintively sweet music of Pablo's guitar floated away on the still darkness of the night. ”

“ But Jefferson Worth knew that Barbara was not his. She shrank from him as instinctively and unconsciously as she had drawn back that night of her mother's death when he knelt before her in the desert. As she had turned to the Seer then, she turned from the banker now. And now, far more than then, his lonely heart hungered for her; for with the years his need of her had grown. Envied of foolish men as men so foolishly envy his class, the banker knew himself to be destitute, an object of their pity. ”

“ While the woman whom Willard Holmes loved fought for strength to hide her pain, James Greenfield, in the other room, was leaning eagerly toward the engineer. "She has refused you?"
"I have not asked her. But don't misunderstand me. What you have told me—what my friends at home might think or do—could make no difference. Barbara Worth is worthy any man's love; and I love her and would make her my wife. I would give up even you for her, Uncle Jim. It's not that. It's because I know that she loves someone else too well to listen to me." ”

“ It was natural that he should make comparisons—that he should see men and things in the light of the only men and things he had ever known. Abe Lee he measured by the standing of his own school-trained engineering friends, demanding that the desert-born and desert-trained surveyor exhibit all the hall-marks of Boston. He might as consistently have demanded that the flood of sunlight that fell in such blinding glory upon the new world before him should shine as through the smoke-grimed city atmosphere of New York. ”

“ Which would you rather, my boy, have Black right and Abe wrong—the Company to win; or have Black wrong and Abe right—and Jefferson Worth free to go on with his little experiment?"
"Speak for yourself," growled Holmes.
"I will," returned Burk. "I have been a good mule, so my conscience is clear. If I knew how and thought it would do any good I would pray that Abe Lee made no mistake."
"Well, I won't believe that it's Black's mistake. He comes from too good a school," Holmes replied stubbornly.
"And your confidence in your man is no doubt equaled by Worth's confidence in his. ”

“ But the Desert waited, silent and hot and fierce in its desolation, holding its treasures under the seal of death against the coming of the strong ones; waited until the man-making forces that wrought through those long ages should have done also their work; waited for this age—for your age and mine—for the age of the Seer and his companions—for the days of my story, the days of Barbara and her friends.
The Seer's expedition, returning from the south, made camp on the bank of the Rio Colorado twenty miles below Rubio City. ”

“ They knew that some day that other, mightier company, the main army, would move along the way they had marked to meet the strength of the barren waste with the strength of the great river and take for the race the wealth of the land. The sound of human voices was flat and ineffectual in that age-old solitude, but the speakers knew that following their feeble voices would come the shouting, ringing, thundering chorus of the life that was to follow them into that silent land of death. ”

“ All along the western sky and far to the southward, the wall-like mountains lifted their purple heights from the dun plain, a seemingly impassable barrier, shutting in the land of death; shutting out the life that came to their feet on the other side. To the north the hills that rim the Basin caught the slanting rays of the setting sun and glowed rose-color, and pink, and salmon, with deep purple shadows where canyons opened, all rising out of drifts of silvery light. To the northwest two distant, gleaming, snow-capped peaks of the Coast Range marked San Antonio Pass. ”

“ Then the surveyor turned his gaze again upon the Navajo rug.
"I know you are tired," said the young woman again. "You have so much to think about with all those men to look after and daddy away. Come now; you sit right over here in this easy chair and shut your eyes and smoke and forget all about the work and everything, while I make a little music for you."
Barbara did not realize how she tried this man of the desert with a glimpse of a heaven that Abe knew could never be for him. ”

“ In the full glare of the light against the blackness of the night, the crowd of dusky-faced, picturesque laborers hesitated. Standing on the platform under the arc that sputtered and sizzled—his back to the building—the single figure of Texas Joe was ready with menacing weapons. Behind the brick walls the handful of armed white men were waiting—watching. Miles away in the desert, Abe Lee was lying wounded and alone under the still stars, and somewhere in the night Willard Holmes, desperately holding his seat in the saddle, was forcing his already exhausted horse toward the end of his mission. ”

“ Ancestors are to be counted as a valuable asset, but not as working capital."
As she spoke she turned toward him again with that steady look, and the man felt the strange, mysterious power of her personality, the challenging lure of her young womanhood—that and more. What was it back of those steady eyes that called to him, inspired him, that almost frightened him; that made him feel as Barbara herself felt in the presence of the Desert.
There was no trace of cynicism in his voice now, nor any hint of a sneer on his face, as Willard Holmes straightened unconsciously in his saddle. ”

“ On either hand as she rode, stretching away until all fixed lines and objects were lost in the shifting mirage and many-colored lights of the desert, the dun plain with its thin growth of thirsty vegetation was broken by the green cultivated fields, newly leveled acres, buildings and stacks of the ranches, with canals, ditches and ponds filled with water that reflected the colors of the morning. Everywhere, in what had been a land of death, life was stirring. In one field beside the road a herd of soft-eyed cattle, knee-deep in rich alfalfa, lifted their heads to greet her. ”

“ At last Barbara said softly: "Daddy, I am not going back to Kingston to-morrow. I am going to stay here with you. You can have another tent house built and Texas can go for Ynez who will bring what things I need. I am going to make a home for you. You need me, daddy. You are so alone in your work; no one understands you as I do now. Let me come and help you."
Awkwardly Jefferson Worth put out his hand and drawing his daughter closer said in a tone that Barbara had never heard before: "I was wishing that you would want to stay. You—you are not afraid of me now, Barbara?" ”

“ Running into the house she returned a few minutes later in her riding dress and, mounting with—"I'll be back for dinner, daddy," and "Adios, Pablo!"—rode away toward the open country, while the Mexican and the banker watched her out of sight.
By the time they had passed the last of the tent houses in the town Barbara and El Capitan were friends. There is no doubt whatever that a worthy horse appreciates a worthy rider and the girl, accustomed to riding since childhood, certainly appreciated her mount.
"Oh, you beauty!" she cried, leaning forward in the saddle to pat the shining neck. ”

“ James Greenfield was a fair representative of his class. His full, well-colored face with carefully clipped gray mustache, bright blue eyes and gray hair, was the calmly alert, well-controlled, thoughtful face of power: not the face of one who does things, but of one who causes things to be done; not the face of one who is himself powerful, but of one who controls and directs power; such a face as you may see leaning from the cab of a great locomotive that pulls the overland limited, or looking down at you from the bridge of the ocean liner. ”

“ Every evening the squads returned, desert-stained and weary, to their rest under the lonesome stars. Every morning the sun broke fiercely up from the long level of the eastward plain to pour its hot strength down upon these pigmy creatures, who dared to invade the territory over which he had, for so many ages, held undisputed dominion. Every evening the sun plunged fiercely down behind the purple wall of mountains that shut in the Basin on the west, as if to gather strength in some nether world for to-morrow's fight. ”

“ Isn't it splendid to think that in two or three hundred years, when the West has been civilized and the Desert reclaimed as your pioneer forefathers civilized and reclaimed the East, when wealth and culture have come, a man's social standing will be determined by his relation to us and people will be proud of what we are doing? After all, Mr. Holmes, the only difference between the East and the West seems to be that you have ancestors and that we are going to be ancestors. ”

“ This awful, awful land would never yield to the men who sought to subdue it with such feeble means. From the little stream of water, no deeper than would reach to El Capitan's knees and no wider than his stride, she looked away and around over the seemingly endless miles of barren waste.
The man at the delivery gate recorded the number of inches in his book and, with a greeting to the young woman, mounted his horse and rode away along the canal. Barbara, moving on, left the farms behind and rode into the barren waste. ”

“ Self to Jefferson Worth meant little; his nature demanded so little. Nor could Mrs. Worth in this fill the need in her husband's life, for her nature was as simple as his own. But a child, whose life could be part of his life, filling out, supplementing and complementing his own nature; a child who, dependent upon him, should have all the training that he lacked, who should share his success and for whom he could plan to succeed—a child, an heir, would fill the blank in his empty career. ”

“ When others—their tempers tried to the breaking point—cursed with dry, high-pitched, querulous curses the heat, the land, the sun, the dust, the Company and their fellow-sufferers, Jefferson Worth's cool, even tones and unruffled spirit helped them to a needed self-control and gave them a new and stronger grip on things. And many a baffled, discouraged and well-nigh beaten settler, ready to give up, found in the man whose gray, mask-like face seemed so incapable of expression, fresh inspiration and new courage ”

“ As the day passed and the engineer did not seek his company, while Greenfield's own stubborn pride forbade him to go to Holmes, the older man's heart grew more and more lonely. That evening, when he saw Jefferson Worth and Holmes together in earnest conversation and through all of the following day saw them apparently associated intimately in some plan or enterprise, for the first time personal feeling entered into his consideration of the whole situation. He felt that his business rival had become his rival for the affections of the boy he loved. ”

“ It was a war of terrific forces waged for a great cause by men as brave as any who ever fought with weapons that kill.
The attacking force was the Rio Colorado that with power immeasurable had, through the ages past, carved mile-deep canyons on its course and with its mountains of silt had built the great delta dam across the ancient gulf, thus turning back the waters of the sea that sun and wind might lay bare the floor of the Basin and work the desolation of the desert. ”

“ And so it was that while James Greenfield and his fellow-capitalists of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company were taking their much needed vacations and seeking relaxation and rest from business cares at their seaside and mountain retreats, the desert pioneers were coming more and more to Jefferson Worth for advice and counsel, for strength and courage and help to go on with the work. By fall the financier's position in the life of the new country seemed to be securely won. Perhaps only Jefferson Worth himself, alone behind his gray mask, knew the real value of his apparent victory. ”

“ Perhaps the very one whom you would call false to the work would, in reality, be doing the best thing for the work. I have noticed that, after all, those who have the loftiest ideals and the highest visions of man's duty to man and all that are seldom the ones who accomplish much of the actual work of the world. Look here, honestly now: how many of the people who are reclaiming this desert—I mean all of us—laborers, business men, ranchers, everybody who has come in here to do this work—how many of them do you think see a single thing beyond the dollars they have hoped to make on the venture? ”

“ The man who went through those Mexicans in Devil's Canyon with me is not the kind of a man who gives up the woman he loves for what others think. Wait a little, dear, and you will see that I am right. You have been too quick. Be patient a little and you shall see."
"But Abe, Mr. Greenfield is right. I am a nameless nobody; and he—he is—"
"He is a man and you are a woman, and this is La Palma de la Mano de
Dios where nothing else matters," said Abe Lee almost sternly.
A few minutes later, when Barbara was gone, the surveyor slipped lower on the pillows and wearily turned his face to the wall. ”