Under Handicap Part 21

"Because he had shown the P. C. & W. that the thing could be done on a paying basis, because it _was_ done and did pay, the P. C. & W.

listened to him when he made a second proposition to them. He went straight to Colton Gray, and Colton Gray listened to him. What Gray advises, the P. C. & W. does. In the end, after many interviews and much investigation and discussion, Crawford made Gray see the matter the way he saw it. The P. C. &. W. contracted to begin work on a line from Crawfordsville to Valley City and on across the desert to the main transcontinental railroad at Indian Creek the day that sufficient water to irrigate fifty square miles of land had been brought into this part of the 'valley.' It was agreed by both contracting parties that the water was to be brought to this spot by noon of October first, or all contracts became null and void.

"The day that Gray agreed for the P. C. & W. Mr. Crawford put men to work on the first preliminary survey. He had already the necessary water concessions. He had studied his ground, made his plans with a carefulness which overlooked nothing which a man could foresee, and had every reason to believe, to be positive, that he could have all the water he wanted in the valley a whole month before the first of October.

"And I tell you he could have done it if they had just let him alone!

But they wouldn't. Within thirty days after the first shovelful of earth was turned there was a strong organization perfected to defeat him. Why? In the first place there is a certain bloated toad in our local puddle named Oliver Swinnerton who has his hatchet out on general principles for the Old Man. In the town of Bolton he's the mayor and the chief of police and the board of city fathers and the munic.i.p.al janitor all rolled into one pompous, pot-bellied little body. He's got money and he's got brains. No sooner does word get about of the Old Man's contract with the P. C. & W. than Oliver Swinnerton gets busy. He went straight to Colton Gray, and at first he could do nothing with him. Gray had taken time for his investigations of Mr. Crawford's scheme, had been convinced that it was feasible, and now stood pat. But Swinnerton with his counter-scheme interested a lot of other capital, and through some of the men he got in with him he got the ear of some of the higher-ups on the P. C. & W. He even got his scheme into the private office of the president, and from the president word ran down to Gray. I think even Gray began then to get shaky in the knees. I tell you, Conniston, the Old Man's project is so big that until it is consummated there will always be a doubt in other men's minds whether the thing ever can be done. If it can't, if it proves impracticable to irrigate this country, to build first Valley City and then a string of settlements across the desert, why then of course there would be nothing in it for the P. C. & W. to run a spur across to Indian Creek.

"And Oliver Swinnerton made it his business to show the management of the railroad that the thing was impossible, that it was a mad fool's dream, that when the first day of October came there would be nothing accomplished because there never could be anything accomplished. He scored his point, and then he played his trump card. He showed that the same money which the railroad would have to spend in stringing rails across the sand here could be spent more advantageously in another direction.

"On the other side of Bolton there are gra.s.sy foothills, well watered--a big stretch of country very much like that about Crawfordsville.

Already there are orchards there, considerable small farming, grain-raising and hay. Swinnerton planned to build a town out there in the heart of that fertile country where there are now a number of settlements and to have the P. C. & W. run a seventy-five-mile spur out that way. The management naturally will not stand for the expense of both roads at the same time, since both would be very largely in the nature of experiments. Swinnerton's scheme looked more promising than the Old Man's. Swinnerton got his contract with the railroad. And that contract says that if on the first day of October Mr. Crawford has not made good he will be given not a day's grace, but work will be begun on the other road into Swinnerton's country. Do you see now what I mean by opposition? Do you see what will happen if we don't come up to time on our end of the game? Swinnerton is so confident that he holds the winning hand that he has already founded his town, already sunk a pile of money in it. Somebody is going to go to the wall when the first day of October comes."

"But," demurred Conniston, "Swinnerton and his corporation are doing nothing actively to r.e.t.a.r.d our work--can do nothing. If--"

"He isn't?" snorted Garton. "That's all you know about it! How do we get all of our implements, our supplies, all of our men? They come to us by rail, don't they? And that means they come to us over the P. C.

& W., doesn't it? And the P. C. & W. is scared out of its life, praying every day to its little G.o.ds for Crawford's failure. What happens? We get delayed s.h.i.+pments, we wait for our stuff, and it lies sidetracked somewhere; we get our men stolen from us before they ever get to Bolton, and shunted off to work for the opposition! There are a hundred ways in which Swinnerton and the bigger men in with him can slip their knife into us every day of the week. And they are not missing very many bets, either. Oh, Gray's all right; he's square enough and willing enough to stand by his word. But he can't do everything. It takes time to get matters up to him, and it takes time for him to adjust them. And right now he's in San Francisco attending a railroad conference, and he'll be there fifteen days, I suppose.

What sort of service do you suppose we get in the mean time? You get that idea out of your head that Swinnerton isn't doing anything actively to r.e.t.a.r.d us. He's doing everything he can think of, and I told you at the jump that the man has brains."

As well as a man could understand it without actually going over the ground, Conniston learned that afternoon all that Bat Truxton's a.s.sistant could tell him. He learned, roughly, of course, how much had been done already, what remained to be done first, what could be allowed to wait until more men came to swell the forces now at work, what chief natural difficulties and obstacles lay across the path of the great venture.

Little Tommy Garton's enthusiasm was so keen a thing, so spontaneous, so whole-souled, that long before time came for the noon meal Conniston felt his own blood pounding and clamoring for action.

Swiftly he was granted the first true glimpse which had ever come to him of the real nature of work. Such work as he was now about to engage in was so infused with the elements of hazard, of risk, of uncertainty, of opposition, that it was shot through with a deep, stern fascination. It was not drudgery, and almost until now he had looked upon all work as that. It was a great game, the greatest game in the world. He already began to look forward to to-morrow, when he was to leave the office and go out upon the field of action with Bat Truxton with an eagerness such as he had felt in the old college days on the eve of the big Thanksgiving football game. Something of the spirit which had made old William Conniston the dynamic, forceful man of business which he had always been, and which had never before manifested itself in old Conniston's son, suddenly awoke and shook itself, active, eager, the fighting spirit of a fighting man.

At noon Billy Jordan pushed back his chair and got to his feet, stretching his arms high over his head.

"Time to eat," he said, picking up his hat. "Coming, Mr. Conniston?"

"And you?" Conniston asked of Garton.

"Oh, me!" laughed Garton. "I don't travel that far. Not until my new legs come. I had trouble with 'em," he explained. "Had to send 'em back to Chicago. I'm hoping," with a whimsical smile, "that they don't get sidetracked with the rest of our stuff on the P. C. & W. Go with Billy, Conniston. He'll show you where to eat."

He whirled about on his stool, squirmed suddenly over on his stomach, and lowered himself to the floor. Swinging the leathern-capped stumps of his legs between his hands, which he placed palm down on the floor, as a man may swing his body between crutches, he moved with short, quick jerks into the room where the two cots were. Conniston turned away abruptly.

With Billy Jordan he went nearly to the end of the short street before they came to a rude lunch-counter, set under a canvas awning, where a thin, nervous little man and his fat, stolid wife set canned goods and coffee before them. Billy produced a yellow ticket to be punched, Conniston paid his two bits, and they strolled back to the office.

When Conniston suggested that they take something to Garton, Billy told him that a boy took him his meals.

There was so much to be got over that day, Conniston was so eager to learn what details he could, Tommy Garton so eager to impart them, that it was scarcely half-past twelve when the two men were back at the long table going over maps and blue-prints. There were no interruptions. An imprisoned house-fly buzzed monotonously and sullenly against a pane of gla.s.s, his drone fitting into the heavy silence on the face of the hot desert so that it became a part of it.

At four o'clock a handful of ragged children, barefooted, bronzed of legs and hands and faces, scampered by on their noisy way home from school. A pretty young woman in neat walking-habit and big white straw hat followed the children, smiling in through the open door at Garton, noting Conniston with a flash of big brown eyes and quickly dropping lids. Billy, in seeming carelessness, had wandered to the door when the children pa.s.sed, and stepped outside, chatting with her for five or ten minutes.

"Miss Jocelyn," Garton told him. "Bat Truxton's daughter, and the village schoolmistress. Billy thinks he's rather hard hit, I fancy."

"I've heard of her," Conniston replied, frowning at the map he was holding flat on the table. "Dam Number Two is the one which is completed, isn't it? And Number Three is the smaller auxiliary dam?

How about Number One, which seems to be the most important of the lot? When do we go to work on that?"

Garton chuckled. "You're going to be as bad as I am, Conniston! Can't even stop to look at a pretty girl? The Lord knows they're scarce enough out here, too. Yes, Dam Number One is the important one of the lot. It will be the biggest, the hardest, and most expensive to build, and it will control the water-supply which is going to save our bacon."

Whereupon he, too, forgot Miss Jocelyn and Billy, and launched into further explanation. At six o'clock Billy Jordan covered his typewriter and put on his coat and hat. He came over to the table and leaned his elbow on it, waiting for Garton to finish something that he was saying.

"I'm going around to Truxton's a little while this evening," he said, trying to speak as a man of the world should, but flus.h.i.+ng up under Garton's twinkling eyes. "If you find time dragging on your hands you might come along, Mr. Conniston. Miss Jocelyn"--he hesitated a moment--"Miss Jocelyn said I might bring you around."

Conniston thanked him and asked him to thank Miss Jocelyn, but a.s.sured him that instead of having time lagging for him he had more to do than he could manage. So Billy went on his way alone. Nor did he seem disappointed at Conniston's refusal to accompany him. It was only when it began to grow dusk and the boy brought Garton's supper that Conniston got up and went down the street to his own solitary evening meal at the lunch-counter.

It was after nine o'clock, and Conniston was lying on his cot in the little rear room of the office-building listening to Tommy Garton talk about reclamation--it seemed the only thing in the world he cared to talk about during working-hours or after--when the outside door was flung open and a man's heavy tread came through the office and to their sleeping-room.

"That'll be Truxton," Garton said. "Wants to see you, I guess."

The heavy tread came on through the office, and the door to Garton's room was flung open with as little ceremony as the front door had been. In the light of a kerosene-lamp upon the chair near his cot Conniston saw a short, squat, heavy-set man of perhaps forty-five, very broad across the forehead, very salient-jawed, his mustache short-cropped and grizzled, his mouth large and firm-lipped, his eyes steady and keen as they turned swiftly upon Conniston from under s.h.a.ggy, tangled, iron-gray brows. The man had nodded curtly toward Tommy Garton, and then stood still in the doorway regarding young Conniston intently.

"You're Conniston."

It was a positive statement rather than a question, but Conniston answered as he sat up on the edge of his cot:

"Yes. I'm Conniston."

"All right." Truxton removed the lamp from the one chair in the room, placed it upon the window-sill, and sat down, pulling the chair around so that he faced Conniston. "You're goin' to work with me in the mornin'. Now, what do you know?"

His manner was abrupt, his voice curt. Conniston felt a trifle ill at ease under the man's piercing gaze, which seemed to be measuring him.

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid. You see, I--"

"I thought you were an engineer?"

"I am--after a fas.h.i.+on. Graduate of Yale--"

"Ever had any actual, practical experience?"

"Only field work in college."

"Ever had any experience handlin' men? Ever bossed a gang of men?"

"No."

"Ever do any kind of construction work?"

"In college--"

"Forget what you did with a four-eyed professor standin' over you!

Ever build a bridge or a grade or a dam or a railroad?"

"No." Conniston answered shortly, half angrily.

"Then," grunted Truxton, plainly disgusted, "I'd like to know what the Old Man meant by sendin' you over here! I can't be bothered teachin'

college boys how to do things. What I need an' need bad is an engineer that can do his part of the day's work."

"Look here!" cried Conniston, hotly. "We all have to begin some time, don't we? You had your first job, didn't you? And I'll bet you didn't fall down on it, either! It's up to you. If you think I'm no good, all right. If you give me my work to do I'll do it."

"It _ain't_ up to me. The Old Man sent you over. You go to work in the mornin'. If I was doin' it I wouldn't put you on. I don't say you won't make good--I'm just sayin' I wouldn't take the chance. I'll stop here for you at four o'clock in the mornin'." He swung about from Conniston and toward Garton. "How're they comin', Tommy?"