Under Handicap Part 39

"New York.

"Money you wired remains subject your orders. I don't need it. Inform dad.

"WM. CONNISTON, Jr."

When William Conniston, Junior, received the second message from William Conniston, Senior, a swift understanding came to him, an understanding not only of the reason for the att.i.tude Corliss had taken, but of what Oliver Swinnerton had had in mind when he had talked slyly of Conniston's intentions, and had expressed his confidence that the young superintendent was preparing to double cross his employer.

"WM. CONNISTON, JR.,

"Rattlesnake Valley.

"Am starting for New York. Meet me. Drop work. I have a million dollars at stake in Oliver Swinnerton project. Will lose all if you don't quit.

"WM. CONNISTON, Sr."

And it gave Greek Conniston a great, unbounded joy to answer:

"WM. CONNISTON, Sr.,

"Paris.

"Sorry, dad. You lose million. I have reputation at stake.

"WM. CONNISTON, Jr."

CHAPTER XXV

The days ran on, each twenty-four hours seeming shorter, swifter than the preceding twenty-four. Although everywhere in the Valley there was a glad confidence that the reclamation project was an a.s.sured thing, although feverish anxiety had been beaten back and driven out, there was no slightest slackening of unremitting toil. Upward of seven hundred men worked as they had never worked before. As the end of the time drew nearer, as success became ever more a.s.sured, they worked longer hours, they accomplished swifter results. For each man of them, from Brayley to the ditch-diggers, was laboring not only for the company, but for himself. Each and every man had been promised a bonus for every day between the time when water was poured down into the sunken Valley and the coming of high noon upon October the first. And Conniston still held to his determination to have everything in readiness by the twenty-fifth of September.

Upon the evening of the twenty-fourth of September Conniston called upon Mr. Crawford at his cottage in Valley City. He found his employer smoking upon the little porch alone.

When he was seated and had accepted a cigar, Conniston began abruptly what he had to say.

"If you have time, Mr. Crawford, I want to make a partial report to you to-night. Thank you. To begin with, I have completed the big dam, Dam Number One. It is all ready for business. The flume is finished, the cut made across the ridge to Dam Number Two across Indian Creek.

Dam Number Two is ready. From these two dams the main ca.n.a.l runs, completed entirely, thirty miles and into Valley City. Dam Number Three, Miss Crawford's Dam, is finished, and the branch ca.n.a.l from it to the main ca.n.a.l will be completed in two days. I do not believe that this dam is going to be an absolute necessity to us now. I think that we are going to have all the water from Deep Creek and Indian Creek that we need. But Dam Number Three makes us more than confident. And when later you want to extend your area of irrigated acreage you will want it.

"I have examined the country about the spring which Miss Crawford discovered, and have men working there now boring wells. There is water there--how much I do not yet know. I have a hope, which Tommy Garton thinks foolish, that we may strike artesian water out there in the sand. At any rate, we'll get enough out of it eventually to aid in the irrigation of that location, to be useful when you get ready to found your second desert town. About Valley City itself I have all the cross-ditches required by your contract with Colton Gray of the P. C.

& W."

He paused, and Mr. Crawford after a moment's thoughtful silence said, quietly:

"In other words, Mr. Conniston, you have completed all of the work which the contract calls for?"

"Except one thing." Conniston smiled. "I have not put the water on the land yet. A rather important matter, isn't it?"

"But you are ready to do that?"

"I shall be ready to do that to-morrow at noon. And I want you to help me. Will it be possible for you and Miss Crawford to come out to Dam Number One in the morning?"

"You are kind to ask it," Mr. Crawford said, inclining his head. "We shall be glad to come, Mr. Conniston. Is that the extent of your report?"

"Yes. I have something else I want to say to you--but it is not about reclamation."

"Shall I make my report to you first? For I feel that after all you have done for me I should like to report, too. Every one of my cattle-ranges is mortgaged to the hilt. I do not believe that I could raise another thousand dollars on the combined ranges. I have been driven so close to the wall that I could not go another step. I have been forced to sell during the last two weeks over a thousand of my young cattle--to sell them at a sacrifice in order to obtain ready money. I have enough money in the bank to conclude the financing of our reclamation project. After the first day of October, when the P.

C. & W. begins its road out to us, I can raise whatever more funds I want, and raise them easily.

"You have succeeded, Mr. Conniston, and thereby you have saved me from being absolutely, unqualifiedly ruined. Within six months I shall have doubled my fortune. And I shall have lived to see the most cherished dream of my older manhood materialize. I owe very much to you, I am very grateful to you, and I am very proud to have been a.s.sociated in business with a man of your caliber. And there is my hand on it!"

"I am glad to have been of service," Conniston replied, as the two men gripped hands. "And I appreciate your confidence. Besides," with a quick, half-serious smile, "I think that I have profited as greatly as any one else could possibly do."

"I know what you mean. And I agree with you. Now, you said that there was another matter--"

"Yes. I have had a cable from my father in Paris. Because I could not agree to do a certain thing which he requested he has seen fit to disinherit me."

"I know. Tommy Garton told me about it. And I know what the thing was which he required of you. I did not thank you for your answer to him, Conniston, for we both know that you did only your duty. But I know what it meant, I know what your stand cost you, and I am prouder to have known you, to feel that outside of our business relations I can say that William Conniston, Junior, is my friend, than I have ever been in my life to have known any other man!"

His voice was deep with sincerity, alive with an intensity of feeling which drove a warm flush into Conniston's tanned face.

"As you say, I did only what a man must do were he not a scoundrel.

But, too, as you say, it means a great deal. It means that when you will have paid me my wages I shall have not another cent in the world.

And being virtually penniless, still my chief purpose in coming to you this evening has been to tell you that I love Argyl, and that I want your consent to ask her to marry me."

For a moment the older man made no reply. For a little he drew thoughtfully at his cigar, and as in its glow his grave face was thrown into relief Conniston saw that there was a sad droop at the corners of the firm mouth.

"You have told Argyl?" he finally said.

"Yes. I told her that day in the desert. I had meant to wait until the work was done, until she could have seen that I was honestly trying to live down my utter uselessness. But--I told her then."

"And she?"

"She said that I might speak to you."

"I am selfish, Conniston--selfish. Argyl has been daughter to me and son, and the best friend I have ever had. I shall miss her. But if she loves you--Well," with a gentle smile, "she is too true a woman to hold back from your side, no matter what I might say. And since she must leave me some day, I am very glad that you came into her life. I congratulate you, my boy."

While the two men were talking and waiting for Argyl to come in, Tommy Garton, his new legs discarded for the day, was lying on his cot in the back room of the general office, blowing idle puffs of cigarette-smoke at the lamp-chimney, watching the smoke as the hot draft from the flame sent it ceilingward. He was thinking of the talk he had had with Conniston, how Conniston had gone to Argyl's father.

"After all," he grunted to himself, as he pinched out his cigarette and lighted another, "they were made for each other. And I lose my one chief bet this incarnation. h.e.l.lo! Come in!" For there had come a sudden sharp knocking at the outer door.

The door was pushed open and a big man, dusty from riding, came slowly into the front room, cast a quick glance about him, and came on into Garton's room. Garton started as he saw who the man was.

"h.e.l.lo, Wallace!" he said, sitting up and putting out his hand. "What in the world brings you here?"

Wallace laughed, returned the greeting, and sat down upon the cot across the room. And as he came into the circle of light thrown out by the lamp a nickeled star shone for a moment from under his coat, which was carelessly flung back.

"Jest rampsin' around, Tommy," he answered, quietly, making himself a cigarette. "Jest seein' what I could see. You fellers keepin' pretty busy, ain't you?"