Justin Wingate, Ranchman

by John Harvey Whitson

  CHAPTER XIII

  IN PARADISE VALLEY

  Coming one forenoon from the kitchen, where she had been instructingthe new cook installed in the position Pearl had held so long, Lucyobserved Justin walking in a dejected manner down the trail that ledto Clayton's, and saw that he had been in conversation with PhilipDavison. She knew what that conversation had been about, and whenDavison came into the house she followed him up to his room. There wasa heightened color in her cheeks, as she stood before her guardian. Helooked up, a frown on his florid face.

  "What is it?" he asked almost gruffly; but she was not to be put down.

  "You won't mind telling me what you said to Justin awhile ago?"

  She slid into a chair, and sat up very straight and stiff.

  "You sent him to me, I suppose?"

  "I didn't, but I have known he meant to speak to you."

  "He wants to marry you!"

  "That isn't news to me."

  "No, I suppose it isn't. But what has he got to marry on?"

  "Now, Uncle Philip, I'm going to say what I think! Justin is your son,and every father owes something to his child. Don't you think so?"

  Davison's blue eyes snapped, but he would not be angry with thisfavorite niece.

  "Well, yes, I suppose so, if you put it that way."

  "Justin and I have been just the same as engaged for a long time."

  "Yes, I've known that, too. I told him to show what there was in him;and," his tone became bitter, "he has shown it!"

  Lucy refused to become offended.

  "Of course we can't marry unless you help him along. Justin has beenwanting to go to Denver. He thinks he could do well there by and by,after he became acquainted and had a start. Doctor Clayton knows a manthere to whom he will give him a letter. But expenses are somethingterrific in a city, and we should have to wait a long time beforeJustin could work up to a salary that would justify us in gettingmarried."

  "So it's you that wants to get married, is it?"

  "I am one who wants to get married; Justin is the other."

  Davison laughed in changing mood.

  "What do you demand that I shall do?"

  "I don't demand anything, I simply suggest."

  "Then what do you suggest? He had the nerve to say that he thinks heis capable of managing the new ditch."

  "I simply suggest that you help him in some way, as a father who isable to should. He has worked for you a long time for very smallwages; wages so small that he could save nothing out of them, as youknow. I think that you ought to start him on one of the farms you haverecently bought, or else give him some good position, with a salarythat isn't niggardly. It seems to me he is capable and worthy."

  "If I don't give him a position, that will postpone this mostimportant marriage?"

  "I don't want him to go to Denver."

  A smile wrinkled Davison's face and lighted his blue eyes.

  "You are a good girl, Lucy; and Justin is a--is a Davison! And thatmeans he is hard-headed and has a good opinion of himself. I'll thinkabout it. Now run down and see that the cook doesn't spoil the dinner.She burnt the bread yesterday until it was as black as coal and ashard as a section of asphalt pavement. By the way, I don't suppose youcould cook or do housework?"

  "Try me!" she said, relaxing.

  And she departed, for she did not yet trust the new cook.

  The next day Davison offered Justin the position of ditch rider, at asalary that made Fogg wince and protest, though he believed Justin tobe the very one for the place. That Justin should be given thisposition seemed even to Fogg advisable, as a business consideration.The "rider" of the canal and ditches comes into closer relationshipwith the water users than any other person connected with anirrigation company. He sees that the water is properly measured anddelivered, and he makes the equitable pro-rata distribution when thesupply is low or failing. Justin had the confidence of the farmers;and, as there were sure to be many complaints, he would be a goodbuffer to place between them and the company.

  Justin accepted the position. In a financial sense, it promised toadvance him very materially; and the prospect of the proper irrigationof Paradise Valley pleased both him and Clayton. It was the beginningof the fulfillment of Peter Wingate's dream. Yet Justin knew he wasasked to undertake a difficult task. Even when they had everything intheir own hands, the farmers had wrangled interminably over theequitable distribution of the water.

  Having control of the source of supply and of the canal and laterals,the first act of Fogg and Davison was to offer water to the farmers atincreased rates. They were strengthening the dam, and widening thecanal and laterals, at "terrific cost," Fogg claimed, andreimbursement for this necessary outlay was but just.

  It was Fogg who planned and Fogg who executed. This was new businessto him, but no one would have guessed it. Over his oily, scheming facehovered perpetual sunshine. His manner and his arguments subdued evenintractable men. It was said of him that he could get blood out of agrindstone. What he said of himself was, "Whenever I see that theprops are kicked out from under me, I plan to have some kind of a goodcushion to land on." The cushion in this case was the exploitation ofthe inevitable, the irrigation of Paradise Valley, for the benefit ofthe exploiters.

  Many new settlers were drawn in by attractively-worded advertisements.Then one of the things Justin had feared came to pass. Fogg sold morewater than he could deliver, trouble arose, and this troubledescended, in great measure, on the head of the ditch rider. In spiteof all he could do to distribute the water fairly complaints andprotests were made.

  Fogg had planned for this condition, and he was iron. He claimed thatan unusually dry year had worked against the success of the company;and as there was a clause in the water notes covering such a failureto supply water, the farmers were forced, sometimes under thesheriff's hammer, to pay the notes they had given. Buying sometimesfrom the sheriff, and sometimes through second parties from thefarmers themselves, for numbers of them, in disgust, were willing tosell and leave the country, before the end of the first year Fogg andDavison had greatly increased their land holdings, by "perfectlylegitimate" methods.