Under Handicap

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XV

  At Conniston's knock Argyl's voice from somewhere in the back of thecottage called "Come in!" He opened the door, went through the cozysitting-room, which was scarcely larger than the fire-place at therange-house, and at a second invitation found his way into the rearroom. There an oil-stove was shooting up its yellow flames about acouple of stew-pans, and there Argyl herself, in blue gingham apron,her sleeves rolled up on her plump, white arms, was completingpreparations for the evening meal. She turned to nod to Conniston andthen back to her cooking.

  "You'll find a chair in the corner," she told him, as he stopped inthe doorway, looking amusedly at her. "That is, of course, if you careto call on the cook? Otherwise you will find cigars and a last month'spaper in the sitting-room."

  "There isn't any otherwise," he laughed back at her. And after amoment, in which she was very busy over the stove and he very contentto stand and watch her: "We're even now. Last time we were here I wasthe hired man and tacked down carpets for you. Now I'm the guest ofthe family, if you please, and you're the cook."

  "You can have two cupfuls of water to wash your hands and one for yourface. You'll find the barrel and basin upon the back porch. And don'tthrow the water away! I'll save it for you to use the next time youcome."

  "Thank you. But I washed over at Garton's. He lets me have two cupfulsfor my face. And now I'm going to help you. What can I do?"

  "Nothing. If you wanted to work, why did you wait until the lastminute? Unless you know how to set a table?"

  "I can set anything from an eight-day clock to a hen," he assured her,gravely. "Where's Mr. Crawford? Has he come yet?"

  "No. I expect him any minute. But we won't wait for him. It's againstthe law in the Crawford home to wait meals for anybody."

  Under her direction he found the dishes in a cupboard built into thewalls, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins in drawers below, andjourneying many times from kitchen to dining-room, stopping after eachtrip to stand and watch his hostess in her preparations for dinner, heat length had the table set. And then he insisted upon helping playwaiter with her until she informed him that he was positivelyretarding matters. Whereupon he made a cigarette and sat upon thekitchen table and merely watched.

  For many days Conniston had longed to see Mr. Crawford, to talk withhim concerning the big work. Now, as he and Argyl sat down together,his one wish was that Mr. Crawford be delayed indefinitely. As helooked across the table, with its white cloth, its few cheap dishes,its simple fare, he was conscious of a deep content. He helped Argylto the _piece de resistance_--it consisted of dried beef, potatoes,onions, and carrots all stewed together; she passed to him thebiscuits which she had just made; they drank each other's health andsuccess to the Great Work in light, cooled claret made doublyrefreshing with a dash of lemon; and they dined ten times as merrilyas they would have dined at Sherry's.

  He told her of Tommy Garton, and suddenly surprised in her a phase ofnature which he had never seen before. Her eyes filled with a quick,soft sympathy, a sympathy almost motherly.

  "Poor little Tommy," she said, gently. "He laughs at himself and callshimself 'half a man,' while he's greater than any two men he comes incontact with once in a year. I call Tommy my cathedral--which soundsfoolish, I know, but which isn't! Do you know the feeling you get whenyou steal all alone into one of those great, empty, silent churches,where it is always a dim twilight? Not that Tommy is as somber andstately as a great cathedral," she smiled. "Just the opposite, I know.But his sunny nature, his unruffled cheerfulness affect me like asermon. When I allow myself to descend into the depths and see howTommy manages it, I feel as if I ought to be spanked. I think," sheended, "that I have pretty well mixed things up, haven't I? But youunderstand what I mean?"

  "I understand. And since we have drunk to the Great Work, shall wedrink to a Great Soul who is a vital part of it? I don't know how we'dmanage without Tommy Garton."

  They touched glasses gravely and drank to a man who, as they satlooking out upon life through long, glorious vistas, dawn-flushed, layalone upon his cot, his face buried in his arms.

  They finished their meal, cleared away the dishes together, and stillMr. Crawford had not come. Then Conniston dragged two of the chairsout to the front porch, took a cigar from the jar where it had beenkept moist with half an apple, and they went out to enjoy the coolfreshness of the evening. The sun had sunk out of sight, the mood ofthe desert had changed. All of the dull gray monotone was gone. Allthe length of the long, low western horizon the dross of the garishday was being transmuted by the alchemy of the sunset into red andyellow gold, molten and ever flowing, as though spilled from somegreat retort to run sluggishly in a gleaming band about the earth.

  A little wandering breeze had sprung up, and went whispering outacross the dim plains. It swirled away the smoke from Conniston'scigar; he saw it stir a strand of hair across Argyl's cheek. The gloryof the desert was still the wonderful thing it had been, but it wasless than the essential, vital glory of a girl. Suddenly a greatdesire was upon him to call out to her, to tell her that he loved hermore than all of the rest of life, to make her listen to him, to makeher love him. And with the rush of the desire came the thought, asthough it were a whispered voice from the heart of the desert: "Whatare you that you should speak so to her. _What have you done to makeyou worthy of this woman?_ You, a laggard, as frivolous a thing untilnow as a weathercock, and by no means so useful a factor in the world,your regeneration merely begun; she the Incomparable Woman!"

  It was Argyl who spoke first, and only after nearly an inch of whiteash had formed at the end of Conniston's cigar.

  "People who do not understand--they are aliens to whom the desert hasnever spoken!--ask why father gives the best part of a ripe manhood toa struggle with such a country. Does not an evening like this answertheir question? No people in the world can so love their land as dothe children of the desert. For when they have made it over they arestill a part of it and it has become a part of them."

  He told her all that he could of the work and Truxton and the men,going into detail as he found that she followed him, that Tommy Gartonhad not exaggerated when he had said that she knew every sand-hill andhollow. She listened to him silently, only now and then asking apertinent question, her eyes upon his face as she leaned forward inher chair, her hands clasped about her knees. And when he had finishedhe found that his cigar had long since gone out and that she wassmiling at him.

  "It has got you, too!" she cried, softly. "You are as enthusiasticalready as Tommy Garton is. I wonder if you realized it? And Iwonder," her eyes again upon the fading colors in the west, the smilegone out of them, "what it would mean to you if, after all, our dreamcame to nothing, if it proved that we were more daring than wise, ifwe lost everything where we are staking everything?"

  "I have been a small, unnecessary cog in a great machine for only aweek," he told her, slowly. "And yet you will know that I am tellingyou the plain truth when I say that such a failure would bring to methe biggest disappointment I have ever felt. Failure," he cried,sharply, as though he had but grasped the full significance of theword after he himself had employed it--"there won't be failure at theend of it for us! There can't be. It means too much. I tell you thatwe are going to drive the thing to a successful conclusion. It's gotto be!"

  "Yes," she repeated, quietly, after him, "it has got to be. I don'tdoubt the outcome for one single second. Down in my heart I _know_.And I know, too, how much there is yet to be done, how much you menhave to contend with, how swiftly the time is slipping by us. Do yourealize, Mr. Conniston, how little time we have ahead of us before thefirst of October?"

  "Yes, I know. And there are four miles of main canal to dig, mileafter mile of smaller cross ditches, to irrigate the land after we getthe water here, and two dams to complete." He got to his feet, hiscigar again forgotten, his eyes frowning down upon her. "Truxton isright. We've got to get more men--many more men. And we've got to getthem in a hurry."

  "Father, when he com
es to-night, will know about the men we have beenexpecting from Denver. He has been all day in Crawfordsville. What doyou think of Bat Truxton?"

  "He is a good man who knows his business. He is a skilful, practicalengineer, and he knows how to get every ounce of power out of the menunder him. He is as much the man for the place as if he and the jobhad been created for each other."

  She was now standing with him, watching his face eagerly.

  "Have you noticed," she asked, quietly--through the gathering dusk hethought that he could see a faint shadow upon her face which was not apart of the thickening night--"any sort of change in the man since youwent to work with him?"

  Conniston hesitated, frowning, before he answered. "He has beenirritable," he finally admitted, with slow reluctance. "But the reasonis not far to seek and does not discredit him. He is heart and soul inthis work, Miss Crawford. Like all of us--you, your father, TommyGarton, me--I think that he feels his responsibility heavily, veryheavily. And when day after day rushes by and finds the work far frombeing finished, and he has to have more men, and the men don'tcome--good heavens! isn't it enough to make a man restive?"

  For a long time Argyl made no answer, but, rising, stood looking farout into the misty obscurity, as though she would look beyond to-dayand deep into the future for an answer to many things. The shorttwilight passed, the warm colors in the west faded, the breeze of amoment ago died down in faint and fainter whispers, the stars grewbrighter, ever more thick-set, in the wide arch of the heavens.

  "I hope that you are right," she said, slowly, at last. And then, witha queer little laugh which jarred upon Conniston strangely: "I amgetting fanciful, I suppose, and faint-hearted! Never has ourundertaking seemed so big to me; never have the obstacles loomed sohigh. I find myself waking up with a start night after night from somehorrible dream that the water has failed in the mountains, or thatOliver Swinnerton has stolen all of our men, or that Bat Truxton hasgone over to the opposition! Oh, I know that I am foolish. For, as yousay, we _can't_ fail. Everything has got to come out right! And now,"in the manner native and natural to her--frank, hearty, even eager--"Iam going to tell you some good news. In the first place, I see that Ihave been doing nothing too long, and that always makes one morbid, Ithink. I am going to get back to work. Isn't that good news? It is tome, at least. And, secondly, I have made a discovery. You'd neverguess."

  Conniston shook his head. "What is it?"

  "What," she asked him, laughingly, and yet with a serious note in hervoice, "is the one thing which we should like to discover here? If agood old-style genie straight from between the covers of the _ArabianNights_ were to drop down in front of you and say, 'Name the thingwhich thou wouldst have, and thou shalt have it!' what would thatthing be?"

  And Conniston, with his thoughts upon the Great Work, knowing that herthoughts were with his there, answered quickly:

  "Water! But that is impossible!"

  "My secret--yet," she answered him. "I had not meant to say anythingabout it so soon. Promise to say nothing about it until I give youleave, and I'll tell you a little--oh, a very little--about mysecret."

  Conniston promised, and she went on, speaking swiftly, earnestly:

  "It was last week. I was riding out into the desert to the north ofhere--no matter how far--when I came upon it. It is a spring. Oh, notmuch of a spring to look at it. Just a few square feet of moist soil,here and there a sprig of drying grass, three or four brown willows.But those things mean that there is water there. How it came therewhile all of the rest of the desert so far as we know it is bone-drydoes not matter so much as _what can we do with it?_ I hardly darehope," she finished, thoughtfully, "that my spring is going to prove afactor in our irrigation scheme. But I hope that it may help to supplyus here with drinking-water, water for our horses. That in itselfwould mean a good deal, wouldn't it, Mr. Conniston?"

  "There is no end to what it might mean--may mean. If your spring canbe made to supply Valley City and the men working out yonder withwater, to supply the horses and mules, it will mean that all the menand teams being used daily to haul from the Half Moon creek can be putto active work on the ditch. And--who knows?--if you can find water atall in the desert we may be able to use it to irrigate! God knows wewant water on this land soon--and the mountains are still a long wayoff! But," and he tried to make out her features in the darkness, "howdoes it happen that this spring has never been found before?"

  "The country all about it is what the desert is everywhere. No onewould dream of water in it. Then there is a rude circle of low-lyingsand-hills. Within their inclosure, consequently shut off from viewunless one rides to the crest of the hills as I happened to do, is thespring."

  He thought that she was going to add something further, perhaps morein the way of a description of the location of the spring, when heheard horses' hoofs and the rattle of dry wagon-wheels, and she brokeoff suddenly.

  "It is father at last," she said, softly. "Remember, Mr. Conniston, Iwant to keep this a secret from father for a while--until I know whatit is worth."

  "I'll remember," he answered, rising with her and turning toward thetwo figures which had leaped down from the wagon and were hasteningtoward the cottage. The man slightly in front of his companion, comingfirst into the rays of the lamp streaming through the window, was Mr.Crawford. And Conniston saw with a quick frown that the other man wasRoger Hapgood.

  "Argyl, my dear," said Mr. Crawford, as he kissed the girl who hadgone to meet him, "I am sorry we are late. You'll be sorry, too, forI'm amazingly hungry. Anything left? Ah, Mr. Conniston, isn't it? Gladto see you." He took Conniston's hand in a strong grip. "Haven't seenyou since you came to the Valley. I'm glad you're here. I want to talkwith you about the work."

  He went on into the house, Argyl with him. She had shaken hands withRoger Hapgood, and, with an invitation to him and Conniston to follow,went ahead with her father.

  For a moment the two men faced each other in silence through thehalf-darkness. Then Hapgood turned upon his heel and went into thehouse. In a moment Conniston followed him, smiling.

  He took a chair at the side of the room and lighted a fresh cigarwhile he watched the two men at table and Argyl bringing them theirsupper. He saw that Mr. Crawford's manner was what it always hadbeen--bluff, frank, open, cheery. But he saw, too, or thought that hesaw, little lines of worry upon the high forehead which had not beenthere a month ago.

  Hapgood's face, seen now clearly, was as smug as ever, but there hadbeen wrought in it a subtle change. In place of the fresh, pinkcomplexion, the desert had given him a healthy coat of tan. But that,while Conniston was quick to note it, was not the change that startledhim. There was an indefinable something in Hapgood's eyes, at thecorners of his thin-lipped mouth, that had not been there before.Conniston wondered if the hand of this Western country had touched theinner man as it had the outer, if the new life had found certain smallseeds of strength in the heretofore futile Hapgood and were developingthem?

  Hapgood's manner, however, was unchanged, irreproachable. He placedsalt and pepper, bread, butter, whatever it was that Mr. Crawfordwanted, before him before the older man had realized that he wantedit. His attitude toward Argyl was at all times deferential, eloquentof respectful admiration. Hapgood was nothing if not urbane. TowardConniston, however, he did not once glance. To his way of thinking,evidently, there were but three people in the room--the wonderfullymasterful Mr. Crawford, the radiantly beautiful Argyl, the deeplyappreciative Hapgood--and certain negligible, necessary furniture.

  During the short meal Mr. Crawford spoke little, contenting himselfwith a few light remarks to Argyl and the others. Often he ate insilence, abstractedly. Argyl had looked curiously at him andthereafter offered few words. Hapgood took his cue from the masterfulMr. Crawford. Conniston smoked and watched the three of them, his eyesfinding oftenest Argyl and resting longest upon her. Finally, when hehad finished and pushed away his plate, taking the cigar Argyl offeredhim, Mr. Crawford spoke shortly, emphatically.

&n
bsp; "I got word to-day from the men we have been expecting from Denver.They have gone to work by now."

  "Under Bat Truxton?" demanded Conniston, quickly.

  The older man cut off the end of his cigar, rolled the black perfectobetween his lips, and lighted it before he replied.

  "They have gone to work," he repeated, as though discussing a matterof no moment, "for Oliver Swinnerton. Shall we go into the frontroom? I want to ask you some questions about the work, Conniston. Idid not have a chance to see Truxton this afternoon."

  He rose and led the way into the other room. Conniston, casting aswift glance at Argyl's face, which had suddenly gone white, followedhim. Argyl had stepped forward as though to go with them when Hapgoodlaid a detaining hand lightly, respectfully, upon her arm.

  "May I speak with you a moment, Miss Argyl?" he whispered, but not solow that Conniston did not catch the words distinctly. "It will takejust a moment, and--and it is very important."

  Reluctantly she paused. Conniston went out and heard Hapgood shut thedoor after him. He shrugged his shoulders.

  Mr. Crawford did not again refer to the bad news which he had brought,but instead seemed to have forgotten it. He asked Conniston questionafter question, seeking significant details, demanding to know howmany feet the ditch had been driven upon each separate day of theweek, what difficulties had been met, how the men did the partsallotted them, what Truxton counted upon accomplishing upon each dayto come. And after ten minutes of sharp, quick questions he leanedforward and, with his eyes steady and searching upon Conniston's,demanded, abruptly:

  "Is Truxton showing any signs of nervous irritability?"

  "Yes." Conniston hesitated, wondering what was in the other man'sthoughts. He began an explanation such as he had made Argyl, but Mr.Crawford cut him short.

  "That will do. Thank you. That is all that I wanted to know."

  He got to his feet and strode back and forth in the little room, hisbrows bunched together. Conniston, seeing for the first time in thisman whom he had held unendingly resourceful, indomitable, signs of amilitating anxiety, felt a sudden chill at his heart. Were they, afterall, playing a losing game? Was the combination of desert andSwinnerton and capital going to prove too much for them? Was JohnCrawford even now looking clearly into the future and seeing himself abeaten, broken man?

  For a moment of torture, during which he realized to the uttermostwhat success would mean, what failure, he feared that the vision whichhe had thought to have glimpsed through this sturdy pioneer's eyes wasthe true vision, feared that the fight was going out of John Crawford.

  And a moment later a little shiver tingled through him as JohnCrawford stopped in front of him, looking down at him, as he saw thatthe make-up of this man was not broken, but that it was being bentlike a powerful spring which draws its strength from outside pressure.He thought swiftly that the greater the weight put upon a powerfulspring the greater was its recoil, the greater weights might it flingaside. Mr. Crawford was half smiling. His lips were calm. In his eyesthere was no hint of fear or of failure. Instead a steady light therespoke with clear forcefulness of an unshaken determination, and morethan hinted of a certain grim joy of combat.

  "Young man," he said, almost gently, "you are mighty fortunate."

  Conniston rose, making no reply, as he waited for an explanation.

  "Yes, mighty fortunate. You are taking hold. I know what you were whenyou came to us; I know what you are now. I can see what you are goingto grow to be. I congratulate you. And I congratulate you upon beingplaced in a position from which you are going to see the biggest fightthat was ever heard of in this part of the country. Things are goingdead against us these days. Do you know what that means?" He squaredhis shoulders, and for a moment his lips came together in a straightline. Then he smiled again.

  "Are you never--afraid of the outcome?" asked Conniston.

  "I believe in God, Mr. Conniston. I believe in my work. I believe inmyself. We are not going to fail."

  In that one brief, fleeting second Conniston had a view of JohnCrawford he had never glimpsed before. He made no reply. For a momentthere was complete silence, broken after a little by Hapgood's voicefrom the dining-room. Mr. Crawford, walking composedly back and forth,drawing thoughtfully at his cigar, gave no evidence of so much ashearing the low-toned voice. To Conniston, who thought that he couldguess what it was that had put the pleading note into the guardedtones, the words came in an indistinguishable murmur. Conniston,having no desire to play the part of eavesdropper, strolled out uponthe porch.

  It was only a moment later when the door which he had softly closedbehind him was thrown violently open, and Roger Hapgood, his hatcrushed in his hand, hastened out, ran down the steps, and with noword of farewell disappeared into the darkness. Conniston gazed afterhim in wonderment a moment, and then turned toward the open doorbehind him.

  Argyl had come into the room, her face flushed, her eyes bright withanger. Mr. Crawford, looking up from his papers, was saying, quietly:

  "What is it, Argyl? What is the matter with Hapgood?"

  "I told him to go," she cried, hotly. "I told him never to speak to meagain, never to come into this house!"

  Mr. Crawford stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  "For good and sufficient reasons, Argyl dear?" he asked, gently.

  "Yes. And--and I slapped his face, too!"

  A little smile rippled across her father's face.

  "Then I am sure that the reason was good and sufficient. And I shalltake pleasure in horsewhipping the little man for you, dear, if youwish."

  Argyl ran to him and threw her arms about his neck.

  "God bless you, daddy!" she cried, softly. "I just love you to death.And," holding him away from her and smiling brightly at him, "I don'tthink that it is necessary. I slapped him _hard_!"

  Conniston came back into the room.

  Argyl was speaking swiftly, emphatically. "Mr. Hapgood has just doneme the honor to ask me to marry him. He told me that he had acquaintedMr. Conniston with his intentions, so it is no secret. No, I did notslap him for that. But you, father, and you, too, Mr. Conniston, sinceyou are one of us in our work, ought both to know what he threatened.He says that we are upon the very brink of failure; that Swinnertonhas almost sufficient strength to ruin us and our hopes. And hethreatened, if I did not marry him, to turn his back upon us and jointhe opposition. And I slapped his face."

  Mr. Crawford took her hand and kissed it.

  "I can think of no more forceful answer you could have made him, Argylgirl. Fortunately, I have not confided in him to any dangerous extent.He knows--"

  "He knows," she cried, quickly, "all that you have let Mr. Winstonknow! Everything you have told your lawyer--"

  She paused, hesitating. Mr. Crawford looked at her sharply.

  "What?" he demanded, a vague hint of anxiety in his tone.

  "He knows--for he told me--the exact condition of your finances."

  "Had I not better go?" suggested Conniston. "I do not want--"

  "No. You are with us. If Hapgood knows, if he is going to peddle whathe knows, you might as well know too! What did he say, Argyl?"

  "He said, father, that you had played to the end of your string. Hesaid that you did not have ten thousand dollars in the world. He saidthat you did not know where to turn to raise the cash for the rest ofthe work we have before us. I--I--" She looked anxiously at him. "DidI do wrong, father? Should I have temporized with him--ought I to havekept him from going away angry?"

  "You should have let me throw him outdoors. I am not afraid of him."He turned from her to Conniston. His face was very grave, his eyestroubled, but he spoke firmly, confidently. "You see, Mr. Conniston,that we have a fight ahead of us. Some people would say that we areon a sinking ship. What do you think?"

  "I think," said Conniston, simply, "that we will win out in spite ofwhat people say. I hope I may help you."

  "Thank you. To-morrow morning I am coming out to see what you andTruxton are doing. I shall want t
o have a talk with him--and with you.You will of course say nothing of what has happened to-night."

  Out in the darkness Conniston walked slowly toward the officebuilding, his brows drawn, his eyes upon the ground, a fear which hecould not argue away in his heart. With untold capital to back themthe fight against the desert was such a fight as most men would notwant upon their hands. With Oliver Swinnerton and the gold behind himwhich he was spending with the recklessness of assurance, the fightwas tenfold harder. And now, when it was clear that the great bulk ofJohn Crawford's fortune was already sunk into the sand, the fightseemed hopeless.

  It had been a bad night for lovers. At the office building, leaningagainst the wall, a cigarette dangling dejectedly from his lips,Lonesome Pete was waiting for him.

  "That you, Con?"

  "Yes. What are you doing here?"

  "Waitin' for you, an' meditatin' mos'ly." He cast away his cigarette,sighed deeply, and began a search for his paper and tobacco. "I waswantin' to ask you a question, Con."

  Conniston said, "Go ahead, Pete," and made himself a cigarette.

  "It's this-a-way." The cowboy lighted a match and let it burn outwithout applying the flame to his brown paper. For a moment hehesitated, and then blurted out: "You've knowed some considerablefemales in your time, I take it. Huh, Con?"

  "Well?" Conniston repeated.

  "I gotta be hittin' the trail back to the Half Moon real soon. Iwanted to ask you a question firs'." Again he hesitated, again brokeout suddenly: "I take it a lady ain't the same in no particulars as aman. Huh, Con?"

  Conniston, thinking of Argyl, said "No," fervently.

  "If a man likes you real well you can tell every time, can't you? An'if he ain't got no use for you, you can tell that, too, can't you?"

  Conniston nodded, thinking that he began to guess Pete's troubles.

  "Don't you know--can't you tell--how Miss Jocelyn feels toward you,Pete? Is that it?"

  "That's it, only how in blazes you guessed it gets me! Con, I tellyou, I can't tell nothin' for sure. It's worse 'n gamblin' on theweather. One day I'm thinkin' she likes me real well, an' she shows methings about grammar an' stuff, an' we git on fine. An' then--maybeit's nex' day an' maybe it's only two minutes later--she's alldiff'rent somehow, an' she jest makes fun of the way I talk, an' you'dsuppose she wouldn't wipe her feet on me if I laid down an' begged herto."