Desert Conquest, A. M. Chisholm [best reads .TXT] 📗

Kitty Wade tells me that you are having trouble with some company which is taking water that you need for your ranch. I hope it isn't serious trouble, though she hinted as much. Do you care to tell me about it?

Casey Dunne sat for some minutes, the check and letter across his knees, while he gazed unblinkingly through the hot sunshine. It was some time since he had given Clyde Burnaby more than an occasional thought; his immediate affairs had been too pressing. Now the vision of her, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes, and he found it a pleasant recollection. He, whose life since childhood had been passed in the outposts and beyond them, treasured the memories of the few occasions when chance had permitted him to sit with his own kind, to talk to them, to live as he would have lived had not fate forced him to hoe his own row, and chosen for him a row in the new lands.

Of the women he had met in these rare incursions he could recall none who pleased him as well as Clyde Burnaby. Her interest in his affairs pleased him also. He recalled her as she had sat across the aisle in the Pullman, her absolute frigidity to the advances of the would-be Lothario, her haughty stare when she had suspected him of like intent, her perfect composure during the holdup. Little things like that showed the stuff a girl was made of. Nothing foolish or nervous or hysterical about her. And then, subsequently, when he had met her on her own ground, she had endeavoured to put him at his ease. Funny that, but he appreciated it, nevertheless. And she could talk. She didn't giggle and ask inane questions. Nor did she treat him as some sort of a natural curiosity, who might be expected to do something shocking but entertaining at any moment. She was sensible as—well—as sensible as Sheila McCrae herself.

And that, Casey reflected, was by way of being a high compliment; for Sheila had more sense than most men. He would take her opinion on any subject as well worth consideration. She and Clyde Burnaby were two young women very much above the ordinary run—in his opinion, at least.

Idly he wondered if chance would ever bring them together. Unlikely. Because he had nothing else to do at the moment, he amused himself by a process of transposition, of transmigration. He imagined Clyde Burnaby in Sheila's place, riding Beaver Boy over the brown swells, along the narrow trails and abrupt rises of the foothills, raising several hundred chickens, helping with the housework, the mending—all the daily feminine chores that fell to the lot of a rancher's womenkind. Would she be as good a friend to him as Sheila had been? And he fancied Sheila in her place—tailor-mades and evening gowns instead of riding skirts, Paris instead of pony hats, with nothing in particular to do but have a good time and spend money. Make good? Of course she would. She was clean-cut, thoroughbred, smart as a whip. Perhaps she wasn't quite as good-looking as Miss Burnaby; but, after all, that was largely a matter of taste. She was a different style.

He looked at the check lying on his knee, and laughed at the idea of interest on ten dollars. He had forgotten all about that conceit, but she had not. He would frame the check—yes, that was what he would do. In time there would be quite a bunch of them—that is, if she remembered to send them. Well, anyway, he would have to acknowledge it, and he might as well do it at once.

He went indoors and began to write. He had intended but a brief note, but in construction it lengthened. With him letter writing was never an effort. He wrote as easily as he talked, colloquially, without any attempt at style or set phrase. Soon he found himself tersely describing the water situation, forecasting the probabilities. As these were not too cheering, he frowned and added an optimistic sentence or two for general effect. He concluded with a hope that she would some time honour his country with a visit, when his ranch and all it contained—including its owner—would be entirely at her service.

On his way to post the letter he passed Glass, still struggling with his own composition. That poor devil! A perfect type of incompetent. He was too slow and timid for the West—too old to learn the lessons of self-reliance and adaptability of a new land. However, that was his own affair. If he would work he could make a living, and that was all that he or those like him could make anywhere.

Dunne strolled down to the station to mail his letter in the box there; and, as he turned the corner of the building, he came full upon Farwell and another burly individual in conversation with Quilty, the station agent.

"Tell them to start a tracer from the other end after those car numbers," Farwell was commanding; "and you start one from here. I've got to have them right away; work's at a standstill. Those cursed fatheads in the freight department don't know enough to shovel ballast. Get after them with a sharp stick."

"I'll do me best for ye," Quilty promised; "but freight on this line comes whin ut comes."

"It will come when I want it, or somebody will lose a job," said Farwell. "I'm not the ordinary consignee, and you can tell them that, too."

"I'll do that same," said Quilty; "but I misdoubt if a cyar wheel turns the faster for ut. I mind back in eighty-five—or maybe 'twas eighty-three ut was—whin O'Brien—'Flapjack' O'Brien they called him then, though he's climbed high enough since—well, whin O'Brien was a plain, iveryday, thievin' conthractor, and a dom bad wan at that, he had a nephew named Burke that married a Finnegan—or maybe ut was Finucane—whose father pulled ould Sivinty-six, a wood-burnin' monsthrosity iv an ingin' that be th' grace iv God an' a full sand box might be good for a 3-per-cent grade anny dry day in summer but a Friday. Annyways, as I started to tell ye, Danny Powers fired for Finnegan or Finucane, whichever ut was, and him and this Burke——"

But Farwell cursed Powers and Burke. "You burn the wires getting those cars for me!" he ordered. "What the devil do I care for all those construction-days micks? You talk too much. Get busy!" With which he turned and walked away with his companion.

"Pleasant gentleman, Corney!" Casey ventured.

The little station agent winked. "Th' black dog is on him sure enough," he observed. "Since his dam was blowed up, he has th' civil word for nobody. Listen, now, Casey. Somebody will pay for that night's work."

"I don't quite get you, Corney."

"Oh, divil th' fear iv yez not gettin' me. I'm not speakin' now in me official capacity; for praise God this dam is outside th' duties iv me jurisdiction. I'm tellin' ye as a friend."

"I know, Corney; but tell me a little plainer."

"Plainer is ut? Yez are a man grown. Do yez think yez can crim'nally an' wid conthributory vi'lence aforethought dynymite me employers' property, an' no comeback at all? Have sinse!"

"Hold on," said Casey. "Go slow, Corney." But Mr. Quilty dismissed this preliminary objection with a wave of his hand.

"Thim's figgers iv speech. I assume yez are innocent until yez are caught. Faix, it's not me'd give th' hot tip iv a warnin' to a crim'nal. But whisper now! Th' comp'ny is for siftin' this outrageous outrage to th' bottom, an' then liftin' th' bottom to look under it. Havin' put its hand to th' plow, it will l'ave no stone unturned to probe th' mysthry. Ye seen that felly wid Farwell. He's th' railway detective!"

"Meaning that they're out to round up somebody, eh?" said Casey. "All right, Corney; let 'em go to it."

"In me official capacity," said Mr. Quilty, looking him sternly in the eye, "I hope th' dirty blagyards is caught red-handed and soaked hard for th' shameless and di'bolical atrocity they have perpetuated. For such abandoned miscreants hangin' is too dom ladylike a punishment. I want yez to understand me official sintimints in me official capacity clearly. Yez may quote me exact words if ye feel so disposed."

"In your official capacity," said Casey, "your official sentiments do you great credit."

"I'm glad ye think so," said Mr. Quilty; "for in me private capacity, speakin' widout prejudice to me salary and as a true son iv dear, ould, dirty Dublin to a friend, me private sintimints is these: Th' man that invinted dynymite should have a set iv goold medals th' size iv a compound's dhrivers. But if iver ye mintion me private sintimints to a soul, I'll have yer life!"

CHAPTER XIV

Farwell was by nature obstinate; he was also resourceful, and accustomed to carrying out his instructions by hook or by crook. That was one reason why he was such a valuable man. He accomplished his ends or his employers' ends after some fashion. Therefore, when the almost completed dam was destroyed, he recognized merely a temporary, if expensive, setback. The company could afford to pay for any number of dams; but, in order to push their sales, and, as a first step toward acquiring other properties at a minimum figure, they wanted the water on their lands at once. Very well, they should have it.

Though the dam was practically wrecked, the main canal was intact. Its intake was just above the dam, solidly built of masonry, with sluice gates to control the volume of water. Without the dam it carried a comparatively small stream. With the dam, and the consequent raising of the water level, it would roar full from wall to wall, a river in itself.

Just at its lower lip Farwell began to drive piles at an angle upstream. He sank brush with hundreds of bags of sand, made cribwork filled with whatever rubbish came to his hand, and soon he had the makings of a temporary dam, rude, but