CHAPTER XX
THE DAY'S WORK
"Women know a loyalty that men scorn while they use it. This is the sex stamp of women."
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
With a quick glance at Sara, Jim rose. "Give Mr. Saradokis and hisfriend a chance to talk, of course, Bill. But shut Murphy up tonight andbring him round to me in the morning."
Bill essayed a salute that was so curiously like bringing his thumb tohis nose that Pen had to turn a laugh into a cough and Jim smiled as hehurried out of the tent. As soon as the murder trouble was settled, Jimthought, he would have some sort of a settlement with Sara. His calmeffrontery was becoming unbearable.
After a hurried supper Jim went back to the lower town to keep his eyeon the moving picture show. As he mounted the steps of the little sheetiron building, a girlish figure hurried to meet him from the shadow ofthe ticket office.
"Pen!" cried Jim. "This is no place for you!"
"Oh, lots of women have gone in," protested Pen. "Please, Jim! Sara wasso ugly this evening I just walked out and left him alone and I'm crazyto see what goes on down here."
Jim glanced in at the open door. The hall was nearly full. "If anythinggoes wrong, Penny, I would have my hands full and you might be hurt."
Pen gave a little shiver of anticipation. "Oh, please let me stay,Still! Just think how shut in I've been all these years."
Even though his common sense protested, Jim was an easy victim to Pen'spleading eyes and voice. He led the way into the hall. It was anenthusiastic crowd, that crunched peanuts and pinons and commentedaudibly on the pictures. Pictures of city life were the most popular.
"God! That's Fulton street, Brooklyn!" cried a man's voice as a streetscene glided across the screen. "Wish I'd never left it."
"Gee! Look at the street car!" called another man. "I'd give a year ofmy life for a trolley ride."
"Look at them trees!" said someone as a view of a middle west farmfollowed. "Them are trees, boys, not cable way towers! How'd you like toshake the sand out of your eyes and see something green?"
"What are you peeved about?" exclaimed another voice. "Ain't you workingfor our great and glorious government that'll kick you out like a deaddog whenever it wants to? Look what it's doing to the Big Boss!"
"Hi! Man-o'-War at San Diego!" screamed a boy. "See all that wet water!Me for the navy! See how pretty that sailor looks in his cute whitepanties!"
Hartman held the crowd for a good two hours, then he called, "That'sall, boys! Come again!"
"All? Nothing stirring," answered several voices. "Begin over again,Hartman. You can collect another nickel from us as we go out."
There was laughter and applause and not a soul offered to leave. In thedarkness Hartman was heard to laugh in return and shortly the first filmappeared again. Fields of corn shimmered in the wind. Cows grazed inquiet meadows. The audience stared again, breathlessly. Suddenly fromwithout was heard a long-drawn cry. It was like the lingering shriek ofa coyote. Few in the hall had heard the call before, yet no one mistookit for anything but human.
"An Apache yell!" exclaimed an excited voice.
There was a sudden overturning of benches and Pen and Jim were forcedout into the street with the crowd.
An arc light glowed in front of the hall. Under this the crowd swayedfor a moment, uncertain whither to move. Jim held Pen's arm and lookedabout quickly.
"I don't know where you will be safest, Pen. I wish I'd heeded theitching of my thumb and taken you home an hour ago."
"Jim," said Pen, "I certainly like your parties. They are full ofsurprises."
"You are a good little sport," said Jim, "but that doesn't make me lessworried about you. Hang onto my arm now like a little burr."
He began to work his way through the crowd. "I don't want to attracttheir attention," he said. "They will follow me like sheep."
"Was it an Apache cry, Jim?" asked Pen.
"Yes! Old Suma-theek, with a bunch of his Indians has been riding theupper mesa for me tonight. Just to watch Mexico City. I told him tokeep things quiet, so there must have been some imperative reason forthe cry. I'll take you to the upper camp and get my horse."
Jim breathed a sigh of relief as they cleared the crowd and couldquicken their pace. But they were scarcely out of the range of the arclight when a dark group ran hurriedly down from the mesa back of thetown. It was old Suma-theek with four of his Indians. They held, tightlybound with belts and bandanas, two disheveled little hombres.
"Take 'em to jail, Boss?" panted Suma-theek. "I find 'em trying get backto lower town!"
"No! No! Back up into the mountains. I'll get horses to you and you musttake them to Cabillo. Lord, I forgot to warn you!"
Suma-theek turned quickly but not quickly enough. A man ran up to thelittle group then plunged back toward the hall.
"A rope!" he yelled. "Bring a rope. They've got the two hombres."
Men seemed to spring up out of the ground.
"Run, Pen, toward the upper camp!" cried Jim.
"I won't!" exclaimed Pen. "They won't shoot while a woman is standinghere."
She plunged away from Jim and caught Suma-theek's arm. The old Indiansmiled and shoved her behind him. Jim turned and stood shoulder toshoulder with the Apache chief. "Now work back until we're against thepower house with the hombres back of us," he said.
By the time the crowd was massed, yelling and gesticulating on threesides of it, the little group was backed up against the concrete wallof the little substation.
Jim waved his arm. "Go home, boys; go home! You can't do any lynchingwhile the Apaches are here!"
"Give us the hombres, Boss!" shouted a threatening voice, "or we'll haveto be rough on you."
"Send the lady home," called someone else. "This is no job for a lady tosee."
"Boss," said Suma-theek in Jim's ear, "you send your squaw out. She goup mountain back of town, find Apache there, tell all Apaches bringguns, come here, help take hombres to jail."
Jim looked at Pen and his face whitened. But Pen's nostrils dilated andher eyes sparkled. Pen was Irish.
"I'll go," said Pen. "Where is Henderson?"
"He ought to be back," said Jim. "Try to find him after you get theApaches. Send anybody down you can reach." Then he shouted to the crowd,"Let the lady out!"
Jim and Suma-theek stood well above most of the mob. Jim was unarmed andthe crowd knew it. But even had any man there been inclined to preventPen's exit he would rather have done so under a cocked gun than underthe look in Jim's white face as he watched Pen's progress through thecrowd. The men gave back respectfully. As soon as she was free of thecrowd, Pen broke into a run. She darted back behind the line of tents uponto the mountainside.
There for an instant she paused and looked back. The five Indians wereas motionless as the crouching black heaps they guarded. They held theirguns in the hollow of their arms, while Jim, with raised arm, wasspeaking. Pen sobbed in her excitement. If Uncle Denny could see hisboy!
She turned and ran up the trail like a little rabbit. It seemed to herthat she never would reach the top. The camp sounds were faint and farbefore she reached the upper mesa and saw dimly a figure on a horse. Itwas an Indian who covered her with a gun as she panted up to him.
"Suma-theek and the Big Boss say for you to call in all the otherIndians and come help them at the little power house. The whites aretrying to lynch the hombres."
The Indian peered down into her face and grunted as he recognized her.Then he suddenly stood in his stirrups and raised the fearful cry thathad emptied the moving picture hall.
"Ke-theek! Ke-theek! Ke-theek! (To me! To me! To me!)"
Pen stood by the pony's head, trembling yet exultant. This, then, shethought was the life men knew. No wonder Jim loved his job!
Up on the mesa top, the night wind rushed against the encircling stars.The Indian chuckled.
"Mexicans, they no bother whites tonight. They know Apache call, it heapdevil
."
The sound of hoofs began to beat in about the waiting two. "You go,"said the Indian. "Back along upper trail, it safe."
Pen started on a run toward the upper camp.
The surging crowd round Jim and the Indians heard the wild cry from themesa top and the shouts and threats were stilled as if by magic. Therewas a moment of restless silence. That cry was a primordial thing, aswell understood by every man in the mob as if he had heard it always. Itwas the cry of the hunted and the hunter. It was the night cry offorests. It was war with naked hands, death under lonely skies.
Jim called: "Some one is bound to get killed if you boys don't clearout. I'm not armed but a number of you are and the Indians are. If thereare any of my Makon boys here, I want them to come over here and helpme."
"Coming, Boss!" called a voice. "Only a few of the best of us here."
"You'll stay where you are," roared a big Irishman.
"Rush 'em, boys! Rush 'em! They don't dare to shoot!"
Old Suma-theek absent-mindedly sighted his gun in the direction of thelast remark.
"Get a ladder! Get on top of the station. Altogether, boys!"
Fighting through the mob, half a dozen men suddenly ranged themselveswith the Indians.
"Come into us!" one of them shrieked. "I ain't had a fight since Ikilled six Irishmen on the Makon and ate 'em for breakfast."
There was a swaying, a sudden closing of the crowd, when down from themesa rushed old Suma-theek's bucks. They swept the mob aside like flyingsand and closed about the little group against the wall. They were avery splendid picture in the arc light, these forty young bucks withtheir flying hair and plunging ponies. The moment must have been one ofunmixed joy to them as the whites gave back, leaving them the streetwidth.
Jack Henderson rushed up in Jim's automobile just as the street cleared.Jim hurried to the machine. "Jack, did you see Mrs. Saradokis?"
"Took her home in the machine. Had to argue with her to make her go.That's why I'm late. Just got back from delivering the committee."
The color came back under Jim's tan. "Get up to the wall there, Jack,with the machine and put the two hombres into the tonneau with twoIndians and Suma-theek in front. The mounted Indians will act as yourguard for a few miles out. Hit the high places to Cabillo. I guess you'dbetter keep the guard all the way. I wouldn't like you to meet a possewithout one."
Jack nodded and began to work his way among the ponies. In a moment'stime the touring car, with the cowering human bundles in the tonneau,had crossed the river. The crowd disappeared rather precipitately intothe tents, no one courting conversation with Jim. He walked quietly upthe road home.
Early the next morning, Billy Underwood brought Murphy up to Jim'shouse.
"Sorry my posse didn't get there in time to help you out, Boss," saidBill regretfully. "We didn't hear of it till it was all over."
Jim nodded. "Keep up your quarantine for a while, Bill. We won't riskbooze for several days. Now, Murphy, who backed you in the saloonbusiness?"
"Fleckenstein's crowd."
"How long have you known Mr. Saradokis?"
"Met him for the first time last night," replied the ex-saloonkeeper.
Jim eyed the man skeptically and Murphy spoke with sudden heat. "That'son the level. I heard he was backing Fleckenstein and so I thought he'dhelp me get back at you. But he cursed me as I'll stand from no manbecause Underwood made a monkey of me by lugging me up there before you.No wonder his wife left the tent before he began, if that's his usualstyle. I'll get even with that dirty Greek."
Bill nodded. "Boss, that friend of yours has a vocabulary that'd turn amule into a race horse."
"Murphy," said Jim, "you are Irish. My stepfather is an Irishman. He isthe whitest gentleman that ever lived. It's hard for me to realize afterknowing him that an Irishman can be doing the dirty work you are. But Isuppose Ireland must breed men like you or Tammany would die."
Murphy hitched from one foot to the other. Jim went on in his quiet,slow way.
"I suppose you know pretty well what I'm up against on this Project.What would you do with Murphy if you were Manning?"
"I'd beat three pounds of dog meat off his face," replied Murphy,succinctly.
Jim shrugged his shoulders. "That would do neither of us any good. If Ilet you go, Murphy, will you give me your word of honor to let theProject absolutely alone?"
The Irishman gave Jim a quick look. "And would you take my word?"
"Not as a saloonkeeper, but as Irish, I would."
Murphy drew a long breath. "Thank you, Mr. Manning. I'll get off theProject if you say so. But I think you'd be wiser to give me a job belowon the diversion dam where I can keep track of Fleckenstein and hiscrowd for you. I'll show you what it means to trust an Irishman, sir."
Jim suddenly flashed his wistful smile. "I knew you had the makings of afriend in you as soon as I saw how you took the cleaning up I gave youyesterday. I'll give you a note to my irrigation engineer. He needs agood man."
Bill and Murphy went out the door together. "I'll bet you the drinks,Bill," said Murphy, "that he never made you his friend."
"I ain't drinking. I'm his trusted officer," said Bill. "Get me? If youtry any tricks on him----"
Bill stopped abruptly, for Murphy's fist was under his nose. "Did youhear him take my word like a gentleman?" he shouted. "I'd rather be deadthan double cross him!"
"Aw, go on down to the diversion dam," said Bill, irritably. "I've gotno time to listen to your talk. You heard him tell me to guard theplace!"
A part of Jim's day's work, after his letters were answered and writtenin the morning, was to tramp over every portion of the job. The quarry,in the mountain to the north of the dam whence were being taken thegiant rock for embedding in the concrete was his first care. The stonemust be of the right quality and of proper weight and contour to bindwell with the cement. The quarrying itself must be going forward rapidlyand without waste. Then came the giant sand dump, where the dinkies hadfilled a canyon with the sand from the river bed. This was the supplythat fed the always hungry mixer. After this the warehouse and the powerhouse, the laboratories and the concrete mixer, the cableway towers andthe superintendent's office, with all the thousand and one details,expected and unexpected, that made or marred the success of the dam,must be looked over. The last visit was always at the dam itself, whereJim spent most of the day.
On the afternoon after Jim had hired Murphy he stood on the section ofthe dam which now showed no signs of old Jezebel's strenuous visit. Jimwas watching the job with his outer mind, while with his inner mind heturned over and over the things that Pen had said to him the nightbefore the mask ball. Even in the excitement that followed the ball,Pen's scolding, as he called it, had never been entirely out of histhoughts. In spite of their sting, Jim realized that Pen's words hadcleared his vision, had given him a sense of content that was comparableonly to the feeling he had had on the night so many years ago that hehad discovered his profession.
To find that the cause of his failure lay in himself and not inintangible forces without that he could not combat was strangely enougha very real relief. For Jim was taking Pen's review of his weaknesses asessential truth!
Suddenly, with his eyes fastened critically on a great stone block thatwas being carefully bedded on the section, he laughed aloud andwhispered to himself:
"I feel just the way I used to when I got mad because I couldn't getcompound interest and Dad straightened me out, giving me a good callingdown as he did so. Pen! Pen! My dearest!"
Oscar Ames, picking his way carefully among the derricks and stoneblocks, grunted when he saw the smile on Jim's face. Jim did not ceaseto smile when he saw Oscar.
"Come up here, Ames! I want your advice!"
Oscar grunted again, but this time as if someone had knocked his breathout of him. He paused, then came on up to where Jim was standing. Menwere busy preparing the surface on which they stood for the nextpouring. In the excavation below, the channeling machine was gouging outa t
rench for the heel of the dam. Pumps were working steadily, drawingseepage water from the excavation. Men swarmed everywhere, on derricks,on engines, with guide ropes for cableway loads, scouring and chippingrock and concrete surfaces, ramming and bolting forms into place,shifting motors, always hurrying yet always giving a sense of directionand purpose.
"She's coming along, Oscar," said Jim.
Oscar nodded. Something in Jim's tone made his own less pugnacious thanusual as he said:
"What you using sand-cement for instead of the real stuff?"
"It's stronger," said Jim. "A very remarkable thing! We've been testingthat out five or six years."
Jim's tone was very amiable. Oscar looked at him suspiciously and Jimlaughed. "Thought we were working some kind of a cement graft?" Jimasked.
"Well, that's the common report!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Oscar!" exclaimed Jim disgustedly.
"Well, now," said Ames doggedly, "just why should sand-cement bestronger than the pure Portland?"
Jim scowled, started to speak with his old impatience, then changed hismind.
"You come up to the laboratory with me, Oscar. I'll give you a lesson oncement that will put a stop to this gossip at once. A man of yourexperience ought to know better."
Conflicting emotions showed in Oscar's face, boyish despite his fiftyyears. This was the first time Jim had used the man to man tone withAmes. He cleared his throat and followed the Big Boss up the trail tothe little adobe laboratory. The young cement engineer looked curiouslyat Jim's companion.
"Mr. Field," said Jim, "this is Mr. Ames. He is one of the mostinfluential men in the valley. He is giving practically all of his timeto watching our work up here. He tells me the farmers feel thatsand-cement isn't good. We will put in an hour showing Mr. Ames ourtests and their results for the last five years, both here and on theMakon."
Field did not show his surprise at Jim's about-face. But he did say tohimself as he went into the back room for his old reports, "Evidentlythe farmer is no longer to be told to go to Hades when he kicks. Iwonder what's happened."
An hour later Jim and Oscar walked slowly up the trail toward Jim'shouse. Jim had invited Ames up for a further talk. Oscar had shown aremarkable aptitude for the details that Jim and Field had explained.And his pleasure at finally understanding the whole idea upon which Jimwas basing his concrete work was such that Jim felt a very real remorse.He recalled almost daily questions from Oscar and other farmers that hehad answered with a shortness that was often contemptuous.
"Now you see," Oscar said as they entered the cottage, "we'll actuallysave money on that. Wonderful thing, Mr. Manning, how mixing the sandand cement intimately enough, as you say, turns the trick. I'll tell thebunch down at Cabillo about that tomorrow."
Jim shoved a box of cigars at Oscar and surveyed him with his wistfulsmile. There were dark circles round Jim's eyes that in his childhoodhad told of nerve strain. Jim at that moment wondered what Iron Skullwould have made of the present situation. He was silent so long thatOscar spoke a little impatiently:
"If you ain't going to talk, Mr. Manning, Jane is waiting for me and Igot to see Mr. Sardox yet."
Jim pulled himself together, and, a little diffidently, handed Ames theSecretary's letter with the copy of his own.
"Tell me what you think of these," said Jim.
Oscar read the two letters carefully, then said: "I'd think more of 'emif I had any idea what either of you was driving at."
"It means just this," said Jim, "that unless the engineers and thefarmers work together, the Reclamation Service will get what the waterpower trust is trying to give it, and that is, oblivion."
"Aha," said Oscar, "that's why you've been so decent to me today?"
"Yes," replied Jim simply.
Oscar's look of suspicion returned. Jim went on slowly and carefully."It will be bad business if the Service fails. It will retard thegovernment control of water power greatly, and there is enough possiblewater power in this country, Oscar, to turn every wheel in it and toheat and light every home in the land. If the Service fails it willshow just one thing; that the farmers and engineers on the Projects aretoo selfish to get together for the country's good, that the farmer is astupid cat's paw for the money interests and the engineer a spinelessfool who won't fight."
"Look here, Manning," cried Oscar, "don't you think I'm justified inthinking about nothing but my own ranch, considering what it's cost me?"
"Don't you think," Jim returned, "that I'm justified in thinking aboutnothing but my dam and in letting the water power trust eat it and youup, considering how hard I work on the building itself?"
Oscar stared and chewed his cigar and Jim smoked in silence for amoment.
"Ames," he said finally, "I wonder if you will get this idea as quicklyas you did the sand-cement one. America isn't like England or Germany orFrance. Over there the citizens of each country are practically of onerace. Fundamentally, they think about the same way and want the samethings. If one man or many neglect public duties it makes no permanentdifference. Someone else will take up the duty some time, and in justabout the same way that the negligent man would have done. But inAmerica we have become a hodge-podge of every race. We have no nationalideals. You can't tell me now of a single national ideal you and I areworking for or even thinking about. You can't tell me what an Americanis, or I you. Get me?"
Oscar nodded, his tanned face keen with interest.
"Now the time has come when if you or I want any particular one of theold New England ideals to live in this country we have got to fight forit, start an educational campaign for it. If we don't, the Russian Jewsor the Italians or the Syrians will change things to suit their ownideals. Now they may be all right. Their ideals may be as good as mine.They have every right to be here and to rule if they can. But I don'tlike the kind of government they stood for in their native countries.
"I'm a pig-headed Anglo-Saxon, full of an egotism that dies hard. Ibelieve that the Reclamation Service idea is an outgrowth of the finedemocracy that our fathers brought to New England. I believe that thefolks that are going to inherit America can't afford to lose the idea ofthe Service and I'm going to fight for it now till they get me. Am Iclear?"
"Sure," said Oscar. "Ain't I of Puritan stock myself?"
"That's why I'm talking to you," said Jim. "Now I take the central ideaof the United States Reclamation Service to be this. It is a return tothe old principle of the people governing themselves directly, of theirassuming individual responsibility for the details and cost ofgoverning. It is the fine outgrowth of the industrial lessons we havelearned in the past years, combined with the town meeting idea, broughtup to date.
"One central organization can do work better and cheaper, if it will,than a dozen competing interests. If the central organization isprivately owned it demands a heavy profit. But if it is owned by thegovernment it takes no profit. On a Project, free individualsvoluntarily combine to do business and to directly administer theproducts of that business to themselves. The Service is merely the toolof the people on the Projects.
"Oscar, it's up to you and me. In antagonizing you farmers, I've openedthe way for the enemies of the Service to reach you. And you, in beingreached, are endangering the Service. Is it true that you are going tohelp Saradokis and Fleckenstein get your honest debts repudiated?"
The two men sat and stared at each other, Oscar with his years ofunutterable labor behind him, his traditions that dealt with a constanthand-to-hand struggle with nature for his own existence; Jim with hislong years of dreaming behind him and his awakening vision of socialresponsibility before him. Engineer and desert farmer, they were ofwidely differing characteristics, yet they had one fundamental qualityin common. They both were producers. They were not little men. There wasnothing parasitic in their outlook. They had always dealt withfundamental, primitive forces.
Suddenly Oscar leaned forward. "Are you trying to string me into sayingthe increased cost of the dam is all right?"
&
nbsp; Jim tapped on the table. "Not five per cent of the increased cost butcomes from the improvements you farmers have asked for. And not one centof the cost of the entire Project but will be paid for by the waterpower produced and sold. You know that, Ames. Now pay attention."
Jim shook his finger in Oscar's face and said slowly and incisively:
"You farmers will never repudiate your honorable debts while I canfight. You are going to fight with me, Ames, to help me save theService. You are going to put your shoulder to mine and fight as you didwhen the old dam was going out under your feet! Do you get that?"
Oscar opened his mouth but no words came. Then both men jumped to theirfeet as Mrs. Ames' gentle voice said from the kitchen door:
"Oscar will fight, or I'll leave him."