Under Handicap

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XI

  Brayley and Conniston went together into the corral and picked up thethree revolvers. Then Conniston turned toward the stable to get hishorse. Brayley's eyes followed him, narrowing speculatively.

  "Hey, Conniston," he called, sharply, "where you goin'?"

  "To work. It's late now."

  "Yes, it's late, all right. But you better go up to the bunk-housefirst an' fix your hand up. Oh, don't be a fool. Come ahead. I'm goin'to straighten out my face a bit."

  So Conniston turned back, and the two men went to the bunk-house. Thecook was pottering around his stove, cleaning up his pots and pans. Helooked up curiously as they came in, realizing that by now they shouldhave been at work. The faint, careless surprise upon his face changedsuddenly into downright bewilderment as he saw the dust-coveredbodies, the cut lips, blood-streaked cheeks, and swelling eyes of thetwo men. The song which he had been humming died away into a littlegasp, and with sagging lower jaw he stood and stared.

  "Well," snapped Brayley, pushing back his hat and returning the cook'sstare fiercely. "Well, Cookie, what's eatin' you? Ain't you gotnothin' to do but stand an' gawk? By the Lord, if you ain't I knowwhere we can git a hash-slinger as is worth his grub!"

  Cookie's bulging eyes ranged from one face to the other. Then heturned back to his stove and began to wash over again a pan which hehad laid aside already as clean.

  Conniston and Brayley washed with cold water in silence. Then theyfound a bottle of liniment and applied it to their various cuts with abit of rag. Brayley, his big fingers unbelievably gentle, bandagedConniston's lame hand for him. And then they went back to the corrals.

  "You can go out to the east end an' give Rawhide a hand," saidBrayley, as he swung up to his horse's back. "I reckon you won't bemuch good for a day or two except jest ridin'. An' say, Con. I had atalk with the Ol' Man about you this mornin'. He wanted to know if youwas makin' good. Lucky for you," with a twisted grin, "that he askedbefore we had our little set-to! You're to git forty-five a month fromnow on. An' at the end of the week you're to report over toRattlesnake to go to work."

  As Greek Conniston rode out across the dry fields toward the eastthere was a subtle exhilaration in the fresh, clean morning air whichhe drew deep down into his lungs. For the moment the soreness ofbruised muscles, the biting pain in his crippled hand, were triflesdriven outward to the farthermost rim of his consciousness. His footwas upon the first step of the long stairway which he must climb. Hehad whipped Brayley in a fair, square, hand-to-hand, man-to-man fight.He had done it through sheer dogged determination that he would do it.He had set himself a task, the hardest task he had ever essayed. Andsuccess had come to him as self-vindication.

  But it had been to him more, vastly more, than a mere duty, althoughfrom the outset he had looked upon it in that light. It had been atest. Had the outcome been reversed, had he failed, had Brayleyworsted him, there was every likelihood that Conniston would have leftthe range. But now, hand in hand with dawning regeneration, there cameconfidence. There were many things which his destiny had set ahead ofhim, and he was ready to face them with the same dogged determinationwith which he had faced the big foreman.

  Then, too, this morning he had received more than mere self-approval.Brayley had indorsed his work in his consultation with Mr. Crawford.And Mr. Crawford had seen fit to increase his daily wage. He had notbeen worth a dollar a day a month ago, and he knew it. Now he was tobe paid a dollar and a half a day, and because he was worth that tothe Half Moon. So far, in the circumscribed area of his daily duties,he "had made good." He felt that the first heat of the great race wasrun, that in spite of his handicap he had held his own. The raceitself was almost a tangible thing ahead of him. Greek Conniston wasready for it. And he dared think, with a sharp-drawn breath and aleaping of blood throughout his whole being, of the golden prize atthe end of it--for the man who could win that prize.

  He worked all that day with Rawhide Jones, his left hand upon hisreins, his right thrust into his open vest as a rude sort of sling. Hemet Rawhide's surprise, answered his quick question by saying, simply,without explanation, "I got hurt." Rawhide had grunted and dropped thesubject.

  All day long one matter surged uppermost in Conniston's mind to theexclusion of anything else: he was to be transferred from the HalfMoon to Rattlesnake Valley. He did not know whether to be glad at thechange or sorry. He was growing to know the men with whom he worked,growing to like them, to find pleasure in their rude companionship.Now, just as he was making friends of them he was to be shifted amongstrangers. To-day he had found heretofore unsounded depths in thenature of Brayley; he wanted to know the man better, to show him thathe had not been blind to rough, frank generosity, nor unappreciativeof it. Through these latter days, during which the scales had beendropping from his eyes in spite of prejudice, he had been forced intoa grudging admiration of the man's capability. Brayley could readlittle and spell less; he was a clown and a boor in the matter of thefiner, exacting social traditions; but he could run a cattle-range,and he read his men as other men read books. Conniston realizedsuddenly, shocked with the realization, that in Brayley there was thatsame sort of thing which he had come to respect in Argyl Crawford, thesame open frankness, the same straightforward honesty, the same deep,wide generosity.

  Argyl, too, entered into the confusion of his gladness anddisappointment at the coming change of sphere. He had planned to spendmany an evening with her; and now, just as he was finding the door toher comradeship opened to him, he was to be whisked away from her.

  But on the other hand Conniston's optimism saw ahead of him, in thenew field of work, the dim, shadowy, and at the same time alluringoutline of a new and rare opportunity. He had not forgotten the thingswhich Mr. Crawford had said of his big project. And in spite of hisown deprecatory answer to Mr. Crawford's straightforward question,Greek Conniston had not forgotten all of the engineering he hadabsorbed during four years in the university. There was work to bedone, there were men wanted, above all, men who could understandsomething beyond the pick-and-shovel end of the thing, men who knewthe difference between a transit and a telescope.

  And the work itself appealed to him strangely now that that labor wasnot without independence, not without a stern sort of dignity even. Totake a stretch of dry, hot sand, innocent of vegetation, to wrest itfrom the clutch of the desert as from the maw of a devastating giant,to bring water mile upon mile from the mountain canons, to make thesterile breast of the mother earth fertile, to drive back the hornedtoad and the coyote, to make green things spring up and flourish, tocarve out homes, to cause trees and flowers and vines to give shadeand disseminate fragrance, even as time went on to wring moisture fromthe lead-gray sky above--it was like being granted the might of amagician to touch the desert with the tip of his wand, bringing lifegushing forth from death.

  When night came Conniston trudged from the corrals to the bunk-houseand his evening meal devoutly thankful that the long day was gone. Hishand pained him constantly, and in the sharp twinges which shotthrough it the lesser hurt of his cut cheek was forgotten. The greaterpart of the other men was there before him. As he stepped in at thedoor they were dragging their chairs noisily up to the table. Brayley,one eye swollen almost shut, his lips thick like a negro's with theblows which had hammered them, had just taken his seat. The men's eyeswere quick to catch the bruised countenance of the man at the door,and ran swiftly from it to Brayley's face and back again. One manchuckled aloud, Toothy giggled like a girl, and the others grinnedbroadly. For a moment Brayley's face darkened ominously. Then hisfrown passed, and he turned about in his chair toward the door.

  "Hello, Con," he said, quietly.

  "Hello, Brayley," Conniston answered, in the same tone.

  Brayley's eyes went back to the men at the table, shifting quicklyfrom one to another. He ran his tongue along his swollen lips, butsaid no word until Conniston had washed and taken his own chair. Thenhe spoke, his words coming with slow distinctness.

  "Connis
ton jumped me this mornin.' I had a lickin' comin' to me. Youboys know why. An' I got it."

  He stopped suddenly, his eyes watchful upon the faces about him.Conniston saw that they were no longer grinning, but as serious, aswatchful, as Brayley's.

  "That was between me an' Conniston. There ain't goin' to be no makin'fun an' fool remarks about it. He done it square, an' I'm glad he doneit! If there's any other man here as thinks he can do it I'll take himon right now!"

  Again he paused abruptly, again he studied the grave faces andspeculative eyes intent upon his own. No man spoke. And Connistonnoticed that no man smiled.

  "All right," grunted Brayley. "That ends it. Cookie, for the love ofMike, are you goin' to keep us waitin' all night for them spuds?"

  The meal passed with no further reference, open or covert, to thething which was uppermost in the minds of all. Many a curious glance,however, went to where Conniston sat. He was conscious of them evenwhen he did not see them, understood that a new appraisal of him wasbeing made swiftly, that his fellow-workers were carefully readjustingtheir first conceptions and judgments of him.

  When he had finished eating, Conniston went straight to his bunk. Hehad no desire for conversation; he did want both rest and a chance tothink. He was straightening out his tumbled covers when Lonesome Petetapped him upon the shoulder.

  "No hay for yours, Con," he grinned. "Not yet. Miss Argyl wants you tocome up to the house. Right away, she said, as soon as you'd et. Shesaid special she was in a hurry, an' you wasn't to waste time puttin'on your glad rags."

  Why did Argyl want him--to-night? He put his fingers to his cheekwhere Brayley's fist had cut into the flesh. How could he go to herlike this? He was on the verge of telling Lonesome Pete that he couldnot go, of framing some excuse, any excuse. But instead he closed hislips without speaking, picked up his hat and went straight toward thehouse.

  She was waiting for him at the little summer-house upon the frontlawn. He saw the white of her lacy gown, the flash of her arms as hecame nearer, her outstretched hand as he came to her side. With hishat caught under his right arm he put out his left hand to take hers.

  "You were good to come so soon," she was saying.

  "It was good to come," he rejoined, warmly. "You know how glad I amfor every opportunity I have to see you."

  "What is the matter with your hand?" she asked, quickly. "Your righthand?"

  "I hurt it," he answered, easily. "Nothing serious. It will be well ina day or two."

  "How did you hurt it?" she persisted.

  "Really, Miss Crawford," he retorted, trying to laugh away theseriousness of her tone, "there are so many ways for a man to damagehis epidermis in this sort of work--"

  She was standing close to him, looking intently up into his facethrough the gathering darkness.

  "Tell me--why did you do it?"

  "What? Smash my fingers?"

  "Yes. In the way you did!"

  "What do you mean?" he hesitated, wondering what she knew.

  "On Brayley's face! Why did you fight with him?"

  "Who told you?"

  "Brayley. He had to come to see father this evening. I saw his face. Iheard him tell father that he had had trouble with one of the men. Iwas afraid that it was you! I followed him out into the yard and askedhim. It is no doubt none of my business--but will you tell me why youfought with him?"

  "I think that I would answer anything you cared to ask me, MissCrawford," he replied, quietly. "Will you sit down with me for alittle?" He moved slowly at her side, back to the seat in thesummer-house, grateful for any reason which gave him the privilege oftalking with her, watching her quick play of expression. "You see, myobject seemed so clear-cut and simple--and now gets itself alltangled up in complexity when I try to explain it to you. For onething, ever since my first night on the Half Moon when Brayley put meout I have felt that it was up to me to finish what was begun thatnight. For another thing, I was trying to prove a theory, I imagine! Ididn't really believe that Brayley was the better man. And lastly, andperhaps most important of all, I told you the other day that I wasgoing to lick him. It was a sort of promise, you know!"

  She sat with her elbow upon her knee, her chin on her hand, her eyeslost in the shadow of her hair. He knew that she was regarding himintently. He guessed from the line of her cheek, from the slightlyupturned curve at the corner of her mouth, that she was half inclinedto be serious, and almost ready to smile at him.

  "You are inclined to look upon Brayley as an enemy?" was all that shesaid, still watching him closely.

  "No!" he cried, warmly. "I sneered at him the other day, I know. Likethe little poppinjay I was I thought myself in the position to pokefun at him. To-day I got my first true idea of the man's nature.To-day I found out--can you guess what I found out? That Brayley inmany things is just like--whom, do you suppose?"

  "Tell me."

  "Like you! The discovery was a shock. It nearly bowled me over. Butit's the truth!"

  "What do you mean?" she asked, plainly puzzled. "How in the world isBrayley like me?"

  "Aside from externals, from refinement, from polish, from all thatsort of thing"--he spoke swiftly--"his nature is much like yours.There is the same frankness, the same sincerity, the same heartiness.There is the same sort of generosity, the same bigness of--of soul."He broke off abruptly, surprised to find himself talking this way toher. "You must think I'm a fool," he blurted out, after a second. "Italk like one. You have a right to feel offended--to liken Brayley toyou--"

  "Since I believe you mean what you say--since I think I understandwhat you mean--I am not offended! I am proud! Yes, proud if I can belike Brayley in some things, some things which count! If you donothing beyond making a friend of that man your exile in this Westerncountry of ours will have been worth while. But you will do somethingmore. I did not ask you to come to me just to hear what you had to sayabout your trouble with Brayley. He told me before you came--told methat you had licked him, as you both put it, and that it served himright! That is your business and Brayley's, and I should keep out ofit. But there was something else--I wonder if you think me meddlesome,Mr. Conniston? If I _am_ meddlesome?"

  "If we are going to be friends, you and I--and you promised that youwould let me make you my friend--hadn't we better drop that word?"

  "Then I am going to tell you something. You are to go to work in theValley. Brayley told you that? Do you guess why--have you anidea--why father is sending you over there?"

  "I supposed because he is pushing the work--because he needs all themen there he can get, can spare from the Half Moon."

  "I am going to tell you. And I am afraid that father would not likeit, did he know. But I know that I am right. I may not see you againbefore you go--I am going into Crawfordsville in the morning for afew days. What I tell you, you will remember, is in strictconfidence--between friends?"

  "In strict confidence," he repeated, seriously. "Between friends."

  She leaned slightly forward, speaking swiftly, emphatically,earnestly:

  "You have heard of Bat Truxton? He is in charge there of all the men,general superintendent of all the work. You will be put to work underhim. You will be in a position to learn a great deal about the projectin its every detail. Bat Truxton is an engineer, a practical man whoknows what he has learned by doing it. And he is a strong man and verycapable. Then there is Garton--Tommy Garton they call him. You willwork with him. He, too, is an engineer, and he, too, knows all thereis to know about the work."

  She paused a moment, as though in hesitation. Conniston waited insilence for her to go on.

  "Father is sending you to the Valley because he has begun to take aninterest in you. Before the year is over there is going to be anopportunity for every man there to show what there is in him. He isgiving you your chance, your chance to make good!"

  Argyl got to her feet and stood looking away from him, out across theduck pond. Presently she turned to him again, smiling, her voice gonefrom grave to gay.

  "The race i
s on, isn't it? The great handicap! And, anyway, I havegiven you a tip, haven't I? Now you are coming up to the house withme, and I'm going to make you a bandage for your broken hand."

  She didn't stop to heed his protest, but ran ahead of him to thehouse. And Conniston, pondering on many things, saw nothing for it butto allow her to play nurse to him.

  Saturday morning Greek Conniston pocketed the first money he had everearned by good, hard work. Brayley handed him three ten-dollar goldpieces--his month's wage. Conniston asked for some change, and for oneof the gold pieces received ten silver dollars. He knew that Mr.Crawford and Argyl had gone into Crawfordsville, so he gave one dollarto Brayley, saying: "Will you hand that to Mr. Crawford for me? I oweit to him for telegraph service on the first day I spent here." Andthen he made a little roll of the indispensable articles from hissuit-case, tied it to the strings behind his saddle, and rode awayacross the fields toward Rattlesnake Valley.

  He was to report immediately at the office of the reclamation work inValley City. Following the trail he and Argyl had taken the other day,he rode into the depression, or sink, about the middle of that long,low hollow between the southern end and the clutter of uniform squarebuildings which was planned to grow into a thriving town in the heartof the desert.

  Every foot of ground here now had a new personal interest for him. Hestudied the long, flat sweep of level land with nodding approval,trying to see just where the main canal should run, just how itscourse could be shaped most rapidly, most cheaply, mostadvantageously. For the mounds, the ridges where the winds had sweptthe sand into long winnows, he had a quick frown. After all, herealized suddenly, this desert was not the flat, even floor he hadimagined it to be. A mile, two miles to his right as he rode into the"valley" he could see a slow-moving mass of men and horses, couldcatch the glint of the sun upon jerking scrapers and plows. There thefront ranks of Mr. Crawford's little army was pushing the war againstthe desert. There was where the brunt of Bat Truxton's responsibilitylay.

  To his left, still several miles away, was Valley City. He swung hishorse toward the camp, which as yet was scarcely more than a man'sdream of a town, and rode on at a swift gallop. Now more than ever hesaw what some of the difficulties were in front of the handful of menscarring the breast of this Western Sahara. For a moment he could seethe houses before him, even down to their doorsteps, and a momentlater only the roofs peered at him over the crest of a gently swellingrise. Here the water, when it was brought this far, must be swung in awide sweep to right or left, or else many days, perhaps many weeks,must be sacrificed to the leveling of a great sand-pile. He began towonder if there was enough water in the mountains for so mammoth aproject; if what of the precious fluid could be taken from the creeksand springs would not be drunk up by the thirsty sands as though ithad been scattered carelessly by the spoonfuls, as a blotter drinksdrops of ink. He even began to wonder uneasily if Lonesome Pete hadbeen right when he had said that another name for such an attempt atreclamation was simple "damn foolishness." The water had not come yet;it was still running in its time-worn courses down the mountain-sides;but something else was being drunk up daily by the parched gullet ofthe dry country. And that something else was Mr. Crawford's money. Hisfortune was no doubt very large; it must run into many figures beforeRattlesnake Valley grew green with fertility.

  He came at last into the little town, passed the cottage where he hadworked with Argyl, and drew up before a four-roomed, rough, unpaintedbuilding, with a sign over the door saying, "GENERAL OFFICECRAWFORD RECLAMATION COMPANY." Swinging down from his horse,which he left with reins upon the ground, he went in at the open door.Within there were bare walls, bare floor, and three or four cheapchairs. Under the windows looking to the south there ran a long, hightable, covered with papers and blue-prints. Another long table ranacross the middle of the room. At it, facing him, perched upon a highstool, a young man, a pencil behind each ear, his sleeves rolled up,was working over some papers. In one corner of the same room anotheryoung fellow, hardly more than a boy--eighteen or nineteen,perhaps--was ticking away busily at a typewriter.

  The man in shirt-sleeves working at the second long table looked up asConniston came in. He was a pale, not over-strong--looking chap,somewhere about Conniston's own age, his short-cropped yellow hairpushed straight back from a high forehead, his lips and eyesgood-humored and at the same time touched vaguely with a tenderwistfulness. Conniston imagined immediately that this was Garton, BatTruxton's helper.

  "You're Mr. Garton?" he said, voicing his impression as he cameforward.

  "No one else," Garton answered him, pleasantly. "Tom Garton at yourservice. And you're Conniston from the Half Moon?"

  He put out his hand without rising. Conniston took it, surprised ashe did so at the quick, strong grip of the slender fingers.

  "I'm glad to know you, Conniston. Glad you're to be with us. Oh yes, Iknew a couple of days ago that you were coming over. Mr. Crawforddropped in on us himself and told us about you. Have a chair."

  They had shaken hands across the table. Now, as Conniston moved acrossthe room to the chair at which Garton waved, the latter swung about onhis high stool toward the boy at the typewriter.

  "Hey there, Billy!" he called. "Come and meet Mr. Conniston. He'sgoing to be one of us. Mr. Conniston, meet Mr. Jordan--BillyJordan--the one man living who can take down dictation as fast as youcan sling it at him, type it as you shoot it in, and play a tune onhis typewriter at the same time!"

  Stepping about the table to meet the boy who had got to his feet,Conniston received a shock which for a second made him forget to takeyoung Jordan's proffered hand. For the first time now he saw Garton'sbody, which had been hidden by the table; saw that Garton had had bothlegs taken off six inches above the knees. He remembered himself, andtried to hide his surprise under some light remark to Billy Jordan.But Garton had seen it, and laughed lightly, although with a slightflush creeping up into his pale cheeks.

  "Hadn't heard about my having slept with Procrustes? Well, you'll getused to having half a man around after a while. The rest do. I'vegotten used to it myself. Now sit down. Have a smoke?" He pushed a boxof cigarettes along the table. "And tell us what's the news onBroadway."

  "You're a New-Yorker?"

  "Oh, I've galloped up and down the Big Thoroughfare a good many timesin the days of my youth," grinned Carton, helping himself to acigarette. "I'm an Easterner, all right; or, rather, I was anEasterner. I guess I belong to this man's country now."

  "What school?"

  "Yale. '05."

  "Why, that's my school! I was a '06 man."

  "I know it." Garton nodded over the match he was touching to hiscigarette. "You're Greek Conniston, son of the big Conniston who doesthings on the Street. But we didn't happen to travel in the sameclass. I was shy on the money end of it. Oh, I remember you, allright. I saw that record run of yours around left end to a touchdown.Gad, that was a great day! I went crazy then with a thousand otherfellows. I remember," with an amused chuckle, "jumping up and down ona fat man's toes, yelling into his face until I must have split hisear-drum! Oh yes, I had two pegs in those days. The fat man got mad,the piker, and knocked me as flat as a pancake! I guess he never wentto Yale."

  For ten minutes they chatted about old college days, games lost andwon, men and women they both had known in the East. And then,naturally, conversation switched to the work being done in RattlesnakeValley. Garton's face lighted up with eagerness, his eyes grew verybright, he spoke swiftly. It was easy to see that the man was full ofhis work, pricked with the fever of it, alive with enthusiasm.

  "You seem to be mightily interested in the work," Conniston smiled.

  "I am. I am in love with it! A man can't live here ten days and be apart of it without loving it or hating it. It's the greatest work inthe world; it's big--bigger than we can see with our noses jammed upagainst it! It's a man's work. And thank God we've got the right manat the head of it!"

  "Meaning Truxton?"

  "Meaning the man who is the
brain of it and the brawn of it; the heartand soul and glorious spirit of it; yes, and the pocket-book of it!That's John Crawford, a big man--the biggest man I ever knew. Who elsewould have the nerve to tackle a thing like this, to tackle itlone-handed? And to hold on to it in the face of opposition whichwould crush another man, and with the risk of utter financial ruinlooming as big as a house, like a glorious, grim old bulldog! Oh, youdon't know what it means yet; you can't know. Wait until you've beenhere a week, seeing every day of it a thousand dollars poured into thesand, a few square yards of sand leveled, a few yards of canal dug,and you'll begin to understand. Why, the whole thing as it stands isas dangerous as a dynamite bomb--and John Crawford is as cool about itas an anarchist!"

  "You speak of opposition. I didn't know--"

  Garton rumpled his upstanding yellow hair and laughed softly.

  "I guess none of us know a great deal about it excepting JohnCrawford. And John Crawford doesn't talk much. Oh, you will learn fastenough all that we know about it. And now I suppose you'll be wantingto know where you fit into the machine. Bring any things with you--anypersonal effects?"

  "A tooth-brush and an extra suit," Conniston laughed. "They're tied tomy saddle outside."

  "You can bring 'em in here. I have a room in the back of this shack.You're to share it with me, if you care to. You'll find a shed in theback yard where you can leave your horse. There's a barrel of waterout there, too. And, by the way, you might as well learn right now notto throw away a drop of the stuff; it's worth gold out here. When youget back I'll go over things with you. Your first day's work, thebetter part of it, will be to listen while I talk."

  Conniston unsaddled and tied his horse in the little shed, coming backinto the office with his roll of clothes. Garton swung about upon hisstool and pointed out the room at the back of the house which was toserve for the present as the sleeping-room for both men. There weretwo cots along opposite walls, a chair, and no other furniture.Conniston threw down his things upon the cot which Garton called tohim was to be his, and came back into the office. Pulling a stool upto the table alongside of Garton, he began his first day's work forthe reclamation project.