The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXIX

  MARTIAL LAW

  The entire flow of the greater of the Two Forks streams lay harnessedat last, after years of labor and an expenditure of millions. Fortwenty miles there lay a lake where once a clear, gravel-bottomedstream had flowed above the gorge of the mountain canyon. The grayface of a man-made wall rose sheer a hundred feet above the originalbed of the stream, leaving it in part revealed; and this barrierchecked and stayed the once resistless flood against which an entiremountain range had proved inefficient. Presently for hundreds of mileseach way the transmission lines would carry out power to those seekinglight, to those employing labor; and the used water would irrigatelands far below.

  Allied with this unit of the great dam was a lesser dam operating amill plant on the other Fork. Down this stream ship timbers once hadcome. The camp of the reclamation engineers and construction men layupon a bench or plateau which once formed the bank of the stream uponthat side, now about half way up to the top of the great dam. The roadrunning up and down the valley ascended from this plateau to asufficient elevation to surmount the permanent water level above theupper dam. On the opposite side rose a sheer and bare rock runningtwo-thirds up to the top of the mountain peak which here had shoulderedits way down as though in curiosity to look at the bottom of the gorgeitself. The great dam was anchored to the rock face on that side, andit was there that the chutes and wells for the turbines were located,as well as the spill gates which now were in temporary service. A wideroadway of cement, with vast buttresses on each side, ran along the topof the dam and looked down upon the abrupt surface of its lower face.Here, and there, at either side of the dam, and at the original streamlevel, stood low buildings of stone, to house the vast dynamos or carefor other phases of the tremendous industrial installation of theNational Government.

  Here and there were stationed the armed guards, in the uniform of theArmy. They did sentry-go along the dam-top, and patrolled or watchedthe lower levels of the works below the dam. They patrolled also thestreet and the road above and below the camp.

  Well paid human labor had erected this great dam, mixed with thereturned soldiers and a small per cent of labor sometimes sullen, withno affection for its work. In time among such as these came agents ofa new and vast discontent, some who spoke of a "rule of reason,"meaning thereby the crazed European rule of ignorant selfishness,others who spoke of "violence" as the only remedy for labor againstcapital. With what promises they deluded labor, with what hopes of anychange, with what possibilities of later benefits, with what chimerasof an easier, unearned day, it matters not. They found listeners.

  Against these covert forces working for the destruction of ourcivilization, our Government developed an unsuspected efficiency,sometimes through its department of justice, sometimes through a vastand silent civilian body of detectives working all over the country andagain through its franker agencies of the military arm. Thus that ableengineer who had built the great power dam here at the Two Forks--a manwho had built a half score of railroads and laid piers for bridgeswithout number, and planned city monuments, with the boldest and mostfertile of imaginations, Friedrich Waldhorn his name, was a graduate ofour best institutions and those of Germany--long since had been watchedas closely as many another of less importance in charge of workremotely or intimately concerned with the country's public resources.

  Waldhorn--before the war an outspoken Socialist and free-thinker--mayhave known that he was watched--must have known it when a young medicalofficer given military duties quite outside his own profession, was putover him in authority at the scene of his engineering triumph, and atprecisely the time of its climax. But the situation for Waldhorn wasthis, that if he resigned and left the place he would only come themore closely under immediate espionage. Whatever his motives, heremained, sullen and uncommunicative.

  Meanwhile the little camp sprawled in the sun, scattered along theplateau on the side of the mountain gorge. Crude, unpainted, built oflogs or raw boards, it lay in the shadow for the greater part of theday, deep down in the narrow cleft of the mountains, far out in thewilderness. The great forest deepened and thickened, back of it, fortymiles into the high country.

  Those who lived here in the canyon could not as yet understand thenature of the thin blue veil which today obscured their scantysunlight, did not know that each minute of day was destroying treeswhich had cost a thousand years to grow, which never in the knowledgeof man might be replaced. But when the party of Major Barnes came downfrom Sim Gage's ranch, questions were answered. The forest had beenfired again. The soldiers swore the silent soldier oath of revenge.

  Doctor Barnes did not pause even to help the women out of the car. Hehurried to the long, screened gallery in front of the residence andoffice of Waldhorn, chief engineer.

  Waldhorn met him at the door, well-fed, suave, polite, a burly man,well-clad and bearing the marks of alertness and success. Always offew words, he scarcely more than spoke at present, his mildly elevatedeyebrows making inquiry of the dusty man before him.

  "Yes, Doctor, or--ah, Major?" he said, smilingly, insulting.

  "Call it Major!" snapped Barnes. "I've come to tell you that I wantyour house."

  "Yes? When?"

  "In two minutes."

  "Why?"

  "I want it for Government uses. A patient of mine has come down hereto stay a while--wife of one of my scouts."

  "Well, now, my dear Major, I would not like to interfere with yourprivate graft in the practice of medicine in any way. But I'm engineerin charge of this work, I fancy."

  "Fancy something else while the fancying's good. Go on over to thatlittle log house, Waldhorn. You'll live there until we send you out."

  "Send me out! What do you mean, sir?"

  "This camp is under martial law. You're under arrest, if you like tocall it that way."

  "You're going to arrest me? Why--what do you mean?"

  "Call it what you like. But move, now, and don't waste my time."

  "I beg pardon," drawled Waldhorn, smiling with a well-concealed sneer,"but isn't this a trifle sudden? I'm willing to give up my place tothe ladies, of course, my dear Major, but I must ask some sort ofexplanation as to this other procedure. Martial law? What is yourauthority?"

  "Call it Jehovah and the Continental Congress, my dear chap," saidDoctor Barnes, likewise drawling. "I'll take that up after a while.I'm in charge here. If you go over there quietly to that other houseit may look like an act of courtesy. If you don't--it might be calledan act of God. Come, hurry--I can't talk here any longer."

  Waldhorn saw two troopers coming at a fast walk from across the street,saw that the eyes of Doctor Barnes watched his hand carefully.Therefore, as though easily and naturally, he leaned with both his ownhands above his head resting against the jamb of the door.

  "I suppose I'll have to charge this up to the fact that I'm of Germandescent," said he. "I can't help that. I've lived here thirty years.I'm as good a citizen as you, but I'll have to submit. Be sure I'mgoing to take this up in the courts."

  "Old stuff. Take it up where you damn please," said Barnes sharply."I'm as good an American as you are, too, even if my parents were _not_born in Germany. Step outside."

  He motioned to his men. "McQueston," he said, "watch him until I comeout."

  "You're not going into my private rooms?--I forbid that. I'll neverforget that, you upstart!"

  Doctor Barnes smiled. "I'll try to fix it so you won't." He steppedon in across the gallery.

  Waldhorn looked from the face of one to that of the other privatesoldier who stood before him, and saw the cold mask not only ofdiscipline, but of more. Under their charge he marched over to the logbuilding indicated, and slammed the door behind him. The men stood oneon each side, out of range of the window.

  Doctor Barnes was angry and frowning when he went back to the car todrive it down to the door of the new quarters which had just beenvacated.

  "Gee, Doc, you look sore
," said Annie Squires casually. "Say, where doyou get the stuff you're pulling in here, anyway?"

  "Never mind! You go in there and clean up the rooms and make a placefor Mrs. Gage. You'll find everything for cooking and housekeeping.Don't touch anything else. I'm taking his Chink over to my place."

  "Are you going there with the women?" he inquired, turning to Sim Gage.

  Sim colored. "No. Wid and me'll be over with the soldiers. We'regoing to stick together."

  "Better bunk in my shack, then. Go over to the barracks, both of you,and get rifles and an extra pistol each. I want both of you on patrol."

  "You see," he explained, as he drew the two apart, "we don't know whatthose anarchist ruffians up there may do. They may drop down here byeither fork any time, day or night."

  He spoke briefly also to Mary Gage before he handed her in at the doorof her new domicile:

  "Sim and Wid both think that only one car went back up the road abovethe ranch. That means that the other car is up in the mountainsbetween the Two Forks, probably in the Reserve. For a time thereprobably won't anything happen. You mustn't be scared--we're justtaking the proper precautions now. This is very valuable Governmentproperty."

  "Are we at the dam here?" asked Mary Gage. "I can hear the water--it'svery heavy, isn't it?"

  "It never stops. We don't hear it, because we're used to it--I don'tthink it will bother you very long. We'll try to make you comfortable."

  He turned, offering her his arm, on which he placed her hand. He was atrifle surprised to see that Sim Gage without a word had passed to theother side of his wife, also giving her an arm. He walked along slowlyand gravely, limping, silent as he had been all the afternoon, but madeno sign of his own discomfort, indeed did not speak at all.

  "Both of you are fit for the hospital. Well, all right, it may be agood place for you after all." As he spoke, frowning, Doctor Barnesstood back and allowed Annie to lead Mary Gage into the vacated roomsof the chief engineer.

  "Doc, what did you mean when you said that there just now?" asked SimGage, when they turned back from the door. "About her and thehospital?"

  "I've brought her down here, Sim," said Doctor Barnes directly,"principally because, with her consent and yours, I want to see if Ican't do something for her eyes."

  "Her eyes! Why--what do you mean?"

  "There's one chance in a hundred that she'll see again."

  Doctor Allen Barnes, his face unshaven, dirty, haggard, a man lookingneither major nor physician now, turned squarely to the man whom headdressed. "I don't know for sure," said he, "but then, it may betrue."

  "Her eyes?-- Her eyes!"

  Doctor Barnes felt on his arm as savage a grip as he ever had known.Sim Gage's face changed as he turned away.

  "Good God A'mighty! If she could _see_!" His own face seemed suddenlypale beneath its grime.