Out of the Depths

by Bennet, Robert Ames

  “Only you must give Thomas Herbert his share at the same time,” stipulated the mother.

  The girl burst into prolonged and rather shrill laughter that passed the bounds of good breeding. Her emotion was so unrestrained that when she looked about at her surprised companion her face was flushed and her eyes were swimming with tears.

  “Please, oh, do please forgive me!” she begged with a humility as immoderate as had been her laughter. “I––I can’t tell you why, but––”

  “Say no more, my dear,” soothed Mrs. Blake. “You are merely a bit hysterical. Perhaps the excitement of our coming, after your months of lonely ranch life––”

  “You’re so good!” sighed the girl. “Yes, it was due to––your coming. But now the worst is over. I’ll not shock you again with any more such outbursts.”

  She smiled, and began to talk of other things, with somewhat unsteady but persistent gayety.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIV

  A DESCENT

  When the party arrived at the ranch, the girl hostess took Mrs. Blake to rest in the clean, simply furnished room provided for the visitors. Blake, after carrying in their trunk single-handed, went to look around at the ranch buildings in company with Ashton.

  On returning to the house, the two found Knowles and Gowan in the parlor with the ladies. Isobel had already introduced them to Mrs. Blake and also to her son. That young man was sprawled, face up, in the cowman’s big hands, crowing and valiantly clutching at his bristly mustache.

  Gowan sat across from him, perfectly at ease in the presence of the city lady. But, with his characteristic lack of humor, he was unmoved by the laughable spectacle presented by his employer and the baby, and his manner was both reserved and watchful.

  At sight of Blake, Isobel called to her father in feigned alarm: “Look out, Daddy! Better stop hazing that yearling. Here comes his sire.”

  Knowles gave the baby back to its half-fearful mother, and rose to greet his guest with hospitable warmth: “Howdy, Mr. Blake! I’m downright glad to meet you. Hope you’ve found things comfortable and homelike.”

  “Too much so,” asserted Blake, his eyes twinkling. “We came out expecting to rough-it.”

  “Well, your lady won’t know the difference,” remarked Knowles.

  “You’re quite mistaken, Daddy, really,” interposed his daughter. “She and Mr. Blake were wrecked in Africa and lived on roast leopards. We’ll have to feed them on mountain lions and bobcats.”

  “If you mean that, Miss Chuckie,” put in Gowan, “I can get a bobcat in time for dinner tomorrow.”

  The girl led the general outburst of laughter over this serious proposal. “Oh! oh! Kid! You’ll be the death of me!––Yet I sent you a joke-book last Christmas!”

  “Couldn’t see anything funny in it,” replied the puncher. “I haven’t lost it, though. It came from you.”

  To cover the girl’s blush at this blunt disclosure of sentiment, Mrs. Blake somewhat formally introduced her husband to the puncher. He shook Blake’s hand with like formality and politeness. But as their glances met, his gray eyes shone with the same cold suspicion with which he had regarded Ashton at their first meeting. Before that look the engineer’s friendly eyes hardened to disks of burnished steel, and his big fist released its cordial grip of the other’s small, bony hand. He gave back hostility for hostility with the readiness of a born fighter. Gowan was the first to look away.

  The incident passed so swiftly that only Knowles observed the outflash of enmity. His words indicated that he had anticipated the puncher’s attitude. He addressed Blake seriously: “Kid has been with us ever since he was a youngster and has always made my interests his own. Chuckie has been telling us what you said about putting through any project you once started.”

  Blake nodded. “Yes. That is why I suggested to Miss Knowles that she call off the agreement under which I came on this visit. We shall gladly pay board, and I’ll merely knock around; or, if you prefer, we’ll leave you and go back tomorrow morning.”

  “No, Daddy, no! we can’t allow our guests to leave, when they’ve only just come!” protested Isobel.

  “As for any talk about board,” added her father, “you ought to know better, Mr. Blake.”

  “My apology!” admitted Blake. “I’ve been living in the East.”

  “That explains,” agreed the cowman. “Even as far east as Denver––I’ve got a sister there; lives up beyond the Capitol. But I’ve talked with other men there from over this way. They all agree you might as well look for good cow pasture behind a sheep drive as for hospitality in a city. Sometimes you can get what you want, and all times you’re sure to get a lot of attention you don’t want––if you have money to spend.”

  “That’s true. But about my going ahead here?” inquired Blake. “Say the word, and I put irrigation on the shelf throughout our visit.”

  Knowles shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I reckon Chuckie is right. We’d best learn just how we stand.”

  “What if I work out a practical project? There’s any amount of good land on your mesa. The lay of it and the altitude ought to make it ideal for fruit. If I see that the proposition is feasible, I shall be bound to put water on all of your range that I can. I am an engineer,––I cannot let good land and water go to waste.”

  “The land isn’t going to waste,” replied Knowles. “It’s the best cattle range in this section, and it’s being used for the purpose Nature intended. As for the water, Chuckie has figured out there isn’t more than three thousand acre feet of flood waters that can be impounded off the watershed above us. That wouldn’t pay for building any kind of a dam.”

  “And the devil himself couldn’t pump the water up out of Deep Cañon,” put in Gowan.

  “The devil hasn’t much use for science,” said Blake. “It has almost put him out of business. So he is not apt to be well up on modern engineering.”

  “Then you think you can do what the devil can’t?” demanded Knowles.

  “I can try. Unless you wish to call off the deal, I shall ride around tomorrow and look over the country. Maybe that will be sufficient to show me there is no chance for irrigation, or, on the contrary, I may have to run levels and do some figuring.”

  “Then perhaps you will know by tomorrow night?” exclaimed Isobel.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s something,” said the cowman. “I’ll take you out first thing in the morning.––Lafe, show Mr. Blake the wash bench. There goes the first gong.”

  When, a little later, all came together again at the supper table, nothing more was said about the vexed question of irrigation. Isobel had made no changes in her table arrangements other than to have a plate laid for Mrs. Blake beside her father’s and another for Blake beside her own.

  The employés were too accustomed to Miss Chuckie to be embarrassed by the presence of another lady, and Blake put himself on familiar terms with them by his first remarks. If his wealthy high-bred wife was surprised to find herself seated at the same table with common workmen, she betrayed no resentment over the situation. Her perfect breeding was shown in the unaffected simplicity of her manner, which was precisely the same to the roughest man present as to her hostess.

  Even had there been any indications of uncongeniality, they must have been overcome by the presence of Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake. The most unkempt, hard-bitten bachelor present gazed upon the majesty of babyhood with awed reverence and delight. The silent Jap interrupted his serving to fetch a queer rattle of ivory balls carved out one within the other. This he cleansed with soap, peroxide and hot water, in the presence of the honorable lady mother, before presenting it to her infant with much smiling and hissing insuckings of breath.

  After supper all retired at an early hour, out of regard for the weariness of Mrs. Blake.

  When she reappeared, late the next morning, she learned that Knowles, Gowan and her husband had ridden off together hours before. But Isobel and Ashton seemed to h
ave nothing else to do than to entertain the mother and child. Mrs. Blake donned one of the girl’s divided skirts and took her first lesson in riding astride. There was no sidesaddle at the ranch, but there was a surefooted old cow pony too wise and spiritless for tricks, and therefore safe even for a less experienced horsewoman than was Mrs. Blake.

  Knowles and Gowan and the engineer returned so late that they found all the others at the supper table. Blake’s freshly sunburnt face was cheerful. Gowan’s expression was as noncommittal as usual. But the cowman’s forehead was furrowed with unrelieved suspense.

  “Oh, Mr. Blake!” exclaimed Isobel. “Don’t tell us your report is unfavorable.”

  “Afraid I can’t say, as yet,” he replied. “We’ve covered the ground pretty thoroughly for miles along High Mesa and Deep Cañon. If the annual precipitation here is what I estimate it from what your father tells me, it would be possible to put in a drainage and reservoir system that would store four thousand acre feet. Except as an auxiliary system, however, it would cost too much to be practicable. As for Deep Cañon––” He turned to his wife. “Jenny, whatever else happens, I must get you up to see that cañon. It’s almost as grand and in some ways even more wonderful than the Cañon of the Colorado.”

  “Then I must see it, by all means,” responded Mrs. Blake. “I shall soon be able to ride up to it, Isobel assures me.”

  “Within a few days,” said the girl. “But, Mr. Blake, pardon me––How about the water in the cañon? You surely see no way to lift it out over the top of High Mesa?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t even guess what can be done until I have run a line of levels and found the depth of the cañon. I tried to estimate it by dropping in rocks and timing them, but we couldn’t see them strike bottom.”

  “A line of levels? Will it take you long?”

  “Maybe a week; possibly more. If I had a transit as well as my level, it would save time. However, I can make out with the chain and compass I brought.”

  “Mr. Blake is to start running his levels in the morning,” said Knowles. “Lafe, I’d like you to help him as his rodman, if you have no objections. As you’ve been an engineer, you can help him along faster than Kid.––You said one would do, Mr. Blake; but if you need more, take all the men you want. The sooner this thing is settled, the better it will suit me.”

  “The sooner the better, Daddy!” agreed Isobel, “that is, if our guests promise to not hurry away.”

  “We shall stay at least a month, if you wish us to,” said Mrs. Blake.

  “Two months would be too short!––And the sooner we are over with this uncertainty––Lafe, you’ll do your utmost to help Mr. Blake, won’t you?”

  “Yes, indeed; anything I can,” eagerly responded Ashton.

  Gowan’s face darkened at sight of the smile with which the girl rewarded the tenderfoot. Yet instead of sulking, he joined in the evening’s entertainment of the guests with a zeal that agreeably surprised everyone. His guitar playing won genuine praise from the Blakes, though both were sophisticated and critical music lovers.

  Somewhat earlier than usual he rose to go, with the excuse that he wished to consult Knowles about some business with the owner of the adjoining range. The cowman went out with him, and did not return. An hour later Ashton took reluctant leave of Isobel, and started for the bunkhouse. Half way across he was met by his employer, who stopped before him.

  “Everybody turning in, Lafe?”

  “Not at my suggestion, though,” replied Ashton.

  “Reckon not. Mr. Blake and his lady are old friends of yours, I take it.”

  “Mrs. Blake is,” stated Ashton, with a touch of his former arrogance. “We made mud-pies together, in a hundred thousand dollar dooryard.”

  “Humph!” grunted Knowles. “And her husband?”

  The darkness hid Ashton’s face, but his voice betrayed the sudden upwelling of his bitterness: “I never heard of him until he––until a little over three years ago. I wish to Heaven he hadn’t taken part in that bridge contest!”

  “How’s that?” asked Knowles in a casual tone.

  “Nothing––nothing!” Ashton hastened to disclaim. “You haven’t been talking with Miss Chuckie about me, have you, Mr. Knowles?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It was only that I explained to her how I came to be ruined––to lose my fortune. You see, the circumstances are such that I cannot very well say anything against Blake; yet he was the cause––it was owing to something he did that I lost all––everything––millions! Curse him!”

  “You’ve appeared friendly enough towards him,” remarked Knowles.

  “Yes, I––I promised Miss Chuckie to try to forget the past. But when I think of what I lost, all because of him––”

  “So-o!” considered the cowman. “Maybe there’s more in what Kid says than I thought. He’s been cross-questioning Blake all day. You know how little Kid is given to gab. But from the time we started off he kept after Blake like he was cutting out steers at the round-up.”

  “Blake isn’t the kind you could get to tell anything against himself,” asserted Ashton.

  “Well, that may be. All his talk today struck me as being straightforward and outspoken. But Kid has been drawing inferences. He keeps hammering at it that Blake must be in thick with his father-in-law, and that all millionaires round-up their money in ways that would make a rustler go off and shoot himself.”

  “Business is business,” replied Ashton with all his old cynicism. “I’ll not say that H. V. Leslie is crooked, but I never knew of his coming out of a deal second best.”

  “Well, at any rate, it’s white of Blake to tell us beforehand what he intends to do if he sees a chance of a practical project.”

  “Has he told you everything?” scoffed Ashton.

  “How about his offer to drop the whole matter and not go into it at all?” rejoined Knowles.

  Ashton hesitated to reply. For one thing, he was momentarily nonplused, and, for another, the Blakes had treated him as a gentleman. But a fresh upwelling of bitterness dulled his conscience and sharpened his wits.

  “It may have been to throw you off your guard,” he said. “Blake is deep, and he has had old Leslie to coach him ever since he married Genevieve. He could have laid his plans,––looked over the ground, and found out just what are your rights here,––all without your suspecting him.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure––”

  “Have you told him what lands you have deeds to?”

  “No, but if he knows as much about the West as I figure he does, he can guess it. Fence every swallow of get-at-able water to be found on my range this time of year, and you won’t have to dig a posthole off of land I hold in fee simple. Plum Creek sinks just below where Dry Fork junctions.”

  “But you can’t have all the water?” exclaimed Ashton incredulously.

  “Yes, every drop to be found outside Deep Cañon this time of year. There’s my seven and a half mile string of quarter-sections blanketing Plum Creek from the springs to down below Dry Fork, and five quarter-sections covering all the waterholes. That makes up five sections. A bunch of tenderfeet came in here, years ago, and preëmpted all the quarter-sections with water on them. Got their patents from the government. Then the Utes stampeded them clean out of the country, and I bought up their titles at a fair figure.”

  “And you own even that splendid pool up where I had my camp?”

  “Everything wet on this range that a cow or hawss can get to, this time of year.”

  Ashton considered, and advised craftily: “Don’t tell him this. Does Miss Chuckie know it?”

  “She knows I have five sections, and that most of it is on Plum Creek. I don’t think anything has ever been said to her about the waterholes. But why not tell Blake?”

  “Don’t you see? Even if he finds a way to get at the water in Deep Cañon, he will first have to bore his tunnel. He and his construction gang must have water to drink and for their engines while
they are carrying out his plans. You can lie low, and, when the right time comes, get out an injunction against their trespassing on your land.”

  “Say, that’s not a bad idea. The best I could figure was that they might need one of my waterholes for a reservoir site. But why not call him when he first takes a hand?” asked Knowles.

  “No, you should not show your cards until you have to,” replied Ashton. “With all Leslie’s money against you, it might be hard to get your injunction if they knew of your plans. But if you wait until they have their men, machinery and materials on the ground, you will have them where they must buy you out at your own terms.”

  “By––James!” commented Knowles. “Talk about business sharps!”

  “I was in Leslie’s office for a time,” explained Ashton. “Your interests are Miss Chuckie’s interests. I’m for her––first, last, and all the time.”

  “Um-m-m. Then I guess I can count on you as sure as on Gowan.”

  “You can. I am going to try my best to win your daughter, Mr. Knowles. She’s a lady––the loveliest girl I ever met.”

  “No doubt about that. What’s more, she’s got grit and brains. That’s why I tell you now, as I’ve told Kid, it’s for her to decide on the man she’s going to make happy. If he’s square and white, that’s all I ask.”

  “About my helping Blake with his levels,” Ashton rather hastily changed the subject. “I am in your employ––and so is he, for that matter. Don’t you think I have a right to keep you posted on all his plans?”

  “Well––yes. But he as much as says he will tell them himself.”

  “Perhaps he will, and perhaps he won’t, Mr. Knowles. I’ve told you what Leslie is like; and Blake is his son-in-law.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure. You and Kid, between you, have shaken my judgment of the man. It can’t do any harm to watch him, and I’ll be obliged to you for doing it. If it comes to a fight against him and the millions of backing he has, I want a fair deal and––But, Lord! what if we’re making all this fuss over nothing? It doesn’t stand to reason that there’s any way to get the water out of Deep Cañon.”