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The Winning of Barbara Worth

by Harold Bell Wright · English · Gutenberg #6997 · 732,465 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Winning of Barbara Worth

Author: Harold Bell Wright


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6997]
                Most recently updated: August 7, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6997

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.









[Illustration: Barbara. Often as Barbara sat looking over that great
basin her heart cried out to know the secret it held.]




THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH

BY

HAROLD BELL WRIGHT





ACKNOWLEDGMENT

While this story is not in any way a history of this part of the
Colorado Desert now known as the Imperial Valley, nor a biography of
anyone connected with this splendid achievement, I must in honesty
admit that this work which in the past ten years has transformed a
vast, desolate waste into a beautiful land of homes, cities, and farms,
has been my inspiration.

With much gratitude for their many helpful kindnesses, I acknowledge my
indebtedness to H. T. Cory, F. C. Hermann, C. R. Rockwood, C. N. Perry,
E. H. Gaines, Roy Kinkaid and the late George Sexsmith, engineers and
surveyors identified with this reclamation work; to W. K. Bowker,
Sidney McHarg, C. E. Paris, and many other business friends and
neighboring ranchers among our pioneers; and to William Mulholland,
Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

I am particularly indebted to C. K. Clarke, Assistant Manager and Chief
Engineer of the California Development Company, and to Allen Kelly,
whose knowledge, insight and observations as a journalist and as a
student of Reclamation in the Far West have been invaluable to me.

To my friend, Mr. W. F. Holt, in appreciation of his life and of his
work in the Imperial Valley, this story is inscribed. H. B. W.

Tecolote Rancho, April 25, 1911.




  "Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
   Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall,
  Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
   Or plants a tree, is more than all."




CONTENTS

      I. INTO THE INFINITE LONG AGO

     II. JEFFERSON WORTH'S OFFERING

    III. MISS BARBARA WORTH

     IV. YOU'D BETTER MAKE IT NINETY

      V. WHAT THE INDIAN TOLD THE SEER

     VI. THE STANDARD OF THE WEST

    VII. DON'T YOU LIKE MY DESERT, MR. HOLMES?

   VIII. WHY WILLARD HOLMES STAYED

     IX. THE MASTER PASSION--"GOOD BUSINESS"

      X. BARBARA'S LOVE FOR THE SEER

     XI. ABE LEE RESIGNS

    XII. SIGNS OF CONFLICT

   XIII. BARBARA'S CALL TO HER FRIENDS

    XIV. MUCH CONFUSION AND HAPPY EXCITEMENT

     XV. BARBARA COMES INTO HER OWN

    XVI. JEFFERSON WORTH'S OPERATIONS

   XVII. JAMES GREENFIELD SEEKS AN ADVANTAGE

  XVIII. THE GAME PROGRESSES

    XIX. GATHERED AT BARBARA'S COURT

     XX. WHAT THE STAKES REVEALED

    XXI. PABLO BRINGS NEWS TO BARBARA

   XXII. GATHERING OF OMINOUS FORCES

  XXIII. EXACTING ROYAL TRIBUTE

   XXIV. JEFFERSON WORTH GOES FOR HELP

    XXV. WILLARD HOLMES ON TRIAL

   XXVI. HELD IN SUSPENSE

  XXVII. ABE LEE'S RIDE TO SAVE JEFFERSON WORTH

 XXVIII. WHAT THE COMPANY MAN TOLD THE MEXICANS

   XXIX. TELL BARBARA I'M ALL RIGHT

    XXX. MANANA! MANANA! TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!

   XXXI. BARBARA'S WAITIN' BREAKFAST FOR YOU

  XXXII. BARBARA MINISTERS TO THE WOUNDED

 XXXIII. WILLARD HOLMES RECEIVES HIS ANSWER

  XXXIV. BATTLING WITH THE RIVER

   XXXV. NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE

  XXXVI. OUT OF THE HOLLOW OF GOD'S HAND

 XXXVII. BACK TO THE OLD SAN FELIPE TRAIL

XXXVIII. THE HERITAGE OF BARBARA WORTH




ILLUSTRATIONS

_Drawn by_ F. GRAHAM COOTES

OFTEN AS BARBARA SAT LOOKING OVER THAT GREAT BASIN HER HEART CRIED OUT
TO KNOW THE SECRET IT HELD.

HE HAD LIFTED THE CANTEEN AND WAS HOLDING IT UPSIDE DOWN.

"BUT I DON'T RIDE, YOU KNOW."

MORE TO REGAIN HIS COMPOSURE THAN BECAUSE HE WAS THIRSTY, HELPED
HIMSELF FROM THE EARTHEN WATER JAR.

"ADIOS. TELL BARBARA I'M ALL RIGHT."

WITHOUT A WORD--FOR NO WORD WAS NEEDED--THEIR HANDS MET IN A FIRM GRIP.




The Winning of Barbara Worth




CHAPTER I.

INTO THE INFINITE LONG AGO.


Jefferson Worth's outfit of four mules and a big wagon pulled out of
San Felipe at daybreak, headed for Rubio City. From the swinging red
tassels on the bridles of the leaders to the galvanized iron water
bucket dangling from the tail of the reach back of the rear axle the
outfit wore an unmistakable air of prosperity. The wagon was loaded
only with a well-stocked "grub-box," the few necessary camp cooking
utensils, blankets and canvas tarpaulin, with rolled barley and bales
of hay for the team, and two water barrels--empty. Hanging by its
canvas strap from the spring of the driver's seat was a large,
cloth-covered canteen. Behind the driver there was another seat of the
same wide, comfortable type, but the man who held the reins was
apparently alone. Jefferson Worth was not with his outfit.

By sending the heavy wagon on ahead and following later with a faster
team and a light buckboard, Mr. Worth could join his outfit in camp
that night, saving thus at least another half day for business in San
Felipe. Jefferson Worth, as he himself would have put it, "figured on
the value of time." Indeed Jefferson Worth figured on the value of
nearly everything.

Now San Felipe, you must know, is where the big ships come in and the
air tingles with the electricity of commerce as men from all lands,
driven by the master passion of human kind--Good Business--seek each
his own.

But Rubio City, though born of that same master passion of the race, is
where the thin edge of civilization is thinnest, on the Colorado River,
miles beyond the Coast Range Mountains, on the farther side of that
dreadful land where the thirsty atmosphere is charged with the awful
silence of uncounted ages.

Between these two scenes of man's activity, so different and yet so
like, and crossing thus the land of my story, there was only a rude
trail--two hundred and more hard and lonely miles of it--the only mark
of man in all that desolate waste and itself marked every mile by the
graves of men and by the bleached bones of their cattle.

All that forenoon, on every side of the outfit, the beautiful life of
the coast country throbbed and exulted. It called from the heaving
ocean with its many gleaming sails and dark drifting steamer smoke
under the wide sky; it sang from the harbor where the laden ships meet
the long trains that come and go on their continental errands; it cried
loudly from the busy streets of village and town and laughed out from
field and orchard. But always the road led toward those mountains that
lifted their oak-clad shoulders and pine-fringed ridges across the way
as though in dark and solemn warning to any who should dare set their
faces toward the dreadful land of want and death that lay on their
other side.

In the afternoon every mile brought scenes more lonely until, in the
foothills, that creeping bit of life on the hard old trail was
forgotten by the busy world behind, even as it seemed to forget that
there was anywhere any life other than its creeping self.

As the sweating mules pulled strongly up the heavy grades the man on
the high seat of the wagon repaid the indifference of his surroundings
with a like indifference. Unmoved by the forbidding grimness of the
mountains, unthoughtful of their solemn warning, he took his place as
much a part of the lonely scene as the hills themselves. Slouching
easily in his seat he gave heed only to his team and to the road ahead.
When he spoke to the mules his voice was a soft, good-natured drawl, as
though he spoke from out a pleasing reverie, and though his words were
often hard words they were carried to the animals on an under-current
of fellowship and understanding. The long whip, with coiled lash, was
in its socket at the end of the seat. The stops were frequent. Wise in
the wisdom of the unfenced country and knowing the land ahead, this
driver would conserve every ounce of his team's strength against a
possible time of great need.

They were creeping across a flank of the hill when the off-leader
sprang to the left so violently that nothing but the instinctive
bracing of his trace-mate held them from going over the grade. The same
instant the wheel team repeated the maneuver, but not so quickly, as
the slouching figure on the seat sprang into action. A quick strong
pull on the reins, a sharp yell: "You, Buck! Molly!" and a rattling
volley of strong talk swung the four back into the narrow road before
the front wheels were out of the track.

With a crash the heavy brake was set. The team stopped. As the driver
half rose and turned to look back he slipped the reins to his left hand
and his right dropped to his hip. With a motion too quick for the eye
to follow the free arm straightened and the mountain echoed wildly to
the loud report of a forty-five. By the side of the road in the rear of
the wagon a rattlesnake uncoiled its length and writhed slowly in the
dust.

Before the echoes of the shot had died away a mad, inarticulate roar
came from the depths of the wagon box. The roar was followed by a thick
stream of oaths in an unmistakably Irish voice. The driver, who was
slipping a fresh cartridge into the cylinder, looked up to see a man
grasping the back of the rear seat for support while rising unsteadily
to his feet.

The Irishman, as he stood glaring fiercely at the man who had so rudely
awakened him, was without hat or coat, and with bits of hay clinging to
a soiled shirt that was unbuttoned at the hairy throat, presented a
remarkable figure. His heavy body was fitted with legs like posts; his
wide shoulders and deep chest, with arms to match his legs, were so
huge as to appear almost grotesque; his round head, with its tumbled
thatch of sandy hair, was set on a thick bull-neck; while all over the
big bones of him the hard muscles lay in visible knots and bunches. The
unsteady poise, the red, unshaven, sweating face, and the angry,
blood-shot eyes, revealed the reason for his sleep under such
uncomfortable circumstances. The silent driver gazed at his fearsome
passenger with calm eyes that seemed to hold in their dark depths the
mystery of many a still night under the still stars.

In a voice that rumbled up from his hairy chest--a husky, menacing
growl--the Irishman demanded: "Fwhat the hell do ye mane, dishturbin'
the peace wid yer clamor? For less than a sup av wather I'd go over to
ye wid me two hands."

Calmly the other dropped his gun into its holster. Pointing to the
canteen that hung over the side of the wagon fastened by its canvas
strap to the seat spring, he drawled softly: "There's the water. Help
yourself, stranger."

The gladiator, without a word, reached for the canteen and with huge,
hairy paws lifted it to his lips. After a draught of prodigious length
he heaved a long sigh and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he turned his fierce eyes again on the driver as if to inquire
what manner of person he might be who had so unceremoniously challenged
his threat.

The Irishman saw a man, tall and spare, but of a stringy, tough and
supple leanness that gave him the look of being fashioned by the
out-of-doors. He, too, was coatless but wore a vest unbuttoned over a
loose, coarse shirt. A red bandana was knotted easily about his throat.
With his wide, high-crowned hat, rough trousers tucked in long boots,
laced-leather wrist guards and the loosely buckled cartridge belt with
its long forty-five, his very dress expressed the easy freedom of the
wild lands, while the dark, thin face, accented by jet black hair and a
long, straight mustache, had the look of the wide, sun-burned plains.

With a grunt that might have expressed either approval or contempt, the
Irishman turned and groping about in the wagon found a sorry wreck of a
hat. Again he stooped and this time, from between the bales of hay,
lifted a coat, fit companion to the hat. Carefully he felt through
pocket after pocket. His search was rewarded by a short-stemmed clay
pipe and the half of a match--nothing more. With an effort he explored
the pockets of his trousers. Then again he searched the coat; muttering
to himself broken sentences, not the less expressive because
incomplete: "Where the divil--Now don't that bate--Well, I'll be--"
With a temper not improved by his loss he threw down the garment in
disgust and looked up angrily. The silent driver was holding toward him
a sack of tobacco.

The Irishman, with another grunt, crawled under the empty seat and
climbing heavily over the back of the seat in front, planted himself
stolidly by the driver's side. Filling his pipe with care and
deliberation he returned the sack to its owner and struck the
half-match along one post-like leg. Shielding the tiny flame with his
hands before applying the light he remarked thoughtfully: "Ye are a
danged reckless fool to be so dishturbin' me honest slape by explodin'
that cannon ye carry. 'Tis on me mind to discipline ye for sich
outrageous conduct." The last word was followed by loud, smacking
puffs, as he started the fire in the pipe-bowl under his nose.

While the Irishman was again uttering his threat, the driver, with a
skillful twist, rolled a cigarette and, leaning forward just in the
nick of time, he deliberately shared the half-match with his blustering
companion. In that instant the blue eyes above the pipe looked straight
into the black eyes above the cigarette, and a faint twinkle of
approval met a serious glance of understanding.

Gathering up his reins and sorting them carefully, the driver spoke to
his team: "You, Buck! Molly! Jack! Pete!" The mules heaved ahead. Again
the silence of the world-old hills was shattered by the rattling rumble
of the heavy-tired wagon and the ring and clatter of iron-shod hoofs.

Stolidly the Irishman pulled at the short-stemmed pipe, the wagon seat
sagging heavily with his weight at every jolt of the wheels, while from
under his tattered hat rim his fierce eyes looked out upon the wild
landscape with occasional side glances at his silent, indifferent
companion.

Again the team was halted for a rest on the heavy grade. Long and
carefully the Irishman looked about him and then, turning suddenly upon
the still silent driver, he gazed at him for a full minute before
saying, with elaborate mock formality: "It may be, Sorr, that bein' ye
are sich a hell av a conversationalist, ut wouldn't tax yer vocal
powers beyand their shtrength av I should be so baould as to ax ye
fwhat the divil place is this?"

The soft, slow drawl of the other answered: "Sure. That there is No
Man's Mountains ahead."

"No Man's, is ut; an' ut looks that same. Where did ye say ye was
thryin' to go?"

"We're headed for Rubio City. This here is the old San Felipe trail."

"Uh-huh! So _we're_ goin' to Rubio City, are we? For all I know that
may as well be nowhere at all. Well, well, ut's news av intherest to
me. _We_ are goin' to Rubio City. Ut may be that ye would exshplain,
Sorr, how I come to be here at all."

"Sure Mike! You come in this here wagon from San Felipe."

At the drawling answer the hot blood flamed in the face of the
short-tempered Irishman and the veins in his thick neck stood out as if
they would burst. "Me name's not Mike at all, but Patrick Mooney!" he
roared. "I've two good eyes in me head that can see yer danged old
wagon for meself, an' fwhat's more I've two good hands that can break
ye in bits for the impedent dried herrin' that ye are, a-thinkin' ye
can take me anywhere at all be abductin' me widout me consent. For a
sup o' wather I'd go to ye--" He turned quickly to look behind him for
the driver was calmly pointing toward the end of the seat. "Fwhat is
ut? Fwhat's there?" he demanded.

"The water," drawled the dark-faced man. "I don't reckon you drunk it
all the other time."

Again the big man lifted the canteen and drank long and deep. When he
had wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand and had returned
the canteen to its place, he faced his companion--his blue eyes
twinkling with positive approval. Scratching his head meditatively, he
said: "An' all because av me wantin' to enjoy the blessin's an'
advantages av civilization agin afther three long months in that danged
gradin' camp, as is the right av ivery healthy man wid his pay in his
pocket."

The teamster laughed softly. "You was sure enjoyin' of it a-plenty."

The other looked at him with quickened interest. "Ye was there?" he
asked.

"Some," was the laconic reply.

The Irishman scratched his head again with a puzzled air. "I
disremimber entire. Was there some throuble maybe?"

The other grinned. "Things was movin' a few."

Patrick Mooney nodded his head. "Uh-huh: mostly they do under thim
circumstances. Av course there'd be a policeman, or maybe two?"

"Five," said the man with the lines, gently.

"Five! Howly Mither! I did mesilf proud. An' did they have the wagon?
Sure they wud--five policemen niver walked. Wan av thim might, av ut
was handy-like, but five--niver! Tell me, man, who else was at the
party? No--howld on a minut!" He interrupted himself, "Thim cops
stimulate me mimory a bit. Was there not a bunch av sailor-men from wan
av thim big ships?"

The driver nodded.

The other, pleased with the success of his mental effort, continued:
"Uh-huh--an' I was havin' a peaceful dhrink wid thim all whin somewan
made impedent remarks touchin' me appearance, or ancestors, I
disremimber which. But where was you?"

"Well, you see," explained the driver in his slow way, "hit was like
this. That there saloon were plumb full of sailor-men all exceptin' you
an' me. I was a heap admirin' of the way you handled that big hombre
what opened the meetin' and also his two pardners, who aimed to back
his play. Hit was sure pretty work. The rest of the crowd sort o'
bunched in one end of the room an' when you began addressin' the
congregation, so to speak, on the habits, character, customs and
breedin' of sailor-men in general an' the present company in
particular, I see right there that you was a-bitin' off more 'n you
could chaw. It wasn't no way reasonable that any human could handle
that whole outfit with only just his bare hands, so I edged over your
way, plumb edified by your remarks, and when the rush for the mourners'
bench come I unlimbered an' headed the stampede pronto. Then I made my
little proposition. I told 'em that, bein' the only individual on the
premises not a sailor-man nor an Irishman, I felt it my duty to referee
the obsequies, so to speak, and that odds of twenty to one, not to
mention knives, was strictly agin my convictions. Moreover, bein' the
sole an' only uninterested audience, I had rights. Then I offers to bet
my pile, even money, that you could handle the whole bunch, takin' 'em
two at a throw. I knowed it were some odds, but I noticed that them
three what opened the meetin' was still under the influence. Also I
undertook to see that specifications was faithfully fulfilled."

"Mither av Gawd, fwhat a sociable!" broke in the Irishman. "An' me too
dhrunk to remimber rightly! Did they take yer bet? Ye sun-burned limb
av the divil--did they take ut?"

"They sure did," drawled the driver. "I had my gun on them all the
time."

"Hurroo! An' did I do ut? Tell me quick--did I do ut? Sure I could aisy
av nothin' happened."

"You laid your first pair on top of the three, then the police called
the game and the bets were off."

"They pinched the house?"

"They took you an' me."

"Sure! av course they would take us two. 'Tis thim San Felipe police
knows their duty. But how could they do ut?"

"I forget details right here, bein' temporarily incapacitated by one o'
them hittin' me with a club from behind. I woke up in a cell with you."

The Irishman rubbed the back of his head. "Come to think av ut, I have
a bit av a bump on me own noodle that 'tis like helps to exshplain the
cell. But fwhat in the divil's name brung us here in this Gawd-forsaken
Nobody's Place? Pass me another pipeful an' tell me that av ye can."

The driver passed over the tobacco sack and, stopping his team for
another rest, rolled a cigarette for himself. "That's easy," he said.
"This here is Jefferson Worth's outfit. He wanted me to start home this
morning, so he got me off. I don't know how he done it; mostly nobody
knows how Jefferson Worth does things. There was a man with him who
knowed you and, as I was some disinclined to leave you under the
circumstances, Mr. Worth fixed it up for you, too, then we all jest
throwed you in and fetched you along. Mr. Worth with the other man and
his kid are comin' on in a buckboard. They'll catch up with us where we
camp to-night. I don't mind sayin' that I plumb admired your spirit and
action and--sizin' up that police bunch--I could see your talents would
sure be wasted in that San Felipe country for some time to come.
There'll be plenty of room in Rubio City for you, leastwise 'till you
draw your pay again. If you don't like the accommodations you're
gettin' I reckon you'd better make good your talk back there and we'll
see whether you takes this outfit back to San Felipe or I takes her on
to Rubio City."

The Irishman spat emphatically over the wheel. "An' 'tis a gintleman
wid proper instincts ye are, though, as a rule, I howld ut impolite to
carry a gun. But afther all, 'tis a matter av opinion an' I'm free to
admit that there are occasions. Anyhow ye handle ut wid grace an'
intilligence. An', fists er shticks, er knives, er guns, that's the
thing that marks the man. 'Tis not Patrick Mooney that'll fault a
gintleman for ways that he can't help owin' to his improper bringin'
up. Av ye don't mind, will ye tell me fwhat they call ye? I'll not be
so indelicate as to ax yer name. Fwhat they call ye will be enough."

The other laughed. "My name is Joe Brannin. They call me Texas
Joe--Tex, for short."

"Good bhoy, Tex! Ye look the divil av a lot like a red herrin', but
that's not sich a bad fish, an' ye have the right flavor. How could ye
help ut? Brannin an' Texas is handles to pull a man through hell wid.
But tell me this--who is this man that says he knows me?"

Texas Joe shook his head and, picking out his lines, called to his
team. When they were under way again he said: "I didn't hear his name
but I judge from the talk that he is one o' them there civil engineers,
an' that he's headin' for Rubio City to build the railroad that's goin'
through to the coast. Mr. Worth told me that there would be another man
and a kid to go back with us, but I know that Mr. Worth hadn't never
seen them before himself."

Pat shifted his heavy bulk to face the driver and, removing his pipe
from his mouth, asked with deliberation: "An' do ye mane to tell me
that this place we're goin' to is on the new line av the Southwestern
an' Continental?"

"Sure. They're buildin' into Rubio City from the East now."

The Irishman became excited. "An' this man that knows me--this
engineer--is he a fine, big, up-standin' man wid brown eyes an' the
look av a king?"

"I ain't never seen no kings," drawled Tex, "but the rest of it sure
fits him."

"Well, fwhat do ye think av that? 'Tis the Seer himsilf, or I'm not the
son av me own mither. I was hearin' in Frisco, where I went the last
time I drawed me pay, that he was like to be on the S. an' C.
extension. 'Twas that that took me to San Felipe, bein' wishful to get
a job wid him again. Well, well, an' to think ut's the Seer himsilf!"

"What's that you call him?"

"The Seer. I disremimber his other name but he's got wan all shtraight
an' proper. He's that kind. They call him the Seer because av his talk
av the great things that will be doin' in this country av no rain at
all whin ignorant savages like yersilf learn how to use the wather
that's in the rivers for irrigation. I've heard him say mesilf that
hundreds av thousands av acres av these big deserts will be turned into
farms, an' all that be what he calls 'Reclamation.' 'Twas for that some
danged yellow-legged surveyor give him the name, an' ut shtuck. But
most av the engineers--the rale engineers do ye mind--is wid him,
though they do be jokin' him the divil av a lot about what they calls
his visions."

"He didn't _look_ like he was locoed," said Texas Joe thoughtfully,
"but he's sure some off on that there desert proposition as you'll see
before we lands in Rubio."

"I dunno--I've seen some quare things in me time in the way av big jobs
that nobody thought could be done at all. But lave ut go. 'Tis not the
likes av me an' you that's qualified to give judgment on sich janiuses
as the Seer, who, I heard tell, has the right to put more big-manin'
letters afther his name than ye have teeth in yer head."

"All the same it ain't the brand on a horse that makes him travel. A
man'll sure need somethin' more hefty than letters after his name when
he goes up against the desert."

"Well, lave ut go at that. Wait 'til ye know him. But fwhat's this yer
tellin' me about a kid? The Seer has no family at all but himsilf an'
his job."

Texas grinned. "Maybe not, pard; but he's sure got together part of a
family this trip."

"Is ut a gurl, or a bhoy?"

"Boy--'bout a ten-year-old, I'd say."

The Irishman shook his head doubtfully. "I dunno. 'Tis a quare thing
for the Seer. Av it was me, or you, now--but the Seer! It's danged
quare! But tell me, fwhat's this man, yer boss? 'Tis a good healthy
pull he must have to be separatin' us from thim San Felipe police."

Texas Joe deliberated so long before answering this that Pat glanced at
him uneasily several times. At last the driver drawled: "You're right
there; Jefferson Worth sure has some pull."

Pat grunted. "But fwhat does he do?"

"Do?" Tex swung his team around a spur of the mountain where the trail
leads along the side of a canyon to its head. Far below they heard the
tumbling roar of a stream in its rocky course.

"Sure the man must do something?"

"As near as I can make out Jefferson Worth does everybody."

"Oh ho! So that's ut? I've no care for the cards mesilf, but av a man's
a professional an'--"

"You're off there, pardner. Jefferson Worth ain't that kind. He's one
o' these here financierin' sports, an' so far as anybody that I ever
seen goes, he's got a dead cinch."

"Ye mane he's a banker?"

"Sure. The Pioneer in Rubio City. He started the game in the early days
an' he's been a-rollin' it up ever since. Hit's plumb curious about
this here financierin' business," continued Tex, in his slow,
meditative way. "Looks to me mostly jest plain, common hold-up, only
they do it with money 'stead of a gun. In the old days you used to get
the drop on your man with your six, all regular, an' take what he
happened to have in his clothes. Then the posse'd get after you an'
mebbe string you up, which was all right, bein' part of the game. Now
these fellows like Jefferson Worth, they get's your name on some
writin's an' when you ain't lookin' they slips up an' gets away with
all your worldly possessions, an' the sheriff he jest laughs an' says
hits good business. This here Worth man is jest about the coolest,
smoothest, hardest proposition in the game. He fair makes my back hair
raise. The common run o' people ain't got no more show stackin' up agin
Jefferson Worth than two-bits worth o' ice has in hell. Accordin' to my
notion hit's this here same financierin' game that's a-ruinin' the
West. The cattle range is about all gone now. If they keeps it up we
won't be no better out here than some o' them places I've heard about
back East."

"'Tis a danged ignorant savage ye are, like the rest av yer thribe, wid
yer talk av ruinin' the West. Fwhat wud this counthry be without money?
'Tis thim same financiers that have brung ye the railroads, an' the
cities, an' the schools, an' the churches, an' all the other blessin's
an' joys of civilization that ye've got to take whither ye likes ut or
not. Look at the Seer, now. Fwhat could a man like him--an engineer,
mind ye--fwhat could the Seer do widout the men wid money to back him?"

The Irishman's words were answered by a cheerful "Whoa!" and a crash of
the brakes as Texas Joe brought his team to a stand near the spring at
the head of the canyon. "We camp here," he announced. "This is the last
water we strike until we make it over the Pass to Mountain Springs on
the desert side. Jefferson Worth will be along with the Seer and his
kid most any time now."

A little before dusk the banker, with his two companions, arrived.

"Hello, Pat!" The man who leaped from the buckboard and strode toward
the waiting Irishman was tall and broad, with the head and chin of a
soldier, and the brown eyes of a dreamer. He was dressed in rough
corduroys, blue flannel shirt, laced boots, and Stetson, and he greeted
the burly Irishman as a fellow-laborer.

A joyful grin spread over the battered features of the gladiator as he
grasped the Seer's outstretched hand. "Well, dang me but ut's glad I am
to see ye, Sorr, in this divil's own land. I had me natural doubts, av
course, whin I woke up in the wagon, but ut's all right. 'Tis proud I
am to be abducted by ye, Sorr."

"Abducted!" The engineer's laugh awoke the echoes in the canyon. "It
was a rescue, man!"

"Well, well, let ut go at that! But tell me, Sorr"--he lowered his
voice to a confidential rumble--"fwhat's this I hear that ye have yer
bhoy wid ye? Sure I niver knew that ye was a man av family." He looked
toward the slender lad who, with the readiness of a grown man, was
helping the driver of the buckboard to unhitch his team of four
broncos. "'Tis a good lad he is, or I'm a Dutchman."

"You're right, Pat, Abe is a good boy," the Seer answered gravely. "I
picked him up in a mining camp on the edge of the Mojave Desert when I
was running a line of preliminary surveys through that country for the
S. and C. last year. He was born in the camp and his mother died when
he was a baby. God knows how he pulled through! You know what those
mining places are. His father, Frank Lee, was killed in a drunken row
while I was there, and Abe showed so much cool nerve and downright
manliness that I offered him a place with my party. He has been with me
ever since."

Pat's voice was husky as he said: "I ax yer pardon, Sorr, for me
blunderin' impedence about yer bein' a man av family. I'm a danged old
rough-neck, wid no education but me two fists, an' no manners at all."

The engineer's reply was prevented by the approach of Jefferson Worth
who had been talking with Texas Joe. The banker's head came but little
above the Seer's shoulders and in comparison with the Irishman's heavy
bulk he appeared almost insignificant, while his plain business suit of
gray seemed altogether out of place in the wild surroundings. His
smooth-shaven face was an expressionless gray mask and his deep-set
gray eyes turned from the Irishman to the engineer without a hint of
emotion. The two men felt that somewhere behind that gray mask they
were being carefully estimated--measured--valued--as possible factors
in some far-reaching plan. He spoke to the Seer, and his voice was
without a suggestion of color: "I see that your friend has recovered."
It was as though he stated a fact that he had just verified.

Laughing at the memory of the Irishman's San Felipe experience, the
engineer said: "Mr. Worth, permit me to introduce Mr. Patrick Mooney
whom I have known for years as the best boss of a grading gang in the
West. Pat, this is Mr. Jefferson Worth, president of the Pioneer Bank
in Rubio City."

The Irishman clutched at his tattered hat-brim in embarrassed
acknowledgment of the Seer's formality. Jefferson Worth, from behind
his gray mask, said in his exact, colorless voice: "He looks as though
he ought to handle men."

As the banker passed on toward the big wagon the Irishman drew close to
the Seer and whispered hoarsely: "Now fwhat the hell kind av a man is
that? 'Tis the truth, Sorr, that whin he looked at me out av that
grave-yard face I could bare kape from crossin' mesilf!"




CHAPTER II.

JEFFERSON WORTH'S OFFERING.


When day broke over the topmost ridges of No Man's Mountains, Jefferson
Worth's outfit was ready to move. The driver of the lighter rig with
its four broncos set out for San Felipe. On the front seat of the big
wagon Texas Joe picked up his reins, sorted them carefully, and glanced
over his shoulder at his employer. "All set?"

"Go ahead."

"You, Buck! Molly!" The lead mules straightened their traces. "Jack!
Pete!" As the brake was released with a clash and rattle of iron rods,
the wheelers threw their weight into their collars and the wagon moved
ahead.

Grim, tireless, world-old sentinels, No Man's Mountains stood guard
between the fertile land on their seaward side and the desolate
forgotten wastes of the East. They said to the country of green life,
of progress and growth and civilization, that marched to their line on
the West, "Halt!" and it stopped. To the land of lean want, of gray
death, of gaunt hunger, and torturing thirst, that crept to their feet
on the other side, "Stop!" and it came no farther. With no land to
till, no mineral to dig, their very poverty was their protection. With
an air of grim finality, they declared strongly that as they had always
been they would always remain; and, at the beginning of my story, save
for that one, slender, man-made trail, their hoary boast had remained
unchallenged.

Steadily, but with frequent rests on the grades, Jefferson Worth's
outfit climbed toward the summit and a little before noon gained the
Pass. The loud, rattling rumble of the wagon as the tires bumped and
ground over the stony, rock-floored way, with the sharp ring and
clatter of the iron-shod hoofs of the team, echoed, echoed, and echoed
again. Loudly, wildly, the rude sounds assaulted the stillness until
the quiet seemed hopelessly shattered by the din. Softly, tamely, the
sounds drifted away in the clear distance; through groves of live oak,
thickets of greasewood, juniper, manzanita and sage; into canyon and
wash; from bluff and ledge; along slope and spur and shoulder; over
ridge and saddle and peak; fainting, dying--the impotent sounds of
man's passing sank into the stillness and were lost. When the team
halted for a brief rest it was in a moment as if the silence had never
been broken. Grim, awful, the hills gave no signs of man's presence,
gave that creeping bit of life no heed.

At Mountain Spring--a lonely little pool on the desert side of the huge
wall--they stopped for dinner. When the meal was over, Texas Joe, with
the assistance of Pat, filled the water barrels, while the boy busied
himself with the canteen and the Seer and Jefferson Worth looked on.

"'Tis a dhry counthry ahead, I'm thinking'," remarked the Irishman
inquiringly as he lifted another dripping bucket.

"Some," returned Tex. "There are three water holes between here and the
river where there's water sometimes. Mostly, though, when you need it
worst, there ain't none there, an' I reckon a dry water hole is about
the most discouragin' proposition there is. They'll all be dry this
trip. There wasn't nothin' but mud at Wolf Wells when we come through
last week."

Again the barren rocks and the grim, forbidding hills echoed the loud
sound of wheel and hoof. Down the steep flank of the mountain, with
screaming, grinding brakes, they thundered and clattered into the
narrow hall-way of Devil's Canyon with its sheer walls and shadowy
gloom. The little stream that trickled down from the tiny spot of green
at the spring tried bravely to follow but soon sank exhausted into the
dry waste. A cool wind, like a draft through a tunnel, was in their
faces. After perhaps two hours of this the way widened out, the sides
of the canyon grew lower with now and then gaps and breaks. Then the
walls gave way to low, rounded hills, through which the winding trail
lay--a bed of sand and gravel--and here and there appeared clumps of
greasewood and cacti of several varieties.

At length they passed out from between the last of the foot-hills and
suddenly--as though a mighty curtain were lifted--they faced the
desert. At their feet the Mesa lay in a blaze of white sunlight, and
beyond and below the edge of the bench the vast King's Basin country.

At the edge of the Mesa Texas halted his team and the little party
looked out and away over those awful reaches of desolate solitude. The
Seer and Pat uttered involuntary exclamations. Jefferson Worth, Texas,
and Abe were silent, but the boy's thin features were aglow with eager
enthusiasm, and the face of the driver revealed an interest in the
scene that years of familiarity could not entirely deaden, but the gray
mask of the banker betrayed no emotion.

In that view, of such magnitude that miles meant nothing, there was not
a sign of man save the one slender thread of road that was so soon lost
in the distance. From horizon to horizon, so far that the eye ached in
the effort to comprehend it, there was no cloud to cast a shadow, and
the deep sky poured its resistless flood of light upon the vast dun
plain with savage fury, as if to beat into helplessness any living
creature that might chance to be caught thereon. And the desert,
receiving that flood from the wide, hot sky, mysteriously wove with it
soft scarfs of lilac, misty veils of purple and filmy curtains of rose
and pearl and gold; strangely formed with it wide lakes of blue rimmed
with phantom hills of red and violet--constantly changing, shifting,
scene on scene, as dream pictures shift and change.

Only the strange, silent life that, through long years, the desert had
taught to endure its hardships was there--the lizard, horned-toad, lean
jack-rabbit, gaunt coyote, and their kind. Only the hard growth that
the ages had evolved dotted the floor of the Basin in the near
distance--the salt-bush and greasewood, with here and there clumps of
mesquite.

And over it all--over the strange hard life, the weird, constantly
shifting scenes, the wondrous, ever-changing colors--was the dominant,
insistent, compelling spirit of the land; a brooding, dreadful silence;
a waiting--waiting--waiting; a mystic call that was at once a threat
and a promise; a still drawing of the line across which no man might go
and live, save those master men who should win the right.

After a while the engineer, pointing, said: "The line of the
Southwestern and Continental must follow the base of those hills away
over there--is that right, Texas?"

"That'll be about it," the driver answered. "I hear you're goin'
through San Antonio Pass, an' that's to the north. Rubio City lies
about here--" he pointed a little south of east. "Our road runs through
them sand hills that you can see shinin' like gold a-way over there.
Dry River Crossin' is jest beyond. You can see Lone Mountain off here
to the south. Hit'll sure be some warm down there. Look at them
dust-devil's dancin'. An' over there, where you see that yellow mist
like, is a big sand storm. We ain't likely to get a long one this time
o' the year. But you can't tell what this old desert 'll do; she's sure
some uncertain. La Palma de la Mano de Dios, the Injuns call it, and I
always thought that--all things considerin'--the name fits mighty
close. You can see hit's jest a great big basin."

"The Hollow of God's Hand." repeated the Seer in a low tone. He lifted
his hat with an unconscious gesture of reverence.

The Irishman, as the engineer translated, crossed himself. "Howly
Mither, fwhat a name!"

Jefferson Worth spoke. "Drive on, Texas."

And so, with the yellow dust-devils dancing along their road and that
yellow cloud in the distance, they moved down the slope--down into The
King's Basin--into La Palma de la Mano de Dios, The Hollow of God's
Hand.

"Is that true, sir?" asked Abe of the Seer.

"Is what true, son?"

"What Texas said about the ocean."

"Yes it's true. The lowest point of this Basin is nearly three hundred
feet below sea level. The railroad we are going to build follows right
around the rim on the other side over there. This slope that we are
going down now is the ancient beach." Then, while they pushed on into
the silence and the heat of that dreadful land, the engineer told the
boy and his companions how the ages had wrought with river and wave and
sun and wind to make The King's Basin Desert.

Wolf Wells they found dry as Texas had anticipated. Phantom Lake also
was dry. Occasionally they crossed dry, ancient water courses made by
the river when the land was being formed; sometimes there were glassy,
hard, bare alkali flats; again the trail led through jungle-like
patches of desert growth or twisted and wound between high hummocks.
Always there was the wide, hot sky, the glaring flood of light unbroken
by shadow masses to relieve the eye and reflected hotly from the sandy
floor of the old sea-bed.

That evening, when they made camp, a heavy mass of clouds hung over the
top of No Man's Mountains and the long Coast Range that walled in the
Basin. Texas Joe, watching these clouds, said nothing; but when Pat
threw on the ground the water left in his cup after drinking, the
plainsman opened upon him with language that startled them all.

The next day, noon found them in the first of the sand hills. There was
no sign of vegetation here, for the huge mounds and ridges of white
sand, piled like drifts of snow, were never quite still. Always they
move eastward before the prevailing winds from the west. Through the
greater part of the year they advance very slowly, but when the fierce
gales sweep down from the mountains they roll forward so swiftly that
any object in their path is quickly buried in their smothering depths.

In the middle of the afternoon Texas climbed to the top of a huge drift
to look over the land. The others saw him stand a moment against the
sky, gazing to the northwest, then he turned and slid down the steep
side of the mound to the waiting wagon.

"She's comin'!" he remarked, laconically, "an' she's a big one. I
reckon we may as well get as far as we can."

A few minutes later they saw the sky behind them filling as with a
golden mist. The atmosphere, dry and hot, seemed charged with
mysterious, terrible power. The very mules tossed their heads uneasily
and tugged at the reins as if they felt themselves pursued by some
fearful thing. Straight and hard, with terrific velocity, the wind was
coming down through the mountain passes and sweeping across the wide
miles of desert, gathering the sand as it came. Swiftly the golden mist
extended over their heads, a thick, yellow fog, through which the sun
shone dully with a weird, unnatural light. Then the stinging, blinding,
choking blast was upon them with pitiless, savage fury. In a moment all
signs of the trail were obliterated. Over the high edges of the drift
the sand curled and streamed like blizzard snow. About the outfit it
whirled and eddied, cutting the faces of the men and forcing them, with
closed eyes, to gasp for breath.

Of their own accord the mules stopped and Texas shouted to Mr. Worth:
"It ain't no use for us to try to go on, sir. There ain't no trail now,
and we'd jest drift around."

As far from the lee of a drift as possible, all hands--under the desert
man's direction--worked to rig a tarpaulin on the windward side of the
wagon. Then, with the mules unhitched and securely tied to the vehicle,
the men crouched under their rude shelter. The Irishman was choking,
coughing, sputtering and cursing, the engineer laughed good-naturedly
at their predicament, and Abe Lee grinned in sympathy, while Texas Joe
accepted the situation grimly with the forbearance of long experience.
But Jefferson Worth's face was the same expressionless gray mask. He
gave no hint of impatience at the delay; no uneasiness at the
situation; no annoyance at the discomfort. It was as though he had
foreseen the situation and had prepared himself to meet it. "How long
do you figure this will last, Tex?" he asked in his colorless voice.

"Not more than three days," returned the driver. "It may be over in
three hours."

The morning of the second day they crawled from their blankets beneath
the wagon to find the sky clear and the air free from dust. Eagerly
they prepared to move. Against their shelter the sand had drifted
nearly to the top of the wheels, and the wagon-box itself was more than
half filled. The hair, eye-brows, beard and clothing of the men were
thickly coated with powdery dust, while every sign of the trail was
gone and the wheels sank heavily into the soft sand.

Three times Texas halted the laboring team and, climbing to the summit
of a drift, determined his course by marks unknown to those who waited
below. Again they stopped for the plainsman to take an observation, and
this time the four in the wagon, watching the figure of the driver
against the sky, saw him turn abruptly and come down to them with long
plunging strides. Instinctively they knew that something unusual had
come under his eye.

The Seer and Jefferson Worth spoke together. "What is it, Tex?"

"A stray horse about a mile ahead."

For the first time Texas Joe uncoiled the long lash of his whip and his
call "You, Buck! Molly!" was punctuated by pistol-like cracks that
sounded strangely in the death-like silence of the sandy waste.

As they came within sight of the strange horse the poor beast staggered
wearily to meet the wagon--the broken strap of his halter swinging
loosely from his low-hanging head.

"Look at the poor baste," said Pat. "'Tis near dead he is wid thirst."
He leaped to the ground and started toward the water barrel in the rear
of the wagon.

"Hold on, Pat," said the colorless voice of Jefferson Worth. And his
words were followed by the report of Texas Joe's forty-five.

The Irishman turned to see the strange horse lying dead on the sand.
"Fwhat the hell--" he demanded hotly, but Texas was eyeing him coolly,
and something checked the anger of the Irishman.

"You don't seem to sabe," drawled the man of the desert, replacing the
empty shell in his gun. "There ain't hardly enough water to carry us
through now, an' we may have to pick up this other outfit."

No one spoke as Pat climbed heavily back to his seat.

For two miles the tracks of the strange horse were visible, then they
were blotted out by the sand that had filled them. "He made that much
since the blow," was Texas' slow comment. "How far we are from where he
started is all guess."

As they pushed on, all eyes searched the country eagerly and before
long they found the spot for which they looked. A light spring wagon
with a piece of a halter strap tied to one of the wheels was more than
half-buried by the sand in the lee of a high drift. There was a small
water keg, empty, with its seams already beginning to open in the
fierce heat of the sun, a "grub-box," some bedding and part of a bale
of hay-nothing more.

Jefferson Worth, Pat and the boy attempted to dig in the steep side of
the drift that rose above the half-buried outfit, but at their every
movement tons of the dry sand came sliding down upon them. "It ain't no
use, Mr. Worth," said Texas, as the banker straightened up, baffled in
his effort. "You will never know what's buried in there until God
Almighty uncovers it."

Then the man of the desert and plains read the story of the tragedy as
though he had been an eye witness. "They was travelin' light an'
counted on makin' good time. They must have counted, too, on, findin'
water in the hole." He kicked the empty keg. "Their supply give out an'
then that sand-storm caught 'em and the horses broke loose. Of course
they would go to hunt their stock, not darin' to be left afoot and
without water, an' hits a thousand to one they never got back to the
outfit. We're takin' too many chances ourselves to lose much time and I
don't reckon there's any use, but we'd better look around maybe."

He directed the little party to scatter and to keep on the high ground
so that they would not lose sight of each other. Until well on in the
afternoon they searched the vicinity, but with no reward, while the hot
sun, the dry burning waste and the glaring sands of the desert warned
them that every hour's delay might mean their own death. When they
returned at last to the wagon, called in by Texas, no one spoke. As
they went on their way each was busy with his own thoughts of the grim
evidence of the desert's power.

Another hour passed. Suddenly Texas halted the mules and, with an
exclamation, leaped to the ground. The others saw that he was bending
over a dim track in the sand.

"My God! men," he shouted, "hit's a woman."

For a short way he followed the foot-prints, then, running back to the
wagon and springing to his seat, swung his long whip and urged the team
ahead.

"Hit's a woman," he repeated. "When the others went away and didn't
come back she started ahead in the storm alone. She had got this far
when the blow quit, leavin' her tracks to show. We may--" He urged his
mules to greater effort.

The prints of the woman's shoe could be plainly seen now. "Look!" said
Tex, pointing, "she's staggerin'--Now she's stopped! Whoa!" Throwing
his weight on the lines he leaned over from his seat. "Look, men! Look
there!" he cried, as he pointed. "She's carryin' a kid. See, there's
where she set it down for a rest." It was all too clear. Beside the
woman's track were the prints of two baby shoes.

The Seer, with a long breath, drew his hand across his sand-begrimed
face. "Hurry, Tex. For God's sake, hurry!"

The Irishman was cursing fiercely in impotent rage, clenching and
unclenching his huge, hairy fists. The boy cowered in his seat. But not
a change came over the mask-like features of Jefferson Worth. Only the
delicate, pointed fingers of his nervous hands caressed constantly his
unshaven chin, fingered his clothing, or--gripped the edge of the wagon
seat as he leaned forward in his place. Texas--grim, cool, alert, his
lean figure instinct now with action and his dark eyes alight--swung
his long whip and handled his reins with a master's skill, calling upon
every atom of his team's strength, while reading those tracks in the
sand as one would scan a printed page.

It was all written there--that story of mother love; where she
staggered with fatigue; where she was forced to rest; where the baby
walked a little way; and once or twice where the little one stumbled
and fell as the sand proved too heavy for the little feet. And all the
while the desert, dragging with dead weight at the wheels, seemed to
fight against them. It was as though the dreadful land knew that only
time was needed to complete its work. Then the hot sun dropped beyond
the purple wall of mountain and the mystery of the long twilight began.

"Dry River Crossing is just ahead," said Tex, and soon the outfit
pitched down the steep bank of a deep wash that had been made in some
forgotten age by an overflow of the great river. Occasionally, after
the infrequent rains of winter, some water was to be found here in a
hole under the high bank a short way from the trail.

With a crash of brakes the team stopped at the bottom. The men,
springing from the wagon and leaving the panting mules to stand with
drooping heads, started to search the wash. But in a moment Texas
shouted and the others quickly joined him. Near the dry water hole lay
the body of a woman. By her side was a small canteen.

[Illustration: He had lifted the canteen and was holding it upside
down.]

The engineer bent to examine the still form for some sign of life.

"It ain't no use, sir," said Texas. "She's gone." He had lifted the
canteen and was holding it upside down. With his finger he touched the
mouth of the vessel and held out his hand. The finger was wet. "You
see," he said, "when her men-folks didn't come back she started with
the kid an' what water she had. But she wouldn't drink none herself,
an' the hard trip in the heat and sand carryin' the baby, an' findin'
the water hole dry was too much for her. If only we had known an' come
on, instead of huntin' back there where it wasn't no use, we'd a-been
in time."

As the little party--speechless at the words of Texas--stood in the
twilight, looking down upon the lifeless form, a chorus of wild,
snarling, barking yowls, with long-drawn, shrill howls, broke on the
still air. It was the coyotes' evening call. To the silent men the
weird sound seemed the triumphant cry of the Desert itself and they
started in horror.

Then from the dusky shadow of the high bank farther up the wash came
another cry that broke the spell that was upon them and drew an
answering shout from their lips as they ran forward.

"Mamma! Mamma! Barba wants drink. Please bring drink, mamma. Barba's
'fraid!"

Jefferson Worth reached her first. Close under the bank, where she had
wandered after "mamma" lay down to sleep, and evidently just awakened
from a tired nap by the coyotes' cry, sat a little girl of not more
than four years. Her brown hair was all tumbled and tossed, and her big
brown eyes were wide with wondering fear at the four strange men and
the boy who stood over her.

"Mamma! Mamma!" she whimpered, "Barba wants mamma."

Jefferson Worth knelt before her, holding out his hands, and his voice,
as he spoke to the baby, made his companions look at him in wonder, it
was so full of tenderness.

The little girl fixed her big eyes questioningly upon the kneeling man.
The others waited, breathless. Then suddenly, as if at something she
saw in the gray face of the financier, the little one drew back with
fear upon her baby features and in her baby voice. "Go 'way! Go 'way!"
she cried. Then again, "Mamma! Barba wants mamma." Jefferson Worth
turned sadly away, his head bowed as though with disappointment or
shame.

The others, now, in turn tried to win her confidence. The plainsman and
the Irishman she regarded gravely, as she had looked at the banker, but
without fear. The boy won a little smile, but she still held
back--hesitating--reluctant. Then with a pitiful little gesture of
confidence and trust, she stretched forth her arms to the big
brown-eyed engineer. "Barba wants drink," she said, and the Seer took
her in his arms.

At the wagon it was Jefferson Worth who offered her a tin cup of water,
but again she shrank from him, throwing her arms about the neck of the
Seer. The engineer, taking the cup from the banker's hands, gave her a
drink.

While Mr. Worth and the boy prepared a hasty meal, Texas fed his team
and the Irishman, going back a short distance, made still another grave
beside the road already marked by so many. The child--still in the
engineer's arms--ate hungrily, and when the meal was over he took her
to the wagon, while the others, with a lantern, returned to the still
form by the dry water hole. At the banker's suggestion, a thorough
examination of the woman's clothing was made for some clue to her
identity, but no mark was found. With careful hands they reverently
wrapped the body in a blanket and laid it away in its rude, sandy bed.

When the grave was filled and protected as best it could be, a short
consultation was held. Mr. Worth wished to return to the half buried
outfit to make another effort to learn the identity of the Desert's
victim, but Texas refused. "'Tain't that I ain't willin' to do what's
right," he said, "but you see how that sand acted. Why, Mr. Worth, you
couldn't move that there drift in a year, an' you know it. I jest gave
the mules the last water they'll get an' we're goin' to have all we can
do to make it through as it is. If we wait to go back there ain't one
chance in a hundred that we-all 'll ever see Rubio City again. It ain't
sense to risk killin' the kid when we've got a chance to save her--jest
on a slim chance o' findin' out who she is."

Returning to the outfit they very quietly--so as not to awaken the
sleeping child--hitched the team to the wagon and took their places. As
the mules started the baby stirred uneasily in the Seer's arms and
murmured sleepily: "Mamma." But the low, soothing tones of the big man
calmed her and she slept.

Hour after hour of the long night dragged by. They had left the sand
hills behind three miles before they reached Dry River and now the
wide, level reaches of the thinly covered plain, forbidding and ghostly
under the stars, seemed to stretch away on every side into infinite
space. Involuntarily all the members of the little party, except Texas
Joe, strained their eyes looking into the blank, silent distance for
lights, and, as they looked, they turned their heads constantly to
listen for some sound of human life. But in all that vast expanse there
was no light save the light of the stars; in all that silent waste
there was no sound save the occasional call of the coyote, the
plaintive, quivering note of the ground-owls, the muffled fall of the
mules' feet in the soft earth, and the dull chuck, creak, and rumble of
the wagon with the clink of trace chains and the squeak of straining
harness leather. And always it was as though that dreadful land clung
to them with heavy hands, matching its strength against the strength of
these who braved its silent threat, seeking to hold them as it held so
many others. The men spoke rarely and then in low tones. The baby in
the Seer's arms slept. Only Texas, and perhaps his team, knew how they
kept the dimly marked trail that led to life. Perhaps Texas himself did
not know.

At daybreak they halted for a brief rest and for breakfast. The child
ate with the others, but still clung to the engineer, and while asking
often for "mamma," seemed to trust her big protector fully. From the
shelter of his arms she even smiled at the efforts of Texas, Pat and
the boy to amuse and keep her attention from her loss. From Jefferson
Worth she still shrank in fear and the others wondered at the pain in
that gray face as all his efforts to win a smile or a kind look from
the baby were steadily repulsed.

It was Texas who, when they halted, poured the last of the water from
the barrel into the canteen and carefully measured out to each a small
portion. It was Texas now who gave the word to start again on their
journey. And when the desert man placed the canteen with their meager
supply of water in the corner of the wagon-box under his own feet the
others understood and made no comment.

At noon, when each was given his carefully measured portion from the
canteen, Jefferson Worth, before they could check him, wet his
handkerchief with his share of the water and gave it to the Seer to
wipe the dust from the hot little face of the child. The eyes of the
big engineer filled and Texas, with an oath that was more reverent than
profane, poured another measure and forced the banker to drink.

As the long, hot, thirsty hours of that afternoon dragged slowly past,
the faces of the men grew worn and haggard. The two days and nights in
the trying storm, the exertion of their search among the sand hills,
the excitement of finding the woman's body and the discovery of the
child, followed by the long sleepless night, and now the hard, hot,
dreary hours of the struggle with the Desert that seemed to gather all
its dreadful strength against them, were beginning to tell. Texas Joe,
forced to give constant attention to his team and hardened by years of
experience, showed the strain least, while Pat, unfitted for such a
trial by his protracted spree in San Felipe, undoubtedly suffered most.

After dinner the Irishman sat motionless in his place with downcast
face, lifting his head only at long intervals to gaze with fierce hot
eyes upon the barren landscape, while muttering to himself in a
growling undertone. Later he seemed to sink into a stupor and appeared
to be scarcely conscious of his companions. Suddenly he roused himself
and, bending forward with a quick motion, reached the canteen from
under the driver's seat. In the act of unscrewing the cap he was halted
by the calm-voice of Texas: "Put that back."

"Go to hell wid ye! I'm no sun-dried herrin'."

The cap came loose, but as he raised the canteen and lifted his face
with open parched lips he looked straight into the muzzle of the big
forty-five and back of the gun into the steady eyes of the plainsman.
"I'm sorry, pard, but you can't do it."

For an instant the Irishman sat as if suddenly turned to stone. The
water was within reach of his lips, but over the canteen certain death
looked at him, for there was no mistaking the expression on the face of
that man with the gun. Beside himself with thirst, forgetting
everything but the water, and utterly reckless he growled: "Shoot an'
be domned, ye murderin' savage!" and again started to lift the
cloth-covered vessel.

At that instant the baby, catching sight of the canteen, called from
the rear seat: "Barba wants drink. Barba thirsty, too."

As though Texas had pulled the trigger the Irishman dropped his hand.
Slowly he looked from face to face of his companions--a dazed
expression on his own countenance, as though he were awakening from a
dream. The child, clinging to the Seer with one hand and pointing with
the other, said again: "Barba thirsty; please give Barba drink."

A look of horror and shame went over the face of the Irishman, his form
shook like a leaf and his trembling hands could scarcely hold the
canteen. "My Gawd! bhoys," he cried, "fwhat's this I was doin'?" Then
he burst suddenly upon Tex with: "Why the hell don't ye shoot, domn ye?
A baste like me is fit for nothin' but to rot in this Gawd-forsaken
land!"

The fierce rage of the man at his own act was pitiful. Texas dropped
his gun into the holster and turned his face away. Jefferson Worth held
out a cup. "Give the little one some water, Pat," he said, in his cold,
exact way.

With shaking hands the Irishman poured a little into the cup and,
screwing the cap back on the canteen, he returned it to its place. Then
with a groan he bowed his face in his great, hairy hands.

Just before sun-down they climbed up the ancient beach line to the rim
of the Basin and the Mesa on the east. Halting here for a brief rest
and for supper, they looked back over the low, wide land through which
they had come. All along the western sky and far to the southward, the
wall-like mountains lifted their purple heights from the dun plain, a
seemingly impassable barrier, shutting in the land of death; shutting
out the life that came to their feet on the other side. To the north
the hills that rim the Basin caught the slanting rays of the setting
sun and glowed rose-color, and pink, and salmon, with deep purple
shadows where canyons opened, all rising out of drifts of silvery
light. To the northwest two distant, gleaming, snow-capped peaks of the
Coast Range marked San Antonio Pass. To the west Lone Mountain showed
dark blue against the purple of the hills beyond. Down in the desert
basin, drifting above and woven through the ever-shifting masses of
color, shimmering phantom lakes, and dull, dusky patches of green and
brown, long streamers, bars and threads of dust shone like gleaming
gold.

Texas Joe, when he had poured for each his portion of water, shook the
canteen carefully, and a smile spread slowly over his sun-blackened
features. "What's left belongs to the kid," he said. "But we'll make
it. We'll jest about make it."

The Irishman lifted his cup toward the Desert, saying solemnly: "Here's
to ye, domn ye! Ye ain't got us yet. May ye burn an' blishther an'
scorch an' bake 'til yer danged heart shrivels up an' blows away."

Then he fell to amusing the child with loving fun-talk and queer
antics, until she laughed aloud and permitted him to catch her up in
his big hairy hands and to toss her high in the air. Texas and Abe,
joining in the frolic, shared with Pat the little lady's favor, while
the Seer looked smilingly on. But when Jefferson Worth approached, with
an offering of pretty stones and shells which he had gathered on the
old beach, she ran up to the engineer's arms. Still coaxing, the banker
held out his offering. The others were silent, watching. Timidly at
last, the child put forth her little hands and accepted the gift,
shrinking back quickly with her treasures to the shelter of the big
man's arms.

It was just after noon the next day when the men at the wagon yard on
the edge of Rubio City looked up to see Jefferson Worth's outfit
approaching. The dust-covered, nearly-exhausted team staggered weakly
through the gate. On the driver's seat sat a haggard, begrimed figure
holding the reins in his right hand; and in his lap, supported by his
free arm, a little girl lay fast asleep. Then as one of the mules lay
down, the men went forward on the run.

Texas stared at them dully for a moment. Then, as he dropped the reins,
his parched, cracked lips parted in what was meant for a smile and he
said, in a thick, choking whisper: "We made it, boys: we jest made it.
Somebody take the kid."

Eager hands relieved him of his burden and he slid heavily to the
ground to stand dizzily holding on to a wheel for support.

One of the men said sharply: "But where's Mr. Worth, Tex? What have you
done with Jefferson Worth an' what you doin' with a kid?"

Texas Joe gazed at the questioner steadily as if summoning all his
strength of will in an effort to think. "Hello, Jack! Why--damned if I
know--he was with me a little while ago."

The engineer, the banker, the Irishman and the boy were lying
unconscious on the bottom of the wagon.




CHAPTER III.

MISS BARBARA WORTH.


Mrs. Worth, sitting on the wide veranda of her home after a lonely
supper, lifted her eyes frequently from the work in her lap to look
down the street. Perhaps it was unusual for a banker's wife to be
darning her husband's socks; it may be, even, that bankers do not
usually wear socks that have been darned. But Mrs. Worth was not
sensible that her task was at all strange.

A group of dust-covered cow-boys, coming into town for an evening's
pleasure, jogged past with loud laughter and soft-clinking spurs and
bridle-chains. "There's Jefferson Worth's place," said one. "D'ye
reckon he'll make good corralin' all the money there is in the world?"

Now and then a carriage, filled with well-to-do citizens out for an
evening ride, drove slowly by. The people in the carriages always
saluted Mrs. Worth and she returned their salutations with a prim
little bow. But no one stopped to chat or to offer her a seat. In this,
also, there was nothing strange to the woman on the porch of the big,
empty house. Sometimes the people in the carriages, entertaining
visiting friends, pointed to Jefferson Worth's house, with proper
explanations, as they also called attention to the Pioneer
Bank--Jefferson Worth's bank.

When dusk came and she could no longer see, Mrs. Worth laid aside her
work and sat with folded hands, her face turned down the street. Inside
the house the lights were not yet on; there was no need for them and
she liked to sit in the dark.

The Indian servant woman came softly to the door. "Does the Senora wish
anything?"

"No, thank you, Ynez; come and sit down."

Noiselessly the woman seated herself on the top step.

"It has been warm to-day, Ynez."

"Si, Senora."

"It is nearly three weeks since Mr. Worth left with Texas Joe for San
Felipe, Ynez."

"Si, Senora."

"Do you know how far it is across the Desert to San Felipe?"

"Si. I think three--four day, maybe five, Senora."

"It will be very hot."

"Si, Senora. Las' year my sister's man--Jose--go for San Felipe. No
much water. He no come back."

"Yes, I remember. What is it your people call The King's Basin Desert?
The Hollow of God's Hand, isn't it?"

"Si, Senora. La Palma de la Mano de Dios."

"I wish they would come."

"He come pretty quick, I think. Mebbe so he not start when he think.
Mebbe so what you call 'beesness' not let him come," said the Indian
woman, soothingly.

"But Mr. Worth expected to be back two days ago and he is always on
time, you know, Ynez."

"Si, Senora. But mebbe so this one time different"

"I do wish they would---Look, Ynez, look! There's some one stopping!"

A carriage was turning in toward the house.

"It is Senor Worth," said the Indian woman.

"Someone is with him, Ynez. They have a child."

As Jefferson Worth and the Seer came up the walk--the engineer carrying
the little girl--Mrs. Worth rose unsteadily to her feet. "Run, quick,
Ynez--quick! The lights!"

That night when the Seer, with everything possible done for his
comfort, had retired, and the baby--bathed and fed--was sound asleep in
a child's bed that Ynez had brought from an unused room in the banker's
big house and placed in Mrs. Worth's own chamber, Jefferson Worth and
his wife crept softly to the little girl's bedside. Silently they
looked at the baby form under the snow-white coverlet and at the round,
baby face, with the tumbled brown hair, on the pillow.

Mrs. Worth clasped her hands in eager longing as she whispered: "Oh,
Jeff, can we keep her? Can we?"

Jefferson Worth answered in his careful manner: "Did you look for marks
on her clothing?"

"There was nothing--not a letter even. And all that she can tell of her
name is Barba. I'm sure she means Barbara." As she answered, Mrs. Worth
searched her husband's face anxiously. Then she exclaimed: "Oh you do
want her; you do!" and added wistfully: "Of course we must try to find
her folks, but do you think it very wrong, Jeff, to wish--to wish that
we never do? I feel as though she were sent to take the place of our
own little girl. We need her so, Jeff. I need her so--and you--you will
need her, when--" There was a day coming that the banker and his wife
did not talk about. Since the birth and death of their one child, Mrs.
Worth had been a hopeless invalid.

Several weeks passed and every effort to find little Barbara's people
was fruitless. Inquiry in Rubio City and San Felipe and through the
newspapers on the Coast brought no returns. The land in those days was
a land of strangers where people came and went with little notice and
were lost quickly in the ever-restless tide. It was not at all strange
that no one could identify an outfit of which it was possible to tell
only of a woman and child and one bay horse. There were many outfits
with a woman and child in the party and many that had among the two,
four, six, or more animals one bay horse.

In the meantime, little Barbara, in her new home, was growing gradually
away from all that had gone before her long ride in the big wagon with
the men. Already she was beginning to talk of her "other mamma and
papa." Mrs. Worth slipped into the other woman's place in the childish
heart, even as little Barbara filled the empty mother-heart of the
woman.

Toward Mr. Worth, though she no longer shrank from him in fear, the
little girl maintained an attitude of questioning regard. With Texas or
Pat or the boy Abe, who often went together to see her, she laughed and
chattered like a good little comrade and play-fellow. But when the Seer
came, as he did whenever his duties and his presence in town would
permit, she flew to him with eager love, climbing on his knee or
snuggling under his arm with entire confidence and understanding.

Public interest in Rubio City, keen at first, died out quickly. Rubio
City, in those days of railroad building, had too many things of
interest to retain any one thing long. Still, because it was Jefferson
Worth, Rubio City could not altogether drop the matter. So it was one
evening in the Gold Bar saloon, where Pat, coming into town for a quiet
evening from the grading camp on the new road, and Texas Joe, who was
just back from another trip across the Desert, were having a friendly
glass in a quiet corner.

"Is there anythin' doin' in that San Felipe I don't know?" was Pat's
natural question. "Things is that slow in this danged town I'm gettin'
all dead on me insides."

Texas grinned in his slow way. "There'll be another pay day before
long."

"Yes, an' 'tis ye that'll be 'round agin to kape me from proper
enjoyment av the blissin's av civilization wid yer talk av the gold
that's to be found in thim mountains that nobody but ye knows where
they are. 'Tis a fool I am to be listenin' to yer crazy drames."

"Just keep your shirt on a little longer, pard," returned the other
soothingly. "We've most enough for a grub-stake now. When we're a
little mite better fixed we'll pull out of this sinful land o'
temptation an' when we come back"--he drew a long breath--"we'll do the
thing up proper."

Pat dropped his glass with a thump. "We will," he said. "We will that.
An' it's to San Felipe we'll go. Tell me, did you see no wan there
inquirin' afther me good health this last thrip?"

"I kept away from Sailor Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of
your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that
red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to stay away
from San Felipe.'"

"He did, did he? He towld ye that? The big slob! He knows ut will be
better for him. Fwhat did ye tell him?"

"I said you'd decided to locate here permanent."

Pat gasped for breath. "Ye towld him that! Ye did! Yer a danged
sun-baked herrin' av a man wid no proper spirit at all. Fwhat the hell
do ye mane to be so slanderin' me reputation an' two or three hundred
miles av disert between me an' him? For a sup av wather I'd go to ye
wid me two hands."

Texas Joe laughed outright. "Let's have another drink instead," he said.

In the silence occasioned by the re-filling of their glasses the two
friends caught the name of Jefferson Worth. Instantly their attention
was attracted to a well-dressed, smart-looking stranger, who stood at
the bar talking loudly to a man known to Rubio City as a promoter of
somewhat doubtful mining schemes. Pat and Texas listened with amused
interest while the two in concert cursed Jefferson Worth with careful
and exhaustive attention to details.

"Go to it, gentlemen!" put in the bar-keeper, as he returned to his
place from the table in the corner. "We-all sure endorses your
opinions. Have one on the house." He graciously helped them to more
liquor.

"Brother Worth sure stands high with this here congregation," drawled
Texas Joe to his companion.

"Hst!" whispered Pat. "They're askin' afther the kid." The casual,
amused interest of the two friends became intense.

"They sure tried everything to find her folks," the saloon man was
saying, "but there ain't no thin' doin' so far. They say if nobody
shows up with a claim Jefferson Worth is goin' to adopt her an' bring
her up like his own."

This statement of Jefferson Worth's intentions called forth from the
stranger an exhaustive opinion as to the banker's fitness to have the
child and her probable chances for right training and happiness in the
financier's hands. His remarks being cordially commended by the
promoter and the man in the white apron, the speaker was encouraged to
strengthen his position in reference to the future of this poor,
helpless orphan and to point out freely the duties of Rubio City in the
matter. He was interrupted by a light hand on his shoulder. Turning
with a start that spilled the liquor in his glass, he looked into the
lean face of Texas Joe. Behind the plainsman stood the heavy form of
the Irishman, a look of pleased anticipation on his battle-scarred
features. There was a sudden sympathetic hush in the room. Every face
was turned toward the group.

"Excuse me, stranger," said Texas, in his softest tones; "but I sure am
moved to testify in this here meetin'."

The man would have made some angry, blustering reply, but a warning
look from the promoter and a slight cough from the bar-tender checked
him.

Tex proceeded. "That you-all has rights to your opinion regardin' Mr.
Jefferson Worth's character I ain't denyin', an' there's plenty in
Rubio City that'll agree with you. Mebbe you has reasons for feelin'
grieved. I don't sabe this here business game nohow. Mebbe you stacked
the deck an' he caught you at it. You sure impresses me that a-way, for
I've noticed that it ain't the sport who plays fair or loses fair that
squeals loudest when the cards are agin him. But when you touches on
said Jefferson Worth an' the future of that little kid, with free
remarks on the duties of Rubio City regardin' the same, you're sure
gettin' around where I live. Me an' this gent here"--he waved his hand
toward Pat with elaborate formality, to the huge delight of his
audience--"me an' this here gent is first uncles to that kid, an' any
pop-eyed, lop-eared, greasy-fingered cross between a coyot' an' a
jack-rabbit that comes a-pouncin' out o' the wilds o' civilization to
jump our claim by makin' insinuations that we ain't competent to see
that the aforementioned kid has proper bringin' up an' that Brother
Worth ain't a proper daddy for her, had best come loaded for trouble.
For trouble'll sure camp on his trail 'til he's reformed or been safely
planted."

In the significant pause that followed no one moved. Texas stood
easily, looking into the eyes of the stranger. Pat shot fierce,
watchful glances around the room, from face to face.

"I trust you get's the force o' my remarks," concluded Texas
suggestively.

The stranger moved uneasily and looked hurriedly about for signs of
sympathy or assistance. Every face was a blank. Texas waited.

"I suppose I was hasty," said the stranger, sullenly. "I beg your
pardon, gentlemen."

"Consider the meetin' dismissed, gentlemen," said Texas, easily. "Me
an' my pardner trusts that the congregation will treasure our remarks
in the future. Now, you bar-tender, everybody drinks on us to the
health and happiness of our respected niece--Miss Barbara Worth."

On the street a few minutes later Pat growled his disappointment. "The
divil take a man wid no bowels."

Ignoring his friend's complaint, Texas returned meditatively; "Do you
think, Pat, that there might be anything in what that there gent said?
In spite o' what we seen of him on that trip, Jefferson Worth is sure a
cold proposition. Give it to me straight. What will he do for the
little one?"

"An' it's just fwhat we see'd on that thrip that makes me think ut's a
question av fwhat the little girl will do to him," answered Pat,
thereby sustaining the reputation of his race.




CHAPTER IV.

YOU'D BETTER MAKE IT NINETY.


Fifteen years of a changing age left few marks on Rubio City. Luxurious
overland trains, filled with tourists, now stopped at the depot where,
under the pepper trees, sadly civilized Indians sold Kansas City and
New Jersey-made curios--stopped and went on again along the rim of The
King's Basin, through San Antonio Pass to the great cities on the
western edge of the continent. But the town on the banks of the
Colorado, in an almost rainless land, had little to build upon. Still
on the street mingled the old-timers from desert, mountain and plain;
from prospecting trip, mine or ranch; the adventurer, the promoter, the
Indian, the Mexican, the frontier business man and the tourist.

But there were few of the citizens of Rubio City now who knew the story
of the baby girl whom Jefferson Worth and his party had found in La
Palma de la Mano de Dios. For, though Rubio City was changed but little
since that day when Texas Joe brought the outfit with the child safely
out of the Desert, the people came and went always as is the manner of
their moving kind. The few "old-timers" who remained had long ceased to
tell the story. No one thought of the young woman, who rode down the
street that afternoon, save only as the daughter of Jefferson Worth.

As she passed, the people turned to follow her with their eyes--the
"old-timers" with smiles of recognition and picturesque words of
admiring comment; the townspeople with cheerful greetings--a wave of
the hand or a nod when they caught her eye; the strangers from the East
with curious interest and ready kodaks. Here, the visitors told
themselves, was the real West.

"How interesting!" gasped a tailor-made woman tourist to her escort.
"Look, George, she is wearing a divided skirt and riding a man's
saddle! And look! quick! where's your camera? She has a revolver!"

That revolver, a dainty but effective pearl-handled weapon, was a gift
to Barbara from her "uncles," Texas and Pat; and though ornamental was
not for ornament. The girl often went alone, as she was going to-day,
for a long ride out on the Mesa, and the country still harbored many
wild and lawless characters.

But the tailored woman tourist did not need to urge George to look.
There was something about the girl on the quick-stepping, spirited
horse that challenged attention. The khaki-clad figure was so richly
alive--there was such a wealth of vitality; such an abundance of young
woman's strength; such a glow of red blood expressed in every curved
line and revealed in every graceful movement--that the attraction was
irresistible. To look at Barbara Worth was a pleasure; to be near her
was a delight.

At the Pioneer Bank the girl cheeked her horse and, swinging lightly to
the ground, threw the reins over the animal's head, thus tying him in
western fashion. As she stood now on the sidewalk laughing and chatting
with a group of friends, who had paused in passing to greet her, her
beautiful figure lost none of the compelling charm that made her, on
horseback, so good to look at. Every movement and gesture expressed
perfect health. The firm flesh of her rounded cheeks and full throat
was warmly browned and glowing with the abundance of red blood in her
veins. Though framed in a mass of waving brown hair under a wide
sombrero, her features were not pretty. The mouth was perhaps a bit too
large, though it was a good mouth, and, as she laughed with her
companions, revealed teeth that were faultless. But something looked
out of her brown eyes and made itself felt in every poise and movement
that forced one to forget to be critical. It was the wholesome,
challenging lure of an unmarred womanhood.

"Oh, Barbara, how could you--how _could_ you miss last Thursday
afternoon at Miss Colson's? We had a perfectly lovely time!" cried a
vivacious member of the little group.

"Yes indeed, young lady; explanations are in order," added another.
"Miss Colson didn't like it a bit. She had an exquisite luncheon, and
you know how people depend upon your appreciation of good things to
eat!"

"Well, you see," answered Barbara, turning to pat her horse's neck as
the animal, edging closer to her side, rubbed his soft muzzle coaxingly
against her shoulder, "Pilot and I were out on the Mesa and he said he
didn't want to come back. Pilot doesn't care at all for afternoon
parties, do you old boy?"--with another pat--"so what could I do? I
didn't like to hurt Miss Colson's feelings, of course, but I didn't
like to hurt Pilot's feelings either; and the day was so perfect and
Pilot was feeling so good and we were having such fun together! I guess
it was a case of 'a bird in the hand,' or 'possession being nine
points,' you know; or something like that. Only for pity's sake, girls,
don't tell Miss Colson I said that."

They all laughed understandingly and the vivacious one said: "I guess
it was possession all right. Could anything on earth induce you to give
up your horse and your desert, Barbara?"

Inside the bank Jefferson Worth, with his customary careful, exact
manner, was explaining to a small rancher that it was impossible to
extend the loan secured by a mortgage on the farmer's property.
Personally Mr. Worth would be glad to accommodate him. But the loan had
already been extended three times and there were good reasons why the
bank must call it in. The farmer must remember that a bank's duty to
its stockholders and depositors was sacred. It was not a question of
the farmer's honesty; it was altogether a question of Good Business.

The farmer was agitated and presented his case desperately. Mr. Worth
knew the situation--the unforeseen circumstances that made it
impossible for him to pay then. Only two months more were needed--until
his new crop matured. He could not blame Mr. Worth, of course. He
understood that it was business, but still--The farmer searched that
cold, mask-like face for a ray of hope as a man might hold out his
hands for pity to a machine. He was made to feel somehow that the
banker was not a man with human blood, but a mechanical something,
governed and run by a mighty irresistible power with which it had
nothing to do save to obey as a locomotive obeys its steam.

Jefferson Worth began explaining again in exact, precise tones that the
loan, wholly for business reasons, was impossible, when Barbara entered
the bank. As the girl greeted the teller in front, her voice, full and
rich, with the same unconscious power that looked out of her eyes and
spoke in every movement of her body, came through the bronze grating at
the window and carried down the room. Jefferson Worth paused. With the
farmer he faced the open door of his apartment. Every man in the place
looked up. The desk-weary clerks smilingly answered her greeting and
turned back to their books with renewed energy. The cashier
straightened up from his papers and--leaning back in his
chair--exchanged a jest with her as she passed.

"Oh, excuse me, father, I thought you were alone. How do you do, Mr.
Wheeler? And how is Mrs. Wheeler and that dear little baby?"

The man's face lighted, his form straightened, his voice rang out
heartily. "Fine, Miss Barbara, fine, thank you. All we need in the
world now is for your father to give me time enough on that blamed note
to make a crop."

Barbara Worth was just tall enough to look straight into her father's
eyes. As she looked at him now the banker felt a little as he had felt
that night in the Desert, when the baby, whose dead mother lay beside
the dry water hole, shrank back from him in fear.

"Oh, I'm sure father will be glad to do that," the girl said eagerly.
"Won't you father? You know how hard Mr. Wheeler works and what trouble
he has had. And I want some money, too," she added; "that's what I came
in for."

The farmer laughed loudly. Jefferson Worth smiled.

"But I don't want it for myself," Barbara went on quickly, smiling at
them both. "I want it for that poor Mexican family down by the wagon
yard--the Garcias. Pablo's leg was broken in the mines, you know, and
there is no one to look after his mother and the children. Someone must
care for them."

They were interrupted by a clerk who handed a paper to the banker.
"This is ready for your signature, sir."

Jefferson Worth's face was again a cold, gray mask. Methodically he
affixed his name to the document. Then to the clerk: "You may give Miss
Worth whatever money she wants."

The employe smiled as he answered: "Yes, sir," and withdrew.

Barbara turned to follow. "Good-by, Mr. Wheeler. Tell Mrs. Wheeler I'm
going to ride out to see her soon. I haven't forgotten that good
buttermilk you see."

"Good-by, Miss Barbara, good-by! I'll tell the wife. We're always glad
to see you."

The farmer could not have said that Jefferson Worth's face changed or
that his voice altered a shade in tone as they turned again to the
business in hand. "I guess we can fix you out this time, Wheeler. Sixty
days, you say? You'd better make it ninety so you will not be crowded
in marketing your crop."

Quickly the black horse carrying Barbara passed through the streets to
the outskirts of the city, where the adobe houses of the earlier days,
with tents and shacks of every description, were scattered in careless
disorder to the very edge of the barren Mesa. Beyond the wagon yard
Barbara turned Pilot toward a whitewashed house that stood by itself on
the extreme outskirts. Her approach was announced by the loud barking
of a lean dog and the joyful shouts of three half-naked Mexican
children; and as the horse stopped a woman appeared in the low doorway.

"Buenas dias, Senorita," she called; then, still in her native tongue:
"Manuel, take the lady's horse. You Juanita, drive that dog away. This
is not the manner to receive a lady. Come in, come in, Senorita. May
God bless you for a good friend to the poor. Come in."

Everything about the place, although showing unmistakable signs of
poverty, was clean and orderly, while the manner of the woman, though
quietly respectful and warmly grateful, showed a dignified
self-respect. In one corner of the room, on a rude bed, lay a young man.

The girl returned the woman's greeting kindly in Spanish and, going to
the bedside, spoke, still in the soft, musical tongue of the South, to
the man. "How are you to-day, Pablo? Is the leg getting better all
right?"

"Si, Senorita, thank you," he replied, his dark face beaming with
gladness and gratitude and his eyes looking up at her with an
expression of dumb devotion. "Yes, I think it gets better right along.
But it is slow and it is hard to lie here doing nothing for the mother
and the children. God knows what would become of us if it were not for
your goodness. La Senorita is an angel of mercy. We can never repay."

The people were of the better class of industrious poor Mexicans. The
father was dead, and Pablo, the eldest son, who was the little family's
sole support, had been hurt in the mine some two weeks before. Barbara
visited them every few days, caring for their wants as indeed she
helped many of Rubio City's worthy poor. For this work Jefferson Worth
gave her without question all the money that she asked and often
expressed his interest in his own cold way, even telling her of certain
cases that came to his notice from time to time. So the banker's
daughter was hailed as an angel of mercy and greatly loved by the same
class that feared and cursed her father.

For a little while the girl talked to Pablo and his mother cheerfully
and encouragingly, with understanding asking after their needs. Then,
placing a gold piece in the woman's hand and promising to come again,
she bade them--"Adios."

For a short distance Barbara now followed the old San Felipe trail
along which, as a baby, she had been brought by her friends to
Jefferson Worth's home. But where the old road crosses the railroad
tracks, and leads northwest into The King's Basin, the girl turned to
the right toward the end of that range of low hills that rims the
Desert.

As her horse traveled up the long gradual slope in the easy swinging
lope of western saddle stock, the view grew wider and wider. The sun
poured its flood of white light down upon the broad Mesa, and away in
the distance the ever-widening King's Basin lay, a magic, constantly
changing ocean of soft colors. Nearer ahead were the hills, brown and
tawny, with blue shadows in the canyons shading to rose and lilac and
purple as they stretched their long lengths away toward the lofty,
snow-capped sentinels of the Pass. Free from the city with its many
odors, the dry air was invigorating like wine and came to her rich with
the smell of the sun-burned, wind-swept plains. The girl breathed
deeply. Her cheeks glowed--her eyes shone. Even her horse, seeming to
catch her spirit, arched his neck and, in sheer joy of living,
pretended to be frightened now and then at something that was really
nothing at all.

At the foot of the first low, rounded hill Barbara faced Pilot to the
northwest and bade him stand still. Motionless now the girl sat in her
saddle, looking away over La Palma de la Mano de Dios. It was to this
point that Barbara so often came, and as she looked now over the miles
and miles of that silent, dreadful land her face grew sad and wistful
and in her eyes there was an expression that the Seer sometimes said
made him think of the desert.

Gentle Mrs. Worth had lived just long enough to leave an indelible
impression of her simple genuineness upon the life of the child, who
had come to take in her heart the place left vacant by the death of her
own baby girl. Since the loss of her second mother the girl had lived
with no woman companion save the Indian woman Ynez, and it was the Seer
rather than Jefferson Worth to whom she turned in fullest confidence
and trust. The childish instinct that had led the baby to the big
engineer's arms that night on the Desert had never wavered through the
years when she was growing into womanhood, and the Seer, whose work
after the completion of the S. and C. called him to many parts of the
West, managed every few months a visit to the girl he loved as his own.
To Mr. Worth who, as far as it was possible for him to be, was in all
things a father to her, Barbara gave in return a daughter's love, but
she had never been able to enter into the life of the banker as she
entered into the life of the engineer. So it was the Seer who became,
after Mrs. Worth, the dominant influence in forming the character of
the motherless girl. His dreams of Reclamation, his plans and efforts
to lead the world to recognize the value of that great work, with his
failures and disappointments, she shared at an early age with peculiar
sympathy, for she had not been kept in ignorance of the tragic part the
desert had played in her own life. Particularly did The King's Basin
Desert interest her. She felt that, in a way, it belonged to her; that
she belonged to it. It was _her_ Desert. Its desolation she shared; its
waiting she understood; something of its mystery colored her life;
something within her answered to its call. It was her Desert; she
feared it; hated it; loved it.

Often as Barbara sat looking over that great basin her heart cried out
to know the secret it held. Who was she? Who were her people? What was
the name to which she had been born? What was the life from which the
desert had taken her? But no answer to her cry had ever come from the
awful "Hollow of God's Hand."

Before Barbara had left her home that afternoon a man, walking with
long, easy stride, followed the San Felipe trail out from the city on
to the Mesa. He was a tall man and of so angular and lean a figure that
his body seemed made up mostly of bone somewhat loosely fastened
together with sinews almost as hard as the frame-work. His face, thin
and rugged, was burned to the color of saddle leather. He was dressed
in corduroy trousers, belted and tucked in high-laced boots, a soft
gray shirt and slouch hat, and over his square shoulders was the strap
of a small canteen. His long legs carried him over the ground at an
astonishing rate, so that before Barbara had left the Mexicans the
pedestrian had gained the foot of the low hill at the mouth of the
canyon.

With remarkable ease the man ascended the rough, steep side of the
hill, where, selecting a convenient rock, he seated himself and gave
his attention to the wonderful scene that, from his feet, stretched
away miles and miles to the purple mountain wall on the west. So still
was he and so intent in his study of the landscape, that a horned-toad,
which had dodged under the edge of the rock at his approach, crept
forth again, venturing quite to the edge of his boot heel; and a
lizard, scaling the rock at his back, almost touched his shoulder.

When Barbara had left the San Felipe trail and was riding toward the
hills, the man's eyes were attracted by the moving spot on the Mesa and
he stirred to take from the pocket of his coat a field glass, while at
his movement the horned-toad and the lizard scurried to cover.
Adjusting his glass he easily made out the figure of the girl on
horseback, who was coming in his direction. He turned again to his
study of the landscape, but later, when the horse and rider had drawn
nearer, lifted his glass for another look. This time he did not turn
away.

Rapidly, as Barbara drew nearer and nearer, the details of her dress
and equipment became more distinct until the man with the glass could
even make out the fringe on her gauntlets, the contour of her face and
the color of her hair. When she stopped and turned to look over the
desert below he forgot the scene that had so interested him and
continued to gaze at her, until, as the girl turned her face in his
direction and apparently looked straight at him, he dropped the glass
in embarrassed confusion, forgetting for the instant that at that
distance, with his gray and yellow clothing so matching the ground and
rock, he would not be noticed. With a low chuckle at his absurd
situation he recovered himself and again lifting the glass turned it
upon Barbara, who was now riding swiftly toward the mouth of a little
canyon that opened behind the hill where he sat.

Suddenly with an exclamation the young man sprang to his feet. The
running horse had stumbled and fallen. After a few struggling efforts
to rise the animal lay still. The girl did not move. With long, leaping
strides the man plunged down the rough, steep side of the hill.

When Barbara slowly opened her eyes she was lying in the shadow of the
canyon wall some distance from the spot where her horse had stumbled.
Still dazed with the shock of her fall she looked slowly around,
striving to collect her scattered senses. She knew the place but could
not remember how she came there. And where was her horse--Pilot? And
how came that canteen on the ground by her side? At this she sat up and
looked around just in time to see a tall, gaunt, roughly-dressed figure
coming toward her from the direction of the canyon mouth.

Instantly the girl reached for her gun. The holster was empty.

The man, quite close now, seeing the suggestive gesture, halted; then,
coming nearer, silently held out her own pearl-handled revolver.

Still confused and acting upon the impulse of the moment before,
Barbara caught the weapon from the out-stretched hand and in a flash
covered the silent stranger.

Very deliberately the fellow drew back a few paces and stretched both
hands high above his head.

"Who are you?" asked the girl sharply.

"A white man," he answered whimsically, adding as if it were an
afterthought, "and a gentleman."

"But why---What---How did I get here? Where did you come from?"

"I was up on the hill back there. I saw your horse fall and went to you
the quickest way. You were unconscious and I carried you here out of
the sun."

"I remember now," said Barbara. "We were running and Pilot fell. He
must have stepped into a hole." She put up her free hand to her
forehead and found it wet. Her eyes fell on the canteen and the color
came back into her face with a rush. "But you haven't told me who you
are," she said sternly to the man who still stood with hands uplifted.

"I'm a surveyor going south with a party on some preliminary work. We
arrived in Rubio City this morning expecting to find the Chief, who
wrote me from New York to meet him here with an outfit. He has not
arrived and there was nothing to do so I walked out on the Mesa to have
another look at this King's Basin country."

Barbara knew that the Seer had been called to New York by some
capitalists who had become interested in the financial possibilities of
the reclamation work. At the stranger's explanation of his presence she
regarded him with excited interest. "Do you mean--Is it the Seer whom
you expected to meet? Are you--with him?"

The young man smiled gravely. "I was sure that it was you," he
answered. "You are the little girl whom we found in the desert."

"And you"--burst forth Barbara, eagerly--"you must be Abe Lee!"

The surveyor answered whimsically: "Don't you think I might take my
hands down now? I'm unarmed you know and you could still shoot me if
you thought I needed it."

In her excitement Barbara had forgotten that she still held her weapon
pointed straight at him. She dropped the gun with a confused laugh. "I
beg your pardon, A--Mr. Lee. I did not realize that I was holding up
my"--she hesitated, then finished gravely--"my only brother."

A quick glad light flashed into the sharp blue eyes of the surveyor.
"You have not forgotten me then?"

"Forgotten! When father and the Seer and Texas and Pat and you are all
the--the family I have in the world." Her lips quivered, but she went
on bravely: "The Seer has told me so many things about you and I have
thought about you so much. But I did not realize, though, that you were
a big, grown-up man. The Seer always speaks of you as a boy and so I
have always called you my brother Abe as I call Texas and Pat my
uncles. But I think you might have come to see me sometimes. Why didn't
you come straight to me this morning instead of tramping 'way out here
alone?"

Abe Lee was silent. How could he explain the place in his life that was
filled by the little girl whom he had known for the two years that the
building of the railroad had kept him with the Seer in Rubio City? How
could she understand the poverty and grinding hardship of his boyhood
struggle when the only time he could snatch from his work he must spend
on his books, while she was growing up in the banker's home? He was
more alone in the world than Barbara. Save for the Seer he had no one.
Texas and Pat he had met at intervals when they came together on some
construction work, and always they had talked about her; while the
engineer had often told him of Barbara's interest in her "brother"; and
sometimes the Seer even shared with him her letters. But all this had
only served to emphasize the distance that lay between them. It was not
a distance of miles but of position--of circumstances. The nameless
little waif of the desert had become the daughter of Jefferson Worth.
The child of the mining camp was--Abe Lee. So when, at last, his work
had brought him to Rubio City again he shrank from meeting her and had
gone out on to the Mesa to look away over La Palma de la Mano de
Dios--to be alone.

Barbara, seeing his embarrassment at her question, guessed a part of
the reason and gently sought to relieve the situation. "I think we had
better find my horse and start for home now," she said.

The thin, sun-tanned face of the surveyor was filled with sympathy as
he replied: "I'm sorry, but your pony is down and out."

"Down and out! Pilot? Oh! you don't mean--You don't---"

Abe explained simply. "His leg was broken and he couldn't get up. There
was nothing that could possibly be done for him. He was suffering so
that I----It was for that I borrowed your gun."

For a long time she sat very still, and the man, understanding that she
wished to be alone, quietly went a little way up the canyon around the
jutting edge of the rocky wall. Deliberately he seated himself on a
boulder and taking from the pocket of his flannel shirt tobacco and
papers, rolled a cigarette. A deep inhalation and the gray cloud rose
slowly from his lips and nostrils. Stooping he carefully gathered a
handful of sharp pebbles and--one by one--flipped them idly toward the
opposite side of the canyon. Another generous puff of smoke and a
second handful of pebbles followed the first. Then rising he dropped
the cigarette and went back to her.

"I think we should be going now"--he hesitated--"sister."

She looked up with a smile of understanding. "Thank you--Abe. Can we go
back over the hill there, do you think? I--I don't want to see him
again."

Together they climbed the low hill at the mouth of the canyon from
which he had seen the accident, the girl resolutely keeping her eyes
fixed ahead so as not to see the dead horse on the plain below. When
the top of the hill was between them and the canyon she made him stop
and together they stood looking down and far away over the wide reaches
of The King's Basin.

"Isn't it grand? Isn't it awful?" she said in a low, reverent tone. "It
fairly hurts. It seems to be calling--calling; waiting--waiting for
some one. Sometimes I think it must be for me. I fear it--hate it--love
it so." Her voice vibrated with strong passion and the surveyor,
looking up, saw her wide-eyed, intense expression and felt as did the
Seer that somehow she was like the desert.

"Do you come out here often?" he asked curiously.

"Yes, often," she answered. "I could not get along without my Desert
and this is the finest place to see it. The Seer always comes out here
with me when he can. Do you think that land will ever be reclaimed?"
She faced him with the question.

"Why, no one can say about that, you know," he answered slowly. "There
has never been a survey."

"Well," she declared emphatically, "I know. It will be. Listen! Don't
you hear it calling? I think it's for that it has been waiting all
these ages."

The surveyor smiled as one would humor a child. "Perhaps you are
right," he said.

"Now you are laughing at me," she returned quickly. "They all do;
father and the Seer and Texas and Pat. But you shall see! I believe,
though, that the Seer thinks that I am right, only he always says as
you do that there has never been a survey; and sometimes I think that
even father--away down in his heart--believes it too."

All the long walk to Barbara's home they talked of the Desert and the
Seer's dreams of Reclamation; and Abe told her how at last those
"stupid capitalists," as Barbara called them, had opened their eyes.
The great James Greenfield himself had read an article of the Seer's on
"Reclamation from the Investor's Point of View" and had written him. As
a result of their correspondence the engineer had gone to New York; and
now a company organized by Greenfield was sending him south to look
over a big territory and to report on the possibilities of its
development.

When they arrived at Barbara's home they found the Seer himself. The
fifteen years had made no perceptible change in the general appearance
of the engineer. His form was still strongly erect and vigorous, but
his hair was a little gray, and to a close observer, his face in repose
revealed a touch of sadness--that indescribable look of one who is
beginning to feel less sure of himself, or rather who, from many
disappointments, is beginning to question whether he will live to see
his most cherished plans carried to completion--not because he has less
faith in his visions, but because he has less hope that he will be able
to make them clear to others.

When the evening meal was over the surveyor said good-by, for the
expedition was to start in the morning and he had some work to do. When
he was gone Barbara joined her father and the engineer on the porch.
"Here they are," she said. "Haven't I kept them nicely for you?" She
was holding toward the Seer a box of cigars.

"Indeed you have," returned the engineer in a pleased tone, helping
himself to a cool, moist Havana. "You are a dear, good girl."

Jefferson Worth did not use tobacco, but it was an unwritten law of the
household that the Seer, when he came, should always have his evening
smoke on the porch and that Barbara should be the keeper of supplies.
She liked to see her friend's strong face brought suddenly out of the
dusk by the flare of the match and to watch the glow of the cigar end
in the dark while they talked.

"And what do you think of your brother Abe, Barbara?" the big engineer
asked when his cigar was going nicely. "Didn't he talk you nearly to
death?"

The girl laughed. "I guess he didn't have a chance. I always do most of
the talking, you know."

The Seer chuckled. "Abe told me once that most of the time he felt like
an oyster and the rest of the time he was so mad at himself for being
an oyster that he couldn't find words to do the subject justice."

"I think he is splendid!" retorted Barbara, enthusiastically.

"He is," returned the engineer earnestly. "I don't know of a man in the
profession whom I would rely upon so wholly in work of a certain kind.
You see Abe was born and raised in the wild, uncivilized parts of the
country and he has a natural ability for his work that amounts almost
to genius. With a knowledge of nature gained through his remarkable
powers of observation and deduction, I doubt if Abe Lee to-day has an
equal as what might be called a 'surveyor scout.' I believe he is made
of iron. Hunger, cold, thirst, heat, wet, seem to make no impression on
him. He can out-walk, out-work, outlast and out-guess any man I ever
met. He has the instinct of a wild animal for finding his way and the
coldest nerve I ever saw. His honesty and loyalty amount almost to
fanaticism. But he is diffident and shy as a school girl and as
sensitive as a bashful boy. I verily believe he knows more to-day about
the great engineering projects in the West than nine-tenths of the
school men but I've seen him sit for an hour absolutely dumb, half
scared to death, listening to the cheap twaddle of some smart
'yellow-legs' with the ink not dry yet on their diplomas. Put him in
the field in charge of a party of that same bunch, though, and he would
be boss to the last stake on the line or the last bite of grub in the
outfit if he had to kill half of them to do it. I guess you'll think
I'm a bit enthusiastic about my right hand man," he finished, with a
short, apologetic laugh, "and I am. It's because I know him."

He struck another match and Barbara saw his face for an instant. As the
match went out she drew a long breath. "I'm glad you said that," she
said softly. "I wanted you to. I'm sure he has earned it."

Then they talked of the Seer's new expedition that would start south at
daybreak, and it seemed to Barbara that the very air was electric with
the coming of a mighty age when the race would direct its strength to
the turning of millions of acres of desolate, barren waste into
productive farms and beautiful homes for the people.

At daybreak the girl was up to tell the Seer good-by. "I wish," she
said wistfully, as she stood with him a moment at the gate, "I wish it
was _my_ Desert that you and Abe were going to survey."

The engineer smilingly answered: "Some day, perhaps, that, too, will
come."

"I know it will," she said simply.

And as she stood before him in all the beautiful strength of her young
womanhood, the Seer felt that sweet, mysterious power of her
personality--felt it with a father's loving pride. "I believe you do
know, Barbara," he said; "I believe you do."




CHAPTER V.

WHAT THE INDIAN TOLD THE SEER.


In the making of Barbara's Desert the canyon-carving, delta-building
river did not count the centuries of its labor; the rock-hewing,
beach-forming waves did not number the ages of their toil; the burning,
constant sun and the drying, drifting winds were not careful for the
years. Therefore is the time of the real beginning of what happened in
this, the land of my story, unknown.

Somewhere in the eternity that lies back of all the yesterdays, the
great river found the salt waves of the ocean fathoms deep in what is
now The King's Basin and extending a hundred and seventy miles north of
the shore that takes their wash to-day. Slowly, through the centuries
of that age of all beginnings, the river, cutting canyons and valleys
in the north and carrying southward its load of silt, built from the
east across the gulf to Lone Mountain a mighty delta dam.

South of this new land the ocean still received the river; to the north
the gulf became an inland sea. The upper edge of this new-born sea beat
helpless against a line of low, barren hills beyond which lay many
miles of a rainless land. Eastward lay yet more miles of desolate
waste. And between this sea and the parent ocean on the west, extending
southward past the delta dam, the mountains of the Coast Range shut out
every moisture-laden cloud and turned back every life-bearing stream.
Thus trapped and helpless, the bright waters, with all their life, fell
under the constant, fierce, beating rays of the semi-tropical sun and
shrank from the wearing sweep of the dry, tireless winds. Uncounted
still, the centuries of that age also passed and the bottom of that sea
lay bare, dry and lifeless under the burning sky, still beaten by the
pitiless sun, still swept by the scorching winds. The place that had
held the glad waters with their teeming life came to be an empty basin
of blinding sand, of quivering heat, of dreadful death. Unheeding the
ruin it had wrought, the river swept on its way.

And so--hemmed in by mountain wall, barren hills and rainless plains;
forgotten by the ocean; deserted by the river, that thirsty land lay,
the loneliest, most desolate bit of this great Western Continent.

But the river could not work this ruin without contributing to the
desert the rich strength it had gathered from its tributary lands.
Mingled with the sand of the ancient sea-bed was the silt from faraway
mountain and hill and plain. That basin of Death was more than a dusty
tomb of a life that had been; it was a sepulchre that held the vast
treasure of a life that would be--would be when the ages should have
made also the master men, who would dare say to the river: "Make
restitution!"--men who could, with power, command the rich life within
the tomb to come forth.

But master men are not the product of years--scarcely, indeed, of
centuries. The people of my story have also their true beginnings in
ages too remote to be reckoned. The master passions, the governing
instincts, the leading desires and the driving fears that hew and carve
and form and fashion the race are as reckless of the years as are wave
and river and sun and wind. Therefore the forgotten land held its
wealth until Time should make the giants that could take it.

In the centuries of those forgotten ages that went into the making of
The King's Basin Desert, the families of men grew slowly into tribes,
the tribes grew slowly into nations and the nations grew slowly into
worlds. New worlds became old; and other new worlds were discovered,
explored, developed and made old; war and famine and pestilence and
prosperity hewed and formed, carved and built and fashioned, even as
wave and river and sun and wind. The kingdoms of earth, air and water
yielded up their wealth as men grew strong to take it; the elements
bowed their necks to his yoke, to fetch and carry for him as he grew
wise to order; the wilderness fled, the mountains lay bare their
hearts, the waste places paid tribute as he grew brave to command.

Across the wide continent the tracks of its wild life were trodden out
by the broad cattle trails, the paths of the herds were marked by the
wheels of immigrant wagons and the roads of the slow-moving teams
became swift highways of steel. In the East the great cities that
received the hordes from every land were growing ever greater. On the
far west coast the crowded multitude was building even as it was
building in the East. In the Southwest savage race succeeded savage
race, until at last the slow-footed padres overtook the swift-footed
Indian and the rude civilization made possible by the priests in turn
ran down the priest.

About the land of my story, forgotten under the dry sky, this
ever-restless, ever-swelling tide of life swirled and eddied-swirled
and eddied, but touched it not. On the west it swept even to the foot
of the grim mountain wall. On the east one far-flung ripple reached
even to the river--when Rubio City was born. But the Desert waited,
silent and hot and fierce in its desolation, holding its treasures
under the seal of death against the coming of the strong ones; waited
until the man-making forces that wrought through those long ages should
have done also their work; waited for this age--for your age and
mine--for the age of the Seer and his companions--for the days of my
story, the days of Barbara and her friends.

The Seer's expedition, returning from the south, made camp on the bank
of the Rio Colorado twenty miles below Rubio City. It was the last
night out. Supper was over and the men, with their pipes and
cigarettes, settled themselves in various careless attitudes of repose
after the long day. Their sun-burned faces, toughened figures and worn,
desert-stained clothing testified to their weeks of toil in the open
air under the dry sky of an almost rainless land. Some were
old-timers--veterans of many a similar campaign. Two were new recruits
on their first trip. All were strong, clean-cut, vigorous specimens of
intelligent, healthy manhood, for in all the professions, not excepting
the army and navy, there can be found no finer body of men than our
civil engineers.

Easily they fell to talking of to-morrow night in Rubio City, of baths
and barbers and good beds and clean clothes and dinners and the
pleasures of civilization and prospective future jobs. Much
good-natured chaff was passed with hearty give and take. Jokes that had
become time-worn in the many days and nights that the party had been
cut off from all other society were revived with fresh interest.
Incidents and accidents of the trip were related and reviewed with
zest, with here and there a comment on the work itself that was still
fresh in their minds.

Abe Lee, sitting with his back against a wagon-wheel and his long legs
stretched straight out in front, listened, enjoying it all in his own
way, taking his share of the chaff with a slow smile, exhaling great
clouds of cigarette smoke and only at rare intervals contributing a
word or a short sentence to the talk. Abe was at home with these men
out there in the desert night. Under the Chief he was their
master--respected, admired and loved. But the old-timers knew that
to-morrow, in town with these same men, dressed in conventional garb,
on the street or in the hotel, the surveyor would be as bashful and
awkward as a country boy. So they joked him about his numerous
sweethearts in Rubio City and related many entirely fictitious love
adventures and romantic experiences that he was said to have passed
through in different parts of the country during the years they had
known him. Not one of them but would have been astonished beyond words
had he known of Abe's adventure the afternoon before they left Rubio
City, and how, through every day of the hard, grilling labor with the
expedition, the image of the girl he had watched through his field
glass was before him.

When the fire of the wits was turned on another mark Abe slowly arose
to his feet and slipped out of the circle. Going quietly to the
cook-wagon where the Chinaman sat smoking in solitary grandeur, he
asked: "Wing, where is the Chief? I saw him talking to you a little
while ago."

"Me no sabe, Boss Abe. Chief, him go off that way." He pointed toward
the river with his long bamboo pipe. "Wing sabe Chief feel velly bad,
Boss Abe; damn."

The white man regarded the Chinaman silently for a moment, then:
"You're a good boy, Wing. Good night."

"Night, Boss Abe," came the plaintive answer, and the surveyor went on
to where a group of Cocopah Indian laborers made their rude camp. These
he greeted in Spanish and asked: "Has the Chief been with you since
supper?"

"No, Senor. He by river there little time past," said one, pointing to
a clump of cottonwood trees that rose above a fringe of willows.

"Buenos noches, hombres," said Abe.

"Buenos noches, Senor," came the chorus of soft voices in the dusk.

On the high bank under the cottonwoods the Seer sat with bowed head. He
did not heed the broad yellow tide of silt-laden water that swept by
him so silently; he did not see the myriad stars in the velvet sky, nor
notice the golden moon climbing slowly up from the dark level of the
land. The jovial voices and merry laughter of his men came to him from
the camp, but he did not hear. To-morrow the expedition would be over,
the party disbanded. He would make his report to the capitalists who
had sent him forth. His report!--the Seer groaned. Few words would be
needed to sum up the work of the last two months but it would not be
easy to frame them. His ear caught the snap of a twig and a whiff of
cigarette smoke floated to him. He turned his head quickly. "That you,
Abe?"

The long figure of the surveyor settled on the bank by his side. For a
little neither spoke, while the Seer, with slow care, filled and
lighted his pipe.

"Well, lad," he said at last, "we have about reached the end of another
failure."

"Will you go to New York, sir?"

"No, it will not be necessary. I can write in fifty words all there is
to say."

"Perhaps they will send you out again," offered the surveyor.

"Their interest is not strong enough. They only tackled this because
some other fellows were considering the proposition. That made them
think there might be something in it. If I had the capital to make
surveys and could go to them with data for some other project they
might consider it, but--"

Abe rolled another cigarette and with the first cloud of smoke came the
slow words: "Well, then, let's get the data."

Even at what seemed a hopeless suggestion the discouraged heart of the
old engineer beat more quickly. He turned his face toward the younger
man. "Where?"

Abe stretched forth a long arm toward the broad Colorado at their feet
and toward the desert beyond. "The King's Basin. You've often told me
about that country. If I sabe the lay of the land we're somewhere at
the southern end of it, at the beginning of the high ground of the
delta that shuts out the ocean. There's water enough here for five
times that territory."

"Do you mean--" the Seer began quickly and stopped.

"I mean this: you already know the north and northeastern part of the
Basin from the railroad. You have been through it from the west on the
San Felipe trail. Send the outfit in to-morrow with the boys. Give them
orders on the bank for their pay and let them go. You and I can scout
around the delta end of that country over there for a week or two and
if it looks good, with what you have already seen, you have enough to
talk on. Then go on to New York and when you report on the southern
project turn loose on 'em with this."

"Abe," said the engineer thoughtfully, "if anyone but you were to
propose that I go before these capitalists to interest them in a
project without ever having put an instrument on it I would knock him
down. Such recklessness would ruin any civil engineer in the world,
if--"

"If he guessed wrong," finished Abe dryly.

"If he guessed wrong," admitted the Seer reluctantly.

"If it looked good enough for you to risk an opinion you would have
some strong talking points," ventured Abe. "There must be five hundred
thousand acres in that old sea-bed. The Colorado carries water enough
for five times that area. There's the railroad already built along one
side; there's San Felipe and the whole Coast country within easy reach.
It beats the other proposition a hundred to one, if it can be done at
all."

The Seer rose and paced up and down in the bright moonlight. Presently
he said: "If you accept the position with Hunt up north you should go
on at once. That job would be the best thing you ever had. Don't you
want to take it?"

"You know what I want, if you can use me."

"I could manage your present salary for this trip but beyond that you
know how uncertain it all is. Hunt can't wait any longer."

"Look here," said Abe, angrily, "I understood when I made my
proposition that our salaries would stop when we cut the outfit. Do you
think I meant for you to take all the risk? I'm only a surveyor and you
an educated engineer but this thing means as much to me as it does to
you. Let me share the expense and I'm with you but not on any other
terms. Hunt and his job can go hang. I don't see why you should assume
that it's only my pay that I work for." It was a long speech for Abe.

The engineer put his big hand on the young man's shoulder. "Thank you,
Abe," he said. "That does me good. I've always known that it was there.
But it's a hard road, lad, a mighty hard road!" Then: "I wonder if we
have an Indian in the outfit who knows this country."

"Yes, sir," Abe answered promptly. "Jose knows it well. I've been
pumping him for a month. I'll get him."

As the tall figure of the surveyor disappeared in the direction of the
Oocopah camp the Seer smiled to himself. "Been pumping him for a
month," he repeated. "That means that he saw almost before I did that
the other proposition was no good. Humph!"

He faced toward the river and looked away into the night where The
King's Basin lay--a weird dream-country under the light of the moon.
And because it was impossible to think of Barbara's Desert without
thinking of Barbara he smiled again, musing that there would be little
sleep that night for the girl in Rubio City if she knew what he and Abe
were considering. From across the river came the shrill, snarling,
yelping coyote chorus and the engineer saw again the body of a dead
woman at the dry water hole, an empty canteen, and a big-eyed,
brown-haired baby stretching out her arms to him.

While the Seer was too careful an engineer to take quickly the
suggestion of Abe, he had seen too many tests of the desert-bred
surveyor's genius not to consider his proposition seriously. He was
also too much of a dreamer not to be influenced by thoughts of Barbara
and her association in his mind with this particular project. Could it
be that the land which had so tragically given the child into his life
was now to realize his dreams of Reclamation.

He was interrupted by the return of Abe, who was followed by an old,
grizzly-haired Cocopah.

"Tell the Chief what you have told me, Jose," said the surveyor and,
stepping aside, he rolled the inevitable cigarette with an air of
taking himself wholly out of the matter under consideration.

"You sabe that country over there, Jose?" asked the Chief.

"Si, Senor," came the soft answer, and reaching out, the Indian gently
turned the engineer so that the latter stood with his back squarely to
the river. Taking the Seer's right hand and holding it outstretched
with open palm upward in one of his own and tracing with the other
dark-skinned finger, as one might trace on a relief map, he continued
in Spanish, as he drew his finger carefully along the white man's thumb
from the wrist: "Here are the mountains that shut out the country by
the Big Sea where is San Felipe. I go there once, long time ago. My
people live there." He indicated the space between the first and second
joints of the thumb. Next he touched the base of the Seer's little
finger. "Here is Rubio City." Then tracing the outer rim of the palm
toward the wrist: "Here are the hills, and the railroad that the Senor
made." His finger paused in the depression between the base of the
thumb and the outer edge of the palm at the wrist. "The Senor's
railroad goes through the Pass in the high mountains here." Next, from
the outer edge of the hand he traced across the palm at the base of the
fingers. "The river goes this way to the big water that comes in from
the sea here." He indicated the open space between the extended thumb
and the inner edge of the palm.

"We stand now here." He touched the base of the Seer's index finger.
"It is The Hollow of God's Hand, Senor--La Palma de la Mano de Dios,"
he repeated reverently. He dropped the engineer's hand and stood
quietly waiting to be questioned.

Again the Seer put forth his hand and pointing with his own finger to
the inner edge of the palm between the base of the index finger and the
thumb, he asked: "The land is high here?"

"Si, Senor, a little. Just like the hand. It is much low here." He
touched the deepest part of the palm. "And a little high here where we
stand. Sometimes when much water comes the river goes all over here."
He indicated the extreme inner edge of the palm. "Most always this
water go all this way"--toward the open space between the thumb and
palm. "Sometimes a little goes here." He traced the lines that cross
the palm towards the wrist.

"You can show us this country?"

"Si, Senor."

"How long will it take?"

"What you like. From here to Lone Mountain straight--maybe one day go,
maybe two day go."

"There is water?"

[Illustration: MAP OF LA PALMA DE LA MANO DE DIOS (THE HOLLOW Of GOD'S
HAND) DRAWN BY ALLEN KELLY TECOLOTE RANCHO 1911]

"Si. Much water left from the river last time big water come."

The Chief looked at the silent Abe, then back to the old Indian. "All
right, Jose; we go in the morning--you, Senor Lee and I. Be ready."

"Si, Senor. Buenos noches, Senores."

"Good night! Good night!" returned the two white men.

There was much conjecturing among the surprised surveyors next morning,
when the Chief gave to each man his pay check and placed an old-timer
in charge with instructions as to the disposition of the outfit when
they should arrive in Rubio City.

Two loaded pack-mules and three saddle ponies were ready when the Seer
had finished his business with the men. Good-bys were spoken all around
and the Seer and Abe, with Jose in the lead, turned back toward the
south.

"Looks like they had forgotten something," said one of the recruits as
the group stood watching the little party jog steadily into the
distance, apparently retracing the tracks the expedition had made the
day before.

"Sonny," remarked the veteran left in charge, "what one of that pair
forgets the other is dead sure to remember. All the signs say that
they're makin' big medicine. All we have to do with it is to push for
Rubio City pronto and cash our pay checks. Lord! but wouldn't I like to
be in it," he added regretfully as he turned away.

With provisions for three weeks on the pack-animals and the assurance
of Jose that there was feed and water in the overflow lands for the
horses, the Seer and Abe proposed to cover most of the territory lying
between the Rio Colorado and Lone Mountain. It was here that the great
river, in the ages long past, had built the delta dam, thus cutting off
the northern end of the gulf that was now The King's Basin Desert. It
was their plan to follow this high land that separated the ocean from
the Basin to the mountains, then to work back as far out in the Basin
from water and feed as they could. They would then follow the river on
the Basin side to Rubio City.

They had barely passed beyond sight of the main party when Jose turned
directly toward the river. At that stage of water a long bar put out
into the stream and from its point the current set strongly toward the
opposite bank.

"Here we cross," said the Indian briefly.

Constructing a rude raft for their supplies and swimming the animals,
they reached the other shore some distance below the point of launching
with no accident, and that night camped well back from the river on the
delta land.

Day after day they rode from sunrise until dark; studying the land,
estimating distances and grades, observing the courses of the channels
cut by the overflow and the marks of high water, noting the character
of the soil and the vegetation; sometimes together, sometimes
separated; with Jose to select their camping places and to help them
with his Indian knowledge of the country.

And always at night, after the long hard day, when supper--cooked by
their own hands--was over, with pipe and cigarettes they reviewed their
observations and compared notes, summing up the results before rolling
in their blankets to sleep under the stars.

Some day, perhaps, when the world is much older and very much wiser,
Civilization will erect a proper monument to the memory of such men as
these. But just now Civilization is too greedily quarreling over its
newly acquired wealth to acknowledge its debt of honor to those who
made this wealth possible.

But the Seer and his companion concerned themselves with no such
thoughts as these. They thought only of the possibility of converting
the thousands of acres of The King's Basin Desert into productive
farms. For this they conceived to be their work.

They had worked across the Basin to Lone Mountain and back to the river
to a point nearly opposite the clump of cotton woods where they had
left the expedition. To-morrow night they would be in Rubio City.

"Abe," said the Seer, "our intake would go in right here. We could
follow the old channel of Dry River with our canal about twenty miles
out, put in a heading and lead off our mains and laterals."

For two or three hours they discussed plans and estimates, then the
engineer shut his note-book with a snap. "If those New Yorkers don't
listen to what I can tell them of this country now they're a whole lot
slower than I take them to be."

"Then you think you will make a guess on the proposition," asked Abe
slyly.

The Seer laughed like a boy. "I start for New York to-morrow night," he
answered.

In the afternoon of the next day they struck the San Felipe trail a few
miles from Rubio City. Perhaps it was the sight of that old road, with
its memories for the Seer and his companion, that led the engineer to
say: "It's curious, Abe, but I can't shake off the odd feeling that
Barbara's life is somehow wrapped up in that country out there." As he
spoke he turned in his saddle to look back toward the Basin. "She seems
to belong to it somehow as, in a way, it belongs to her. There is a
look in her eyes sometimes that makes me think of the desert and the
desert always reminds me of her. I know one thing," he finished with a
short laugh, "if I was to let out some of the fancies that have come to
me in this connection it would ruin me forever so far as my profession
goes."

Abe made no reply, possibly because he also had fancies--fancies that
he could not tell even to the Seer.

It is astonishing what a great cloud of dust five animals can stir up
on a desert trail. As the little outfit jogged slowly along, the great
yellow mass rolled up into the air high above their heads and hung--a
long, slow-drifting streamer--above the trail until it vanished in the
distance.

Barbara, who was riding out from town on the Mesa, saw that cloud and
stopped to study it intently for a few moments as if debating some
question. Then touching her animal with the spur, she set off rapidly
in the direction of the approaching horsemen; while the two men watched
the dust that arose from the single horse's feet with the interest that
travelers in lonely lands always feel in any life that chances to come
their way.

"Abe, that's a woman," exclaimed the Seer after a time.

Abe said nothing. He had discovered that interesting fact some moments
before.

The engineer rose in his stirrups. "Abe, I'll bet a month's salary it's
Barbara."

"I'm not gambling," returned the other, smiling at his companion's
excitement. "I know it is."

The big engineer dropped into his saddle with a grunt of disgust.
"Young man, you've got eyes like a buzzard," he said, twisting about to
face his companion. "By all traditions I suppose I should say 'eagle,'
but you certainly don't look much like that noble king of birds. You're
carrying dirt enough to bury a horse."

The Seer took off his sombrero and began beating the dust from his own
shoulders, while the surveyor looked on in silent amusement.

"She'll think by the dust you're a-raisin' that there's some kind of a
scrap goin' on and that she'd better head the other way."

"Not much she wouldn't head the other way from a scrap. She would come
on all the faster. I thought you knew Barbara better than that." He
replaced his hat. "Why Abe, one time when she was--"

The surveyor interrupted his Chief by standing up in his stirrups in
turn and swinging his hat in greeting, while the Seer, in waving his
own sombrero and whooping like a wild man, forgot what he was about to
relate.

The girl came on at a run and--guiding her horse between the two
dust-covered men--held out a hand to each.




CHAPTER VI.

THE STANDARD OF THE WEST.


Three days after the Seer's letters to Abe and Barbara telling them
that James Greenfield and his associates would finance an expedition to
make the preliminary surveys in The King's Basin Desert, the west-bound
overland dropped a passenger in Rubio City from New York.

The stranger was really a fine looking young man with the appearance of
being exceptionally well-bred and well-kept. Indeed the most casual of
observers would not have hesitated to pronounce him a thoroughbred and
a good individual of the best type that the race has produced.

A company of men and women--traveling acquaintances evidently--followed
him from the Pullman to bid him good-by and to look at the Indians, who
with their wealth of curios spread before them, squatted in a long row
beside the track--objects of never failing interest to travelers from
the East.

"Ugh!" said a tall blonde, who displayed more bracelets, bangles,
chains and charms--both natural and manufactured--than any blanketed
squaw in the party of natives, "I suppose if we ever see you again
you'll be the color of that thing there." She pointed to a smoky,
copper-colored Papago in a green head-cloth and decorated shirt, who
posed in a watchful attitude near his thrifty help-meet.

"How perfectly romantic!" gushed a billowy divorcee, clinging to the
young fellow's athletic arm with little shivers of delight. "To think
of you in this great, savage, wild land, among these strange people.
Aren't you just a little bit frightened?"

"By George, I half wish I was going to stop with you. You'll get some
great shooting, don't you know!" exclaimed one of the men, while the
chorus joined in: "You'll die of loneliness!" "You'll find nothing fit
to eat!" "And do take care of yourself!"

Then as the warning, "All aboard!" and the clang of the engine bell
came down the platform, there were quick good-bys and a rush for the
car. The colored porters tossed their steps aboard and followed.
Smoothly the long, dust-covered coaches slid past. There was a waving
of handkerchiefs and caps from the rear of the observation car, and the
young man turned to look curiously about.

"Hotel?"

The stranger glanced doubtfully at the tough-looking citizen who
reached for his suit case, and without replying stepped into the
questionable looking hack standing nearby. The driver threw the
suitcase into the vehicle after his passenger and climbing to his seat,
yelled to the team.

There was no rush of brass-buttoned bell-boys to meet the guest at the
door of the hotel, and the room was well-filled with a group strange to
the eyes of the young man from New York. Bronzed-faced men in flannel
shirts and belted trousers talked to men well-dressed in more
conventional business clothes; others in their shirt sleeves sat
smoking with companions in blue overalls; two or three wore guns
loosely belted at their hips. Here and there was the pale-faced,
white-collared, tied and tailored tourist. In the corner near the big
window a group of women, some in white duck, some in khaki or corduroy,
sat chatting and enjoying the scene. No one paid the least attention to
the newcomer. The tough-looking driver of the hack dropped the suit
case near the desk with a bang and turned to reply to a good-natured
remark addressed to him by a jovial, well-dressed man standing near.
Only the clerk regarded the stranger.

"Have you a room with bath?"

The clerk smiled. "Certainly, sir." Then to a young fellow talking over
the cigar counter to a man in high-heeled boots and spurs: "Jack, show
this gentleman to forty-five."

In the well-furnished room the guide threw open long French windows and
pointed to a cot on the screened-porch outside. "Better sleep on the
porch," he volunteered.

"Sleep on the porch?"

"Suit yourself," came the answer as the independent one turned away.

"Look here!" The employe of the house paused. "I want my trunk sent up
immediately."

"Sure Mike! Let's have your checks. So-long!"

The stranger stood staring at the door, which the breezy young man, as
he disappeared with a cheery whistle, had shut behind him with a
vigorous bang.

In the dining room the man from New York found the same easy freedom in
the manner of dress, the same lack of conventionalities and the same
atmosphere of general good-fellowship; yet he could not say that there
was any lack of real courtesy and certainly there was no rude and
boisterous talk. It was, to say the least, unsettling to the
exceptionally well-bred and well-kept stranger, accustomed to the
hotels and restaurants in the East frequented by his class.

Early that evening the Easterner sallied forth, clearly bent on
sight-seeing. He had dressed for the occasion. The gray traveling suit
had been put aside for a tailor-made outfit of corduroy. The coat--worn
without a vest over a fine negligee shirt of silk--was Norfolk; the
trousers were riding trousers and above the tan shoes were pig-skin
puttees. All this, with the light, soft hat, neat tie and the
undeniably fine figure and handsome face, would have made him
attractive on any stage. The tourists turned to look after him with
expressions of admiring envy; the natives--white, red, black, yellow
and brown--accepted him with no more than a passing glance as a part of
the strange new life that the railroad was constantly bringing to Rubio
City.

Calmly conscious of himself and openly interested, in a mildly
condescending way, the young man strolled down one side of the main
street to the end of the business section, then back on the other.
Twice he made the round, then, seeking scenes of further interest,
pushed open the swinging doors of Rubio City's most popular place of
amusement--the Gold Bar saloon.

At a table in one corner two men--one tall, darkfaced, coatless, with
unbuttoned vest, leather wrist-guards, and a heavy gun loosely buckled
about his slim waist; the other thick-set, heavy, red-faced--were
holding animated conversation over their glasses. That is to say: the
thick, red-faced man was animated. Glaring at his companion he banged
his huge, hairy fist on the table until the glasses jumped.

"Ye're a domned owld savage wid yer talk. Fwhat the hell is yer
counthry good for as ut is? A thousan' square miles av ut wouldn't feed
a jack-rabbit. 'Tis a blistherin', sizzlin', roastin', wilderness av
sand an' cactus, fit for nothin' but thim side-winders, horn'-toads,
heely-monsters an' all their poisonous relations, includin' yersilf."

The New Yorker, standing at the end of the bar nearest the table
occupied by Barbara's "uncles," who had just arrived from the Gold
Center mines, heard the words of Pat and turned toward the two friends
with amused interest.

Texas Joe silently lifted his glass and with a look of undisguised
admiration for his belligerent partner, waited for more. More came with
another thump of the huge fist.

"'Tis civilization that ye need, an' 'tis civilization that we're
bringin' to ye, an' 'tis civilization that ye've got to take whether ye
like ut or not. Look at the Seer, now! Wan gintleman wid brains an'
education like him is wort' more to this counthry than all the
hell-roarin' savages like yersilf between the Coast an' Oklahoma, which
is not so much better than it was. We've brung ye money; we've brung ye
schools; we've brung ye railroads; an' we'll kape on bringin' ye the
blissin's an' joys av civilization 'til ye mend yer ways an' live like
Christians."

He paused. Texas was staring with child-like simplicity at the
immaculate figure of the stranger in puttees. Pat turned to follow the
gaze of his companion just as the plainsman drawled softly: "And you've
brought us that." The Irishman's heavy jaw dropped. He gasped and
gulped like an uncouth monster. Then--speechless--he drained his glass.

The stranger's face flushed but he did not move.

"Pardner," drawled Texas, "your remarks is sure edifyin' a heap an'
some convincin'. But I'm still constrained to testify that the real
cause an' reason for the declinin' glory of this yere great western
country is poor shootin'. That same, in turn, bein' caused by the
incomin' herds from the effete East bein' so numerous as to hinder
gun-practice."

"Guns is ut?" interrupted the other with a roar. "A man--mind ye: a
man--should be ashamed to go about all the time wid a cannon tied to
his middle. 'Tis the mark av a child. Look at ye, now, wid all yer
artillery an' me wid fingers that niver pushed a thrigger." He held out
his great paws and studied them admiringly. "Why, ye herrin', wid thim
two hands I could break ye, gun an' all, like I've--"

He was interrupted by a wild-eyed individual who rushed into the room
from the street and, springing toward them, burst forth with: "Give me
your gun, Texas, quick! I ain't got mine on and that damned Red Hoyt is
a layin' for me at the corner!"

Texas Joe dropped his slim hand caressingly on the big forty-five at
his side, leaned easily back in his chair and eyed the excited citizen
in a manner calmly judicial. "Bill, you're comin' is some opportune.
You're sure Johnny-on-the-spot."

"Le' me have yer gun, Tex. Jes' loan her to me! I'll be back in a
minute."

"Oh, I ain't doubtin' that you'd be back all right, Bill. That's jest
the p'int. When you blew in so promisc'us an' interrupted the meetin',
me an' my friend here was jest resolvin' that there's too much bad
shootin' bein' done in this here Rubio town. It's a spoilin' the fair
name an' a ruinin' the reputation of this country. For which said
reason us two undertakes to regulate an' reform some." He turned with
elaborate politeness to Pat. "I voices yer sentiments correct, pard?"

The Irishman's fist struck the table and his eyes flashed. "To the
thrim av a gnat's heel," he roared.

Texas bowed and continued: "Therefore, Bill, this here's our verdict.
You camp right here peaceable while I go out an' fetch this Red Hoyt
person what's been annoyin' you. We'll stand you up at fifteen steps,
with nothing between to obstruct ceremonies, an' drop the hat. Me an'
my friend referees the job an' undertakes to see that the remains is
duly and properly planted with all regular honors. Sabe?"

The blood-thirsty one, growling something about attending to his own
funeral and finding a gun somewhere else, went quietly and quickly out.

Before the pugnacious Pat could voice his disgust and disappointment at
the disappearance of the trouble-hunting citizen, a low, contemptuous
laugh from the well-built stranger at the bar drew the attention of the
two friends. The young man was watching them with an amused smile.

Texas Joe and the Irishman regarded each other thoughtfully. "Pard,"
said Tex in a low, earnest tone, "do you reckon that there hilarity was
in any ways directed toward this corner of the room?"

The stranger, receiving his change from the bartender, was moving
leisurely toward the door when his way was barred by the heavy bulk of
Pat. There was no misunderstanding the expression on the battle-scarred
features of the Irish gladiator. Eyeing the athletic Easterner
fiercely, he growled with deliberate meaning: "Ye same to be findin'
plenty av amusement in the private affairs av me friend an' mesilf.
D'ye think that we are a coople av hoochy-koochy girls to be makin'
sphort for all the domned dudes that runs to look at us whin their
mammas don't know they're out?"

The other regarded him with well-bred surprise. "Stand aside," he said
curtly.

"Oh, ho! ye will lave widout properly apologizin' for yer outrageous
conduc' will ye? 'Tis an ambulance that ye'll nade to take ye home whin
I've taught ye manners, ye danged yellow-legged cock-a-doodle!"

He lifted his fists and the stranger, without giving back an inch or
exhibiting the slightest suggestion of fear, but rather with the calm
self-confidence of a trained athlete, squared himself for the encounter.

Eagerly the patrons of the place--miners, cowboys, ranchers,
adventurers, Mexicans, Indians--had gathered around the two men,
delighted with the prospect of what promised to be no tame exhibition.
Already several bets had been placed and critical estimates and
comments on the comparative merits of the two were being made freely
when a hand fell on Pat's uplifted arm. Turning with an oath of rage at
the interruption, the Irishman faced Abe Lee.

"Hello, Pat! Amusing yourself as usual?" To the angry protests from the
crowd the tall surveyor gave not the slightest heed.

For a moment the Irishman, looking up into that thin, sun-tanned face,
was speechless as though he faced some apparition. Then with a yell of
delight he caught the lank form of the Seer's assistant in a bear-like
hug. "For the love av Gawd is ut ye, ye owld sand-rat? Where the hell
did ye drop from, an? fwhat are ye doin' in this dishreputable company?
Look at Uncle Tex, there! The sentimental owld savage is fair
slobberin' wid delight an' eagerness to git at ye. Come, come; we must
have a dhrink."

As quickly as it had risen the storm had passed. The crowd, as if moved
by a single impulse, separated and the room was filled with loud talk
and laughter. Glancing around, Pat's eye met the still defiant look of
the stranger who had not moved from his place but stood calmly watching
the Irishman and Abe as if waiting the pleasure of the man who had
challenged him.

The Irishman grinned in appreciation. "Howld on a minut," he said to
Abe who was moving away with Texas Joe toward a vacant table. Then to
the stranger: "I axe yer pardon, Sorr, for goin' off me head that way.
'Tis a habit I have, worse luck to me--bein' sensitive, do ye see,
about me personal appearance an' some wishful for a bit av honest
enjoyment. Av ye'll have a dhrink wid me an' my friends here I'll take
ut kindly until we can find some betther cause for grievance."

The young man's tense figure relaxed. A smile broke over his face. "And
I beg your pardon," he said heartily. "The fact is I was not laughing
at you at all but at the way you two men called the bluff of that
fellow who wanted the gun. I should have said so and apologized but I,
too, was a little upset and thrown off my guard."

"Faith, ut looked to me that ye were thrown on your guard. 'Tis the
science ye have or I'm a Dutchman." He eyed the athletic limbs, deep
chest, broad shoulders and well-set head, with eyes that twinkled his
approval. "Some day--But niver mind now! Come." He led the way to the
table.

As they seated themselves Pat regarded the surveyor with pleased
interest. "Well, well! 'tis a most unexpected worrld. Av 'twas the owld
divil himsilf that clapped his hand on me arm I'd be no more surprised
than I was to see the lad here. Tell us, me bhoy, fwhat 'tis that's
brung ye here."

"Haven't you two been to see Barbara yet?" the surveyor demanded as
though charging them with some neglected duty.

"We have not; an' by that ye will know that we've been in this town
less than an hour by Tex's watch that Barbara give him an' that he lost
down the shaft at Gold Center."

When the surveyor had explained his presence in Rubio City and Texas
and Pat had agreed to join the King's Basin party, the stranger said:
"I think it is quite time now that I introduce myself. You are Mr. Lee,
I believe."

Abe assented and with his two companions regarded him with interest.

Taking a letter from his pocket and handing it to the surveyor, the
young man continued: "I am a civil engineer. I have instructions from
the Chief to report to you. My name is Willard Holmes."

The next morning the young engineer from the East presented his card at
the Pioneer Bank and asked for Mr. Worth. The man who received the
correctly engraved bit of pasteboard merely nodded toward the other end
of the long partition of polished wood, plate glass and bronze bars.
"You'll find him back there, Mr. Holmes."

The New Yorker smiled at the provincialism but sought the banker
without further ceremony.

Closing the door with one hand Jefferson Worth with the other indicated
the chair at the end of his desk. "Sit down."

"You have a letter from Mr. Greenfield relative to my coming?" asked
Willard Holmes.

The banker lifted a typewritten sheet from his desk, glanced at it and
turned back to his visitor. "Yes," he said.

The involuntary movement was the instinctive act of one who habitually
verifies every statement. Then, as those expressionless blue eyes were
fixed on the stranger's face, the engineer's sensation was as though
from behind that gray mask something reached out to grasp his innermost
thoughts and emotions. He felt strangely transparent and exposed as
one, alone in his lighted chamber at night, might feel someone in the
dark without, watching through the window. Presently the colorless,
exact voice of Jefferson Worth asked: "This is your first visit West?"

"Yes sir. My work has been altogether in New York and the New England
states."

"Five years with the New York Contracting and Construction Company?"
said Jefferson Worth exactly, laying his hand again on the letter on
his desk.

"Yes. For the past two years I have had charge of their more important
operations." The engineer's tone was a shade impressive.

But there was not the faintest shadow of a hint in the face or manner
of that man in the revolving chair to intimate that he was impressed.
The visitor might as well have spoken to the steel door of the big safe
in the other room. "You are well acquainted with Mr. Greenfield and his
associates?"

"My father and Mr. Greenfield were boyhood friends and college
classmates," the engineer explained. "Since the death of my father when
I was a little chap, I have lived with Uncle Jim. He was my guardian
until I became of age."

The young man did not think it necessary to add that the death of his
father had left him penniless and that his father's friend, who had
never married, had reared and educated the child of his old classmate
as his own son. Neither did he explain that his rapid advancement in
his profession was due largely to the powerful influence of the
capitalist and those closely associated with him, together with the
strength of the proud social position to which he was born, rather than
to hard work and experience. Probably Willard Holmes himself did not
realize how much these things had added to his own native ability and
technical training. He had never known anything else but these things
and he accepted them as unconsciously as his voice was colored with the
accent of the cultured East.

"How do you size up this King's Basin proposition?" questioned the
banker.

Again Willard Holmes smiled at the western man's words. "Sizing up" and
"proposition" were pleasingly novel forms of expression to him.
"Really," he answered, "I haven't gone into it very thoroughly as yet.
Mr. Greenfield asked me to come out because he and his associates
felt"--he paused; perhaps it would be just as well not to say what Mr.
Greenfield and his associates felt--"that with my experience in
connection with large corporations I could be of value to them in
certain phases of the work," he finished. He wondered if the man, who
listened with such an air of carefully considering every word and
mentally reaching out for whatever lay back of the verbal expression,
had grasped what he had been about to say.

Jefferson Worth waited and Holmes continued: "Mr. Greenfield and his
friends are very anxious that you should come in with them on the
organization of this company, Mr. Worth; that is, of course, providing
the scheme proves to be practicable. They instructed me to urge you
personally to consider their proposal favorably and to ask you, by all
means, to represent them on this expedition if possible. They realize
that a man of your recognized ability and standing in the financial
world, particularly in the West, in close touch as you are with Capital
and conditions in this part of the country and no doubt familiar with
the Reclamation work, would be a valuable addition to their strength.
In fact I may say they would depend largely upon your judgment as to
whether the scheme was practicable from a business standpoint. On your
side I am sure you recognize the advantage of allying yourself with
such a group of capitalists, who are strong enough to finance any
undertaking, no matter how great. Their interests are already enormous.
As you know, they operate only on the largest scale and, if this survey
justifies the report already made, they will make a big thing out of
this for everyone interested."

The cold, exact voice of Jefferson Worth came as if from a machine
incapable of inflection. "I have written Mr. Greenfield that I would
look into the proposition for him. I will go out with the outfit. Have
you seen Abe Lee?"

"I met him last night and we had a little talk over things. I confess I
was a little surprised."

"Why?"

"Well--that he is in charge. I was instructed to report to him. I find
that he has had no schooling whatever; that, in fact, he is nothing but
a kind of a self-educated surveyor. I have no doubt that he is a good,
practical fellow, but it seems to me somewhat reckless to put him in
such a responsible position."

Jefferson Worth did not say that he himself had had no more schooling
than the Seer's lieutenant. Perhaps that, also, was not necessary to
explain. He did say: "We have only one standard in the West, Mr.
Holmes."

"And that?"

"What can you do?" came the words as if spoken by cold iron.




CHAPTER VII.

DON'T YOU LIKE MY DESERT, MR. HOLMES?


After his noon-day meal, Willard Holmes, following the example of
others, sought the shade of the arcade in front of the hotel. Helping
himself to a chair and moving a little away from the general company,
he sat enjoying his cigar, musing on the novelty of his surroundings
and reviewing his impressions of the last few hours.

It was natural that he should make comparisons--that he should see men
and things in the light of the only men and things he had ever known.
Abe Lee he measured by the standing of his own school-trained
engineering friends, demanding that the desert-born and desert-trained
surveyor exhibit all the hall-marks of Boston. He might as consistently
have demanded that the flood of sunlight that fell in such blinding
glory upon the new world before him should shine as through the
smoke-grimed city atmosphere of New York. One was no more impossible
than the other. Jefferson Worth he compared with the college and
university friends of his father--with Mr. Greenfield and the New
York-bred business men of his class, demanding that the western pioneer
banker show the same characteristics that distinguished the cultured
capitalists whose great-great-grandfathers were pioneers. Rubio City he
saw in the light of those eastern cities that were founded in the days
when men knew not that there was any world west of the Alleghanies.

Turning his head now and then to look over the typical groups that sat
in the shade of the arcade, dressed--or undressed--with all the easy
freedom of a land too young as yet to have conventions, he recalled his
favorite hotels in his home cities and smiled to think what would
happen if some of these roughly clad individuals were to appear there
among the guests. He did not know yet that some of these roughly clad
individuals were as much at home in those same favorite hotels as was
he himself. Likewise as he watched the passing citizens in the street
he recalled the scene from the windows of his club at home--a famous
club on a famous avenue.

That young woman, for instance, with her khaki divided skirt, wide
sombrero, fringed gauntlets and the big western saddle coming there on
a horse whose feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground as he plunged
and pranced impatiently along, springing side-wise, with arched neck
and pointed ears, at every object that could possibly be made into
something frightful by his playful fancy! What a sensation she would
create at home! By Jove! but she could ride, though. He watched with
admiring eyes the strong, graceful figure that sat the high-strung,
uncertain horse as easily and unconsciously as any one of his women
friends at home would rest in a comfortable chair.

As the horsewoman drew nearer he fell to wondering what she was like.
Could she talk, for instance, of anything but the homely details of her
own rough life? He shrugged his shoulders as he fancied her crude
attempts at conversation, her uncouth language and raw expressions. The
girl turned her horse toward the hotel entrance. As she drew still
nearer he saw that she was not pretty. Her mouth was too large, her
face too strong, her skin too tanned by the sun and wind.

At the sidewalk the girl swung from the saddle lightly, and throwing
the bridle reins over the horse's head with a movement that brought out
the beautiful lines of her figure, she turned her back upon the pawing,
restless animal with as little concern as though she had delivered him
to a correctly uniformed groom. No she was not pretty; she
was--magnificent. The adjective forced itself upon him.

All along the arcade people were smiling in greeting, the men lifting
their hats. Two cowboys in high-heeled boots and "chaps" paused in
passing. "That new hawss of yours is sure some hawss, Miss Barbara,"
said one admiringly, sombrero in hand.

The girl smiled and Holmes saw the flash of her perfect teeth. "Oh,
he'll do, Bob, when I've worked him down a little."

She passed into the hotel, followed by the eyes of every man in sight
including the engineer, who had noted with surprise the purity and
richness of her voice.

The New York man had turned and was watching a company of Indians
farther down the street when that voice close beside him said: "I beg
your pardon. Is this Mr. Holmes?"

He turned quickly, rising to his feet.

She smiled at his astonished look. "The clerk pointed you out to me. I
am Barbara Worth. You met father at the bank this morning. Texas Joe
and Pat told me about your being here and I could scarcely wait to see
you. I'm afraid you must have thought them a little rough last night
but really it's only their fun. They're as good as gold."

As she stood now close to him--the red blood glowing under the soft
brown of her cheeks--Willard Holmes felt her rich personality as
distinctly as one senses the presence of the ocean, the atmosphere of
the woods or the air of meadows and fields. But by all his conventional
gods, this was the unconventional limit! that this girl, the daughter
of a banker, should openly seek out a total stranger to introduce
herself to him on the public street before a crowd of hotel loungers!
And the way she spoke of those rough men in the saloon, one would think
they were her intimate friends.

He managed to say: "Really, I am delighted, Miss Worth. May I escort
you to the hotel parlor?"

She looked at him curiously. "Oh, no indeed! It is much nicer out here
in the arcade, don't you think? But you may bring another chair."
Dumbly he obeyed, feeling that every eye was on him and flushing with
embarrassment for her.

"When Texas and Pat told me that you were one of the engineers going
out with The King's Basin party I could scarcely wait to see you. It
makes it all seem so real, you know--your coming all the way out here
from New York. I have dreamed so much about the reclamation of The
King's Basin Desert; and you see I consider all civil engineers my
personal friends."

"Indeed," he said. It is always safely correct to say "indeed" as he
said it, particularly when you have nothing else to say.

She regarded him doubtfully with an open, straight-forward look which
was somewhat disconcerting. She was so unconscious of the strength of
her splendid womanhood and he felt her presence so vividly.

"I suppose you must find everything out here very strange," she said
slowly. "Father says this is your first visit to the West and of course
it _can't_ be like your part of the country."

"It is all very interesting," he murmured. This also was sane and safe.

"I know that Abe is very busy and father never leaves the bank except
on business, so there is no one but me to look after you"--she
smiled--"that is--no one of our King's Basin people."

Willard Holmes was of that type of corporation servant who recognizes
no interests but the financial interests of the capital employing him.
His services as a civil engineer belonged wholly to those who bought
them for their own profit. Barbara's innocent words aroused him. What
the deuce did she mean by "our King's Basin people"? Greenfield and his
friends thought that _they_ were The King's Basin people. In the
interests of his employers he must look into this.

[Illustration: "But I don't ride, you know."]

"It is very kind of you, I am sure," he said with a little more warmth.
"To tell the truth I _was_ feeling a bit strange, you know."

"I'm sure you must be nearly dead with lonesomeness. Wouldn't you like
to go for a ride? I would so like to show you my Desert."

"_Her_ Desert!" he mentally observed. Indeed he must look into this.
Fully alert now he answered heartily: "I should be delighted, I'm sure.
You are more than kind. When could we go?"

"Right now," she said quickly. "Here comes Pablo Garcia. I'll send him
for another horse." She called to the passing Mexican: "Here Pablo."

The young fellow came to her quickly and stood, sombrero in hand, his
dark eyes shining with pride at the recognition. In Spanish she
directed him to fetch a horse for the Senor.

"Si, Senorita." With a low bow the Mexican turned to obey.

The eastern man, not understanding the words, but awakening suddenly to
the meaning of the action, broke forth with--"Here, wait a minute."

"Wait," repeated Barbara in Spanish. Pablo paused.

"You are sending him for a horse and saddle?" asked Holmes.

"Yes; it will take only a few minutes."

"But I don't ride, you know."

"You don't ride?" The girl looked at him in blank amazement. "I don't
think I ever saw a man before who didn't ride."

He laughed indulgently. Something in her voice and manner touched his
sense of humor. "I'm very sorry. I know I ought to," he said in mock
humility.

"Oh, well; we can drive. I'll have Pablo bring a rig." She explained
what she wanted to the Mexican in his native tongue, and this time he
mounted her horse and rode away.

When the man returned a little later with a span of restless, half-wild
broncos hitched to a light buggy, the girl stepped into the vehicle and
took the reins as a matter of course. With a low chuckle of amusement
the engineer took his place at her left. He was beginning really to
enjoy the situation. Shying and plunging the team demanded all of
Barbara's attention but she managed to steal a look at her silent
companion now and then, as if expecting him to show signs of
nervousness. Willard Holmes, on his part, was wrapped in silent
admiration of her strength and skill.

"They'll cool down in a little while," the girl volunteered, as if to
reassure her guest, after a particularly wild break on the part of the
horses. But on the extreme edge of town, where the wagon road runs
closest to the railroad track, a passing switch engine proved too much
for the excited team. In a moment the frightened animals were running
toward the Mesa at full speed. With all her strength Barbara struggled
to regain control, but her arms were a woman's arms and the horses,
quick to recognize their advantage, put back their ears and ran the
faster in mad defiance.

The girl was not frightened; she was annoyed. "I--I'm afraid they are
running away," she gasped at last.

To her surprise a hearty laugh was the only answer to her confession.
She shot a quick glance over her left shoulder. Her companion was
leaning back in his seat, his merry face expressing the keenest
enjoyment.

Then the girl felt a big hard shoulder pressing against her; long
powerful arms stretched over hers; and two masterful hands closed on
the reins above her cramped fingers. She relinquished her hold and
shrank back out of the way with a sigh of relief and--yes, a look of
admiration as the horses, with a few wild leaps and ineffectual
attempts to run again, settled down to a more rational gait.

"My!" she gasped, at the exhibition of the engineer's strength, "I
believe you could pull their front feet off the ground."

Her companion was still smiling.

"Why didn't you tell me you could drive?" she demanded.

He chuckled maliciously, for he had understood her reason for taking
the reins at the start and he had not been insensible of the meaning of
her glances at the beginning of the ride. "You didn't ask me, and
besides I enjoyed seeing you handle them."

"But you told me you couldn't _ride_," she said reproachfully.

"I can't," he returned. "That is I never did; not as you people in this
country ride." Then he laughed again. "Confess now. Didn't you expect
me to jump, back there?"

"I shall confess nothing," she retorted, sharply. "And hereafter I
shall take nothing for granted."

On the high ground near the foot of the hill at the canyon's mouth she
asked him to turn around and stop. Willard Holmes had been too much
occupied with the team and the girl to notice the landscape; and now
that wonderful view of the Mesa, The King's Basin and the mountains
burst upon him without warning. No sane man could be insensible of the
grandeur of that scene. The man, whose eyes had looked only upon
eastern landscapes that bore in every square foot of their limited
range the evidence of man's presence, was silent--awe-stricken before
the mighty expanse of desert that lay as it was fashioned by the
creative forces that formed the world. Turning at last from the
glorious, ever-changing scenes, wrought in colors of gold and rose and
lilac and purple and blue, to the girl whose eyes were fixed
questioningly upon him, he said in a low voice: "Is it always like
this?"

Barbara nodded. "Always like that, but always changing. It is never the
same, but always the same. Like--like life itself. Do you understand?"

He turned again to the scene in silent wonder.

"Do you like my Desert?" she asked, after a little time had passed.

His mind caught at the expression. "Do you mean to say that that is The
King's Basin--that we are going _there_ to work?"

"Why, of course." She laughed uneasily. "Don't you like it?"

"Like it?" he repeated. "But is there anyone living out there?"

She was amazed at his words. "Living there? Of course not. But you are
going to make it so that thousands and thousands can live there--you
and the others. Don't you understand?" Her voice expressed a shade of
impatience.

"I'm afraid I did not realize," he answered slowly.

"That's just it!" she cried, thoroughly aroused now and speaking
passionately. "That's just the trouble with you eastern men; you don't
realize. For years the dear old Seer and a few others have been trying
to make you see what a work there is to do out here, and you won't even
look up from your little old truck patches to give them intelligent
attention. You think this King's Basin is big? Why, the Seer says that
if every foot of that land was under cultivation it wouldn't be a posy
bed beside what there is to do in the West. I suppose you must have
done some great things in your profession, Mr. Holmes, or those
capitalists wouldn't have sent you out here; but you can't have done
anything that will mean to the world what the reclamation of The King's
Basin Desert will mean one hundred years from now, because this work is
going to make the people realize, don't you see?"

The young engineer's face flushed under her words, and as he watched
her strong face glowing with enthusiasm for the Seer's dream, he felt
the sweet power of her personality sweep over him as he felt the breeze
from off the desert. He was held as though by some magic spell--not by
the lure of her splendid womanhood, but by that and something
else--something that was like the country of which she spoke so
passionately. And he remembered wondering if this girl could talk!

He relieved the tense strain of the situation by holding out the reins
and saying, with a whimsical smile:

"Here, you can drive."

She caught his meaning and smiled in acknowledgment. "Thank you, but I
don't want to drive. That's really the man's part, you know. I
suppose," she added, "that you think me bold and mannish and coarse and
everything else that a girl ought not to be, but I"--she turned away
her face and her voice trembled--"but you can't understand, Mr. Holmes,
what this desert means to me."

"Perhaps I don't understand," he said seriously. "But I am sure of
this: somewhere back of every really great work that has ever been
accomplished in any age there has been a woman like you."

Then they drove back to the hotel where she left him and drove to the
barn herself. A few minutes later he saw her pass again, riding her own
quick-stepping horse.

During the two weeks that followed before the Seer's return, while Abe
Lee was busy getting ready for the work in Barbara's Desert, Willard
Holmes and the girl were often together. The man from New York admitted
somewhat proudly, Barbara thought--as if the very confession somehow
established the superiority of the East--that he was shockingly
ignorant of all things Western. But apparently overlooking the subtle
assumption in the manner of his confession, she laughingly undertook
his education. For one thing he must learn to ride.

"Really," he demurred, "I don't think I care for that particular
amusement. I have never taken it up at home, you know, but of course if
it is the thing to do, why--"

"Amusement!" she laughed. "Riding isn't an amusement; it's a necessity.
The horse is our street car and railroad and steamboat. Where you think
city blocks and squares we think miles; and where you think miles we
think hundreds of miles. Two legs are not enough in this country, so we
double the number and go on four. You'll find yourself wishing for
eight before you get back from The King's Basin."

So, at her bidding, Texas Joe secured a horse for him and almost every
afternoon the two were in their saddles. And every night over his
evening cigar at the hotel the engineer found himself reviewing the
incidents and conversations of the ride; forced to wonder at some new
and unexpected revelation of the mind and character of this western
girl who was so interested in the reclamation work and so unconscious
of her womanly power. He came quickly to look forward to their hours
together and to plan and carry out many conversational experiments.
Invariably he had his reward.

One afternoon he tried skillfully to shape the conversation to the end
that he might tell her--quite without ostentation--of the proud history
and social position of his family and of his own rank in the upper
eastern world.

She humored him patiently, helping him out with questions and artless,
admiring exclamations and comments, until he was quite sure that she
was properly impressed. Then she said, in a tone of honest sympathy:
"But you mustn't let all this worry you, you know."

"Worry me?" he echoed in amazement.

She nodded seriously, but with a glint of mischief in her eyes. "Yes, I
can understand that it must be hard for a man to do his work
handicapped as you are but no one away out here will count it against
you. Every man here has a chance no matter what his past has been. You
see, we don't care what a man has been or what his fathers were; we
accept him for what he is and value him for what he can do. So all you
need to do is to forget and go straight ahead with your work and you'll
easily live it down. Only, of course," she added gently, "I wouldn't
advise you to tell _everybody_ what you have told me. Some might not
understand."

He retorted warmly: "Of course you cannot understand our point of view.
Everything is so new and raw out here that you have no social
standards."

"New and raw?" She laughed again. "Why, Mr. Holmes, you are the only
new thing in this country. Do you see that man over there?"

They were riding south on the road that follows the river and she
pointed to an Indian who sat idly in the shade of his pole and mud hut.

"What's the matter with him?" asked the engineer.

"Nothing. Only he, too, has ancestors. Ages and ages before your
forefathers knew that this continent existed, that man's people lived
in a city not far from here--a city with laws, customs, religions,
social standards--yes, and civil engineers, for you can easily trace
the lines of their canals, in which they brought water from the river
and carried it through a tunnel in the mountains to irrigate their
land, just as you modern engineers are planning to do. The Seer and I
rode over there once and he told me about it. I'll show you, if you
like. _New_! Why the West was ages old before the East was discovered!
The Seer says that if Columbus had come first to the western coast New
England to-day would still be an uninhabitable, howling wilderness."

"But I don't see what all this has to do with social standards," he
said, nettled at her reply.

"Simply this. If a man's position in life is to be fixed by the age of
his family or the number of years that they have occupied a certain
section of the country, then that Indian is your superior. His
ancestors lived here long before yours settled in New England."

"But we are proud of our ancestors because of what they were and what
they accomplished. We have a right to be. Think of what the world owes
them!"

"Oh, I must have misunderstood you. You seemed to place so much
emphasis on their having come over in the Mayflower. They _were_
grand--those brave old pioneers. I am proud of them too for what they
were. And did they have social positions by which they fixed a man's
place in life, I wonder?"

"Of course they could not have had a society with the wealth and
culture that we have now. The country was all new--something like the
West is to-day, I suppose."

She laughed aloud. "And you are proud of them! How fine! Isn't it
splendid to think that in two or three hundred years, when the West has
been civilized and the Desert reclaimed as your pioneer forefathers
civilized and reclaimed the East, when wealth and culture have come, a
man's social standing will be determined by his relation to _us_ and
people will be proud of what _we_ are doing? After all, Mr. Holmes, the
only difference between the East and the West seems to be that you
_have_ ancestors and that we are _going to be_ ancestors. You look back
to what has been; we look forward to what will be. You are proud and
take rank because of what your forefathers did; we are proud and take
rank because of what we are doing. And we are doing exactly what they
did! Honestly now, which would you rather--worship an ancestor or be an
ancestor worshipped?"

When they had laughed together over this he said: "I am beginning to
understand, Miss Worth, that the ideal American, whom we are always
hearing about but never meet, must be a Westerner; he couldn't possibly
be of the East, could he?" His words were almost a sneer.

"The ideal American is neither Eastern nor Western in the way you mean,
Mr. Holmes. He is both."

"Indeed? You admit that we of the East could give him something, then?"

"You could give him all that your forefathers have given you."

"And what could the West give him?"

She looked at him steadily a moment before answering slowly: "I think
you will have to find that out for yourself."

He was taken a little aback by her answer. It sounded as though she
wished to end the conversation. But her talk had stirred him strongly,
though he tried to hide this under cover of a cynical tone. He said
triumphantly: "But you see, after all, you admit that one is not
altogether hopeless because he happens to come of a good family!"

"Certainly I admit it!" she cried, "but don't you see what I mean?
Ancestors are to be counted as a valuable asset, but not as working
capital."

As she spoke she turned toward him again with that steady look, and the
man felt the strange, mysterious power of her personality, the
challenging lure of her young womanhood--that and more. What was it
back of those steady eyes that called to him, inspired him, that almost
frightened him; that made him feel as Barbara herself felt in the
presence of the Desert.

There was no trace of cynicism in his voice now, nor any hint of a
sneer on his face, as Willard Holmes straightened unconsciously in his
saddle.

"By George!" he said, "it's good to hear you say those things. Nobody
talks that way nowadays. I suppose our great-great-grandmothers did,
though."

She colored with pleasure, but answered lightly: "That puts me a long
ways behind the times, doesn't it?"

"Or a long way ahead," he offered.

In the meantime, while the education of Willard Holmes progressed, the
party that was to make the first survey in Barbara's Desert was being
formed and equipped under the direction of Abe Lee. Horses, mules,
wagons, camp outfits and supplies, with Indian and Mexican laborers,
teamsters of several nationalities and here and there a Chinese cook,
were assembled. Toward the last from every part of the great West
country came the surveyors and engineers--sunburned, khaki-clad men
most of them, toughened by their out-of-doors life, overflowing with
health and good spirits. They hailed one another joyously and greeted
Abe with extravagant delight, overwhelming him with questions. For the
word had gone out that the Seer, beloved by all the tribe, and his
lieutenant, almost equally beloved, were making "big medicine" in The
King's Basin Desert. Not a man of them would have exchanged his chance
to go for a crown and scepter.

The eastern engineer met these hardened professional brothers
cordially. He listened to their reminiscences of life and work in
mountain, plain and desert with interest, discovering to his surprise
that most of them were eastern born and bred, with technical training
in the schools with which he was familiar. But their almost boyish
enthusiasm over the work ahead, their admiration for the Chief and for
Abe Lee he viewed with cold indifference.

With all his duties Abe found frequent opportunity to report to
Barbara, for the girl's interest in every detail of the preparations
was never failing. Her friends protested that they never saw her now at
their little social affairs, for she was always off somewhere with some
engineer, and that when they did chance to catch her alone she would
talk of nothing but that horrid King's Basin country.

Every evening, early after supper, the surveyor would slip away from
his companions at the hotel to spend an hour on the veranda at the
banker's home talking in his straightforward way with Barbara and her
father, of the work that was so dear to the heart of the girl. And
because it was his work and in the nature of a report to one who, he
felt, had in some subtle way authority to hear, Abe talked with a
freedom that would have astonished many of his friends who thought they
knew him best.

Three times while Abe was there Willard Holmes appeared, and each time,
at the engineer's presence, the surveyor's painful diffidence became
apparent and he soon--with some stammering excuse--left.

The last time this happened Barbara walked down to the gate with the
painfully embarrassed surveyor. Everything was in readiness for the
coming of the Chief, who would arrive the next day, and the following
morning the expedition would start for the field.

"Buenos noches, hermano--Good night, brother," called Barbara, as the
tall surveyor walked away down the street.

"Buenos noches," came the answer.

Willard Holmes heard and frowned. "You seem to be very fond of Spanish,
Miss Worth," he said, when the girl came back to the porch. "I notice
you use it so often with our long friend there."

Barbara laughed at his evident displeasure. "The language seems to
belong so to this country. To me its colors are all soft and warm like
the colors of the Desert. I never thought of it before, but I suppose I
use it so often with Abe because he, too, seems to belong to this
country."

The engineer looked at her curiously. "I don't think I quite see the
connection. You mean that he has Spanish blood?"

"Not at all," said Barbara quickly. "But he is desert-born and
desert-trained. He has the same patient stillness, the same natural
bigness and the same unconquerable hardness."

"Oh, but you say the desert is not unconquerable; that it will be
subdued. Your analogy is at fault."

"No, Mr. Holmes, it is you who do not understand. There is something
about this country that will always remain as it is now. Abe Lee is
like that. Whatever changes may come, he will always be Abe Lee of the
Desert."

"Your views are really poetical and your character analyses very
clever, Miss Worth, but after all men are men wherever you find them.
Human nature is the same the world over."

"Oh, I'm sure that is so, Mr. Holmes. I know there must be many western
men in the east, only they haven't found themselves yet."

He laughed heartily as he rose to go. "Will you ever bid me good night
in your language of the desert?" he asked.

"Perhaps, when you have learned that language," she said with an
answering smile.

"By George, I shall try to learn it," he answered.

"Oh, I wish you would," came the earnest answer. "I know you could."

And again the engineer felt strongly, back of her words, that unvoiced
appeal. As he went down the street he knew that she did not refer to
the Spanish tongue when she wished him to learn the language of her
Desert.

Alone in her room that night Barbara's mind was too active for sleep
and she sat for a long time by the open window, looking out into the
vast silent world under the still stars.

Until she introduced herself to Willard Holmes, Barbara had never known
eastern people. Tourists she had seen and, at rare intervals, met in a
casual way. But they had always examined her with such frankly curious
eyes that she had felt like some strange animal on exhibition and had
repaid their interest with all the indifference she could command.
Occasionally also she had been introduced to eastern business men, whom
she chanced upon talking with her father in the bank, but they had
turned quickly away to the matters of their world after the usual
polite nothings demanded by the introduction. The home-land and life of
Willard Holmes were as foreign to her as her land and life were strange
to him.

So it happened in this instance also that in the education of the
eastern engineer the teacher learned quite as much as the pupil.

The traits that stood out so prominently in the western men whom
Barbara knew and so much admired were, in Willard Holmes, buried deeply
under the habits and customs of the life and thought of the world to
which he belonged--buried so deeply that the man himself scarcely
realized that they were there and so was led to wonder at himself when
his blood tingled with some strong presentation of this western girl's
views.

But Barbara knew. Beneath the conventionalities of his class the girl
felt the man a powerful character, with all the latent strength of his
nation-building ancestors. She wanted him--as she put it to herself--to
wake up. Would he? Would he learn the language of her Desert? She
believed that he would, even as she believed in the reclamation of The
King's Basin lands.

And she was glad--glad that the Seer and Abe and Tex and Pat and her
father--the men who had brought her out of the Desert--were going now
back into that land of death to save that land itself from itself.
And--she whispered it softly under the stars--she was glad--glad that
Willard Holmes had come to go with them--to learn the language of her
land.




CHAPTER VIII.

WHY WILLARD HOLMES STAYED.


Slowly, day by day, the surveying party under the Seer pushed deeper
and deeper into the awful desolation of The King's Basin Desert. They
were the advance force of a mighty army ordered ahead by Good
Business--the master passion of the race. Their duty was to learn the
strength of the enemy, to measure its resources, to spy out its
weaknesses and to gather data upon which a campaign would be planned.

Under the Seer the expedition was divided into several smaller parties,
each of which was assigned to certain defined districts. Here and
there, at seemingly careless intervals in the wide expanse, the white
tents of the division camps shone through the many colored veils of the
desert. Tall, thin columns of dust lifted into the sky from the water
wagons that crawled ceaselessly from water hole to camp and from camp
to water hole--hung in long clouds above the supply train laboring
heavily across the dun plain to and from Rubio City--or rose in quick
puffs and twisting spirals from the feet of some saddle horse bearing a
messenger from the Chief to some distant lieutenant.

Every morning, from each of the camps, squads of khaki-clad men bearing
transit and level, stake and pole and flag--the weapons of their
warfare--put out in different directions into the vast silence that
seemed to engulf them. Every evening the squads returned,
desert-stained and weary, to their rest under the lonesome stars. Every
morning the sun broke fiercely up from the long level of the eastward
plain to pour its hot strength down upon these pigmy creatures, who
dared to invade the territory over which he had, for so many ages, held
undisputed dominion. Every evening the sun plunged fiercely down behind
the purple wall of mountains that shut in the Basin on the west, as if
to gather strength in some nether world for to-morrow's fight.

Always there was the same flood of white light from the deep, dry sky
that was uncrossed by shred of cloud; always the same wide, tawny
waste, harshly glaring near at hand--filled with awful mysteries under
the many colored mists of the distance; until the eyes ached and the
soul cried out in wonder at it all. Always there were the same deep
nights, with the lonely stars so far away in the velvet purple
darkness; the soft breathing of the desert; the pungent smell of
greasewood and salt-bush; the weird, quavering call of the ground owl;
or the wild coyote chorus, as if the long lost spirits of long ago
savage races cried out a dreadful warning to these invaders.

And in all of this the land made itself felt against these men in the
silent menace, the still waiting, the subtle call, the promise, the
threat and the challenge of La Palma de la Mano de Dios.

To Barbara, who rode often in those days to the very rim of the Basin,
there to search the wild, wide land with straining eyes for signs of
her friends, the white glare of the camps was lost in the bewildering
maze of color. The columns, clouds and spirals of dust--save perhaps
from a near supply wagon coming in or passing out--could not be
distinguished from the whirling dust-devils that danced always over the
hot plains. The toiling pigmy dots of the little army were far beyond
her vision's range. It was as though the fierce land had swallowed up
horses, wagons and men. Only through the frequent letters brought by
the freighters did she know that all was going well.

Perhaps the gray lizard that climbed to the top of a line stake
wondered at the strange new growth that had sprung so suddenly from the
familiar soil; or perhaps the horned-toad, scuttling to cover, marveled
at the strange sounds as the stakes were driven and man called to man
figures and directions. Perhaps the scaly side-winder, springing his
warning rattle at the approaching step, questioned what new enemy this
was; or the lone buzzard, wheeling high over head, watched the tiny
moving figures with wondering hopefulness, and the coyote, that hushed
for a little his wild music to follow up the wind this strange new
scent, laughed at the Seer's dream.

These lines of stakes that every day stretched farther and farther into
and across the waste seemed, in the wideness of the land, pitifully
foolish. Looking back over the lines, the men who set them could
scarcely distinguish the way they had come. But they knew that the
stakes were there. They knew that some day that other, mightier
company, the main army, would move along the way they had marked to
meet the strength of the barren waste with the strength of the great
river and take for the race the wealth of the land. The sound of human
voices was flat and ineffectual in that age-old solitude, but the
speakers knew that following their feeble voices would come the
shouting, ringing, thundering chorus of the life that was to follow
them into that silent land of death.

With the slow passing of the weeks came the trying out and testing of
character inevitable to such a work. The concealing habits of
civilization were dropped. Kindly, useful conventionalities were lost.
Face to face with the unconquered forces of nature, nothing remained
but the real strength or weakness of the individual himself. In some
there were developed unguessed powers of endurance that bore the hard
days without flinching; cheerful optimism that laughed at the appalling
immensity of the task; strength of spirit that made a jest of galling
discomforts; courage that smiled in the face of dangers. These were the
strength of the party. Some there were who grew sullen, quarrelsome,
and vicious in a kind of mad rebellion. These must be held in check,
controlled and governed by the Seer with the assistance of Abe Lee and
his helpers. Some became silent and moody, faint hearted and afraid.
These were strengthened and guarded and given fresh courage. Some grew
peevish and fretful, whining and complaining. These were disciplined
wisely, forced gently into line. Some staggered and fell by the way.
These were sent back and the ranks closed up. But the work--always the
work went on.

To Willard Holmes the life was a slow torture, a revelation and an
education. He found himself stripped of everything upon which he was
accustomed to rely--family traditions, social position, influential
friends, scholarship, experience in the world to which he was born--all
these were nothing in The Hollow of God's Hand. Slowly he learned that
the power of such wealth is limited to certain fields. New York was
very far away. He felt that he had been hopelessly banished to a
strange world. Many times he would have thrown it all up and turned
back with other deserters, but there was red blood in his veins.
Stubborn pride and the thought of the girl who had hoped that he would
"learn the language of her country" enabled him to hold on.

Once he ventured to speak to the Chief in a hopeless voice of the
evident impossibility of ever converting that terrible land into a
habitable country, and the Seer, strong in the strength of his dream,
had looked at him from the still depth of his brown eyes without a
word--looked until the younger man had turned away, his cheeks flushed
with shame and his spirit doing homage to the strength of the master
spirit of the work. And the eastern engineer remembered with new
understanding his talks with Barbara Worth.

When they pulled the dead coyote from the only water hole within two
days' travel and Holmes nearly fainted at the sickening sight, it was
Texas Joe who saved the day for him by remarking, with an air of
philosophical musing, after a deep draught of the tepid, tainted water:
"Hit ain't so bad as you might think, Mr. Holmes, onct your oilfactory
nerves has become somewhat regulated to the aroma and your palate has
been eddicated to the point of appreciatin' the deliciously foreign
flavor. In the judgment of some connysoors, it has several points the
lead of them imported fancy drinks you get in Frisco."

When a Mexican died horribly from the bite of a rattlesnake, and Holmes
himself was barely saved from a like fate by the prompt action and
ready knowledge of Abe Lee, it was the slow smile of the desert-bred
surveyor that stiffened him to go on.

And when he was nearly beaten by a three days' sand-storm so searching
that even the flap-jacks and bacon gritted in his teeth and his
blood-shot eyes smarted in his head like coals of fire and his skin
felt as though it had been sand-papered, when he would have sold his
soul for a bath and actually began to get his things together in
readiness for the next wagon out, it was Pat, who, with the devilish
ingenuity of an Irish imp, mocked and jeered at him for a quitter, "fit
to act only as lady's maid or to serve soft dhrinks in a corner
drug-sthore," until his fainting heart took fire and, cursing his
tormentor with all the oaths he could muster, he offered to whip,
single-handed, the whole grinning camp and stayed.

Thus he was advanced to the second degree, when he began to sense the
spirit of the untamed land and of the men who went to meet it with
sheer joy of the conquest; when he began to glory in the very greatness
of the task; and the long dormant spirit of his ancestors stirred
within him as he caught glimpses of the vision that inspired the Seer
or, perhaps it should be written, the vision that tempted his
employers, James Greenfield and his fellow capitalists.

He was still far from ready for the final degree; but even that might
come.

Through all those hard days Jefferson Worth moved with the same
careful, precise, certain manner that distinguished him in his work at
home. Even the desert sun that so tanned, blistered and blackened the
faces of his companions could not mark the gray pallor of that
mask-like face. No disturbing incident or unforeseen difficulty could
wring from him an exclamation or change the measured tones of his
colorless voice. He seemed to accept everything as though he had
foreseen, carefully considered and dismissed it from his mind before it
came to pass. Day after day he rode in every direction over the land
within easy reach of the many camps; familiarizing himself with every
detail of the work, observing soil, studying conditions, poring over
maps and figures with the Seer, verifying estimates, listening to and
taking part in the many councils of the leaders. But not once did
anyone catch a hint of what was going on behind those expressionless
blue eyes that seemed to see everything without effort and to be
incapable of expressing the emotions of the soul within.

To the men he was the visible representative of that invisible power
that willed their going forth. He was Capital--Money--Business
incarnate. They set him apart as one not of their world. In his
presence laughter was hushed, jests were unspoken. Silently they waited
for him to speak first. When he conversed with them they answered
thoughtfully in subdued tones, seeming to feel that their words were
received by one who placed upon them undreamed-of values. Filled as
these men were with the enthusiasm of their work, they were never
unconscious of the knowledge that but for the power represented by
Jefferson Worth their work would be impossible.

Small wonder, then, that there was consternation in the headquarters
camp that night when Pat appeared, hat in hand, before the company of
leaders in the Seer's office tent. "I beg yer pardon, Sorr."

"What is it, Pat?" asked the Seer, and all eyes were turned upon the
burly Irishman, whose face and voice as well as his presence at that
hour betrayed some unusual incident. "'Tis this, Sorr. Has anywan seen
Mr. Worth this avenin'?"

Every head was shaken negatively.

"Was he not at supper wid you gintlemen?"

"Why no, he was not," returned the Seer. "But it is nothing unusual for
him to be late. Have you asked the cook?"

"We have, Sorr. Ye see, whin ut come time to turn in an' he hadn't
shown up an' Tex seen that his horse wasn't wid the bunch, we got a bit
unaisy like. We axed the cook, an' we've been to his tent, an' we've
axed the men."

"Perhaps he has put up at one of the other camps," suggested a surveyor.

"That's not like, Sorr, for he rode northeast this mornin'. Me an' Tex
watched him go; an' there's divil a camp in that direction as we all
know."

"He surely intended to return here or he would have told us," said the
Seer. "You know how careful he is. What do you think, Abe?"

Before Abe could answer a Mexican ran up, and Pat, turning, hauled him
into the tent by the neck. "Fwhat the hell is ut, ye greaser?"

"Senor Texas send me quick," the little brown man panted, bowing low to
the company, sombrero in hand. "Senor Worth's horse, he just come. In
the saddle is no one. Senor Worth he is not come. I think he 

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