Part 17 (2/2)
By nine o'clock the two riders were among the foothills of the southern Elks, and the chief engineer of the Arcadia Company was making a very practical use of his guest. Bigelow was an authority on watersheds, stream-basins, the conservation of moisture by forested slopes, and kindred subjects of vital importance to the construction chief of an irrigation scheme; and the talk held steadily to the technical problems, with the Forestry expert as the lecturer.
Only once was there a break and a lapse into the humanities. It was when the horses had climbed one of the bald hills from the summit of which the great valley, with its dottings of camps and its streaking of ca.n.a.l gradings, was spread out map-like beneath them. On the distant river road, progressing by perspective inches toward the lower end of the valley, trotted a mixed mob of hors.e.m.e.n, something more than doubling in numbers the sheriff's posse that had ridden over the same road in the opposite direction the previous evening.
”Beckwith with his game-bag?” queried Bigelow, gravely; and Ballard said: ”I guess so,” and immediately switched the talk back to the watershed technicalities.
It was within an hour of the grading-camp supper-time when the two investigators of moisture-beds and auxiliary reservoirs rode into Fitzpatrick's headquarters and found a surprise awaiting them. The Castle 'Cadia runabout was drawn up before the commissary; and young Blacklock, in cap and gloves and dust-coat, was tinkering with the motor.
”The same to you, gentlemen,” he said, jocosely, when he took his head out of the bonnet. ”I was just getting ready to go and chase you some more. We've been waiting a solid hour, I should say.”
”'We'?” questioned Ballard.
”Yes; Miss Elsa and I. We've been hunting you in every place a set of rubber tires wouldn't balk at, all afternoon. Say; you don't happen to have an extra spark-plug about your clothes, either of you, do you? One of these is cracked in the porcelain, and she skips like a dog on three legs.”
Ballard ignored the motor disability completely.
”You brought Miss Craigmiles here? Where is she now?” he demanded.
The collegian laughed.
”She's in the grand _salon_, and Fitzpatrick the gallant is making her a cup of commissary tea. Wouldn't that jar you?”
Ballard swung out of his saddle and vanished through the open door of the commissary, leaving Bigelow and the motor-maniac to their own devices. In the littered storeroom he found Miss Craigmiles, sitting upon a coil of rope and calmly drinking her tea from a new tin can.
”At last!” she sighed, smiling up at him; and then: ”Mercy me! how savage you look! We are trespa.s.sers; I admit it. But you'll be lenient with us, won't you? Jerry says there is a broken spark-plug, or something; but I am sure we can move on if we're told to. You have come to tell us to move on, Mr. Ballard?”
His frown was only the outward and visible sign of the inward attempt to grapple with the possibilities; but it made his words sound something less than solicitous.
”This is no place for you,” he began; but she would not let him go on.
”I have been finding it quite a pleasant place, I a.s.sure you. Mr.
Fitzpatrick is an Irish gentleman. No one could have been kinder. You've no idea of the horrible things he promised to do to the cook if this tea wasn't just right.”
If she were trying to make him smile, she succeeded. Fitzpatrick's picturesque language to his men was the one spectacular feature of the headquarters camp.
”That proves what I said--that this is no place for you,” he rejoined, still deprecating the camp crudities. ”And you've been here an hour, Blacklock says.”
”An hour and twelve minutes, to be exact,” she admitted, tilting the tiny watch pinned upon the lapel of her driving-coat. ”But you left us no alternative. We have driven uncounted miles this afternoon, looking for you and Mr. Bigelow.”
Ballard flushed uncomfortably under the tan and sunburn. Miss Craigmiles could have but one object in seeking him, he decided; and he would have given worlds to be able to set the business affair and the sentimental on opposite sides of an impa.s.sable chasm. Since it was not to be, he said what he was constrained to say with characteristic abruptness.
”It is too late. The matter is out of my hands, now. The provocation was very great; and in common loyalty to my employers I was obliged to strike back. Your father----”
She stopped him with a gesture that brought the blood to his face again.
”I know there has been provocation,” she qualified. ”But it has not been all on one side. Your men have told you how our range-riders have annoyed them: probably they have not told you how they have given blow for blow, killing cattle on the railroad, supplying themselves with fresh meat from our herd, filling up or draining the water-holes. And two days ago, at this very camp.... I don't know the merits of the case; but I do know that one of our men was shot through the shoulder, and is lying critically near to death.”
He nodded gloomily. ”That was bad,” he admitted, adding: ”And it promptly brought on more violence. On the night of the same day your cow-men returned and dynamited the ca.n.a.l.”
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