Part 48 (1/2)

”Pen sent for you?” repeated Jim. ”Why, Pen should not have done that.”

”This is a poor welcome, Jim,” said Uncle Denny, immeasurable reproach in his voice.

Jim sprang to his feet and put a long brown hand on Uncle Denny's shoulder. ”You can't mean that, Uncle Denny. It's meat and drink to me to have you here. You can't doubt it.”

”I can't, indeed,” agreed Dennis heartily. ”And somehow, I'm going to help. Go get your work done and then call for me at Pen's house.”

Jim had been in the office but a few minutes when he came out again and stood on the edge of the canyon, staring at the silhouette of the Elephant against the night stars. After a moment he turned up the trail toward the tent house. He entered without ceremony and stood a tall, slender, commanding figure against the white of the tent wall. His eyes were big and bright. His lips were stiff as he looked at Sara and said:

”You are fully even now, Saradokis. I've a notion to kill you as I would a rattler.”

The tent was bright with lamplight. The red and black Navajo across Sara's cot was as motionless over the outline of his great legs as though it covered a dead man. Uncle Denny stared at Jim without stirring. His florid face paled a little and his bright Irish eyes did not blink.

Pen could see a tiny patch that Mrs. Flynn had put on the knee of Jim's riding breeches. There swept over her a sudden appreciation of Jim's utter simplicity and sincerity under all the stupendous responsibilities he had a.s.sumed not only in the building of the dam, but in his less tangible building for the nation. As he stood before them she saw him not as a man but as the boy Uncle Denny often had described to her, announcing the vast discovery of his life work. Would he, had he known the bitter years ahead of him, have chosen the same, she wondered.

”I found two interesting communications in my mail tonight,” said Jim, slowly. ”One is a letter from the Was.h.i.+ngton Office containing clippings from eastern papers. Some reporter announces that he has discovered a fully developed scheme of mine and Freet's to sell out to the Transatlantic people. He gives a twisted version of the conversation here, the other night, that sounds like conclusive evidence. The matter is so well handled that even the Was.h.i.+ngton office is convinced that I'm a crook. The local papers will, of course, copy this.”

Sara did not stir. Jim moistened his lips. ”While I knew that I lived under a cloud of suspicion,” he said, ”I thought to be able to leave the Service with nothing worse than suspicion on my name. I shall never be able to live this down. Yet this is not the worst. I received tonight an anonymous letter. It states that unless I drop my silent campaign, the name of the wife of my crippled friend will be coupled with mine in an unpleasant manner.”

Pen's eyes were for a moment horror-stricken. Then they blazed with anger. And so suddenly that Jim and Dennis hardly saw her leave her chair. She sprang over to Sara's couch and struck him across the mouth with her open hand. The stillness in the room for a second was complete, except that Sara breathed heavily as he rose to his elbow.

”I may or may not have produced the newspaper copy, but so help me the G.o.d I have blasphemed, I have never used Pen's name,” said Sara.

”But you have,” said Jim. ”You used it before Freet. You probably have cursed me out before Fleckenstein as you did before him and Ames!”

”And there was my trying to help Jane Ames in the valley!” cried Pen suddenly. ”She's talking with the farmers' wives for Jim and I went with her until the women were cattish. Oh, Jim, what have we done to you, Sara and I?”

”I shall have to give up the fight a little earlier, that is all,”

answered Jim. ”Don't feel badly, Pen. If I only had some way of punis.h.i.+ng Sara and stopping his mischief! Though it's too late now.”

”Just be patient, Jim,” said Sara. ”My mischief will soon end.”

Pen had heard only Jim, the first sentence of Jim's remarks. She stood beside the table, white to the lips. ”Jim, if you want to wreck my life, stop the fight! Do you suppose, except for the moment's shame, I care what they say about me? If you will only go on with your fight, Jim, let them say what they will. I can stand it. My strength--my strength----”

Pen paused with a little sob, as if Uncle Denny reminded her of her girlhood dreams, ”my strength is in the eternal hills!”

”I have lived with George Saradokis all these years,” Pen went on, ”and he's almost broken my faith in life. When I found I could help you, Jim, I thought that I was making up for some of the wrong of my marriage. I even thought that I'd be willing to go through my marriage again because it had taught me how to help you fight. Jim, it will ruin my life if you stop now!”

And Pen suddenly dropped her face in her hands and broke down entirely.

Jim never had seen Pen cry. He took a step toward her, then looked pitifully at Uncle Denny.

Uncle Denny sprang from his chair.

”Go on out, Jim,” he said. Then he folded Pen in his arms. ”Rest here, sweet, tired bird,” he said in his rich voice. ”Rest here, for I love you with all me soul.”

Jim's lips quivered. He went out into the night and once more climbed the Elephant's back. For a long time he sat, too exhausted by his emotions to think. With head resting on his arms, he let the night wind sweep across him until little by little his brain cleared and he looked about him. Far and wide, the same wonder of the desert night; the stars, so low, so tender, so inscrutable, the sky so deep, so utterly compa.s.sionate; the far black scratch of the river on the silver desert, the distant black lift of the mountains--Pen's eternal hills!

Over the flagpole on the office the flag rippled and floated, sank and rose, dancing like a child in the joy of living. Jim looked at it wistfully. Flag that his forefathers had fas.h.i.+oned from the fabric of their vision, must the vision be forgotten? It was a great vision, fit to cover the yearnings of the world. His grandfather had fought for it at Antietam. His father had lost it and had died, bewildered and hungry of soul. Was he himself to lose it, son of vision seekers?

The Elephant beneath him seemed to listen for Jim's reply. ”G.o.d knows,”