Part 35 (1/2)

Helen turned resolutely toward the foot-way. Winston walked silently beside her. He wanted to know more, but he felt the uselessness of words. As soon as he could free himself from the friends who thronged around him and Helen, he sought out Uncle Sid and told him of Helen's warning.

”What do you make out of it?” he asked.

”No more than you do, I guess.”

”You think Elijah is at the bottom of it all, don't you?”

”Yes, I do. I'm sure of it.”

”Why didn't she tell me then?” Winston burst out.

”Well, women are queer creatures.” Uncle Sid spoke meditatively. ”They see more sides to a man than we do, an' when he's down, they stay by him closer. I sometimes think that Helen knows more about 'Lige than we do; anyway, she's mighty suspicious of him, but she's goin' to give him every chance to get up, an' at the same time she's lookin' out that no one gets hurt when he's flappin' his heels around, tryin' to make his feet. What are you doin' to shut off any deviltry?”

”I've put on extra watchmen, day and night, and I've got men out hunting Elijah.”

”I guess that's all that you can do.”

Winston meditated long over Helen's warning and Uncle Sid's explanation of her conduct. The idea of Elijah's trying to injure the dam finally seemed too monstrous to be entertained. It occurred to him to remain at the dam and not trust to watchmen; but this was impossible. He had other pressing duties demanding him. Nothing could happen this night; the next would be spent at the mouth of the canon. The day following he would send some of his young a.s.sistants in place of the Mexicans.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The sun had long since sunk beneath the sheen of the ocean and one by one the distant stars p.r.i.c.ked sharp and clear through the azure veil that made the world a unit in the depths of s.p.a.ce. From their spanless heights, moonlight and starlight plunged like hissing shafts of water and, like shafts of water falling on the softly resisting air, broke in diffused mantles that half concealed and half revealed the softened contours of the slumbering world. The gently falling radiance disclosed no detail of the swelling plains below, yet each tumid roll, crowned with its aureole of l.u.s.trous light voiced with tongueless words an everlasting peace.

Winston was busy until far into the night. There was a strange sense of oppression as he pa.s.sed from point to point of the now completed dam.

The machinery that had for so long a time been pulsing with life, was now stilled. There were no banked fires under the boilers, to speak of rest for the labor of the morrow, for the labor was completed. In the laborer's camp, the men were packing their few belongings for an early start in the morning. Some were busy touching up the machines for their long rest. These were not to be dismantled at once, but were to wait a more convenient time. The lanterns of the men twinkled through clumps of mountain pine where the shadows lay thick and deep; then faded to a dim point in the white moonlight. The occasional clink of a hammer, and the voices of the men drifted across the water, softened by distance. It was funereal, after all! And he had looked forward to these very sounds with an impatient thrill. Now it was all completed. The last stone of the dam had been laid, from the dam to the terminal ca.n.a.l every gate had been put in, every trestle had been built, every tunnel had been driven.

Tomorrow, with the men, he would go over every foot of the ca.n.a.l for a final inspection. If this was satisfactory, and he knew it would be, in two days the gates would be opened and the water turned into the ca.n.a.l.

Winston was standing on the ap.r.o.n of the dam looking out over the great reservoir that in the moonlight lay like a plate of burnished steel between the pine-clad granite hills that dipped steeply into the water.

The dam was already filled to the brim, and the full volume of the Sangre de Cristo was sweeping through the weir and plunging into the canon below. The sights and sounds only deepened Winston's oppression.

His work was done; the work he loved so well. The future held nothing so bright as the past had held. Only, in the future, was there to be the dull routine of office work, the laying off of orange groves, the running out of ditches that would lead the water to them; simple work this that any tyro who could set a level and read an angle, could perform. No intricate problems that absorbed every energy of an active mind, that blotted out consciousness of time and self in delicious oblivion of existence; no obstacles of nature that lifted a forbidding hand ”thus far and no farther;” no thrill of determined battle that rushed against these obstacles and bore them down. His field had been sown; the harvest was waiting for him to thrust in and reap, what?

Money; that was all. Money that would only intensify his consciousness of an existence that like rank vegetation throve aimlessly only to rot and thrive again. What would love, even Helen's love, mean to him? Would that, a.s.sured, satisfy him, or would it, possessed, be to him like his work that was done? What had drawn them together but an intense, absorbing, common interest?

This mood was strange to Winston. He could, and did, reason himself out of it; but its influence remained. In his cabin, which was his office as well, he wrapped his blankets around him and lay down to sleep.

Helen's night was sleepless. She had retired early, not to sleep, as she knew, but that in solitude she might try to think out more clearly her course of action. Her admiration for Winston had increased a thousand-fold, if that were possible; and he had offered her his love to crown it all, and she had seemed to weigh it in her hands, as a Jew might bite a piece of gold to try its worth. She had done this when every fiber of her heart cried out against it, demanding that she should render to Ralph his own. Why had she turned even seemingly against Ralph, against herself?

Only that she might do penance for her sin. Was not that it after all?

But she was innocent of any intentional wrong. Was it not selfishness, this penance which she was imposing upon herself? Was she not compelling Ralph to bear a part of her punishment, demanding that he wait in doubt till she could declare herself purified? Was it not pride and selfish pride which demanded that through Elijah's redemption she should be declared free?

Then a thought came to her which quickened every nerve to painful throbs. Was it not worse than selfishness, was it not a crime? Was not this s.h.i.+elding of Elijah a crime against others, innocent? What if she should fail? Her heart was beating with great, painful throbs. She thought of what Ralph had told her as he had showed her the weak points of the dam. ”If the waste weir should be choked, in a few hours the dam would be gone.” He had pointed out to her just how simple a thing it was to wedge the gates and to choke the weir. And she had listened, and to protect herself,--that was the pitiful part of it,--to protect herself, she had warned him to be on his guard. She began dressing herself with trembling fingers. She would go to him and tell him all. Let him think what he might, she would tell him all, unsparing of herself. She parted the flaps of the tent and stepped out into the night. Outside, she paused for a moment. The soft gray of the moonlight, lying white on the silent tents, the sighing of the pines, the distant, bell-like notes of calling wood-birds, spoke to her of peace that stilled her acute fears.

Then she became conscious of another sound; a throbbing, m.u.f.fled roar that made the night air tremulous.

She changed the direction of her steps. On the bridge that spanned the waste weir, she looked down on the swirling waters that rushed over the floor of the weir. For a moment she paused, then went out over the foot-board of the dam. The gate house rose black from the waters that lapped against the dam. Inside the gate house, every wheel and gear was in place. Once more in the open air, her tense feelings relaxed. She laughed at her fears. Her resolution hardened. In the morning she would tell Ralph everything. The relaxation from the strain of the night induced a sleep that kept her late in bed. When she joined the others, Ralph had gone. The party were to camp that night at the mouth of the canon, where he would meet them the following day for lunch. Helen was disappointed. At first she thought of riding ahead and hunting out Ralph, but she knew him, and the idea of overtaking him was absurd. She restrained herself with as much patience as she could command, but her senses were on the alert.

The ponies were saddled and bridled, waiting for them when breakfast was over. Helen was surprised at this. She well knew the spirit of manana, which, with the lesser virtues had come down to the descendants of the Spanish cavaliers. She was therefore surprised at the alert, beady eyes of the swarthy Mexicans, in place of the dreamy la.s.situde to which she was accustomed. The surprise was ephemeral and soon pa.s.sed away; but she was to recall it later.