Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Everybody turning in, Lafe?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No. Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Has he told you everything?” scoffed Ashton.

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

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

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

“Well, I’m not so sure–”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wait a week or so,” cautioned Ashton. “In my opinion, Blake already sees a possibility.”

CHAPTER XV

LEVELS AND SLANTS

At sunrise the next morning Blake screwed his level on its tripod and set up the instrument about a hundred yards away from the ranch house. Ashton held the level rod for him on a spike driven into the foot of the nearest post of the front porch. Blake called the spike a bench-mark. For convenience of determining the relative heights of the points along his lines of levels, he designated this first “bench” in his fieldbook as “elevation 1,000.”

From the porch he ran the line of level “readings” up the slope to the top of the divide between Plum Creek and Dry Fork and from there towards the waterhole on Dry Fork. At noon Isobel and Mrs. Blake drove out to them in the buckboard, bringing a hot meal in an improvised fireless-cooker.

“And we came West to rough-it!” groaned Blake, his eyes twinkling.

“You can camp at the waterhole where Lafe did, and I’ll send Kid out for that bobcat,” suggested the girl. “You could roast him, hair and all.”

“What! roast Gowan?” protested Blake. “Let me tell you, Miss Chuckie–you and my wife and Ashton may like him that much, but I don’t!”

“You need not worry, Mr. Tenderfoot,” the girl flashed back at him. “Whenever it comes to a hot time, Kid always gets in the first fire, without waiting to be told.”

“Don’t I know it?” exclaimed Ashton. “Maybe you haven’t noticed this hole in my hat, Mrs. Blake. He put a bullet through it.”

“But it’s right over your temple, Lafayette!” replied Mrs. Blake.

“Lafe was lifting his some-berero to me, and Kid did it to haze him–only a joke, you know,” explained Isobel. “Of course Lafe was in no danger. It was different, though, when somebody–we think it was his thieving guide–took several rifle shots at him. Tell them about it, Lafe.”

Ashton gave an account of the murderous attack, more than once checking himself in a natural tendency to embellish the exciting details.

“Oh! What if the man should come back and shoot at us?” shuddered Mrs. Blake, drawing her baby close in her arms.

“No fear of that,” asserted Isobel. “Kid found that he had fled towards the railroad. That proves it must have been the guide. He would never dare come back after such a crime.”

“If he should, I always carry my rifle, as you see,” remarked Ashton; adding, with a touch of bravado, “I made him run once, and I would again.”

“I’m glad Miss Chuckie is sure he will not come back,” said Blake. “I don’t fancy anyone shooting at me that way.”

“Timid Mr. Blake!” teased the girl. “Genevieve has been telling me how you faced a lion with only a bow and arrow.”

“Had to,” said Blake. “He’d have jumped on me if I had turned or backed off.–Speaking about camping at that waterhole, I believe we’ll do it, Ashton, if it’s the same thing to you. It would save the time that would be lost coming and going to the ranch.”

“Save time?” repeated Isobel. “Then of course we’ll bring out a tent and camp kit for you tomorrow. Genevieve and I can ride or drive up to the waterhole each day, to picnic with you.”

“It will be delightful,” agreed Mrs. Blake.

“You ride on ahead and wait for us in the shade,” said her husband. “We’ll knock off for the day when we reach that dolerite dike above the waterhole.–If you are ready, Ashton, we’ll peg along.”

He started off to set up his level as briskly as at dawn, though the midday sun was so hot that he had to shade the instrument with his handkerchief to keep the air-bubble from outstretching its scale. His wife and the girl drove on up Dry Fork to the waterhole.

Mrs. Blake was outstretched on her back, fast asleep, and Isobel was playing with the baby under the adjoining tree, when at last the surveyors came up on the other side of the creek and ended their day’s run with the establishment of a bench-mark on the top of the dike above the pool. Blake seemed as fresh as in the morning. He took a moderate drink of water dipped up in the brim of his hat, and without wakening his wife, sat down beside her to “figure up” his fieldbook.

Ashton had come down to the pool panting from heat and exertion. It was the first time that he had walked more than half a mile since coming to the ranch, for he had immediately fallen into the cowboy practice of saddling a horse to go even short distances. He had his reward for his work when, having soused his hot head in the pool and drunk his fill, he came up to rest in the shade of Isobel’s tree. Very considerately the baby fell asleep. To avoid disturbing him and his mother, the young couple talked in low tones and half whispers very conducive to intimacy.

Ashton did his utmost to improve his opportunity. Without openly speaking his love, he allowed it to appear in his every look and intonation. The girl met the attack with banter and raillery and adroit shiftings of the conversation whenever his ardent inferences became too obvious. Yet her evasion and her teasing could not always mask her maidenly pleasure over his adoration of her loveliness, and an occasional blush betrayed to him that his wooing was not altogether unwelcome.

He was in the seventh heaven when Mrs. Blake awoke from her health-giving sleep and her husband closed his fieldbook. The girl promptly dashed her suitor back to earth by dropping him for the engineer.

“Mr. Blake! You can’t have figured it out already?” she exclaimed. “What do you find?”

“Only an ‘if,’ Miss Chuckie,” he answered. “If water can be stored or brought by ditch to this elevation, practically all Dry Mesa can be irrigated. Our bench-mark there on the dike is more than two hundred feet above that spike we drove into your porch post.”

“Is that all you’ve found out today?”

“All for today,” said Blake. “I could have left this line of levels until later, but I thought I might as well get through with them.”

“You would not have run them if you had thought they would be useless,” she stated, perceiving the point with intuitive acuteness.

“I like to clean up my work as I go along,” he replied. “If you wish to know, I have thought of a possible way to get water enough for the whole mesa. It depends on two ‘ifs.’ I shall be certain as to one of them within the next two days. The other is the question of the depth of Deep Cañon. If I had a transit, I could determine that by a vertical angle,–triangulation. As it is, I probably shall have to go down to the bottom.”

“Go down to the bottom of Deep Cañon?” cried the girl.

“Yes,” he answered in a matter-of-course tone. “A big ravine runs clear down to the bottom, up beyond where your father said you first met Ashton. I think it is possible to get down that gulch.–Suppose we hitch up? We’ll make the ranch just about supper-time.”

Ashton hastened to bring in the picketed horses. When they were harnessed Isobel fetched the sleeping baby and handed him to his mother; but she did not take the seat beside her.

“You drive, Lafe,” she ordered. “I’m going to ride behind with Mr. Blake. It’s such fun bouncing.”

All protested in vain against this odd whim. The girl plumped herself in on the rear end of the buckboard and dangled her slender feet with the gleefulness of a child.

“Mr. Blake will catch me if I go to jolt off,” she declared.

The engineer nodded with responsive gayety and seated himself beside her. As the buckboard rattled away over the rough sod, they made as merry over their jolts and bounces as a pair of school-children on a hayrack party.

Mrs. Blake sought to divert Ashton from his disappointment, but he had ears only for the laughing, chatting couple behind him. The fact that Blake was a married man did not prevent the lover from giving way to jealous envy. Chancing to look around as he warned the hilarious pair of a gully, he saw the girl grasp Blake’s shoulder. Natural as was the act, his envy flared up in hot resentment. Except on their drive to Stockchute, she had always avoided even touching his hand with her finger tips; yet now she clung to the engineer with a grasp as familiar as that of an affectionate child. Nor did she release her clasp until they were some yards beyond the gully.

Mrs. Blake had seen not only the expression that betrayed Ashton’s anger but also the action that caused it. She raised her fine eyebrows; but meeting Ashton’s significant glance, she sought to pass over the incident with a smile. He refused to respond. All during the remainder of the drive he sat in sullen silence. Genevieve bent over her baby. Behind them the unconscious couple continued in their mirthful enjoyment of each other and the ride.

When the party reached the ranch, the girl must have perceived Ashton’s moroseness had she not first caught sight of her father. He was standing outside the front porch, his eyes fixed upon the corner post in a perplexed stare.

“Why, Daddy,” she called, “what is it? You look as you do when playing chess with Kid.”

“Afraid it’s something that’ll annoy Mr. Blake,” replied the cowman.

“What is it?” asked Blake, who was handing his wife from the buckboard.

As the engineer faced Knowles, Gowan sauntered around the far corner of the house. At sight of the ladies he paused to adjust his neckerchief.

“Can’t understand it, Mr. Blake,” said the cowman. “Somebody has pulled out that spike you drove in here this morning.”

“Pulled the spike?” repeated Gowan, coming forward to stare at the post. “That shore is a joke. The Jap’s building a new henhouse. Must be short of nails.”

“That’s so,” said Knowles. “I forgot to order them for him. I’m mighty sorry, Mr. Blake. But of course the little brown cuss didn’t know what he was meddling with.”

“Jumping Jehosaphat!” ejaculated Gowan. “That shore is mighty hard luck! I reckon pulling that spike turns your line of levels adrift like knocking out the picket-pin of an uneasy hawss.”

Blake burst into a hearty laugh. “That’s a fine metaphor, Mr. Gowan. But it does not happen to fit the case. It would not matter if the spike-hole had been pulled out and the post along with it, so far as concerns this line of levels.”

“It wouldn’t?” muttered Gowan, his lean jaw dropping slack. He glowered as if chagrined at the engineer’s laughter at his mistake.

Without heeding the puncher’s look, Blake began to tell Knowles the result of his day’s work. While he was speaking, they went into the house after his wife and the girl, leaving Gowan and Ashton alone. Equally sullen and resentful, the rivals exchanged stares of open hostility. Ashton pointed a derisive finger at the spike-hole in the post.

“‘Hole … and the post along with it!’” he repeated Blake’s words. “On bridge work it might have caused some trouble. But a preliminary line of levels–Mon Dieu! A Jap should have known better–or even a yap!” With a supercilious shrug, he swung back into the buckboard and drove up to the corral.