CHAPTER FIVE
A country that has yielded a billion and a half of gold is, perforce, well and favorably known to the uttermost parts of the earth. Though the stream of yellow wealth diminishes, or even ceases to flow, yet the channel is carved through which the thoughts of men longingly roll. Upon such a land no limit of impossibility is placed. Upon what has been, the faith of man lays the foundations of nobler structures yet to be. The structures may rise and fall, but the foundation yet remains. It matters not to the builders of golden castles that, between the gold fields of California and the line that marked another nation, the whole of New England could lie, like an island in a sea of desert sand; California was yet California, and the Pactolean sands of the Cascades and the Sierras spread their yellow sheen over the whole vast expanse of mountain, and valley, and desert.
Winston was right. The gold that had flowed to the Eastward was now returning in heavy waves. From the pockets of idle tourists, it was scattered with lavish hand. From the pockets of gamblers, it came also; gamblers who, with trembling fingers, placed their gold on checkered town-lots, and waited for the spinning wheel to return it with usury, and went out white and haggard when the croupier declared against them. It came in the pockets of shrewd-eyed men who parted with it for a proper consideration, or not at all.
Into this stream of wealth, Winston was planning to build his dam. His efforts were rewarded more abundantly and sooner than either he or the more sanguine Elijah had expected.
Elijah had suggested a movement on the speculators in Ysleta lots, but against this Winston had set his hand.
"We don't want floaters; we want stayers. I met a man in the crowd yesterday who's a stayer all right. I think he'll come in. If he does, it will make me feel good in more ways than one. He's got money and he's got a head that tells him where there's more."
"What's his name?"
"Seymour. He'll be in, in a day or two, to look the matter up. That young orange grove of yours took his hard head by storm. He didn't do a thing yesterday but roll those navels that Amy gave him, in his fist, all the way down. He would have rubbed them under his nose if he hadn't been afraid to trust his teeth. As it was, he kept smelling of his fingers. Didn't say a word!" Winston laughed. "It makes us feel good, doesn't it, Elijah?"
A few days later, they were again in Winston's office, awaiting the coming of Seymour.
Winston turned to Elijah.
"You remember Helen Lonsdale?"
"Yes, what about her?" Elijah looked up questioningly.
"What did you make out of her?"
"She appeared to be a very able young woman."
"You don't think she would get stampeded very easily, do you?"
"I hardly think so." Elijah smiled. "She gave me some very telling reasons for keeping out of Ysleta lots."
"And you gave her some pretty convincing reasons for thinking that orange trees on a hillside would grow better crops than corner stakes on a sand dune."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because you hadn't been gone an hour before she was in here and wanted to know if she could get into this building on the ground floor. She said she had a few thousands that she wanted to put in a good thing."
"You told her 'yes,' didn't you?" Elijah's voice was eager.
"I told her 'no.'"
"You ought to have taken her up."
"I don't know about that. This business is a sure thing one way, but in another, it isn't. It's a big thing. If we can swing it, it's all right. If we can't, it's going to go hard with the small fry. I may want to look into those big black eyes of hers again sometime."
"Why haven't you introduced me to Helen Lonsdale before?"
Winston was surprised, more at the manner of Elijah's question than at the question itself. He shifted the onus of the surprise to Elijah's shoulders.
"Why should I?" he asked bluntly.
"That's a Yankee trick, not a Californian's," retorted Elijah.
"I'm not too old to learn."
Elijah laughed consciously.
"It doesn't matter. We're acquainted now."
"It's up to you to make it worth her while to keep it up. She's rather particular about her friends."
Elijah was irritated, and not for the first time in his relations with Winston. Winston seemed to him to be contradictory. At times he was deferential to the point of enthusiasm; at times reserved, if not cynical. Elijah was not a close reasoner and he failed to understand that Winston's principles were a kind of moral straight-edge which he applied impartially. Winston had no hesitancy in calling attention to discrepancies.
"Helen Londsdale is a mighty bright girl. She may be of use to us," hazarded Elijah.
Winston's momentary glance was searching.
"I expect she will be," he answered curtly.
After a short pause, Elijah resumed the broken conversation.
"You're going for Seymour?"
"Oh, yes. That's all right. A few hundred thousand wouldn't hurt Seymour. Five thousand would break Helen Lonsdale. Beside, if Seymour takes hold of it, it's going."
Elijah changed the point bluntly.
"Well, who's going to do the talking? You've done all the work and made out the estimates; you'd better. We don't want to make any mistakes."
"That's all right Elijah, but it isn't always the folks who make the cartridges that shoot the straightest. I'll stand by to furnish ammunition if you run short, but you work the trigger." Winston laughed. "I loaded him with estimates and facts. They're good so far as they go; but you know that champagne is pretty flat without the fizz. Here he comes now."
A man of medium height entered the office. There was more than a suggestion of iron about him. Iron-gray hair and mustache; steely, quick moving eyes, but not restless; hard lines that blocked out close-set lips; a firm decided step. Withal, a not unpleasant man; but one who suggested that the pleasure of acquiring money and the pleasure of spending it, had appropriate and distinct seasons. He acknowledged Winston's introduction with a quick look at Elijah.
"From what Mr. Winston said, I expected to meet an older man, Mr. Berl."
"That's all right, Mr. Seymour," Winston put in. "We don't put new wine in old bottles out here. This is a new country. Elijah is a new man, and he's chuck full of new ideas."
"I'm getting near enough to the age limit to make your figure rather doubtful, so far as I am concerned." Seymour's features relaxed in a grim smile as he pointed to his gray hair.
"We don't count a horse old, so long as he can kick the top rail off a fence."
Seymour looked closely at Winston, but made no reply. He began to talk with Elijah. At first, Elijah was conscious of the momentous importance of the interview; but this did not prevent him from grasping the import of Seymour's questions and answering clearly and to the point. Gradually he lost himself in his subject and poured forth fact after fact, estimate on estimate, with such rapidity that Seymour felt compelled at times to interrupt him.
"This is new business to me, Mr. Berl. I can't keep up with you." He spoke sharply, almost impatiently, but his manner showed that he was deeply impressed, both with the proposition and with Elijah himself.
"That is a strong presentation of your proposition, Mr. Berl. Now I want a few definite answers to definite questions. As I understand you, you propose to do something entirely new. What warrant have you for believing that oranges can be successfully grown in this district? Oranges are a tropical fruit."
"People are used to thinking that oranges are a tropical fruit. They aren't. Look at Spain, and France, and Italy. They are famous for this very fruit. Here," Elijah swept his hands around, "those conditions are reproduced. Here are the San Bernadinos, there the Pacific, between are desert hills. Bring water to this sunshine and soil, and California will become the garden of the New World."
Seymour smiled at Elijah's enthusiasm. His words were fervid, but Seymour realized their truth.
"That's all right for Spain, and Italy and the rest; but those countries are only a few hours by water from three hundred millions of people, while California is six days by rail from sixty millions, and high rate express at that."
Elijah's face lost none of its assurance; but his eyes half closed as he grasped Seymour's import. He answered with less fire but no less conviction.
"I'll take your estimate of sixty millions and six days express. Suppose that each of those sixty millions ate only two oranges a year, that calls for one hundred and twenty millions. If these oranges sold at five cents, there are six million dollars in a year. That's worth while, isn't it?"
Seymour nodded assent and Elijah resumed. He pointed out the cost of the land, of water, the care of the orchards, express rates and other charges.
"Taking all this into account, your net yield on your investment will be at least fifteen percent."
Seymour again smiled.
"That's all right too; but it hasn't been proved that California will produce one hundred and twenty million oranges."
Elijah was nettled. It irritated him to be questioned too closely. He was too thoroughly convinced, too thoroughly in earnest.
"No one believed in the Western hemisphere till Columbus found it."
Seymour paid no attention to Elijah's impatience. He had a concentrated look on his face. He spoke again sharply and decidedly.
"You believe in this thing. So do I. If suitable terms can be arranged, I am prepared to back my belief with cash."
"To what extent?" Elijah asked briefly.
"A hundred thousand or so. Think over what you will do and I will be in again, in an hour. If your terms are all right, I'll get the money for you at once." He left the office.
Elijah turned jubilantly to Winston.
"We're all right now."
"For a starter." Winston was sober.
"What do you mean?" Elijah spoke sharply.
"We've got a hundred thousand dollars. That's one thing. Now it's up to us to make it pay. That's another." Winston did not lack confidence or faith. He was realizing his responsibilities.
They began arranging terms for the transfer of an interest. Elijah, full of the enthusiasm of success, could hardly pin himself down to details. His years of dreams were being realized. He was looking upon a step as taken. With his foot as yet hardly lifted, already he was looking toward other paths. Winston held him down to the present.
At the appointed hour, Seymour reappeared. The terms offered were satisfactory.
"I must get back East and attend to my other business. I shall have to trust this to you."
Perhaps it was a mistake; but Winston had the feeling that Seymour's eyes rested upon him with his last words, that it was to him that the work was entrusted, that upon him was the responsibility, that he would be the one called to account. This did not oppress him; it sobered him. As Seymour finally left the office, Winston turned to Elijah.
"It's up to us now to show what there is in us."
CHAPTER SIX
It did not follow because Seymour had promised to back the Las Cruces Water Company to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars, that he intended to put in that amount of his own money; nor because he had promised a certain sum, that that sum was the limit. He had become thoroughly convinced that the enterprise was well conceived and that with proper management it was bound to succeed and to "succeed big." He wisely concluded that those who had conceived the project and had figured out so minutely the cost and detail, were the proper ones to trust with its execution. He was too cold blooded to be figurative, but Winston's figure to Elijah exactly expressed his attitude of mind. Elijah furnished the fizz of enthusiasm, while Winston supplied the necessary body to the wine, with his well-balanced, matter-of-fact mind. There was nothing in his contract to prevent his disposing at par of one half of the two hundred thousand shares which he had acquired at fifty, and this was the step which he proposed to take and which he did take. He too regarded the laborer as worthy of his hire.
Mr. Seymour was a business man. He was shrewd and he was very successful. It did not necessarily follow that he was unscrupulous. In fact, from a purely business standpoint, he was not; but he had no Quixotic limitations to the end that he was his brother's keeper. The world was full of disastrous mistakes; he took it as he found it. He did not count as a sin of his own, the omission to do good unto others when opportunity offered; but he regarded the opportunity as an indication of sin or at least of poor judgment in his fellow. He was a church communicant in good and regular standing; but religion was one thing, business another. He did not search the scriptures either for approbation or for defense. He acted upon the principle that offenses must be and that woe was the lot of the one through whom they came. The woe that was visited upon the offender was in reality no less a reward of merit than the benefit which accrued to the one who was wise enough to take advantage of the offense. He never pointed to the decalogue with the smug assertion that this had been kept from his youth up. If his business record did not show this, words would be useless. He wasted no love on his neighbor, for love was a dissipater of energy. Love engendered pity, pity sacrifice, and sacrifice precluded success. Every tub must stand on its own bottom. If his neighbor's tub leaked, it was his neighbor's fault for not keeping it calked. His neighbor had no ground for complaint if the liquor which he spilled, was gathered by a more fitting vessel.
Mr. Seymour's one hundred thousand shares of Las Cruces had cost him nothing, save a little energy. If he did no better, he would have so much clear. That was worth while. If Winston and Berl made a mess of the affair, that was no concern of his. One man's extremity was to him another man's opportunity. He intended to be the other man. Elijah was an enthusiast, Winston a professional man. Enthusiasm would inflate iridescent bubbles, professional pride would be an absorbing end in itself. Both were essential, neither would necessarily supply the third element of success, business acumen. At the proper time he would supply this himself and at his own price. In any event, he would be perfectly safe.
The orderly bustle which succeeded Seymour's departure, argued well for the success of the new company. Experienced Ysleta boomers saw in "Las Cruces" a new kind of boom, and beyond offering to put their experience and methods at the service of the new company, did nothing further. The idea of taking up land on a venture near Elijah's ranch, was discussed, but the conclusion was reached that this land was too far from Ysleta to be advantageous and that attention distracted from their own kettle of fish would result in the deadening of the fires that were keeping their own pot boiling.
The division of the entailed labor fell naturally. The engineering work demanded Winston's presence in the field. The office duties fell to Elijah. It was Winston who suggested to Elijah the necessity of a bookkeeper and that there was no one better fitted in every way than Helen Lonsdale. Winston had no doubts of Elijah's intentional integrity and he had great confidence in Helen Lonsdale's ability both in business and in looking out for herself. So she was installed as an essential feature of the company. She felt herself in a position of great and growing responsibility.
Days slipped into weeks and weeks into months with the easy motion of well-organized work. Helen hardly surpassed Winston's expectations, but as he darted in and out of the office, full of his work, he felt no more than a passing sense of satisfaction at the readiness with which everything that he wanted came to his hands. Helen might have a personal pride in never being caught unprepared, but she never displayed the emotion. It was Winston himself who was first caught off his guard. He rushed into the office one afternoon with a look of annoyance, almost of disgust on his face.
"I've made a mess, Helen. I want you to help me out."
"Short of powder at No. 1?" Helen hardly looked up from her work.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"I ordered two tons from the magazine. It's on its way there now."
"Good! But how did you know that I was short?"
"From the reports. I thought you wouldn't be in, so I ordered it."
"You are a jewel, Helen. I haven't had time to tell you so before, but I've known it all along."
"Jewels are ornamental, not useful."
"You are both."
Helen glanced at the clock.
"Office hours aren't over yet and the company isn't paying me to trade sugar plums."
"All right. I'll see you off shift sometime."
Elijah's work kept him much in the office and he was held to business quite as closely as was Winston. Helen showed her appreciation of his work by saying nothing, but doing everything that came to her hands. He longed to drink of the sparkling waters of his dreams, and with all that was in her, Helen was trying to convert these iridescent dreams into material facts. Elijah longed also to see Helen's eyes kindle, to hear her words of commendation; but she never spoke now of his idea. Thus it happened that one phase of his nature was hungered, the other fully satisfied.
Poor Amy was the only party to the new order of things who was unhappy. She had accepted the necessity of Elijah's absence at the Ysleta office, not with resignation, but with unprotesting grief. She regarded this as the dregs of her cup of bitterness; but when she learned of Elijah's assistant, she discovered her mistake. She mourned over his absence, yet utterly refused to consider the idea of moving to Ysleta. He must come to her at her bidding; she could not bring herself to go to him at his. This was her touchstone of love and devotion. It was failing her, and in sackcloth and ashes she was mourning it. She made a brave attempt at cheerfulness when Elijah broached the subject, but she could neither keep the color in her cheeks nor her lips steady when she made reply.
"Don't ask me, Elijah. I can't bear it."
"Why?" he asked in surprise.
"Because," she paused for a moment. "We have been here almost four years, just you, and I and the children. Every spot of it is a part of you. It would be like death to leave it. While you are away, I shall look forward to your coming back. If I should go to Ysleta, you wouldn't be coming back."
"Of course not. I'd be there all the time. You'd have lots of company. I could run in to lunch and bring my friends." Elijah lifted his head and squared his shoulders. He caught not the slightest glimpse of Amy's real feeling. His words and gestures showed that only too plainly even to her.
Amy smiled wanly.
"I wouldn't have you all to myself there. I would rather have you all to myself part of the time, than part of you all the time." It was a tremendous thought for Amy. She almost stood in awe of herself over its utterance.
"You are a silly goose." Elijah caught her in his arms and swung her to and fro as if she were a child. "You have me all the time, wherever I am."
Amy lay in his arms with closed eyes. The color came back to her face. It was only a dream; a dream of what had been. She knew it was only a dream and she tried to close her mental eyes to this knowledge. She was aroused when Elijah set her on her feet.
"I have lots to do at the office now."
Amy's face showed a sudden gleam of inspiration.
"Couldn't I be in the office with you?"
"Of course not, goose. You'd be in the way."
"Is the bookkeeper in the way?" The words were almost gasped.
"Of course not. She'd be in the way if she wasn't there."
"Why?" The word was spoken perforce and with fear.
"Because I couldn't get along without her. She's no end of help to me in my work."
"Couldn't I help you? I would try hard."
Elijah laughed long and loud. Not brutally, at least he had no intention of brutality; but the thought of Amy's doing Helen Lonsdale's work incited his thoughtless mirth. It was inconsiderate rather than thoughtless, for he had not personified Amy's words. Her white face brought the truth home. He grew sober.
"Not the way you mean, Amy. You will have to help me in your way, and Miss Lonsdale in another. Goodbye, dear. Don't scare yourself with pictures, as I said before."
Amy watched him as on a former occasion; then she had thought her lot hard. She would now be glad to exchange forever and to ask no more. Then, she feared. Now she knew that there were others, beside herself, upon whom Elijah depended. Farther, she could not go, for she could not see her own limitations.
At his office in Ysleta, Elijah found Helen Lonsdale bent over a map and oblivious to her surroundings. A pad and pencil were at her elbow. She was tracing the map with one finger which occasionally recurred to one point, while with the other hand she was apparently recording memoranda. Finally the maps were pushed aside and pad and pencil absorbed her entire attention. There were pauses during which she looked at the map, ran over her figures and then her pencil flew over the pad more rapidly than before. At length she sat up straight, spread the slips of paper before her, and, rolling her pencil meditatively between her fingers, appeared absorbed in thought.
"You seem to be deeply interested." Elijah was standing at the door of the inner office.
Helen turned her head sharply.
"You're just in time to sign these letters before the mail closes."
Elijah seated himself at his desk and signed the letters, as one by one, she placed them before him.
"Do you want to look them over?" she asked.
"No, you never make mistakes."
She began reading and folding the letters.
"I think they are all right. You stamp them." She glanced at the clock. "You'll have to hurry."
Elijah stamped the letters as she tossed them to him. As the last stamp was affixed, she shuffled them together, and, with a glance over her shoulder at the clock, started through the door.
"Have the boy take them over." Elijah called out.
"Boy and hurry aren't on intimate terms." She was already on the threshold of the outer door. In a few moments she returned. "If I had sent the boy, the letters would have lain over until tomorrow, I was just in time." She drew a handkerchief over her flushed face. The handkerchief was not purely ornamental, neither did it suggest unrefined utilitarianism. It lacked lace, but not delicacy. The motion that swept it over her face was decided, but not harsh. Her movements, as she seated herself at her desk and turned her face full toward Elijah, were quick, yet rhythmic and graceful. There was masculine alertness and concentration; yet both were softened by a femininity, unobtrusive but not to be ignored. For over six months, she had been "Helen" to him as he was "Elijah" to her. Yet the barrier between man and woman that seemed so frail, had effectively obstructed the path that led to intimacy.
Elijah was half-conscious of a longing which he could not express, half-conscious that every attempt to gratify it was repulsed by an intangible atmosphere which seemed transparent and unresisting, yet was dense and impenetrable. Had he been able to state his position to himself at this time, he would have shrunk from the picture. He was not analytical, therefore he did not know that the greater part of the sins of the world are the result not of deliberate premeditation and decision, but of the almost unconscious, initial yielding to apparently innocent impulses which should be recognized for what they are, for what they may be, and crushed out of existence at once.
Elijah was strong in his vision of possibilities, strong in his purpose to wrest success from the teeth of defeat, strong in the enthusiasm that made him tingle with restless impatience to be doing, strong in his power to kindle others with the fire of his own purpose; yet he was weak. Weak because of an unconscious, yet all-pervading selfishness. Imperative as were his visions, even so were his desires, and unconsciously both centred in himself. As in the rock-ribbed, narrow confines of his New England home, so in the desolate, sun-burned deserts of California, unchecked by contact with his fellow men, his thoughts ran riot in the channels of his glowing soul. He had longed for sympathetic companionship; but his solitary, isolated life forbade it. This longing had found gratification in what he grew to believe was fellowship with God. His youth fostered the idea, his growing, solitary years developed it into a fanatical belief. If he was in doubt, he took refuge in prayer, not for guidance, firmly as he may have believed it, but for confirmation. From his youth up, he had had a fanatical belief in the guidance of Divinity, and had placed the Bible as a lamp to his feet. Elijah prayed to God for guidance in paths which he should have chosen for himself, blindly putting aside the fact that in the very seeking for guidance, he was longing to be confirmed in a course which in the depths of his soul he knew to be wrong. Fortified by his belief, armed by God's sanction, he followed his desires mercilessly and without shame.
Helen Lonsdale was not analytical, she was not fanatical, nor was she deeply religious. Her surroundings had precluded that. She had strong common sense. When for lack of experience this failed her, she had intuition. She moved among men fearlessly, because in the field of their movements, sex was not thought of, – only things to be done. The two men with whom, in her present relations, her lot was so intimately cast, stood respectively on an entirely different footing. In their childhood days, she and Ralph Winston had been playmates. Later, they had been parted only to be thrown into closer relations by a strange turn of Fortune's wheel. She had welcomed Ralph with the unreserve of the days of their childhood. She was, perhaps, on this very account, unconscious that his memories were the more faithful of the two.
Elijah had come into her life, full-fledged, with no childish memories to blur the outlines of the image. However strong Winston was in the eyes of others, there were yet in her eyes the clinging shreds of the memory of other days. She was attracted by Elijah's enthusiasm, the strength of his ideas, of his purpose to succeed. With a woman's intuition she saw the barren stretch of his unsympathetic surroundings, and, with no idea of injustice, the sight prompted her to give in full that which had hitherto been denied him. Her sympathy was aroused, her enthusiasm kindled by his work; but it was apparently impersonal. She was surrounded by an atmosphere of womanliness as delicate as an electric field, which warned off and repelled any disturbing element. Yet her atmosphere was polar; it would respond to the proper element. The element was existent, but as yet unrecognized.
Elijah again turned to Helen.
"How are things going?"
"Ralph is short of powder and cement at the dam. I sent up a pack-train this morning. It will leave two tons of powder at No. 1 tunnel. The magazine is getting low, but San Francisco is sending a carload. It will be here tomorrow. That will keep Ralph supplied for a month. Seymour writes from New York that Las Cruces is snapped at one-twenty; that he is going to run it up to one-thirty. Everything is coming our way on the run."
"We've got a pretty heavy balance to our credit." Elijah spoke meditatively. "Pretty heavy to carry in the local banks."
"That's just what I was going to speak of. I'd let San Francisco carry the bulk of our deposits. It's solid. The local banks may be called any time. You can leave just enough here to keep them good-natured."
"All right. We'll deposit our next checks in 'Frisco. What were you mulling over this morning?"
Helen laughed.
"How to get even with you and Ralph."
"Get even with us!" Elijah looked at her in surprise.
"Yes."
"What do you mean?"
"You wouldn't let me into Las Cruces on the ground floor, so I am planning a building of my own."
"That was Ralph's doing; he didn't want you to run the risk of losing."
"My five thousand was as good, so far as it went, as Seymour's hundred. He got in at fifty. He's made good at one hundred and forty. If you had let me in, I would have had twelve thousand five hundred now. It will take me a long time to earn that." She spoke with assumed levity.
Elijah was regarding her through half-closed eyes. He spoke very deliberately.
"You are right, I wanted to do it, but Ralph wouldn't consent. He meant all right," he added hastily. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you have five thousand dollars of my stock at fifty. That will set you straight."
"No it won't." There was no levity in Helen's voice.
"Why?" Elijah's eyes opened in surprise.
"Because that would be a present, and I don't want presents. What I get, I want to get myself."
"It wouldn't be a present. It would be a reward. You've earned it." Elijah spoke earnestly and warmly.
"From you, not from the company," she replied decidedly and with finality. "Besides, I've discovered a way to help myself. That's better."
"That brings us back to the first point. What were you mulling over?"
Helen drew the map toward them and weighted down the corners.
"Oranges don't mind a breath of cold air now and then; they're dead set against a freeze out." She was looking quizzically at Elijah. An expression of assured satisfaction came over her face at Elijah's astonishment.
His head was thrown back as he raised his eyes to Helen's face.
"What do you mean?"
"As if I needed to tell you." Her lips were scornful at the limitations Elijah had put upon her. A smile softened the scorn and left a doubt as to which emotion was dominant. "You know that oranges on a hillside with southwestern exposure will do better than in an unprotected river bottom."
Elijah looked up fiercely.
"Has Ralph been talking?"
"No; but you have."
"I never said anything of the kind to you."
"I'm not a phonograph."
"You've no right to make use of information that you get from a confidential position." Elijah's voice was decided. There was a startled look on his face that he could not keep from being anxious.