Still Jim Part 54

"Down with the Iris.h.!.+" yelled someone.

"You never paid me the fifty dollars you ran up for whiskey in my saloon, Henry," replied Murphy.

There was a roar of laughter and Murphy followed it quickly. "You all know me. I was in the saloon business in this valley for twenty years.

But not one of you can say I wasn't on the straight all that time. The nearest I ever come to doing a man dirt was up in the dam. I was running a saloon just off the Reserve and Big Boss Manning jumped me and made me clean out my own joint. I was mad and I went up to the Greek there, who since is dead, for I heard the Greek was backed by Big Money with which he backed Fleckenstein to do the Service. Says I to myself, I'll help the Greek to do Manning.

"But the Greek cursed me out as I'll stand from no man. Then they took me to Manning and he treated me like a gentleman and asked me for my word of honor to keep off the Project. I know men. And I saw that the fellow I'd set out to do was a real man, carrying a load that was too big for the likes of me to sabez and that it made him sad and lonely. I was sick of the saloon business, anyhow, and when I got his number, I was proud to have been licked by him. Do you get me? Proud! And I says, I'm his friend for life and I'll just keep an eye on the pikers who are trying to do him.

"And I have. You know me, boys. You know that after the priest and the doctor it's the saloonkeeper that knows a man's number. Let me tell you that Fleckenstein is a crook. He'll steal anything from a woman's honor to a water power site. He's playing you folks for suckers. He's having everything his own way. Charlie Ives is the only fellow who's had the nerve to run against Fleckenstein and he's a dead one.

"And now Fleckenstein has done the Big Boss. He's made monkeys of you farmers. He's got you to roasting Manning till you've ruined him. And they ain't one of us fit to black his boots. This Project is his life's blood to him. There isn't anything he would[n't] sacrifice to its welfare. And you're throwing him out. Ain't a man's sacrifice worth anything to you? Will you take his best and give him the Judas kiss in return? Are ye hogs or men?"

There was an angry buzz in the room. Just as Uncle Denny started upon the platform, a tall lank farmer whom the man next him had been nudging violently, rose.

"My name's Marshall," he said, "and my friend Miguel here says I gotta get up and say the few things he and I agreed on last night. I'm mighty sick of hearing us farmers called fools. And now even the women folks have begun it. When our wives won't give us any peace maybe it's time we reformed our judgments. I'm willing to say that I think I've been mistaken about Manning. He came over to my place for the first time a few weeks back. I never talked with him before or got a good look at him. Boys, a man don't get the look that that young fella has on his face unless he's full of ideas that folks will kick him for. I felt kind of worked up about him then, but I didn't do anything.

"Last night I rode down to Cabillo with a Dutchman, some big bug who'd been up at the dam. I'd just been up there with Miguel. He told us that Jim Manning is attracting notice in the old country by the work he's doing on this dam. And he roasted us as samples of fat cattle who'd let a man like Manning go. At least that's what I made out, for he was so mad he talked Dutch a lot. Miguel and I made up our minds then that we'd got in wrong. What has this fellow Fleckenstein ever done for us? Is he going to get us branded over the country as a bunch that'll jump an honest debt? It looks to me as if Manning had done more for us than we knew. I'm willing to give Manning a new chance. I move we turn this meeting into a Manning meeting and I move we send a pet.i.tion to the Secretary of the Interior to keep Manning on the job."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE THUMB PRINT

"I have been buffeted by the ages until I dominate the desert. So do the ages buffet one another until they produce a dominating man."

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Uncle Denny was on the platform before Marshall had ceased speaking.

"Friends, Mr. Marshall has said the thing we had in mind to present to this meeting. It was to be me share to ask you for a pet.i.tion. 'Twill be the pride of Still Jim's life that the request came from a farmer and not from me. If all here will sign and if every man here will make himself responsible for the signatures of his neighbors, the thing can be done in a few days and we will wire the matter to the Secretary of the Interior. Friends, I'd rather see the tide turn for Jim than to see Home Rule in Ireland!"

The tide had turned. One of those marvelous changes of sentiment that sometimes sweep a community began in the wild applause that greeted the tender little closing of Uncle Denny's speech. When Fleckenstein arrived an hour late, he found an empty hall. His audience had dispersed to scour the valleys for signatures for Jim.

Uncle Denny came home to the dam, tired but with the first ray of hope in his heart that he had had for a long time. The pet.i.tion might not influence the authorities and yet the sentiment it raised might defeat Fleckenstein at the last. At any rate, it was something to work for these last hard days of Jim's regime.

Jim had seen the last farmer and was devoting the final days of his stay on the dam to urging the work forward that he might leave as full a record behind him as his broken term permitted. Wrapped in his work and his grief, Jim did not hear of the existence of the pet.i.tion. Henderson had spread word among the workmen of Jim's intended departure. No one cared to speak of the matter to Jim. Something in his stern, sad young face forbade it. But there was not a man on the job from a.s.sociate engineer to mule driver who did not throw himself into his work with an abandon of energy that drove the work forward with unbelievable rapidity. All that his men could do to help Jim's record was to be done.

For three days before the election Henderson scarcely slept. He tried to be on all three s.h.i.+fts. "I even eat my meals from a nose bag," he told Uncle Denny sadly.

"And what's a nose bag?" asked Uncle Denny.

"A nose bag is the thing you tie on a horse for him to get his grub from. Also it's the long yellow bag the cook puts the night s.h.i.+ft's lunch in. But I'd starve if 'twould keep the Boss on the job. I'd even drink one of Babe's c.o.c.ktails."

Henderson waited for Uncle Denny's "Go ahead with the story," then he began sadly:

"Algernon Dove was Babe's real name. He was an English remittance-man here in the early days. The Smithsonian folks came down here and wanted to get someone to go out with them to collect desert specimens, rattlers, Gila monsters, hydrophobia skunks and such trash. Babe and Alkali Ike, his running mate, went with them. They took a good outfit, the Smithsonian folks did, and in one wagon they took a barrel of alcohol and dumped the reptiles into it as fast as they found them. They got a good bunch, little by little, snakes and horned toads and hydrophobia skunks. In about two weeks they was ready to come back. Then they noticed the bad smell."

Henderson paused. "What was the matter?" asked Uncle Denny.

"Babe and Ike had been drinking the alcohol, day by day," he answered in his musical voice. "The barrel just did 'em two weeks. Just because I talk foolish talk, Mr. Dennis, ain't a sign that I don't feel bad. I don't want the Boss to speak to me or I'll cry."

The day of the election was a long one for Jim. He packed his trunk and his personal papers and Mrs. Flynn began to wrap the legs of the chairs in newspapers. Her tears threatened to reduce each wrapping to pulp before she completed it. In the afternoon, Jim started for a last tour of the dam. He covered the work slowly, looking his last at the details over which he had toiled and dreamed so long. He walked slowly up from the lower town. The men who pa.s.sed him glanced away as if they would not intrude on his trouble.

The work on the dam was going forward as though life and death depended on the amount accomplished by this particular s.h.i.+ft. Jim was inexpressibly touched by this display of the men's good will, but he could think of no way to show his feeling.

Just at sunset he climbed the Elephant's back. But he was not to have this last call alone. Old Suma-theek was sitting on the edge of the crater, his fine face turned hawklike toward the distance. Jim nodded to his friend, then sat down in his favorite spot where, far across the canyon, he could see the flag, rippling before the office.

After a time, the old Indian came over to sit beside him. He followed Jim's gaze and said softly:

"That flag it heap pretty but wherever Injun see it he see sorrow and death for Injun."

Jim answered slowly: "Perhaps we're being paid for what we've done to you, Suma-theek. The white tribe that made the flag is going, just as we have made you go. The flag will always look the same, but the dream it was made to tell will go."

"Who sabez the way of the Great Spirit? He make you go. He make Injun go. He make n.i.g.g.e.r and Chinamans stay. Perhaps they right, you and Injun wrong. Who sabez?"

"I'd like to have finished my dam," Jim muttered. "Somehow we are inadequate. I woke up too late." And suddenly a deeper significance came to him of Pen's verse--

"Too late for love, too late for joy; Too late! Too late!

You loitered on the road too long, You trifled at the gate----"

"When you old like Suma-theek," said the Indian, "you sabez then nothing matter except man make his tribe live. Have children or die! That the Great Spirit's law for tribes."

Jim said no more. The daily miracle of the sunset was taking place. An early snow had capped the far mountain peaks and these now flashed an unearthly silver radiance against the crimson heavens. Old Jezebel wandered remotely, a black scratch across a desert of blood red.

Distance indefinable, beauty indescribable, once more these quickened Jim's pulse. Almost, almost he seemed to catch the key to the Master Dream and then--the scarlet glow changed to purple, and night began its march across the sands.

Jim made his way down the trail and up to his house. Waiting at his door were three of his workmen. They were young fellows, fresh shaved and wearing white collars. Jim invited them in and they followed awkwardly.

They took the cigars he offered and then s.h.i.+fted uneasily while Jim stood on the hearth rug regarding them with his wistful smile. He was not so very many years older than they.

"Boss," finally began one of the men, "us fellows heard a few days ago that you were going to leave. We wanted to do something to show we liked you and what a--d--doggone shame it is you're going and--and we didn't have time to buy anything, but we made up a purse. Every rough-neck on the job contributes, Boss; they wanted to. Here's about two hundred dollars. We'd like to have you buy something you can remember us by."

The spokesman stopped, perspiring and breathless. His two companions came forward and one of them laid on the table a cigar box which, when opened, showed a pile of bills and coins. Jim's face worked.

"Boys," said Jim huskily, "boys--I'm no speaker! What can I say to you except that this kindness takes away some of the sting of going. I'll buy something I can take with me wherever I go."

"Don't try to say nothing, Boss," said the spokesman. "I know what it is. I laid awake all night fixing up what I just said."

"It was a darned good speech," replied Jim. "Don't forget me, boys. When you finish the dam remember it was my pipe dream to have finished it with you."

The three shook hands with Jim and made for the door. Jim stood staring at the money, smiling but with wet eyes, when Bill Evans' automobile exploded up to the house. Uncle Denny was sitting in the tonneau with two other men. Jim walked slowly out to the road. One of the men was the Secretary of the Interior; the other, a slender, keen-faced young man, was his private secretary. Jim's face was white in the dusk.

"Well, young man," said the Secretary, "you have been having some strenuous times since the Hearing. And for a man reputed to be unpopular, you have some good friends."

Bill Evans, almost bursting with importance, undid the binding wire that fastened the door of the tonneau and the Secretary arose.

"If you had telegraphed me, Mr. Secretary," Jim began with a reproachful glance at Uncle Denny.