Chapter 11

THE TEST

A boisterous wind swept the high plain and round, white-edged clouds rolled across the sky. The grass that ran back from the horizon was parched, and in the distance a white streak of blowing dust marked a dried alkali lake. Dust of dark color drove along the row of wooden stores and houses that fronted the railroad track, across which three grain elevators rose like castles. The telegraph posts along the track melted into the level waste, and behind the spot where they vanished the tops of a larger group of elevators cut the edge of the plain.

The street was not paved, and the soil was deeply ploughed by wheels. The soil was the black gumbo in which the wheat plant thrives, but the town occupied the fringe of a dry belt and farming had not made much progress. Now, however, a company was going to irrigate the land with water from a river fed by the Rockies' snow. The town was square, and although it looked much smaller than real-estate agents' maps indicated, it was ornamented by four wooden churches, a Y.M.C.A. like a temple, and an ambitious public hall.

The Tecumseh Hotel occupied a corner lot at the end of the street and was not remarkably commodious or clean, but its charges were less than the Occidental's by the station, and Lister and Kemp were not fastidious. Some time had gone since they pulled the gravel cars out of the swamp and they had not been sent to the lake section. In consequence, they had applied to the irrigation company for a post, and having been called to meet the engineers and directors, imagined they were on the short list.

Lister lounged against the rails on the Tecumseh veranda. The boards were cracked and dirty; burned matches and cigar ends were scattered about, and a skeleton, gauze covered door that shut with a powerful spring kept some of the flies and mosquitoes out of the hotel.

"We'll know to-morrow," he remarked presently.

Kemp nodded. "I can't figure on our chances. Feel anxious about it?"

"Not much. In fact, I mean to use the thing to test my luck. If we're engaged, I'll stay in Canada; if they turn us down, I'll start for the Old Country."

"You have no particular plans, I reckon."

"No," said Lister, smiling. "I'm going to look about. I know our new Western towns, but I want to see old cities, churches, and cathedrals; the great jobs men made before they used concrete and steel. Then I'd like to study art and music and see the people my father talked about. Ours is a good country, but when it's all you know it gets monotonous." He indicated the row of wooden houses and lonely plain. "One wants more than the track and this."

"It's possible you may go across," said Kemp. "Looks as if the company's short list was pretty long. There's a gang of candidates in town, we have no pull on the directors, and I don't know if our advantages are very marked--" He stopped and laughed, for a man came round the corner. "Hello, Willis!" he exclaimed. "When did you arrive?"

"I came in on the last train. Got a notice to meet the Irrigation Board."

"Oh, well," said Kemp, "since the applicants are more numerous than the posts, I reckon another won't count. Do you expect they're going to take you on?"

"I expect my chance is as good as yours."

"I'll sell you my chance for ten dollars," Kemp rejoined.

"Nothing doing, at the price," said Willis, and went off.

Kemp laughed. Willis was marked by a superficial smartness his comrades sometimes found amusing and sometimes annoying. For the most part, they bore with him good-humoredly, but did not trust him when work that needed careful thought was done.

"The kid looks confident, but his applying for a job is something of a joke," Kemp remarked. "I'd put his value at fifty cents a day."

Lister agreed, and looked up the dusty street. The fronts of the small frame houses were cracked by the sun, and some were carried up to hide the roof and give the building a fictitious height. A Clover-leaf wagon stood in front of a store, the wheels crusted by dry mud, and the team fidgeted amidst a swarm of flies. Except for one or two railroad hands waiting by the caboose of a freight train, nobody was about. The town looked strangely dreary.

Yet Lister knew it stood for all the relief from labor in the stinging alkali dust one could get. One could loaf in a hard chair in front of the hotel, lose a dollar or two at the shabby pool-room, or go to a movie show and see pictures of frankly ridiculous Western melodrama. In the real West, the pictures were ridiculous, because romantic shootings-up did not happen. In fact, unless a stubborn labor dispute began, nothing broke the dull monotony of toilsome effort. Romance had vanished with the buffaloes. Lister admitted that he had not long felt the monotony. The trouble began when he stopped at Winnipeg.

"I think I'll go up the street," he said.

A rough plank sidewalk ran in front of the houses, and Lister imagined it was needed when the spring thaw and summer thunder-storms softened the gumbo soil. Opposite the Occidental he stopped, for Duveen occupied a chair on the veranda. While Lister hesitated Duveen beckoned him to come up.

"It's hot and dusty. Will you take a drink?" he said.

Lister refused with thanks and wondered whether Ruth was at the hotel. In a way, he would like to see her, but admitted that perhaps he had better not. When he asked if she was well Duveen said she had gone to Quebec, and gave Lister a cigar.

"It looks as if you had left the railroad," he remarked.

"I have not left yet," said Lister cautiously.

"Then, you won't go unless you get a better job? Did you know I had joined the Irrigation Board?"

Lister said he did not know, and got embarrassed when Duveen gave him a thoughtful glance. He wondered whether Ruth had talked to Duveen before she hinted he might get a better post.

"Perhaps I ought not to have come up. In fact, I hesitated--"

Duveen laughed. "So I remarked! You reckoned the Occidental stoop was pretty public and your talking to me might imply that you wanted my support? Well, I'll risk that. It's obvious you're on the short list. Do you want a post?"

For a moment or two Lister pondered. He did want a post; anyhow, he ought to try for it. On the whole he liked Duveen, and thought he might have liked Ruth better had she not been rich. All the same, Duveen was a shrewd manipulator of new industries and to take a post by his favor would be to own a debt, for which payment might be demanded. Yet Duveen had been kind and Lister hesitated.

"I asked for a post," he said. "If I'm engaged, I'll try to make good; but I must make good at the dam or on the ditch. Then I don't want to bother my friends. The company has my engineering record and must judge my usefulness by this. If they're not satisfied, I won't grumble much."

"You're an independent fellow, but I think I understand," Duveen rejoined with a twinkle. "A company director's duty _is_ to judge an applicant for a post by his professional record. If you are appointed, you want us to appoint you because we believe you are the proper man?"

"Something like that," said Lister quietly.

Duveen nodded, and his glance rested for a moment on Lister's forehead.

"I see the mark you got on board the train hasn't altogether gone. Did you hear anything about the girl you helped?"

"I did not," said Lister, starting, for he had not imagined Duveen knew about the girl. "I have not seen her since she went off on the locomotive."

"Then she has not written to you since?"

"She could not write, because she doesn't know who I am, and I don't know her. We talked for a minute or two, that's all."

Duveen's face was inscrutable and Lister wondered whether he doubted his statement. He was annoyed because the other knew so much.

"Oh, well," said Duveen, "I expect you heard they didn't catch Shillito, and since he got across the frontier, it's possible the Canadian police won't see him again. But I must get ready for supper. Will you stay?"

Lister excused himself and went back to the Tecumseh, where the bill of fare was frugal and the serving rude. He imagined he had refused much more than a first-class supper, but was satisfied he had taken the proper line. For one thing, Duveen knew Ruth had given him her friendship and, since he knew his daughter, it was significant that he had not thought it necessary to meddle. Lister wondered whether he had meant to use him, and was glad he had kept his independence. If he got the post now, he would know he had rather misjudged Duveen, but he doubted. All the same, he liked the man.

After supper Kemp and he sat on the veranda and watched the green glow fade from the edge of the plain. They did not talk much, but by and by Kemp remarked: "I thought I saw you go into the Occidental."

"Duveen called me on to the stoop."

"Duveen?" Kemp exclaimed. "Then he's got his hand on the wires! If the Irrigation Company puts the undertaking over, a number of the dollars will go to Duveen's wad. If he's your friend, I expect you know he could get you the job."

"It's possible. All the same, I hinted I didn't want his help."

Kemp laughed. "You surprise me every time! I'm all for a square deal and down with scheming grafters and log-rollers, but I allow I hate them worst when they give another fellow the post I want."

"The thing's not fixed yet. The company's engineers are going to judge and our record's pretty good. They may engage us. We'll know to-morrow."

"Sure thing," Kemp remarked dryly. "I reckon we'll both pull out on the first train."

It began to get dark and Lister went off to bed. He must get water from a cistern in the roof and to carry the heavy jug was awkward when one could not see. At the Tecumseh the guests were expected to carry water for themselves, and Lister, groping along the shadowy passage with his load, thought his doing so had some significance. It was part of the price he must pay for freedom.

At the time fixed in the morning, he went to the Occidental and was shown into a room where a number of gentlemen occupied a table. One or two were smoking and the others talked in low voices, but when Lister came in and the secretary indicated a chair they turned as if to study him. Duveen sat next a man at the end of the table and gave Lister a nod. Somehow Lister thought he was amused.

Lister's heart beat. He felt this was ridiculous, because he had persuaded himself it did not matter whether he got the post or not. Now, however, when the moment to try his luck had come, he shrank from the plunge he had resolved to make if he were not engaged. After all, he knew and liked his occupation; to let it go and try fresh fields would be something of a wrench.

The gentlemen did not embarrass him. On the whole, they were urbane, and when the secretary gave the chairman his application one asked a few questions about the work he had done. Lister was able to answer satisfactorily, and another talked to him about the obstacles encountered when one excavated treacherous gravel and built a bank to stand angry floods. For all that, Lister was anxious. The others looked bored, as if they were politely playing a game. He thought they knew beforehand how the game would end, but he did not know. The inquiries that bored the urbane gentlemen had important consequences for him and the suspense was keen.

At length they let him go, and Duveen gave him a smile that Lister thought implied much. When he returned to the hotel Kemp remarked that he looked as if he needed a drink, and suggested that Lister go with him and get one.

"I need three or four drinks, but mean to go without," said Lister grimly. "I begin to understand how some men get the tanking habit."

He started off across the plain, and coming back too late for lunch, found Kemp on the veranda. Kemp looked as if he were trying to be philosophical, but found it hard.

"The secretary arrived not long since," he said. "A polite man! He didn't want to let us down too heavily."

"Ah!" said Lister. "The Irrigation people have no use for us?"

Kemp nodded. "Willis has got the best job; they've hired up two or three others, but we're left out."

"Willis!" exclaimed Lister, and joined in Kemp's laugh.

"After all, the money he's going to get is theirs," said Kemp. "In this country we're a curious lot. We let grafters and wire-pullers run us, and, when we start a big job, get away with much of the capital we want for machines; but somehow we make good. We shoulder a load we needn't carry and hit the pace up hot. If we got clean control, I reckon we'd never stop. However, there's not much use in philosophizing when you've lost your job, and the East-bound train goes out in a few minutes. You'd better pack your grip."