The Vision of Elijah Berl Part 3

Winston looked rapidly over the sheet, then gave a low, meditative whistle.

"Are you sure of this?"

"Dead sure. I've been making observations with self-registering thermometers. That's the result." Elijah pointed to the sheet.

"A frostless belt!" Winston s.n.a.t.c.hed the sheet from his drawing-board and bent over the map, one finger on the sheet, the other eagerly tracing lines on the surface of the map. "That's the greatest thing yet!

There is a big fortune for all of us in that alone."

Elijah half closed his eyes, his teeth bared with a smile suggestive of malice.

"May I offer you some of your advice to me?"

"Certainly, and I'll take it too, when I need it. But say, Elijah, what in the name of the immortals do you want to leave this out for? It's the most telling thing we've got."

Elijah's eyes narrowed closely.

"I haven't got control of the whole belt yet. That's one thing. Another is, that when orange lands get under way, there's going to be a demand that the frostless belt isn't going to supply."

Winston's face set.

"You don't mean that you are going to sell lands for orange ranches that you know won't grow oranges?"

"I don't _know_ that they won't grow oranges," Elijah answered doggedly.

"I only know what will."

"You are going to let people find that out at their own expense?"

"Why not? That's the way I got my information."

There was a contemptuous look on Winston's face.

"Well, I'll be hanged. G.o.d does move in a mysterious way, if you are a fair sample of his stamping ground."

Elijah's face set with resentment. He straightened his lips for an angry retort, but restrained himself. He answered sullenly.

"I tell you, I don't know that the land won't grow oranges. I only know what will. I'm going to get control of this frostless belt. I found it and there's nothing wrong in taking advantage of it. Why not tell the Mexicans who own it now and are glad to sell for a dollar an acre, that their land will grow oranges and that it's worth a thousand?" There was a triumphant note in his last words.

Winston was ready to dismiss this phase of the question.

"Don't ask me. You settle that between you. I notice that the Almighty isn't a hard one to manage when you take him in your lap and reason with him. He usually comes around to your way of thinking."

Elijah's puritanism blinded his eyes to Winston's sarcasm. He saw only the apparently sacrilegious blasphemy of his words. He stood aghast as a superst.i.tious heathen before his smitten idol. His five years of struggle in the West had changed him in no essential point. It had only given room for the full development of the motive that had lain dormant in his former cramped surroundings. Side by side, yet wholly independent the one of the other, his faith in Divine guidance, his reverence for G.o.d, his New England land-hunger, his greed for wealth, his l.u.s.t for power, had grown and were growing with every new opportunity. He had learned to keep in the background, to some extent, the expression of his fanatical beliefs, not because his personal faith had waned, but in reality because he saw that Divine guidance had less convincing weight with others than the logic of hard, common sense. He learned only that which he wished to learn, believed only that which he wished to believe, did only that which he wished to do; not because of conscious hypocrisy, but because his very faith in G.o.d's guidance had blinded his eyes to its recognition and forbidden him to question his own desires.

Elijah thought quickly. Even Winston was hardly aware of the pause that ensued after his last words.

"We're drifting from our point. The water question comes first. The other can come up later."

"A good deal later, I hope," Winston replied drily. "Let's get over to Miss Lonsdale's office. She's doing my clerical work now."

Winston was not slow in noting signs and he had seen a good many in his relations with Elijah which had disquieted him. He went steadily on his way, however, confident in his own strength. He gathered a few papers in his hand and with Elijah went out into the street. They entered another redwood cottage that bore a sign, announcing, "Helen Lonsdale, Stenographer, Typewriter and Notary Public."

"Miss Lonsdale, my friend, Mr. Berl. We want some work done right away.

Can you attend to it?"

Miss Lonsdale acknowledged the introduction, swept aside a litter of papers, stripped a half-written page from her machine, drew forth a note-book, and, after pus.h.i.+ng her cuffs from her wrists, a.s.sumed a waiting att.i.tude.

Winston addressed Elijah.

"I guess you're fixed now. You go on with Helen and I'll get back to my work. If you need me, I'll come in." Then he left the office.

Elijah had all but forgotten his business in the contemplation of the girl before him. It was with an almost unconscious feeling of resentment that he heard Winston call her familiarly "Helen."

"I am afraid, Miss Lonsdale," he began, when he was interrupted.

"You can call me Helen. Every one does. It saves time. Time is money, pretty fast too, just now." The words were spoken with a light ripple.

It faintly occurred to Elijah that he had heard something like her laughter before. There was a suggestion of fresh, crisp air, the opening of spring, of young green plants pus.h.i.+ng through the black soil beside New England brooks. There was a further suggestion that very hard stones in the brook caused the soft ripples. One look in the great, liquid, black eyes that absorbed everything and gave back nothing, took away the disagreeable impression and replaced it with one more agreeable. There was no perceptible pause, for while Elijah's thoughts were busy with Helen Lonsdale, his hands were a.s.sorting his papers. He turned to Helen.

"I was going to say, that I am afraid this work will be rather dry."

Helen vouchsafed no reply, but, with eyes now bent upon her note-book and pencil ready poised for action, waited for Elijah. He began rather slowly and awkwardly. He was unaccustomed to dictation, and besides he was conscious of Helen Lonsdale's beauty; but more and more rapidly he went on, as he forgot all else in the absorbing interest of his subject.

He sorted paper from paper, went from point to point, clearly and logically, down to the last figure that Winston had given him. He hardly noted the flying fingers and moving hand that drew lines, and hooks, and dots, and dashes with the graceful ease and regularity of an inanimate machine. At length he paused, folding his papers.

Helen threw down her pencil and straightened her cramped fingers.

"Well!" she exclaimed. "You have given me the time of my life! I was on the point of calling you off once or twice; but I didn't. I'll read it over to you now and see if I have made any mistakes."

Elijah's face was eager, partly from Helen's indirect praise, but more from the enthusiasm of his subject.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked.

"Tired!" she repeated. "This doesn't make me tired. It's more fun than a toboggan slide. It's these everlasting drones who make me tired. Fellows who haven't anything to say and who don't know how to get at it." She took her note-book and began reading rapidly. Elijah listened, watching her through his narrowed eyes. She laid her note-book down.

"How is it?"

"Perfect. You've got everything."

"That's a great piece of work you've got blocked out." Helen's voice was approving.

"The work is not mine."

"No?" Helen's eyes were opened wide.

"No." Elijah's face drooped in reverent lines. "It has been given me to do."

"A-a-h!" Helen dared to commit herself no farther. She could not trust her eyes even. Her lids veiled them and her face a.s.sumed a look of non-committal interest. Elijah was a new species. She had no pigeonhole, even in the wide experience of her limited years, ready made into which she could thrust him.

Elijah felt impelled to go farther. He wanted to look again into the great, black eyes. He steered boldly into a sea where many a time before no less confident mariners had as boldly entered and had come to grief.