Out of the Primitive Part 10

"Too busy over this Arizona dam," said Griffith, jerking his pipe towards the drawings on his desk.

"What dam?" demanded Blake, bending forward, keenly alert.

"Zariba--big Arizona irrigation project. Simple as A, B, C, except the dam itself. That has stumped half a dozen of the best men. Promoters are giving me a try at it now. But I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more 'n I can chew."

"You?" said Blake incredulously.

"Yes, me. When it comes to applying what's in the books, I'm not so worse. You know that, Tommy. But this proposition--Only available dam site is across a stretch of bottomless bog, yet it's got to hold a sixty-five foot head of water."

"Je-ru-salem!" whistled Blake. "Say, you've sure got to give me a shy at that, Grif. It can't be worked out--that's a cinch. Just the same, I'd like to fool with the proposition."

Griffith squinted at the younger engineer through his pipe smoke, and grunted: "Guess I'll _have_ to let you try, if you're set on it." He nodded to Lord James. "You know how much use it is bucking against Tommy. The boys used to call him a mule. They were half wrong. That half is bulldog."

"Aw, come off!" put in Blake. "You know it's just because I hate to quit."

"That's straight. You're no quitter. Shouldn't wonder if you held on to this dam problem till you swallowed it."

"Stow the kidding," said Blake, embarra.s.sed.

"I'm giving it to you straight. This dam has made a lot of good ones quit. I'm about ready to quit, myself. But I'll be--switched if I don't think you'll make a go of it, Tommy."

"In your eye!"

"No." Griffith took out his pipe and fixed an earnest gaze on Blake.

"I'm not one to slop over. You know that. I can put it all over you in mathematics--in everything that's in the books. So can a hundred or more men in this country. Just the same, there's something--you've got something in you that ain't in the books."

"Whiskey?" suggested Blake, with bitter self-derision.

"Tom!" protested Lord James.

"What's the use of lying about it?" muttered Blake.

"You've no whiskey in you now," rejoined Griffith. "I'm talking about what you are now,--what you've got in your head. It's brains."

"Pickled in alcohol!" added Blake, more bitterly than before.

"That's a lie, and you know it, Tommy. You're not yet on the shelf--not by a long sight."

Blake grinned sardonically at Lord James. "Hear that, Jimmy? Never take the guess of an engineer. They're no good at guessing. It's not in the business."

"Chuck it. You know you've got something worth fighting for now."

"Lots of chance I'll have to win out against you!" Blake's teeth ground together on his unlighted cigar. He jerked it from his mouth and flung it savagely into the wastebasket. But the violent movement discharged the tension of his black humor.

"Lord! what a grouch I am!" he mumbled. "Guess I'm in for a go at the same old thing."

Griffith and Lord James exchanged a quick glance, and the former hastened to reply: "Don't you believe it, Tommy. Don't talk about _my_ guessing. You're steady as a rock, and you're going to keep steady.

You're on the Zariba Dam now,--understand?"

"It's a go!" cried Blake, his eyes glowing. "That fixes me. You know my old rule: Not a drop of anything when I'm on a job. Only one thing more, and I'm ready to pitch in. I must get Mollie to put me up."

Griffith looked down, his teeth clenching on the pipe stem. There was a moment's pause. Then he replied in a tone more than ever dry and emotionless: "Guess my last letter didn't reach you. I lost her, a year ago--typhoid."

"G.o.d!" murmured Blake. He bent forward and gripped his friend's listless hand.

Griffith winced under the sympathetic clasp, turned his face away, coughed, and rasped out: "Work's the one thing in the world, Tommy.

Always believed it. I've proved it this year. Work! Beats whiskey any day for making you forget ... I've got rooms here. You'll bunk with me.

Pretty fair restaurant down around the corner."

"It's a go," said Blake. He nodded to Lord James. "That lets you out, Jimmy."

"Out in the cold," complained his lords.h.i.+p.

"What! With Mamma Gantry waiting to present you to the upper crust?--I mean, present the crust to you."

"Best part of the pie is under the crust."

"Now, now, none of that, Jimmy boy. You're not the sort to take in the town with a made-in-France thing like that young Ashton."

"Ashton?" queried Griffith. "You don't mean Laffie Ashton?"

"He was down at the depot to give our party the glad hand."

"Your party?" repeated Griffith. He saw Blake wink at Lord James, and thought he understood. "I see. He knows Mr. Scarbridge, eh? It's like him, dropping his work and running down here, when he ought to stick by his bridge."

"His bridge?" asked Blake. "Say, he did blow about having landed the Michamac Bridge. But of course that's all hot air. He didn't even take part in the compet.i.tion. Besides, you needn't tell me he's anything more than a joke as an engineer."

"Isn't he, though? After you pulled out the last time--after the compet.i.tion,--he put in plans and got the Michamac Bridge."

"You're joking!" cried Blake. "He got it?--that _gent!_"

"You'll remember that all who took part in the compet.i.tion failed on the long central span," said Griffith.

"No!" contradicted Blake. "_I_ didn't. I tell you, it was just as I wrote you I'd do. I worked out a new truss modification. I'd have sworn my cantilever was the only one that could span Michamac Strait."

"And then to have your plans lost!" put in Griffith with keen sympathy beneath his dry croak. "h.e.l.l! That bridge would have landed you at the top of the ladder in one jump."

"Losing those plans landed me on a brake-beam, after my worst spree ever," muttered Blake.

"Don't wonder," said Griffith. "What gets me, though, is the way this young Ashton, this lily-white lallapaloozer of a kid-glove C. E., came slipping in with his plans less than a month after the contest. I looked up the records."

"What were you doing, digging into that proposition?" demanded Blake.

"What d' you suppose? Ashton was slick enough to get an ironclad contract as Resident Engineer. His bridge plans are a wonder, but he's proved himself N. G. on construction work. Has to be told how to build his own bridge. I'm on as Consulting Engineer."

"You?" growled Blake. "You, working again for H. V. Leslie!"

"Give the devil his due, Tommy. He's sharp as tacks, but if you've got his name to a straightforward contract--"