Books: The Long Chance
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Peter B. Kyne >> The Long Chance
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"However, Donna, I had wandered around in the desert long enough to
observe that wherever Nature appears to have created a paradox, there's
always a reason. If Nature makes a mistake here, she places a
compensating offset over there. Here was a valley that with irrigation
could be made marvelously fertile at this point, only the river had to
go brackish and alkaline just where it was needed most. I couldn't
develop an irrigation system from any of the little streams that flowed
down the Sierra, because there wasn't enough water, and there was no
place to impound it, even if there had been sufficient water.
"While I was pondering this peculiar situation, a very strange thing
occurred. The lower portion of the valley, including the stretch of
desert on which I had my eye, was suddenly withdrawn from entry and
thrown into a Forest Reserve by the Department of the Interior. It was
a queer proceeding that--including a desert timbered with sage-brush
and greasewood in a Forest Reserve. Withdrawing from entry lands that
would not even remotely interest settlers!
"I thought this over a great deal, and by and by I began to see the
light. I had suspected from observation and personal experience that
there was a powerful private influence at work in the state land
office, and by reason of their seeming control of the office were
engaged in looting the state of its school lands which were timbered.
In the congressional investigation into certain land frauds in
California, it was discovered that the men accused of the frauds had
been aided by corrupt minor officials in the General Land Office--
clerks and chiefs of certain bureaus, whom the land-grabbers kept on
their private pay-rolls. This was a matter of public record.
Fortunately for the government, however, it has generally managed to
secure for the head of the Land Department able and incorruptible men
to whom no taint of suspicion attached--men whom the land-grabbers dare
not attempt to corrupt.
"At the outset, I strongly suspected that the corrupt influence, which
presumably had been exposed and punished in former investigations, was
nevertheless still at work. The suspicion that grossly erroneous
reports, intentionally furnished the General Land Office by officials
of the Forestry Department in California, was responsible for the
inclusion of the desert in the Forest Reserve, strengthened into belief
the more I thought it over. I thought I could detect in this
hoodwinking of the Department of the Interior, through the agency of
some local official, who had been 'reached' by the land ring, the first
move in a well-planned raid on the public domain, _through the state
land office._
"I quietly investigated the surveyor-general of the state, who is also
ex-officio Registrar of the State Land Office. I discovered that he was
a man of unimpeachable public and private life. I discovered also that
he was in ill health, and had been during the greater portion of his
tenure in office; that he rarely spent more than two hours each day in
his office; that frequently he was away from his office for a month at
a time, ill, and that the office practically was dominated by his
deputy. The surveyor-general was a quiet, easy-going man, advanced in
years and inclined to take things easy, and the upshot of my
investigations confirmed me in the belief that he was taking things
easy--too easy--and that his wide-awake deputy was doing business with
the land ring, by virtue of his unhampered control of the office and
the implicit confidence reposed in him by the surveyor-general.
"There could be but two reasons for this ridiculous action by the
Department of the Interior in thus including a desert in a Forest
Reserve. Either an error had been made by the local forestry officials
in defining the boundaries of the reserve, and thus reporting to the
General Land Office, or the job was intentional. If the former, the
error would be discovered and the boundaries rectified.
"Well, a year passed and the boundaries were not rectified, despite the
fact that I wrote half a dozen complaining letters to the General Land
Office. The answer was easy. The land-grabbers had subsidized somebody
and my letters never got to headquarters. So I knew a big job was about
to be pulled off. I guessed that the land-grabbers had solved the water
problem further up the valley and were scheming to get control of the
lower valley and lead the water to it, and while developing their water
supply they wanted the land denied to the public. There was always the
chance that some smart nester would come, file on a half-section and
start boring artesian wells. If he struck water, the news would travel
and other settlers would come in and take a chance, and before long
there might be a hundred settlers in there. There would be no reason to
fear that they would stay forever, unless they got a big artesian flow
on every forty acres, and knew they could get water in sufficient
quantity. But they would have found water and it would have taken say
three years for them to discover that their claims could not support
them, Nesters are a dogged breed of human. It takes a nester a long
time to wake up to the fact that he's licked, and until they woke up,
the nesters would be liable to block the water wheels of a private
reclamation scheme.
"Then, too, if it should become bruited abroad, while the valley was
open for entry, that water for irrigation was being developed up the
valley, settlers could have flocked in down the valley--and waited for
the water. A nester is patient. His life is spent in waiting. Under the
desert land laws one can file on three hundred and twenty acres, or a
half-section, pay twenty-five cents per acre down and then wait four
years before being compelled to file with the land office the proof of
reclamation that will entitle him to final patent to his land. The land
ring, of course, knew this, and by their corrupt influence had so
maneuvered to hoodwink the General Land Office that the valley had been
withdrawn from entry. When they had protected themselves from
prospective settlers, it would be safe for them to develop their water
away up the valley. When they were ready, it would be easy enough, to
suddenly discover that a desert valley had, by some stupid error, been
included in a Forest Reserve, the boundaries would be readjusted
immediately, the valley once more thrown open for entry and--dummy
entrymen, Johnny-on-the-spot, to file on the land for the water
company! Within the statutory limit of four years the water company
would have had time to extend its canals and laterals, the dummy
entrymen would have been able to show proof of reclamation and secure
their patents, and after waiting a year, perhaps to preserve
appearances, they would, for a consideration, gradually transfer their
holdings to the water company, Within five years, the water company
would have owned the entire valley, would have reorganized, called
themselves a land and irrigation company and gone into the real estate
business, selling five to twenty acre farms, with a perpetual water
right, at prices ranging from three to five hundred dollars per acre.
"I didn't, of course, know who was behind the game, but I knew the
rules by which it would be played. I'm more or less of a mining
engineer, Donna, and it's part of a mining engineer's business to know
the laws relating to the public domain. I could see that unless I
developed water first and filed on the land first, I would never get my
farm in the valley without paying dearly to the thieves who had stolen
from me my constitutional right to it.
"Hence, for the past two summers, Donna, I've been up in the Sierra
looking for water. It seemed to me that with so many mountain lakes up
there below the snow-line, I must find one that I could tap and bring
the water down into my valley. If Nature made a mistake in the valley,
she would compensate for it up in the mountains, and I had an abiding
faith that if I searched long enough I'd find the water.
"I circled around mountain lakes where in all probability no human foot
but mine had ever trod. I crawled along the brink of a chasm three
thousand feet deep, and crossed a glacier crevice on a rawhide riata. I
camped three nights on a peak with so much iron ore in it that when an
electrical storm came up it attracted the lightning and struck around
me for hours. I crawled and crept and climbed; I fell; I was cut and
bruised and hungry and cold; but all the time I was up there in the
mountains I could look on the valley--my valley--and it was beautiful
and I didn't mind.
"A big thought that had been in the back of my brain for a long time
came to me with renewed force while I was up there in those Inyo Alps--
the thought that if I could find the water it would be riches enough
for me. But I wanted the land, too--not merely a half-section for
myself, but the whole valley--only I didn't want it for myself. It
would only be mine in trust, a sacred heritage that belonged to the
lowly of the earth, and I wanted to save it for them. I could see them
all at that moment, the roustabouts, the laborers and muckers, the
unskilled toilers of the world. It was the hewers of wood and the
drawers of water that I wanted that valley to bloom for; the poor, poor
devils whose only hope is the land that gave them birth and life and
would receive them in its bosom when they perished. Ten acres of that
lonely thirsty land, waiting there for me to reclaim it from the ruin
of ages--ten acres of my desert valley and some water and an equal
chance--that's what I wanted for each of my fellow-Pagans, and I made
up my mind to get it for them from the robber-barons that planned to
steal it.
"It comforted me a whole lot, that thought. It gave zest to the battle,
and made the prize seem worth fighting for. And I guess the God of a
Square Deal was with me that day, for I found the water. I discovered a
lake a mile wide and nearly five miles long, fed by countless streams
from the melting snow on the peaks above. I walked around it, but I
couldn't find any outlet, and yet the lake never seemed to have risen
higher than a certain point. This puzzled me until I discovered a
sandstone ledge half-way around its eastern edge, and through a
gigantic crevice in this sandstone the water escaped. When the lake
rose to the edge of this crevice, during the summer when the snow was
melting up on the face of old Mount Kearsarge, the surplus flowed off
into some subterranean outlet, probably emerging at the head of some
canyon miles away on the other side of the range. This lake was hemmed
in by hills, and between two of these hills a canyon dropped away sheer
to the desert two thousand feet below. I made careful estimates and
discovered that by shooting a tunnel three hundred feet through the
country rock at the head of this canyon I would come out on the other
side of the place where the two hills met, and pierce the lake below
this sandstone crevice. I could drain the lake until the surface of the
water gradually came down to the intake, when I could put in a concrete
pier with an iron head-gate and regulate the flow. Even in winter when
the lake was frozen over I would have a steady flow of water, for my
tunnel would tap the lake below the ice.
"Having found the water, my next move was to go down into the valley,
into the great, hot, panting hungry heart of Inyo to protect the land
for my Pagans. At the land office in Independence I registered my
filing and turned to leave, just as a clerk came out and tacked a
notice on the bulletin board. I read it. It was the customary notice to
settlers that the lower valley had been withdrawn from the Forest
Reserve and would be thrown open to entry at the expiration of sixty
days from date.
"I went to the feed corral, where I had kept Friar Tuck all summer,
while I was up in the mountains. I paid my livery bill, threw the
saddle on Friar Tuck and headed south, for I knew that if I was to turn
robber baron and steal the valley for my Pagans I'd have to hustle. I
got to San Pasqual one night three weeks ago--and here I am."
Donna was silent. For perhaps a minute she gazed into his tense, eager
face.
"What will it cost to drive that tunnel?" she queried finally.
"With me superintending the job and swinging a pick and drill myself, I
estimate the cost at about five thousand dollars."
"And how long does your right hold good before commencing operations?"
"The law allows me a year."
"And you have five weeks left in which to plan your campaign to acquire
the land?"
"Five weeks. And I'm about to attempt an illegal procedure, only I'm
going to do it legally. I want to tie up fifty sections on that valley
--aggregating 32,000 acres. I have money enough in bank at Bakersfield
after paying my expenses here, to accomplish that. If I can tie that
land up, my water-right is worth millions. If the other fellows get the
land, they will buy my water-right at their own figures, or starve me
out and acquire the right when I am forced to abandon it by reason of
my inability to develop it; or failing that they will proceed on their
original plan and lead their own water down the valley in canals.
Without the water the land is worthless, and without the land my water-
right is practically worthless--to me. To control that 32,000 acres of
desert I will have to put up the purchase price of $40,000 for the men
I induce to file on the land, and after paying the filing fee of $5 and
the initial payment of $20 on each of the fifty applications for the
land, I'll be in luck if I'm not left stranded at the State Land
Office."
"But can you accomplish this in opposition to the land ring, if you
secure all the money you will require?"
"No" he answered. "The plan I have outlined is a mere contingency. In
order to carry it out, I must get my filings into the land office
before theirs--and they control the land office."
"Then, how can you hope to succeed?"
Bob smiled. "Hope doesn't cost anything, Donna. It's about the only
thing I know of that can't be monopolized. A man can hope till he's
licked, at least, and despite the fact that I have neither money nor
corrupt influence, I have a long chance to win. I have one grand asset,
at least."
"What may that be?" queried Donna.
"All anybody ever needs--a bright idea."
CHAPTER IX
Bob McGraw threw back his red head and chuckled. "A bright idea,
sweetheart," he repeated, "and if it works out and I am enabled to file
first, the problem of getting back to the desert will be a minor one.
The real problem is the acquisition of four or five thousand dollars to
drive my tunnel, and after that I must scrape together thirty-nine
thousand dollars to advance to my poor Pagans, in order that they may
pay for the land on which I shall have induced them to file. In the
meantime I do not anticipate any diminution in the appetites of myself
and Friar Tuck.
"Well, after I have my tunnel driven and the head-gates in and my
Pagans have the land, I have only started. The land must be cleared of
sage and greasewood, which in turn must be piled and burned. Then I
must build several miles of concrete aqueduct, with laterals to carry
the water for irrigation, and I must install a hydro-electric power-
plant, purchase telegraph poles, string power lines, build roads,
houses, barns and fences. I think I shall even have to build one
hundred and fifty miles of railroad into Donnaville and equip it with
rolling stock."
He thrust both arms out, as if delving into the treasures of his
future. "Whew-w-w!" he sighed. "I'll need oodles of money. I'm going to
be as busy as a woodpecker in the acorn season."
Donna drew his arm within hers and they walked slowly--up and down the
brick-lined patio.
"It means a fight to the finish, Bobby dear--and you're terribly
handicapped. If your suspicions are well founded you will find yourself
opposed by men with the power of wealth and political influence behind
them."
His whimsical exalted mood passed. In the presence of the girl he loved
and whom he hoped to marry he suddenly realized that he stood face to
face with a gigantic sacrifice. To carry through to a conclusion,
successful or unsuccessful, this great work to which he had set his
hand meant that until the finish came he must renounce his hope of
marriage with Donna. True, he might win--but it would take years to
demonstrate that victory was even in sight; if he lost, he felt that he
could never have the heart to ask her to share with him his poverty and
his failures.
An intuitive understanding of his thoughts came to Donna at that
moment; she realized that under that gay, careless exterior there beat
the great warm heart of a man and a master, on whom, for all his youth
and strength and optimism, a great load of care was already resting--
the destiny of his people. She realized that he needed help; she
thought of her insignificant savings (some six hundred dollars)
reposing in the strong-box of the eating-house safe, and the first
impulse of her generous heart was to offer him these hard-earned
dollars. In the task that Bob McGraw had set himself, moral support was
a kindly thing to offer, but dollars were the things that counted!
However, to offer him financial aid now, no matter how badly he
required money, would not avail. The dictates of his manhood would not
permit him to accept, and until God and man had given her the right to
make the offer she must remain silent.
"I can wait here until you're ready to come for me, Bob," she said
bravely. "It's a big task--a man's work--that you're going to do, and
win or lose, I want you to fight the good fight. I know the kind of man
I want to marry. If he starts anything that's big and noble and worthy
of him, I want him to finish it--if he wants to marry me. Success or
failure counts but little with men like you; it is only the fight that
matters, and there are some defeats that are more glorious than
victories. Remember that little jingle, dearie:
The harder you're hit, the higher you bounce,
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts,
But how did you fight--and why?"
"You quoted your Pagan's Litany to me to-night, sweetheart. I
want you to be true to it. I don't know a thing about desert land laws
and riparian rights, but I do know that if you sold your Pagans into
bondage for money to marry me, I'd be ashamed of you--and disappointed.
Don't let your love for me weaken your defenses, Bob. If you win I want
to live with you in Donnaville, but if you lose--I want you to make me
a promise, Bob."
"You wonderful woman! What is it--you wonderful, wonderful woman?"
"I'm asking for a promise, dear."
"I'll grant it."
"If you lose, you'll come to me and we'll be married despite defeat and
failure, and you'll live here, with me--at the Hat Ranch until--"
"Oh, Donnie, girl, I couldn't do that!"
"I understand your point of view. Perhaps you think me bold--or
unconventional. But a woman has certain rights, Bob. She should be
given the right to outline her own ideas of happiness, regardless of
tradition and ancient usage, provided she conforms to all of the law,
legal and moral. If you go forth to battle and they slaughter you, I
claim the right to pick up your poor battered old heart and give it the
only comfort--I mean, if I have to wait, I love you enough to work with
you--and for you--when further waiting is useless--"
She pressed her face against his great breast and commenced to cry.
"I have never been really happy until you came" she sobbed. "We're
young, Bob--and I do not want to wait--for happiness--until the
capacity for it--is gone."
He patted the beautiful head, soothing her with tender words, and it
was characteristic of the man that in that instant he made his
decision.
"Within six weeks I shall know how long the fight is to last, Donna. If
I can put through a scheme which I have evolved to secure that land
without recourse to the desert land laws--if I can get my applications
filed first in the State Land Office--I shall have won the first battle
of the war. If I fail to do this I shall have lost the land, and
without further ado I shall sell my water-right to the best possible
advantage. The enemy may conclude to pay me a reasonable price for it,
rather than declare war and delay the development of their land. The
power possibilities of my water-right are tremendous and I think I can
force a good price, for I can poke away at my tunnel and by doing the
assessment work I can keep my title alive for a few years. Of course,
in the event that I should, after the lapse of years, be financially
unable to develop my water-right, or interest others in it, I should
lose it and they would grab it, no doubt. But they will buy me out, I
think, rather than brook delay."
She raised her face, transfigured through the tears.
"Then, win or lose--"
"Win or lose, if you desire it and I can scrape together the price of a
marriage license, we'll be married in six weeks.
"I'm so tired of the desert, dear. I'm lonely."
"A little like Br'er B'ar, eh, darling! You want to see the other side
of the mountain." He pressed her to him lovingly. "Of course" (with
masculine inconsistency Bob was beginning to equivocate) "I may not be
able to sell my water-right and the enemy may elect to play a waiting
game and starve me out. In that case, it would not be fair to you to
burden you with a husband whose sole assets are his dreams and his
hopes."
"That makes no difference" she exclaimed passionately. "We're young.
We'll fight the rest of the battle together."
"Well, there's strength in numbers, at any rate, beloved. You're my
mascot and I'm bound to win." He placed his left hand under her chin
and tilted her face upward. He was stooping to seal their compact with
a true lover's kiss, when the sound of footsteps startled them. Both
turned guiltily, to confront Mr. Harley P. Hennage.
"Hah-hah," puffed Mr. Hennage, "at it again, eh?" He stood at the
corner of the house, with his three gold teeth flashing in the
moonlight.
"Kill-joy!" hissed Bob McGraw. "His Royal Highness, Kill-joy the
Thirteenth!"
Harley P. shook a fat forefinger at the lovers. "If I was a young
feller, Bob McGraw--"
"Mr. Hennage, you're an old snooper, that's what you are!" cried Donna.
"You're all the time snooping."
"Explain this unwarranted intrusion, Harley P. Hennage" Bob demanded,
as he advanced with outstretched hand to greet the gambler. "I'll have
you know that in approaching this ranch hereafter, you will be required
to halt at the front gate and whistle, cough, stamp your feet, yell or
fire six shots from a Colts revolver--"
"You mean a presidential salute o' twenty-one twelve-inch guns"
retorted Harley P. "I ain't no snooper. I've wore corns on my hands a-
bangin' that there iron gate to announce my approach, an' it wasn't no
use; so I just made up my mind you was ready to receive me an' I come
ramblin' in. Donnie, you know I ain't one o' the presumin' kind."
He held out a hand to Bob and another to Donna. "How?" he queried, and
made swift appraisal of Bob McGraw from heels to hair. "You've filled
out a whole lot since the last time I seen you standin' up. How's
tricks?"
"Great. I'll be out in a day or two."
The gambler nodded his approval of this cheerful news. Donna brought
out another chair and the trio sat in the secluded patio and talked
generalities for ten minutes. Donna knew that Mr. Hennage must have
some reason for calling other than a mere desire to pay his respects to
Bob, and presently he unbosomed himself.
"Our mutual friend, Miss Pickett, has a notice pasted up on the wall o'
the post-office, advertisin' a registered letter for one Robert McGraw."
The gambler tittered foolishly. "Ain't a soul can tell Miss Pickett who
the feller is or where he's at, except me an' Doc Taylor an' Miss
Donna--an' we're all swore to secrecy, so I come down to scheme out a
way to bell the cat--meanin' Miss Pickett" he added, apparently as an
afterthought.
"A letter for me?" Bob was surprised. "Why, it's years since I have
received a letter. I wonder who could know that I might be found in San
Pasqual I didn't tell anybody I was headed this way, and as a matter of
fact I hadn't intended staying here beyond that first night."
"Well, there's a letter there all right," reiterated Mr. Hennage, "an'
if I was called on to give a guess who sent it I'd bet a stack o' blue
chips I could hit the bull's eye first shot. A dry, purse-proud
aristocrat, with gray chin whiskers an' a pair o' bespectacled blue
lamps that'd charm a Gila monster, they're that shiny, lined up at the
Silver Dollar bar the other day an' bought a drink for himself. Yes, he
drank alone--which goes to prove that men with money ain't always got
the best manners in the world. Well, after stowin' away his little
jolt, he comes fussin' around among the boys, askin' which one of 'em
is Mr. Robert McGraw. Of course he didn't get no information, an'
wouldn't 'a got it if the boys had it. So he goes down to see Miss
Pickett, an' bimeby me an' him meets up in front o' the eatin' house,
an' he up an' asked me if I could tell him who owns that little roan
cayuse kickin' up his heels over in the feed corral.
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