The City of Numbered Days

sley

he West calls "jumpy." Four years of field-work, government or other, count for something; and the man who

tlet gorge while the rank and file of the pioneer force were building the permanent camp half-way between the foot-hills and the river, winced handsomely

the modern salvages of the waste places, Brouillard had been assuring himself that his work was large enough to fill all his horizons. But the detonating crash reminded him forcibly that the presence of the touring party w

was too heavy to figure as a gun-shot; and, besides, it was the closed season for game. Therefore, it must have been an accident of some sort-possibly th

o a first-aid dash down the outlet gorge, there was no appreciable interval. But the humane impulse

were gathering the choicest of the dead mountain trout with which the eddy was thickly dotted. Coming toward him on the upward trail and climbing laboriously to gain the easier path among the pines, were the two remaining members of the party-an elderly, pudgy, stockily built man with

s way had been the discharge of a stick of dynamite thrown into the Niquoia for the fish-killing purpose. In his code the dynamiting of a stream figured as a high crime. But the two on the trai

ou're one of the Reclamation engineers? Great work the government is undertaking here-fine opportunity to demonstrate the lifting power of aggregated capital b

the young woman whose beauty refused to be quenched by th

e! You're young, and you've climbed pretty fast. But that's the way with you young men nowadays; you begin where we o

fusiveness, but he was finding it curiously difficult to resist the good-natured heartiness which seemed t

hearing the Brouillard surname was not gen

ver heard of, and it is mighty good, old voyageur stock, too, dating 'way back to the Revolutionary War, and further. I've bought hogs of the farme

that I don't know many of the farmers. Our branch of the family settled n

rs in Chicago? It was years ago, at a time when he was interested in floating a bond issue for some growing industry down on the Wabas

d fell headlong into

n you come to surround it proper

's about a hundred and twenty miles from this to El Gato, on the Grand Canyon, isn't it, Mr. Brouillard? Well, we did it in five hours yesterday afternoon, and we could have

d not add that the motive for the feat was not quite so apparent as it might be. This mystery, however, w

ou, Mr. Brouillard-in confidence. It was curiosity-raw, country curiosity. The papers and magazines have been full of this Buckskin reclamation sc

e explained, contemplated the building of a high dam across the upper end of the Niquoia Canyon and the converting of the inland valley above into a great storage re

emembered a thing neglected. "By George! you'll have to excuse me, Mr. Brouillard; I'm always forgetting the little social dewdabs. Le

brusquerie which Mr. Cortwright could put on and off at will, like a well-worn working coat. But when the unquenchable beauty stripped her gauntlet and gave him her hand, with a dazzling smile and a word of ack

eclamation project. "Do you mean to say that real farms with green things growing o

arrange for their watering." He was going on to tell about the exhaustive experiments the Department of Agriculture experts had b

d such a magnificent fighting chance as you have right here," he averred, the sandy-gray eyes growing suddenly alert and shrewd. "If you

. Cortwright," said Brouillard, with some inner monito

leman became su

re going to run and all the choice spots they are going to irrigate; what's to prevent your getting in ahead of the rush and taking up a dozen or so of those prime quarter-sections-homesteads, town sites, and the like? Lack of money? Why, bless your

mory. But the calmer second thought turned wrath into amused tolerance. The costly touring-car, the idle, time-killing jaunt in the desert, the dynamiting of the river for the sake of takin

b of dam building will be fully big enough and strenuous enough to keep me busy. Aside from that, I

money-is what talks. A good, healthy bank balance makes so much noise that you can't hear the knockers. If the Washington crowd had your chance-but never mind, that's y

r. Cortwright measured the visible

daughter could wa

erself: "Of course I can walk

are to try," Brouillard offered; and the t

drying himself before the camp-fire. "Van Bruce won't care to go," the daughter hastened to say; and Brouillard, whose gift it was to be able to pick out and identify the human derelict at long range, understood

Brouillard unconsciously set a pace which was almost inhospitable for a stockily built man whose tendency was toward increasing waist measures. But when they reached the

praisive eye-sweep. "Van Bruce and the chauffeur came up here last night, with one of the car lamps for a lantern, but of course they couldn'

ails, showing how the inward-arching barrier would b

re itself-how hi

t above the spil

neck and guessed the distance up the precipi

," he said. Then, with business-like direct

ncrete a

ment-a whole world of it. Where will yo

ful devotees was illuminating. He had a growing conviction that the sordid atmosphere which appeared to be as the breath of life to Mr. J. Wesley Cortwright would presently begin to make things taste coppery, but the inextinguishable charm o

right here on the ground. There is plenty of limestone and an excellent shale in those hills just beyond our camp; and

he globe, just now. And over here, where there is no transportation-Gad! if you only had somebody

in here for more than a year

your

rk all the Indians we can get from the Navajo Reservation, forty-odd miles south of here; for the remainder we shall import men from the States, bringing them in over the Timanyoni High Line-the

ng eye roved once more ove

take it?" he surmised; and then: "O

r use in building and in false- and form-work. There are no finer lumber forests this side of the Sierras. For power we shall utilize the river. There is another sm

with his tongue and blew his cheeks o

all these resources coopered up here in a barrel?-that nobody is going to get a chance to

transportation facilities I doubt if we should make use of these native raw materials. It is the policy of the department to go into

ted the money-maker despairingly. Then his eye lighted upon the graybeard dump of a sol

rter distance. "Two men named Massingale, father and son, are working it, I'm told." And then agai

leaving it to ride down the path-a man and a woman, I think,

and had spent the better part of the former summer in the Niquoia, had reported on the Massingales, father and son, and his report had

while we were stopping over in Red Butte. It's rich-good and plenty rich-if they have the quantity. And somebody told me

many," Brouillard said, taki

ed from the pointed particulars-the particulars h

dust-coat. "There's a business proposition here, and it looks mighty good to me. That was a mere nursery notion I gave you a while back-about pic

Service appropriations," he suggested. "There will be a good bit of

g here. That's the basis. Then you're going to need material by the train load, not the raw stuff, which you say is right here on the ground, but the manufactured article-cement,

be produced here, but not the

ality of coking coal. Ten or twelve miles of a narrow-gauge railroad would dump the pig metal into the upper end

so accurately in regard to the natural resources of the Niquoia region? Had he not expressly declared that the object of the desert automobile trip was mere tourist cu

d enough, your dummy railroad can supply you from the Hophra mines. Best of all, you've got power to burn-and that's the key to any manufacturing proposi

Brouillard argued. "You couldn't begin to interest pr

was the c

s a good, busy little city in this valley, behind the dam-since there is no other feasible place for it-and it would be strictly a city of numbered d

which she had been following the progress of the two riders d

his valley. The Indians have a legend that this is the spot where their tribal ancestors came up from the underworld

twright. He was chewing the ends of his short mustaches and scowling though

ntracts for what material you'd rather buy than make, and I'll be switched if I don't take a sh

t I'm only a hired man. You'll have to go a good few rounds higher up on the authority

that if we have to," was the optimis

as the mere ravings of a money-mad promoter. "As the government engineer in charge of this work, I couldn'

his antagonists in the wheat pit. Then he glanced at his watch and changed the subject abruptly. "We'll have to

ld-glass she was returning to put it back upon the sheaf of blue-pr

work for us," she said, smiling leve

gh to tell the tr

ff. Doesn't your brother know that it

as out of ear-shot on the gor

portsmanlike. I didn't know what he and Rick

eing the Niqoyastcàdje and the site of the city that isn't to be-the city of numb

rst seen through the filmy gauze of the automobile veil. "Do you want me to sa

imself for having been momentarily tempted to take the persiflage seriously. The temptation was another of the consequences of the four years of isolat

he wished to know, five minutes further on, when his

f attempting to account for himself. "But I have forgotten, just the same. It has been yea

the door so lately slammed in the face of temptation: "Perhaps we shall come back to Niqo-Niqoy-I simply can't say

ng women of Miss Cortwright's world plane were constrained by the accepted rules of their kind to play the g

heard how the men of the desert camps kill each oth

knesses showing hotly beyond the curtaining of pines, and there was

Mr. Brouillard," she said quizzically; and then they

nnel shirt and a flapping Stetson, and a girl whose face reminded Brouillard of one of the Madonnas, whose name and painter he strove vainly to recall. Ten seconds farther along the horses of the pair were sniffi

ca'tridges into this here rese'vation; not no more, whatsoever. Who says so? Well, if anybody should ask, you might say

ing to come between his sullen-faced son and the irate cattleman, money in hand. Brouillard walked his companion down to the car and helped her to a seat in the tonneau. She repaid him with a nod

s daughter was a warm blonde, beautiful, queenly, a finished product of civilization and high-priced culture; a woman of the world, standi

hair escaping under the jaunty cow-boy hat; eyes ... it was her eyes that made Brouillard look the third time: they were blue, with a hint of violet in them; he made sure of this when she turned her head and met his gaze fearlessly and with a certain calm serenity that made

hed out at the river's edge. When it was finally settled-not by the tender of money that Mr. Cortwright had made-the man Smith and his

o churn in the loose sand of the halting place, she leaned out to give him a woman's leave-taking. "If I were you I shouldn't fall in love with the c

feel figuratively for the knife with which he had resolutely cut around himself to the dividing of all hindr

re he could attempt to classify h

Wesley Cortwright's remark to his seat companion, made when the canyon portal of the Niquoia

krupt hair-splitter, Genie, girl. But he'll come down and hook himself all right i