“I have no report to make, Mr. Hardin, until I see the gate.”
“And you went to the Crossing without going down to the head-gate?” Hardin did not try to conceal his disgust.
“I did not go to the Crossing.”
“Didn’t go—!” Hardin’s mouth was agape. Then he rudely swiveled his chair. The door slammed behind Rickard.
Hadn’t been to the Crossing? Then where in Hades did he go? “Truckling to MacLean! Those office clerks! I know them. Jumping for favors from the man higher up.” He ticked off on his fingers the days the new manager had already squandered. Saturday, he threw in perversely the day of Rickard’s arrival, Saturday, Sunday, he loafed all day Sunday, Monday—and this was Wednesday. What could a man find in the valley to do if he didn’t rush straight to the gate? The gate upon which the whole valley hung? Gerty’s dinner occurred to him. “He never intended to come,” he reflected with satisfaction. “He’ll have to be starting for the Heading to-morrow. Already, it’s a farce, five days!”
He halted MacLean who was passing him, a stenographic pad under his arm, a battered copy of Thorns and Orange Blossoms in his hand. He was cramming night and day, requisitioning the good-natured to read aloud at a snail’s pace. He had found the novel under Bodefeldt’s bureau and had held up Pete to give him a page of dictation from the classic.
“Are you going to the Crossing to-morrow?” Hardin knew he should be too proud to betray his eagerness, but the words ran away with him.
“Not to-morrow. Mr. Rickard just told me he might not be able to get off until next week.”
Hardin’s anger sputtered. “Next week. Why does he rush so? Why doesn’t he go next year? The Colorado’s so gentle, it’d wait for him, I’m sure. Next week! It’s a put-up job, that’s what it is. Oh, I can see through a fence with a knot-hole as big as your head. He doesn’t want to finish the head-gate. He wants to put off going until it’s too late to go on with it; I know him. He’d risk the whole thing, and all the money the O. P. has chucked into it, just to start with a clean slate; to get the glory of stopping the river himself. It turns my stomach; it’s a plot.” The lower lip shot out.
MacLean’s attention was deferential. He had always liked Hardin; all the fellows did. But he was jumping off wrong this time. He’d brought it all on himself.