"My word for that."
"It's this little trick of Menocal's that's burning up good coin. Sixty thousand would have built the project ordinarily; my estimates were correct enough. But having to do the job in this infernal weather is what's raising the cost forty thousand more. I feel like entering in the ledger 'To account of frost—$40,000.00.' Like that." Lee scribbled the line on a sheet of paper and handed it to Pat. "But there's one thing sure, I'll sink the last cent I have in the ground before I quit and let those Eastern pirates get their claws into me. I'll have you cut down your force if necessary and string the last dollar and last day's work out till my three months' grace is up."
"Might try McDonnell for another loan," Carrigan suggested.
"I hate doing that worse than anything I know. He, not the bank, let me have that twenty thousand on my unsecured note. I had nothing to offer but my stock in this company, and until the project's finished that's no better than so much blank paper. Loaned it to me because of my nerve, he said. And at the time I told him it would be enough money to carry me through, which I believed. Now to go back to him again——" Lee stopped, with an expression of deep chagrin upon his face.
Pat tapped the dottle from his pipe and refilled the bowl. He glanced once or twice at the engineer during the act.
"You can make a better showing now than before," said he. "Four miles more and you'll be to the good. One of the excitements of construction enterprises, and of irrigation projects in particular, I've observed, is the financing. The more often a man can go and pull his backers' legs for cash, the better financier he is. It seems to be largely a matter of keeping at them, talking them to death, wearing them out, until they weaken and hand over the money. More than one railroad was built that way. Try it on McDonnell."
"You come with me."
"No, thank you," said Pat, with vigour.
"I thought you wouldn't," said Lee.
He took Carrigan's suggestion, however, and went down through the bitter cold to see the banker. But the visit was fruitless. The bank could not make the loan, and money being tight because of first of the year settlements, McDonnell was not in shape to make it personally, nor would be in time to render any assistance. He was perfectly willing, he said, to gamble another twenty thousand on Bryant's ability to win through, but he did not have the cash. Then he went on to say that Imogene had been suffering from a slight cold, and that Ruth Gardner was visiting at present with other friends in Kennard.