"Yes," she returned, "that is it. I could never forgive one who did that."
"But how would you know? How could you judge?" he asked almost roughly. "Perhaps the very one whom you would call false to the work would, in reality, be doing the best thing for the work. I have noticed that, after all, those who have the loftiest ideals and the highest visions of man's duty to man and all that are seldom the ones who accomplish much of the actual work of the world. Look here, honestly now: how many of the people who are reclaiming this desert—I mean all of us—laborers, business men, ranchers, everybody who has come in here to do this work—how many of them do you think see a single thing beyond the dollars they have hoped to make on the venture? Whether it's the high wage paid by the Company, the big profits of the business man or the heavier crop of the rancher, it amounts to the same. And yet you would insist that they must not be governed by this desire for gain. So far as I can see, it is this same desire for gain that has driven men into doing every really great thing that has ever been done. Look carefully into every great enterprise that is of value to the world and you will find at the beginning of it someone reaching for a dollar or its equivalent. Your father, for instance—"
Barbara threw out her hand protestingly. "Please don't, Mr. Holmes. I know that what you say is every bit true. Father and I have gone over it so many times. And yet I know, I know that what I feel is true also. Oh, dear! what a muddle it is, isn't it? It seems so wrong to spend one's life working for nothing but money. And yet all the really good work in the world is done by those who don't work to do good at all but for what they get out of it. I suppose now that you stayed in the Desert all this past summer and worked so hard without any vacation at all just for your salary."
"How did you know that I took no vacation?"
"Father told me. You seem to have made quite an impression on my father. He has told me a great deal about you. But I want to know—did you stay in the desert for money?"
Holmes wondered if she knew the danger that threatened the settlers because of the unsubstantial character of the Company's structures. "Perhaps," he said, "it was to save my professional reputation. That would amount to the same thing, wouldn't it?"
Barbara laughed. "I don't think that your taking a vacation would have lost you your reputation. That won't do, Mr. Chief Engineer." For some reason Barbara seemed highly pleased at the turn the conversation had taken.
The man thought of those anxious days and nights at the intake, when the safety of the success of the whole King's Basin project hung on the whim of an uncertain river, but he did not explain to Barbara nor did he tell her that a vacation would have made no difference in his salary.
"I'll tell you why you stayed with the work in the Desert this summer,
Mr. Holmes," she said, and in her voice was a note of pleased triumph.
"Why?" he asked.