The Winning of Barbara Worth

by Harold Bell Wright

As she spoke she turned toward him again with that steady look, and the man felt the strange, mysterious power of her personality, the challenging lure of her young womanhood—that and more. What was it back of those steady eyes that called to him, inspired him, that almost frightened him; that made him feel as Barbara herself felt in the presence of the Desert.

There was no trace of cynicism in his voice now, nor any hint of a sneer on his face, as Willard Holmes straightened unconsciously in his saddle.

"By George!" he said, "it's good to hear you say those things. Nobody talks that way nowadays. I suppose our great-great-grandmothers did, though."

She colored with pleasure, but answered lightly: "That puts me a long ways behind the times, doesn't it?"

"Or a long way ahead," he offered.

In the meantime, while the education of Willard Holmes progressed, the party that was to make the first survey in Barbara's Desert was being formed and equipped under the direction of Abe Lee. Horses, mules, wagons, camp outfits and supplies, with Indian and Mexican laborers, teamsters of several nationalities and here and there a Chinese cook, were assembled. Toward the last from every part of the great West country came the surveyors and engineers—sunburned, khaki-clad men most of them, toughened by their out-of-doors life, overflowing with health and good spirits. They hailed one another joyously and greeted Abe with extravagant delight, overwhelming him with questions. For the word had gone out that the Seer, beloved by all the tribe, and his lieutenant, almost equally beloved, were making "big medicine" in The King's Basin Desert. Not a man of them would have exchanged his chance to go for a crown and scepter.

The eastern engineer met these hardened professional brothers cordially. He listened to their reminiscences of life and work in mountain, plain and desert with interest, discovering to his surprise that most of them were eastern born and bred, with technical training in the schools with which he was familiar. But their almost boyish enthusiasm over the work ahead, their admiration for the Chief and for Abe Lee he viewed with cold indifference.

With all his duties Abe found frequent opportunity to report to Barbara, for the girl's interest in every detail of the preparations was never failing. Her friends protested that they never saw her now at their little social affairs, for she was always off somewhere with some engineer, and that when they did chance to catch her alone she would talk of nothing but that horrid King's Basin country.

Every evening, early after supper, the surveyor would slip away from his companions at the hotel to spend an hour on the veranda at the banker's home talking in his straightforward way with Barbara and her father, of the work that was so dear to the heart of the girl. And because it was his work and in the nature of a report to one who, he felt, had in some subtle way authority to hear, Abe talked with a freedom that would have astonished many of his friends who thought they knew him best.

Three times while Abe was there Willard Holmes appeared, and each time, at the engineer's presence, the surveyor's painful diffidence became apparent and he soon—with some stammering excuse—left.