“That,” he said, “is the man who didn’t want his wages when I offered them to him, though he knew it was quite likely he would never get them afterwards unless I built the dam. He’d been working for me two or three months then, in the flooded river, most of the while. Now, is there any sense in that kind of man?”
Mattawa appeared disconcerted, and his hard face flushed. “Well,” he explained, “I felt I had to see you through.” He hesitated for a moment with a gesture which seemed deprecatory of his point of view. “It seemed up to me.”
“You’ve heard him,” said Gordon dryly. “He’s from the desolate Bush back East, and nobody has taught him to express himself clearly. The men of that kind are handiest with the axe and drill, but it has always seemed to me that the nations are going to sit round and listen when they get up and speak their mind some day.”
He saw the smile in Nasmyth’s eyes, and turned to Wheeler, who was from the State of Washington. “It’s a solid fact that you, at least, can understand. It’s not so very long since your folks headed West across the Ohio, and it’s open to anyone to see what you have done.” Then he flung his hand out towards the east. “They fancy back yonder we’re still in the leading-strings, and it doesn’t seem to strike them that we’re growing big and strong.”
It was characteristic that Wheeler did not grin, as 112 Nasmyth certainly did. What Gordon had said was, no doubt, a trifle flamboyant, but it expressed the views of others in the West, and after all it was more or less warranted. Mattawa, however, gazed at them both as if such matters were beyond him, and Wheeler, who turned to Nasmyth, changed the subject.
“Well,” he said, “what are you going to strike next?”
Nasmyth took out his pipe, and carefully filled it before he answered, for he knew that his time had come, and he desired greatly to carry his comrades along with him.
“I have,” he said quietly, “a notion in my mind, or, anyway, the germ of one, for the thing will want some worrying out. It’s quite a serious undertaking. To begin with, I’ll ask Gordon who cut these drains we’ve been falling into, and what he did it for?”
“An Englishman,” Gordon answered. “Nobody knew much about him. He was probably an exile, too. Anyway, he saw this valley, and it seemed to strike him that he could make a ranch in it.”
“Why should he fix on this particular valley?”