Engineers -- Fiction; United States -- Fiction; Western stories; Young men -- Fiction
"You are mistaken, Pen. Jim and I have often discussed the divine origin
of the New Englander. They are a pathetic lot of pifflers. They have no
one to blame but themselves that they are going. Everywhere else the
Anglo-Saxon has gone he has insisted that he had the divine right to
rule and has kept it. Outsiders have had to conform or get out. But over
here he promulgated the Equality idea. Isaac Gezinsky and Hans Hoffman
and Pedro Patello are as fit to rule according to the Equality idea as
anyone else. It didn't take much over two hundred years of this to
crowd the New Englander out of the running. And who cares?"
"I do," said Jim, "because I believe in the things my race has stood
for. Emerson says it's not chance but race that put and keeps the
millions of India under the rule of a remote island in the north of
Europe. Race is a thing to be reckoned with. Nations progress as their
race dictates."
"Emerson!" jibed Sara. "Another inefficient highbrow!"
"I can't help believing," replied Jim doggedly, "that the world will
lose in the submerging of the New England element in America."
"And yet right here, in your America," said Sara, "the leaders of the
money trust are descendants of Puritans."
Jim winced. "'The strength of the pack is the wolf,' When we produced
men of that type we should have recognized them and have controlled
them. They are helping the pack down hill, all right. Be satisfied,
Sara! Only you will not get me off this Project until it is finished."
"No?" sneered Sara.
Pen interrupted nervously: "A couple of men are coming up the trail."
Bill Underwood appeared at the tent door. Murphy was with him. "Boss,"
said Bill, "Murphy has got to see your Greek friend. I got him started
south this noon, but he circled on me and I just picked him up on the
mesa, headed this way. He wanted to come here on the quiet, but I
brought him up in the open."
CHAPTER XX
THE DAY'S WORK
"Women know a loyalty that men scorn while they use it. This
is the sex stamp of women."
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
With a quick glance at Sara, Jim rose. "Give Mr. Saradokis and his
friend a chance to talk, of course, Bill. But shut Murphy up tonight and
bring him round to me in the morning."
Bill essayed a salute that was so curiously like bringing his thumb to
his nose that Pen had to turn a laugh into a cough and Jim smiled as he
hurried out of the tent. As soon as the murder trouble was settled, Jim
thought, he would have some sort of a settlement with Sara. His calm
effrontery was becoming unbearable.
After a hurried supper Jim went back to the lower town to keep his eye
on the moving picture show. As he mounted the steps of the little sheet
iron building, a girlish figure hurried to meet him from the shadow of
the ticket office.
"Pen!" cried Jim. "This is no place for you!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account