By nine o'clock in the morning, Professor Meschines and Harvey Freeman had ridden up to the general's ranch, equipped for the expedition. The general's preparations were not yet quite completed.
A couple of mules were being loaded with the necessary outfit. It was proposed to be out two days, camping in the open during the intervening night. It was necessary to take water as well as solid provisions.
Leaving their horses in the care of a couple of stable-boys, Meschines and Freeman mounted the veranda, and were there greeted by General Trednoke.
"I'm afraid we'll have a hot ride of it," he observed. "The atmosphere is rather oppressive. Kamaiakan tells me there was a touch of earthquake last night."
"I thought I noticed some disturbance,----" returned the professor, with a stealthy side- glance at Freeman,--"something in the nature of an explosion."
"Earthquakes are common in this region, aren't they?" Freeman said.
"They have made it what it is, and may unmake it again," replied the general.
"The earthquake is the father of the desert, as the Indians say; and it may some day become the father of a more genial offspring.
Veremos!"
"How are the young ladies?" inquired Freeman.
"Miriam has a little headache, I believe; and I thought Miss Parsloe was looking a trifle pale this morning. But you must see for yourself. Here they come."
Grace, who was a little taller than Miriam, had thrown one arm round that young lady's waist, with a view, perhaps, to forming a picture in which she should not be the secondary figure. In fact, they were both of them very pretty; but Freeman had become blind to any beauty but Miriam's.
Moreover, he was resolved to have some private conversation with her during the few minutes that were available. A conversation with the professor, and some meditations of his own, had suggested to him a line of attack upon Grace.
"I'm afraid you were disturbed by the earthquake last night?" he said to her.
"An earthquake? Why should you think so?"
"You look as if you had passed a restless night. I saw Senor de Mendoza this morning.
He seems to have had a restless time of it, too. But he is a romantic person, and probably, if an earthquake did not make him sleepless, something else might."
He looked at her a moment, and then added, with a smile, "But perhaps this is not news to you?"
"He didn't come--I didn't see him," returned Grace, wishing, ere the words had left her lips, that she had kept her mouth shut. Freeman continued to smile. How much did he know? She felt that it might be inexpedient to continue the conversation.
Casting about for a pretext for retreat, her eyes fell upon Meschines.
"Oh, there's the dear professor! I must speak to him a moment," she exclaimed, vivaciously; and she slipped her arm from Miriam's waist, and was off, leaving Freeman in possession of the field, and of the monopoly of Miriam's society.
"Miss Trednoke," said he, gravely, "I have something to tell you, in order to clear myself from a possible misunderstanding.
It may happen that I shall need your vindication with your father. Will you give it?"
"What vindication do you need, that I can give?" asked she, opening her dark eyes upon him questioningly.
"That's what I wish to explain. I am in a difficult position. Would you mind stepping down into the garden? It won't take a minute."
Curiosity, if not especially feminine, is at least human. Miriam descended the steps, Freeman beside her. They strolled down the path, amidst the flowers.
"You said, yesterday," he began, "that I would say one thing and be another.
Now I am going to tell you what I am.
And afterwards I'll tell you why I tell it.
In the first place, you know, I'm a civil engineer, and that includes, in my case, a good deal of knowledge about geology and things of that sort. I have sometimes been commissioned to make geological surveys for Eastern capitalists. Lately I've been canal-digging on the Isthmus; but the other day I got a notification from some men in Boston and New York to come out here on a secret mission."
"Secret, Mr. Freeman?"
"Yes: you will understand directly.
These men had heard enough about the desert valleys of this region to lead them to think that it might be reclaimed and so be made very valuable. Such lands can be bought now for next to nothing; but, if the theories that control these capitalists are correct, they could afterwards be sold at a profit of thousands per cent. So it's indispensable that the object of my being here should remain unknown; otherwise, other persons might step in and anticipate the designs of this company."
"If those are your orders, why do you speak to me?"
"There's a reason for doing it that outweighs the reasons against it. I trust you with the secret: yet I don't mean to bind you to secrecy. You will have a perfect right to tell it: the only result would be that I should be discredited with my employers; and there is nothing to warrant me in supposing that you would be deterred by that."
"I don't ask to know your secret: I think you had better say no more."
Freeman shook his head. "I must speak," said he. "I don't care what becomes of me, so long as I stand right in your opinion,--your father's and yours. I am here to find out whether this desert can be flooded,--irrigated,--whether it's possible, by any means, to bring water upon it.
If my report is favorable, the company will purchase hundreds, or thousands, of square miles, and, incidentally, my own fortune will be made."
"Why, that's the very thing----" She stopped.
"The very thing your father had thought of! Yes, so I imagined, though he has not told me so in so many words. So I'm in the position of surreptitiously taking away the prospective fortune of a man whom I respect and honor, and who treats me as a friend."
Miriam walked on some steps in silence.
"It is no fault of yours," she said at last.
"You owe us nothing. You must carry out your orders."
"Yes; but what is to prevent your father from thinking that I stole his idea and then used it against him?"
