'Huh! I guess I can use my head,' he said. 'I watched a woman over on the other side of the valley, packin' water two hundred feet from the spring to the house; an' I did some figurin'. I put it at three trips a day and on wash days a whole lot more; an' you can't guess what I made out she traveled a year packin' water. One hundred an' twenty-two miles. D'ye get that? One hundred and twenty-two miles! I asked her how long she'd been there. Thirty-one years. Multiply it for yourself. Three thousan', seven hundred an' eighty-two miles-all for the sake of two hundred feet of pipe. Wouldn't that jar you?'
'Oh, I ain't done yet. They's a bath-tub an' stationary tubs a-comin' soon as I can see my way. An', say, Saxon, you know that little clear flat just where Wild Water runs into Sonoma. They's all of an acre of it. An' it's mine! Got that? An' no walkin' on the grass for you. It'll be my grass. I 'm goin' up stream a ways an' put in a ram. I got a big second-hand one staked out that I can get for ten dollars, an' it'll pump more water'n I need. An' you'll see alfalfa growin' that'll make your mouth water. I gotta have another horse to travel around on. You're usin' Hazel an' Hattie too much to give me a chance; an' I'll never see 'm as soon as you start deliverin' vegetables. I guess that alfalfa'll help some to keep another horse goin'.'
But Billy was destined for a time to forget his alfalfa in the excitement of bigger ventures. First, came trouble. The several hundred dollars he had arrived with in Sonoma Valley, and all his own commissions since earned, had gone into improvements and living. The eighteen dollars a week rental for his six horses at Lawndale went to pay wages. And he was unable to buy the needed saddle-horse for his horse-buying expeditions. This, however, he had got around by again using his head and killing two birds with one stone. He began breaking colts to drive, and in the driving drove them wherever he sought horses.
So far all was well. But a new administration in San Francisco, pledged to economy, had stopped all street work. This meant the shutting down of the Lawndale quarry, which was one of the sources of supply for paving blocks. The six horses would not only be back on his hands, but he would have to feed them. How Mrs. Paul, Gow Yum, and Chan Chi were to be paid was beyond him.
'I guess we've bit off more'n we could chew,' he admitted to Saxon.
That night he was late in coming home, but brought with him a radiant face. Saxon was no less radiant.
'It's all right,' she greeted him, coming out to the barn where he was unhitching a tired but fractious colt. 'I've talked with all three. They see the situation, and are perfectly willing to let their wages stand a while. By another week I start Hazel and Hattie delivering vegetables. Then the money will pour in from the hotels and my books won't look so lopsided. And-oh, Billy-you'd never guess. Old Gow Yum has a bank account. He came to me afterward-I guess he was thinking it over-and offered to lend me four hundred dollars. What do you think of that?'
'That I ain't goin' to be too proud to borrow it off 'm, if he IS a Chink. He's a white one, an' maybe I'll need it. Because, you see-well, you can't guess what I've been up to since I seen you this mornin'. I've been so busy I ain't had a bite to eat.'
'Using your head?' She laughed.
'You can call it that,' he joined in her laughter. 'I've been spendin' money like water.'
'But you haven't got any to spend,' she objected.
'I've got credit in this valley, I'll let you know,' he replied. 'An' I sure strained it some this afternoon. Now guess.'
'A saddle-horse?'
He roared with laughter, startling the colt, which tried to bolt and lifted him half off the ground by his grip on its frightened nose and neck.
'Oh, I mean real guessin',' he urged, when the animal had dropped back to earth and stood regarding him with trembling suspicion.
'Two saddle-horses?'
'Aw, you ain't got imagination. I'll tell you. You know Thiercroft. I bought his big wagon from 'm for sixty dollars. I bought a wagon from the Kenwood blacksmith-so-so, but it'll do-for forty-five dollars. An' I bought Ping's wagon-a peach-for sixty-five dollars. I could a-got it for fifty if he hadn't seen I wanted it bad.'
'But the money?' Saxon questioned faintly. 'You hadn't a hundred dollars left.'
'Didn't I tell you I had credit? Well, I have. I stood 'm off for them wagons. I ain't spent a cent of cash money to-day except for a couple of long-distance switches. Then I bought three sets of work-harness-they're chain harness an' second-hand-for twenty dollars a set. I bought 'm from the fellow that's doin' the haulin' for the quarry. He don't need 'm any more. An' I rented four wagons from 'm, an' four span of horses, too, at half a dollar a day for each horse, an' half a dollar a day for each wagon-that's six dollars a day rent I gotta pay 'm. The three sets of spare harness is for my six horses. Then… lemme see… yep, I rented two barns in Glen Ellen, an' I ordered fifty tons of hay an' a carload of bran an' barley from the store in Glenwood-you see, I gotta feed all them fourteen horses, an' shoe 'm, an' everything.
'Oh, sure Pete, I've went some. I hired seven men to go drivin' for me at two dollars a day, an'-ouch! Jehosaphat! What you doin'!'
'No,' Saxon said gravely, having pinched him, 'you're not dreaming.' She felt his pulse and forehead. 'Not a sign of fever.' She sniffed his breath. 'And you've not been drinking. Go on, tell me the rest of this… whatever it is.'
'Ain't you satisfied?'
'No. I want more. I want all.'
'All right. But I just want you to know, first, that the boss I used to work for in Oakland ain't got nothin' on me. I 'm some man of affairs, if anybody should ride up on a vegetable wagon an' ask you. Now, I 'm goin' to tell you, though I can't see why the Glen Ellen folks didn't beat me to it. I guess they was asleep. Nobody'd a- overlooked a thing like it in the city. You see, it was like this: you know that fancy brickyard they're gettin' ready to start for makin' extra special fire brick for inside walls? Well, here was I worryin' about the six horses comin' back on my hands, earnin' me nothin' an' eatin' me into the poorhouse. I had to get 'm work somehow, an' I remembered the brickyard. I drove the colt down an' talked with that Jap chemist who's been doin' the experimentin'. Gee! They was foremen lookin' over the ground an' everything gettin' ready to hum. I looked over the lay an' studied it. Then I drove up to where they're openin' the clay pit-you know, that fine, white chalky stuff we saw 'em borin' out just outside the hundred an' forty acres with the three knolls. It's a down-hill haul, a mile, an' two horses can do it easy. In fact, their hardest job'll be haulin' the empty wagons up to the pit. Then I tied the colt an' went to figurin'.
'The Jap professor'd told me the manager an' the other big guns of the company was comin' up on the mornin' train. I wasn't shoutin' things out to anybody, but I just made myself into a committee of welcome; an', when the train pulled in, there I was, extendin' the glad hand of the burg-likewise the glad hand of a guy you used to know in Oakland once, a third-rate dub prizefighter by the name of-lemme see-yep, I got it right-Big Bill Roberts was the name he used to sport, but now he's known as William Roberts, E. S. Q.
'Well, as I was sayin', I gave 'm the glad hand, an' trailed along with 'em to the brickyard, an' from the talk I could see things was doin'. Then I watched my chance an' sprung my proposition. I was scared stiff all the time for maybe the teamin' was already arranged. But I knew it wasn't when they asked for my figures. I had 'm by heart, an' I rattled 'm off, and the top-guy took 'm down in his note-book.
''We're goin' into this big, an' at once,' he says, lookin' at me sharp. 'What kind of an outfit you got, Mr. Roberts?''
'Me!-with only Hazel an' Hattie, an' them too small for heavy teamin'.
''I can slap fourteen horses an' seven wagons onto the job at the jump,' says I. 'An' if you want more, I'll get 'm, that's all.'
''Give us fifteen minutes to consider, Mr. Roberts,' he says.
''Sure,' says I, important as all hell-ahem-me!-'but a couple of other things first. I want a two year contract, an' them figures all depends on one thing. Otherwise they don't go.'
''What's that,' he says.
''The dump,' says I. 'Here we are on the ground, an' I might as well show you.'
'An' I did. I showed 'm where I'd lose out if they stuck to their plan, on account of the dip down an' pull up to the dump. 'All you gotta do,' I says, 'is to build the bunkers fifty feet over, throw the road around the rim of the hill, an' make about seventy or eighty feet of elevated bridge.'
'Say, Saxon, that kind of talk got 'em. It was straight. Only they'd been thinkin' about bricks, while I was only thinkin' of teamin'.
