"I tried to find you when I got better after being stabbed," he said. "I
don't quite see why you came to my help."
Payne grinned sourly. "You certainly hadn't much of a claim; but you were
a white man and that dago meant to kill. Now if I'd held my job with
Fuller and you hadn't dropped on to Oliva's game, I'd have made my little
pile; but I allow you had to fire us when something put you wise."
"I see," said Dick, with a smile at the fellow's candor. "Well, I
couldn't trust you with the cement again, but we're short of a man to
superintend a peon gang and I'll talk to Mr. Stuyvesant about it if
you'll tell me your address."
Payne gave him a fixed, eager look. "You get me the job and take me out
of this and you won't be sorry. I'll make it good to you--and I reckon I
can."
Dick, who thought the other's anxiety to escape from his degrading
occupation had prompted his last statement, turned away, saying he would
see what could be done, and in the evening visited Stuyvesant. Bethune
was already with him, and Dick told them how he had found Payne.
"You felt you had to promise the fellow a job because he butted in when
the dagos got after you?" Stuyvesant suggested.
"No," said Dick with some embarrassment, "it wasn't altogether that. He
certainly did help me, but I can't pass my obligations on to my employer.
If you think he can't be trusted, I'll pay his passage to another port."
"Well, I don't know that if I had the option I'd take the fellow out of
jail, so long as he was shut up decently out of sight; but this is worse,
in a way. What do you think, Bethune?"
Bethune smiled. "You ought to know. I'm a bit of a philosopher, but when
you stir my racial feelings I'm an American first. The mean white's a
troublesome proposition at home, but we can't afford to exhibit him to
the dagos here." He turned to Dick. "That's our attitude, Brandon, and
though you were not long in our country, you seem to sympathize with it.
I don't claim it's quite logical, but there it is! We're white and
different."
"Do you want me to hire the man?" Stuyvesant asked with an impatient
gesture.
"Yes," said Dick.
"Then put him on. If he steals anything, I'll hold you responsible and
ship him out on the next cement boat, whether he wants to go or not."
Next morning Dick sent word to Payne, who arrived at the dam soon
afterwards and did his work satisfactorily. On the evening of the first
pay-day he went to Santa Brigida, but Dick, who watched him in the
morning, noted somewhat to his surprise, that he showed no signs of
dissipation. When work stopped at noon he heard a few pistol shots, but
was told on inquiring that it was only one or two of the men shooting at
a mark. A few days afterwards he found it necessary to visit Santa
Brigida. Since Bethune confined his talents to constructional problems
and languidly protested that he had no aptitude for commerce, much of the
company's minor business gradually fell into Dick's hands. As a rule, he
went to the town in the evening, after he had finished at the dam. While
a hand-car was being got ready to take him down the line, Payne came up
to the veranda, where Dick sat with Jake.