"In a sense, you ran some risk in choosing me."
"I don't know that I chose you, to begin with," Fuller answered with a
twinkle. "I imagine my daughter made me think as I did, but I'm willing
to state that her judgment was good. We'll let that go. You have seen
Jake at his work; do you think he'll make an engineer?"
"Yes," said Dick, and then recognizing friendship's claim, added bluntly:
"But he'll make a better artist. He has the gift."
"Well," said Fuller, in a thoughtful tone, "we'll talk of it again. In
the meantime, he's learning how big jobs are done and dollars are earned,
and that's a liberal education. However, I've a proposition here I'd like
your opinion of."
Dick's heart beat as he read the document his employer handed him. It was
a formal agreement by which he engaged his services to Fuller until the
irrigation work was completed, in return for a salary that he thought
remarkably good.
"It's much more than I had any reason to expect," he said with some
awkwardness. "In fact, although I don't know that I have been of much
help to Jake, I'd sooner you didn't take this way of repaying me. One
would prefer not to mix friendship with business."
"Yours is not a very common view," Fuller replied, smiling. "However, I'm
merely offering to buy your professional skill, and want to know if
you're satisfied with my terms."
"They're generous," said Dick with emotion, for he saw what the change in
his position might enable him to do. "There's only one thing: the
agreement is to stand until the completion of the dam. What will happen
afterwards?"
"Then if I have no more use for you here, I think I can promise to find
you as good or better job. Is that enough?"
Dick gave him a grateful look. "It's difficult to tell you how I feel
about it, but I'll do my best to make good and show that you have not
been mistaken."
"That's all right," said Fuller, getting up. "Sign the document when you
can get a witness and let me have it."
He went away and Dick sat down and studied the agreement with a beating
heart. He found his work engrossing, he liked the men he was associated
with, and saw his way to making his mark in his profession, but there was
another cause for the triumphant thrill he felt. Clare must be separated
from Kenwardine before she was entangled in his dangerous plots, and he
had brooded over his inability to come to her rescue. Now, however, one
obstacle was removed. He could offer her some degree of comfort if she
could be persuaded to marry him. It was obvious that she must be taken
out of her father's hands as soon as possible, and he determined to try
to gain her consent next morning, though he was very doubtful of his
success.