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Title: The river

Author: Ednah Aiken

Illustrator: Sidney H. Riesenberg

Release date: May 31, 2024 [eBook #73739]

Language: English

Original publication: Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Credits: Richard Hulse, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER ***





THE RIVER




[Illustration]




  THE RIVER

  _By_
  EDNAH AIKEN

  ILLUSTRATED BY
  SIDNEY H. RIESENBERG

  [Illustration]

  INDIANAPOLIS
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS




  COPYRIGHT 1914
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  PRESS OF
  BRAUNWORTH & CO.
  BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
  BROOKLYN, N. Y.




  TO
  CHARLES SEDGWICK AIKEN




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                  PAGE

        I MARSHALL SENDS FOR RICKARD                          1

       II A BIT OF ORATORY                                    9

      III THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY                            20

       IV THE DESERT HOTEL                                   38

        V A GAME OF CHECKERS                                 50

       VI RED TAPE                                           67

      VII A GARDEN IN A DESERT                               80

     VIII UNDER THE VENEER                                   87

       IX ON THE WISTARIA                                    95

        X FEAR                                              103

       XI THE RIVALS                                        111

      XII A DESERT DINNER                                   117

     XIII THE FIGHTING CHANCE                               127

      XIV HARDIN’S LUCK                                     137

       XV THE WRONG MAN                                     141

      XVI THE BEST LAID SCHEMES                             150

     XVII THE DRAGON TAKES A HAND                           159

    XVIII ON THE LEVEE                                      169

      XIX THE WHITE REFUGE                                  178

       XX OPPOSITION                                        189

      XXI A MORNING RIDE                                    199

     XXII THE PASSING OF THE WATERS                         204

    XXIII MORE ORATORY                                      214

     XXIV A SOFT NOOK                                       234

      XXV THE STOKERS                                       247

     XXVI THE WHITE OLEANDER                                256

    XXVII A WHITE WOMAN AND A BROWN                         264

   XXVIII BETRAYAL                                          271

     XXIX RICKARD MAKES A NEW ENEMY AND A NEW FRIEND        278

      XXX SMUDGE                                            290

     XXXI TIME THE UMPIRE                                   297

    XXXII THE WALK HOME                                     307

   XXXIII A DISCOVERY                                       319

    XXXIV THE FACE IN THE WILLOWS                           329

     XXXV A GLIMPSE OF FREEDOM                              337

    XXXVI THE DRAGON SCORES                                 346

   XXXVII A SUNDAY SPECTACLE                                355

  XXXVIII THE WHITE NIGHT                                   367

    XXXIX THE BATTLE IN THE NIGHT                           378

       XL A DESERTION                                       396

      XLI INCOMPLETENESS                                    405

     XLII A CORNER OF HIS HEART                             417




THE RIVER




THE RIVER




CHAPTER I

MARSHALL SENDS FOR RICKARD


THE large round clock was striking nine as “Casey” Rickard’s dancing
step carried him into the outer office of Tod Marshall. The ushering
clerk, coatless and vestless in expectation of the third, hot spring
day, made a critical appraisement of the engineer’s get-up before he
spoke. Then he stated that Mr. Marshall had not yet come.

For a London tie and a white silk shirt belted into white serge
trousers were smart for Tucson. The clerks in the employ of the
Overland Pacific and of the Sonora and Yaqui Railroads had stared at
Rickard as he entered; they followed his progress through the room.
He was a newcomer in Tucson. He had not yet acquired the apathetic
habits of its citizens. He wore belts, instead of suspenders. His white
trousers, duck or serge, carried a newly pressed crease each morning.

The office had not reached a verdict on the subject of K. C. Rickard.
The shirt-sleeved, collarless clerks would have been quick to dub him a
dandy were it not for a page of his history that was puzzling them. He
had held a chair of engineering in some eastern city. He had resigned,
the wind-tossed page said, to go on the road as a fireman. His rapid
promotion had been spectacular; the last move, a few weeks ago, to fill
an office position in Tucson. The summons had found him on the west
coast of Mexico, where the Overland Pacific was pushing its tracks.

“You can wait here,” suggested the clerk, looking covertly at the shoes
of the man who a few years before had been shoveling coal on a Wyoming
engine. “Mr. Marshall said to wait.”

“Ribbons, instead of shoe-laces!” carped the human machine that must
ever write letters which other men sign. “And a blue pin to match his
tie! I call that going some!”

It would never have occurred to Rickard, had he thought about it at
all that morning as he knotted his tie of dark, brilliant blue silk,
that the selection of his lapis pin was a choice; it was an inevitable
result, an instinctive discretion of his fingers. It warped, however,
the suspended judgment of Marshall’s men who had never seen him
shoveling coal, disfigured by a denim jumper. They did not know that
they themselves were slovens; ruined by the climate that dulls vanity
and wilts collars.

“Give him a year to change some of his fine habits!” wagered Smythe,
the stoop-shouldered clerk, as the door of the inner office closed.

“To change his habits less!” amended the office wit. And then they
fell to speculating what Marshall was going to do with him. What
pawn was he in the game that every one in Tucson followed with eager
self-interested concern? Marshall’s was the controlling hand in Arizona
politics; the maker of governors, the arbiter of big corporations;
president of a half-dozen railroads. Not a move of his on the board
that escaped notice.

On the other side of the door, Rickard was echoing the office question.
This play job, where did it lead to? He had liked his work, under
Stratton. There had been some pretty problems to meet--what did
Marshall mean to do with him?

The note had set the appointment for nine. Rickard glanced at his
watch, and took out his _Engineering Review_. It would be ten before
that door opened on Tod Marshall!

He knew that, on the road, Marshall’s work began at dawn. “A man won’t
break from overwork, or rust from underwork, if he follows the example
of the sun,” Rickard had often heard him expound his favorite theory.
“It is only the players, the sybarites, who can afford to pervert the
arrangement nature intended for us.” But in Tucson, controlled by
the wifely solicitude of his Claudia, he was coerced into a regular
perversion. His office never saw him until the morning was half gone.

A half-hour later, Rickard finished reading a report on the diversion
of a great western river. The name of Thomas Hardin had sent him off
on a tangent of memory. The Thomas Hardin whose efforts to bring water
to the desert of the Colorado had been so spectacularly unsuccessful
_was_ the Tom Hardin he had known! The sister had told him so, the girl
with the odd bronze eyes; opal matrix they were, with glints of gold,
or was it green? She herself was as unlike the raw boor of his memory
as a mountain lily is like the coarse rock of its background. Even
a half-sister to Hardin, as Marshall, their host at dinner the week
before, had explained it,--no, even that did not explain it. That any
of the Hardin blood should be shared by the veins of that girl, why
it was incredible! The name “Hardin” suggested crudity, loud-mouthed
bragging; conceit. He could understand the failure of the river project
since the sister had assured him that it was the same Tom Hardin who
had gone to college at Lawrence; had married Gerty Holmes. Queer
business, life, that he should cross, even so remotely, their orbits
again. That was a chapter he liked to skip.

He walked over to the windows, shielded by bright awnings, and looked
down on the city where the next few years of his life might be caught.
Comforting to reflect that an engineer is like a soldier, never can
be certain about to-morrow. Time enough to know that to-morrow meant
Tucson! What was that threadbare proverb in the Overland Pacific that
Tod Marshall always keeps his men until they lose their teeth? That
defined the men who made themselves necessary!

His eyes were resting on the banalities of the modern city that had
robbed “old town” of its flavor. Were it not for the beauty of the
distant hills, the jar and rumble of the trains whose roar called
to near-by pleasure cities, twinkling lights and crowded theaters,
stretches of parks and recreation grounds, he, who loved the thrill
and confinement of an engine, who had found enticement in a desert,
a chapter of adventure in the barrancas of Mexico, would stifle in
Tucson! American progress was as yet too thin a veneer on Mexican
indifference to make the place endurable; as a city. Were it a village
of ten thousand people, then he’d not be scolding at his hotel, The
Rosales. He could find the limitations picturesque, even. The census
it was that accused those dusty unswept floors, the stained cuspidors,
the careless linen, and The Rosales the best place in town! One has a
right to expect comforts in a city.

“I’m good for a lifetime here, if I want it,” his thoughts would
work back to the starting place. “If I knuckle down to it, let him
grow to depend on me, it’s as good as settled that I am buried in
Tucson!” Hadn’t he heard Marshall himself say that he “didn’t keep a
kindergarten--that his office wasn’t a training-school for men!” He
wanted his men to stay! That, one of the reasons of the great man’s
power; detail rested on the shoulders of his employees. It kept his own
brain clear, receptive to big achievements.

“Perhaps as the work unrolls, as I see more of what he wants of me,
why he wants me, I may like it, I may get to shout for Tucson!” It was
improbable enough to smile over! Child’s work, compared to Mexico. He
was never tired--that was his grievance; he had it, now; he was never
tired.

The distinction of serving Marshall well certainly had its drawbacks.
He wanted to sweep on. Whether he had a definite terminal, a concrete
goal, had he ever stopped to think? Specialization had always a
fascination for him. It was that which had thrown him out of his
instructorship into the fire-box of a western engine. It had governed
his course at college--to know one thing well, and then to prove that
he knew it well! Contented in the Mexican barrancas, here he was
chafing, restive, after a few weeks of Tucson. For what was he getting
here? Adding what scrap of experience to the rounding of his profession?

Retrospectively, engineering could hardly be said to be the work
of his choice. Rather had it appeared to choose him. From boyhood
engineers had always been, to him, the soldiers of modern civilization.
To conquer and subdue mountains, to shackle wild rivers, to suspend
trestles over dizzy heights, to throw the tracks of an advancing
civilization along a newly blazed trail, there would always be a thrill
in it for him. It had changed the best quarter-back of his high school
into the primmest of students at college. Only for a short time had he
let his vanity side-track him, when the honor of teaching what he had
learned stopped his own progress. A rut--! He remembered the day when
it had burst on him, the realization of the rut he was in. He could see
his Lawrence schoolroom, could see yet the face under the red-haired
mop belonging to Jerry Matson--queer he remembered the name after all
those years! He could picture the look of consternation when he threw
down his book, and announced his desertion.

“Casey was off his feed,” he had heard one of the students say as he
passed a buzzing group in the hall. “He looks peaked.”

He had handed in his resignation the next day. A month later, and he
was shoveling coal on the steep grades of Wyoming.

“Marshall keeps his men with him!” The engineer’s glance traveled
around the fleckless office. A stranger to Marshall would get a wrong
idea of the man who worked in it! Those precise files, the desk,
orderly and polished, the gleaming linoleum--and then the man who
made the negro janitor’s life a proud burden! His clothes always
crumpled--spots, too, unless his Claudia had had a chance at them!
Black string tie askew, all the outward visible signs of the southern
gentleman of assured ancestry. Not even a valet would ever keep Tod
Marshall up to the standard of that office. What did he have servants
for, he had demanded of Rickard, if it were not to jump after him,
picking up the loose ends he dropped?

Curious thing, magnetism. That man’s step on the stair, and every
man-jack of them would jump to attention, from Ben, the colored
janitor, who would not swap his post for a sinecure so long as
Tod Marshall’s one lung kept him in Arizona, to Smythe, the
stoop-shouldered clerk, who had followed Marshall’s cough from San
Francisco. Poor Smythe! as inextricably entangled in the meshes of red
tape as was the hapless Lady of Shalott in the web of her own snarled
loom. It was said in Arizona--he himself had met the statement in
Tucson--that any man who had ever worked for Tod Marshall would rather
be warmed by the reflection of his greatness than be given posts of
personal distinction.

Rickard found his office the only attractive place in the desert city.
Shining and airy, even in the hottest days, its gaily screened windows
were far enough above the street to give a charitable perspective.
Restive as he was under the inaction of the last few weeks, he could
acknowledge a quaintness of foreign suggestion in the mixture of Indian
and Mexican influence, hampered, rather than helped, by American
aggressiveness. Over the heads of a group of low buildings he could
see the roof of the old mission church, now the lounging place for
roisterers and sponges. There, the fiery mescal, the terrible tequila,
were sending many a white lad to destruction.

Those office buildings across the street, gay with canvas, suggested
American enterprise. In the distance were the substantial structures
of the lusty western university. Down by the track the new home of the
Overland Pacific was nearing completion. In the street below, young
girls with their crisp duck skirts and colored waists gave the touch of
blossoming. Mexican women wrapped in the inevitable black shawl were
jostling one another’s baskets. The scene was full of color and charm,
but to the watcher who was eager to be on and doing, it cried teasingly
of inertia.

Was it office routine Marshall intended him for? He admired without
stint Tod Marshall, but he preferred to work by the side of the other
kind, the strong men, without physical handicap, the men who take
risks, the men who live the life of soldiers. That was the life he
wanted. He would wait long enough to get Marshall’s intention, and
then, if it meant--this! he would break loose. He would go back to the
front where he belonged; back to the firing-line.

As the hands of the round clock in the outer office were pointing to
ten, the door opened and Marshall entered. His clothes, of indefinite
blackish hue, would have disgraced an eastern man. His string tie had a
starboard list, and his hat was ready for a rummage sale. But few would
have looked at his clothes. The latent energy of the dynamic spirit
that would frequently turn that quiet office into a maelstrom gleamed
in those Indian-black eyes. Beneath the shabby cloth, one suspected the
daily polished skin; under the old slouch hat was the mouth of purpose,
the lips that no woman, even his Claudia, had kissed without the thrill
of fear.

Marshall glanced back at the clock, and then toward his visitor.

“On time!” he observed.

Rickard, smiling, put his book in his pocket.




CHAPTER II

A BIT OF ORATORY


MARSHALL threw his hat on a chair, the morning paper on his desk. He
aimed his burned-out cigar at the nearest cuspidor, but it fell foul,
the ashes scattering over Sam’s lately scoured linoleum. Instantly
there was appearance of settled disorder. Marshall emptied his pockets
of loose papers, spreading them out on his flat-top desk.

“Sit down!”

Rickard took the chair at the other side of the desk.

Marshall rang a bell. Instantly the shirt-sleeved clerk entered.

“I shall not see any one,” the chief announced. “I don’t want to be
interrupted. Take these to Smythe.”

His eyes followed the shutting of the door, then turned square upon
Rickard. “I need you. It’s a hell of a mess!”

The engineer wanted to know what kind of a “mess” it was.

“That river. It’s running away from them. It’s always going to run away
from them. I’m going to send you down to stop it.”

“The Colorado!” exclaimed Rickard. It was no hose to be turned, simply,
off from a garden bed!

“Of course you’ve been following it? It’s one of the biggest things
that’s happened in this part of the world. Too big for the men who
have been trying to swing it. You’ve followed it?”

“Yes.” Queer coincidence, reading that report just now! “I’ve not been
there. But the engineering papers used to get to me in Mexico. I’ve
read all the reports.”

His superior’s question was uncharacteristically superfluous. Who had
not read with thrilled nerves of that wild river which men had been
trying to put under work-harness? Who, even among the stay-at-homes,
had not followed the newspaper stories of the failure to make a meek
servant and water-carrier of the Colorado, that wild steed of mountain
and desert? What engineer, no matter how remote, would not “follow”
that spectacular struggle between men and Titans?

“Going to send me to Salton?” he inquired. The railroad had been kept
jumping to keep its feet dry. His job to be by that inland sea which
last year had been desert!

“No. Brainerd is there. He can manage the tracks. I am going to send
you down to the break.”

Rickard did not answer. He felt the questioning eyes of his chief.

“Down to the break,” repeated Tod Marshall, his bright black eyes
taking in every detail of the engineer’s get-up, resting, finally, on
his sunburned face. “Have one?” He offered Rickard his choice of two
small black cigars.

“Thanks, no,” said Rickard.

“Not smoking yet?”

“Not yet.” Rickard was amused at the solicitude. It was as though he
had asked: “Your mother is dying?”

“When will the penance be over?” Marshall lighted his cigar, watching
the blue blaze of the sulphur-tipped match, the slow igniting of the
tobacco--obviously an exquisite sensuous rite.

“It isn’t a penance! It’s an experiment. I never had to do anything
I really hated to do. I’ve never had to deny myself anything. Some
fellows have to give up studying the profession they love, go to
some hard digging or other, to support somebody. I’ve been lucky.
I discovered I did not know the meaning of the word ‘sacrifice.’ I
buckled down, and gave up the thing I liked best. That’s all that
amounts to.”

His words had a solemn effect. Marshall had stopped smoking. Rickard
discovered that his confidence had been tactless. Few men had had to
sacrifice so much as the one now somberly facing him. His home, first,
because a civil war had crushed it; his refuge, then, after years in
attics, and struggle with post-bellum prejudices, just as success met
him there; the fulness of life as men want it--those eyes knew what
sacrifice meant!

“When are you going to quit?” Marshall’s face was still sober.

“When am I going to quit quitting?” laughed his subordinate. “I haven’t
thought it out, sir. When it comes to me, the inclination, I suppose.
I’ve lost the taste for tobacco.” The break--where those Hardins
were--how in thunder was he going to get out of that, and save his
skin? Marshall liked his own way--

Marshall had resumed his cigar. “We’ll consider it settled, then.” His
minute of introspection was over. He had picked up his thread.

“Who’s in charge there?” Rickard was only gaining time. He thought he
knew the name he would hear. Marshall’s first word surprised him.

“No one. Up to a few months ago, it was Hardin, Tom Hardin. He was
general manager of the company. He was allowed to resign, to save his
face, as the Chinese say. I may tell you that it was a case of firing.
He’d made a terrible fluke down there.”

“I know,” murmured Rickard. It was growing more difficult, more
distasteful. If Marshall wanted him to supplant Hardin! It had been
incredible, that man’s folly! Reckless gambling, nothing else. Make
a cut in the banks of a wild river, without putting in head-gates to
control it; a child would guess better! It was a problem now, all
right; the writer of the report he’d just read wasn’t the only one who
was prophesying failure. Let the river cut back, and the government
works at Laguna would be useless; a nice pickle Hardin had made.

Still to gain time, he suggested that Marshall tell him the situation.
“I’ve followed only the engineering side of it. I don’t know the
relationship of the two companies.”

“Where the railroad came in? The inside of that story? I’m
responsible--I guaranteed to Faraday the closing of that break. There
was a big district to save, a district that the railroad tapped--but
I’ll tell you that later.” He was leisurely puffing blue, perfectly
formed rings into the air, his eyes admiring them.

“Perhaps you’ve heard how Estrada, the general, took a party of men
into the desert to sell a mine he owned. After the deal was made, he
decided to let it slip. He’d found something bigger to do, more to his
liking than the sale of a mine. Estrada was a big man, a great man. He
had the idea Powell and others had, of turning the river, of saving the
desert. He dreamed himself of doing it. If sickness hadn’t come to him,
the Colorado would be meekly carrying water now, instead of flooding a
country. Pity Eduardo, the son, is not like him. He’s like his mother,
you never know what they are dreaming about. Not at all alike, my wife
and Estrada’s.”

Then it came to Rickard that he had heard somewhere that Marshall and
General Estrada had married sisters, famous beauties of Guadalajara. He
began to piece together the personal background of the story.

“It was a long time before Estrada could get it started, and it’s a
long story. As soon as he began, he was knocked down. Other men took
hold. You’ll hear it all in the valley. Hardin took a day to tell it to
me! He sees himself as a martyr. Promoters got in; the thing swelled
into a swindle, a spectacular swindle. They showed oranges on Broadway
before a drop of water was brought in. Hardin has lots of grievances!
He’d made the original survey. So when he sued for his back wages, he
took the papers of the bankrupt company in settlement. He’s a grim sort
of ineffectual bulldog. He’s clung with his teeth to the Estrada idea.
And he’s not big enough for it. He uses the optimistic method--gives
you only half of a case, half of the problem, gets started on a false
premise. Well, he got up another company on that method, the Desert
Reclamation Company, tried to whitewash the desert project; it was in
bad odor then, and he managed to bring a few drops of water to the
desert.”

“It _was_ Hardin who did that?”

“But he couldn’t deliver enough. The cut silted up. He cut again, the
same story. He was in a pretty bad hole. He’d brought colonists in
already, he’d used their money, the money they’d paid for land with
water, to make the cuts. No wonder he was desperate.”

It recalled the man Rickard had disliked, the rough-shod, loud-voiced
student of his first class in engineering. That was the man who had
made the flamboyant carpets of the Holmes’ boarding-house impossible
any longer to him. He had a sudden disconcerting vision of a large
unfinished face peering through the honeysuckles at a man and a girl
drawing apart in confusion from their first, and last, kiss. He wanted
to tell Marshall he was wasting his time.

“Overwhelmed with lawsuits,” Marshall was saying. “Hardin had to
deliver water to those colonists. It was then that he ran over into
Mexico, so as to get a better gradient for his canal, and made his cut
there. You know the rest. It ran away from him. It made the Salton Sea.”

“Did he ever give you any reason,” frowned Rickard reminiscently, “any
_reasonable_ reason why he made that cut without any head-gate?”

“No money!” shrugged Marshall, getting out another cigar. “I told you
he’s a raw dancer, always starts off too quick, begins on the wrong
foot. Oh, yes, he has reasons, lots of them, that fellow, but as you
say, they’re not reasonable. He never waits to get ready.”

Why was it that the face of the half-sister came to Rickard then, with
that look of sensitive high-breeding and guarded reserve? And she, a
Hardin! Sister to that loud-spilling mouth! Queer cards nature deals!
And pretty cards Marshall was trying to deal out to him. Go down there,
and finish Hardin’s job, show him up to be the fumbler he was, give him
orders, give the husband of Gerty Holmes orders--!

“It was Hardin who came to me, but not until he’d tried everything
else. They’d worked for months trying to dam the river with a few lace
handkerchiefs, and perhaps a chiffon veil!” Marshall was twinkling over
his own humor. “Hardin did put up a good talk. It was true, as he said;
we’d had to move our tracks three, no, four times, at Salton. It was
true that it ought to be one of the richest districts tapped by the O.
P. But he clenched me by a clever bait--to put out a spur in Mexico
which would keep any other railroad off by a fifty-mile parallel, and
there the sand-hills make a railroad impossible.

“The government must eventually come to the rescue. Their works at
Laguna hang on the control of the river down at the Heading. Once, he
told me--I don’t know how much truth there was in it--the Service,
Reclamation Service, did try to buy up their plant for a paltry sum. He
wouldn’t sell. The short is, I recommended long-sighted assistance to
Faraday. I promised to turn that river, save the district. We expected
before the year was out to have the government take the responsibility
off our hands.”

Rickard made an impatient shrug. A nice problem Marshall had taken unto
himself. He wanted none of it. Hardin--the thing was impossible.

He met laggardly Marshall’s story. He heard him say: “Agreed with
Faraday. The Desert Reclamation Company was as helpless as a swaddled
infant. We made the condition that we reorganize the company. I was
put in Hardin’s place as president of the corporation, and he was made
general manager. Of course, we had to control the stock. We put up two
hundred thousand dollars--Hardin had estimated it would cost us less
than half that! It’s cost us already a million. Things haven’t been
going right. Faraday’s temper burst out, and Hardin, a while back was
asked to resign.”

“And it is Hardin’s position that you want me to fill?” His voice
sounded queer to himself, dry, mocking, as if any one should know what
an absurd thing he was being asked to do. He felt Marshall’s sharp
Indian eyes on him, as if detecting a pettiness. Well, he didn’t care
how Marshall interpreted it. That place wasn’t for him.

“I want you in control down there.” Rickard knew he was being
appraised, balanced all over again. It made no difference--

“I’m sorry,” he was beginning, when Marshall cut in.

“Good lord, you are not going to turn it down?”

He met Marshall’s incredulous stare. “It’s a job I’d jump at under most
circumstances. But I can’t go, sir.”

Tod Marshall leaned back the full swing of his swivel chair, blankly
astounded. His eyes told Rickard that he had been found wanting, he had
white blood in his veins.

“It is good of you to think of me--pshaw, it is absurd to say these
things. You know that I know it is an honor to be picked out by you for
such a piece of work. I’d like to,--but I can’t.”

The president of railroads, who knew men, had been watching the play
of feature. “Take your time,” he said. “Don’t answer too hastily. Take
your time.”

He was playing the fool, or worse, before Marshall, whom he respected,
whose partisanship meant so much. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t
tell that story--he knew that Marshall would brush it aside as a
child’s episode. He couldn’t make it clear to the man whose stare was
balancing him why he could not oust Tom Hardin.

“Is it a personal reason?” Marshall’s gaze had returned to his
ring-making.

Rickard admitted it was personal.

“Then I don’t accept it. I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t advise
you to disregard the little thing, to take the big thing. Maybe, you
are going to be married.” He did not wait for Rickard’s vigorous
negative. “That can wait. The river won’t. Maybe it’s some quixotic
idea, like your smoking; for God’s sake, Rickard, don’t be quixotic.
It’s fine to be quixotic, magnificent, when you’re young. Oh, you
are young to me. But when you’re no longer young? When you see the
opportunity you did not take wasted, or made splendid, even, by some
other man? Look at me! I could have foresworn the South, taken a
different name after the war, said I was from England, or from New
England. I could have made a decent living. What did I do? It seemed
glorious to the youngster who had been fighting for his idea of justice
to fight against such a handicap--a beaten southerner. And I did fight.
I fought poverty, cold--I had a mother back there--I was hungry, often.
Sick, and couldn’t go to a doctor who might have warned me, because I
hadn’t a cent in my pocket. And so, when I was where I wanted to be,
where I’d struggled up to be, had my hand on the life I loved, in the
city I loved, with the woman I loved, I was knocked down, banished to
this desert if I wanted to live a few more years! Where if I eat gruel,
sleep a child’s night sleep, give up all the things a man of red blood
likes to do, I may live! If you’d call it that! Just because I’d had
no one to talk to me, as I’m talking to you, to tell me I was a young
fool.”

Rickard was looking intently at a slit in the colored awning. He did
not answer.

Marshall looked at the stiff figure facing him. “Your reason may be
sounder than mine, less highfalutin. But look at it. Balance the other
side. Drop yourself out of it. There’s a river running away down
yonder, ruining the valley, ruining the homes of families men have
carried in with them. I’ve asked you to save them. There’s a debt of
honor to be paid. My promise. I have asked you to pay it. There’s
history being written in that desert. I’ve asked you to write it. And
you say ‘No--’”

“No! I say yes!” clipped Rickard. The Marshall oratory had swept him to
his feet.

The dramatic moment was chilled by their Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness.
An awkward silence hung. Then:

“When can you go?” Marshall’s voice dropped from the declamatory. He
had already taken up a pencil and was vaguely scribbling over a writing
pad.

“To-day, to-morrow, the first train out.” Rickard wondered if the
scrawls had anything to do with him.

“Good!” Marshall’s tone was hearty, but it had the finality of
“good-by.” He was tracing nebulous figures, letters. The word,
“Oaxaca,” ran out of the blur. Instantly his mind was diverted.

He had made his appeal, won his point. An hour later, perhaps, he would
be honest in denying the paternity of some of his flowery phrases
were he to be confronted by the children of his brain. His word of
honor--he had used as his climax. He had never thought of his business
talk with Faraday in that light before, and never would again. It was a
tool, picked up for his need and thrown away.

Already, he was revolving a spur he was planning for Oaxaca, in
Southern Mexico. An inspiration had come to him on his walk from The
Rosales that morning. His pencil made some rapid calculations.

A few minutes later he glanced up at the clock, and saw Rickard
standing, as at attention.

“Ah!” He allowed his absorption to betray him.

“I should be off,” discovered Rickard.

“Oh, no,” replied the president of several railroads, looking at the
clock again.

“Any instructions?”

“Just stop that river!”

Rickard again had a humorous vision of himself, asked to take away a
bursting hose from a garden bed. “How am I limited?” he persisted. He
stooped for his straw hat.

Marshall, still intrigued by his figures, looked up patiently,
inquiringly, nibbling the end of his pencil.

“The expense?” demanded the engineer. “How far can I go?”

“Damn the expense!” cried Tod Marshall. “Just go ahead.”

He had begun a swift pencil map of the province of Oaxaca before
Rickard was out of the room.




CHAPTER III

THE BLESSING OF ARIDITY


WHEN Rickard left the main line at Imperial Junction the next
afternoon, his eyes followed the train he was deserting rather than the
one that was to carry him to his new labors. He felt again the thrill
of detachment that invariably preceded his entrance into a new country.
With the pulling up of the porter’s green-carpeted stool, the slamming
of the train gates, the curtain fell on the Tucson set scene.

The long line of cars was pushing off with its linen-covered Pullmans
and diners, steaming down-grade toward the Sink, the depression which
had been primeval sea, and then desert, and was now sea again. Old
Beach, rechristened Imperial Junction for railroad convenience, was
itself lower than the ancient sea-line where once the gulf had reached.
Rickard knew he could find shells at that desert station should he look
for them. He picked up his bag that the porter had thrown on the ground
and faced the rung-down curtain.

Its painted scene was a yellow station-house broiling under a desert
sun; a large water-tank beyond, and in the distance the inevitable
cardboard mountains, like property scene-shifts, flat and thin in their
unreal hues of burnished pink and purple. A dusty accommodation train
was backing and switching, picking up the empty refrigerator cars to
carry into the valley for the early melon growers.

Already, the valley had asserted its industrial importance; the late
rampage of the Colorado had made it spectacular. Those who would pay
little attention to the opening of a new agricultural district in the
heart of a dreaded desert opened their ears to the vagary of the river
which had sportively made of a part of that desert an inland sea.
Scientists were rushing their speculations into print; would the sea
dwindle, by evaporation, as it had done before? Or would the overflow
maintain the paradoxical sea?

The flood signs were apparent. There, cracks had split the desert
sand; here, water fissures had menaced the track; and to the south, a
fringe of young willows hid the path of the Colorado’s debouch. The
burning desert sands cried out a sharp antithesis. The yellow railway
house bore all the parched signs of a desert station. Even the women,
with children in their arms, did not attempt to sit in the stifling
waiting-room; they preferred to stand in the glare.

The men crowding the platform wore the motley of a new country. In
Tucson, the uniform of the male citizens, with the exception of those
reckless ones who found inevitably that lotus is a liquid, was the
wilted pretense of a gentle civilization; despondent ducks and khakis
and limp collars. Imperial Junction marked the downfall of the collar.
The rest of the composite costume was irregular, badly laundered and
torn, faded and sunburned; the clothes of the desert soldier. Rickard
saw buttonless shirts, faded overalls, shabby hats--the sombrero
of Mexico. The faces under the broad-brimmed hats made a leaping
impression upon him of youth and eagerness. He noted a significant
average of intelligence and alertness. This was not the indolent group
of men which makes a pretense of occupation whenever a train comes in!

“Going in?” asked a voice at his ear. A pair of faded eyes set in a
young-old face, whether early withered or well-preserved he had not
time to determine, was staring at him.

He assured his interlocutor that he was going in. His mood isolated the
phrase; its significance vastly different from “going on.”

“Buying?”

“I think not.”

“It is a good time to buy.” Rickard suspected a real-estate agent. “For
land is low, rock-bottom prices on account of the uneasiness about the
river. People are afraid. They want to see the company redeem some of
its promises before they come in; and the company isn’t in much of a
hurry.”

Rickard raised his chin that his collar might bind his suffering neck
in a different place, and then asked what company he referred to.

The young-old face with the faded eyes looked at him in surprise. “The
D. R. Company, Desert Reclamation, which brought us all here.”

“Scamps?” The newcomer’s survey of the long line of naked mountains and
lean lands that formed the neck of the valley gave a snub of casualness
to the question.

“No. Fools!” The answer was as swift as a bullet. “Though some people
think them worse than that. I don’t go so far, I’m willing to say
they’ve tried. I’ll say that much. But they haven’t the know-how.”

“I’d rather be a scamp than a fool,” ventured Rickard. “It’s more
progressive.” He drew a look of amused recognition from the faded
valley man.

“Newspaper man? No? They are always coming in now since the break. I’m
usually able to spot them.”

“You’ve spotted wrong once,” smiled Rickard, picking up his bag. The
engine was backing the made-up train toward the station.

The crowd pushed forward. “No offense, I hope,” called the sun-dried
face over the heads of the press. “I’ve done a little of it myself.”

The window seats, Rickard could see, were filled before the cars
halted, by the experienced ones who had not waited for the train to be
made up. In the scramble, he spied a vacant window on the sunny side,
and made for it. Seated, he looked for his talkative friend who was
already opening office farther down the car. A stranger dropped into
the seat beside him.

Every window in the car was open. Each red-velveted, dusty seat was
filled. A strong desert wind was blowing sand into their faces,
discoloring the seats and covering the floor.

The engineer turned to his companion who was coughing.

“Do you mind this window being open?”

“I’d mind if it were not. It’s always bad at the Junction. When we get
into the cultivated country, you will see what the valley will be like
when it is all planted. The wind is not bad when it blows over grain or
alfalfa. It is the desert dust that nags one.” He coughed again. “Going
in?”

Rickard said he was going in.

“Are you going to settle in the valley?” The inquisitor was a man of
about fifty, Rickard decided, with a desert tan of apparent health. His
face was clear-cut and intelligent.

“I don’t know.”

“Just looking the country over?”

“You might call it that.”

“Go slow,” admonished his companion. “Don’t let yourself be carried
away. It is a wonderful country. But go slow. It’s the ones who expect
to make millions the first year that become the worst knockers. Go
slow, I always tell them. Go slow.”

“It’s not a good time to buy then?”

“Not so good as it was ten years ago! But land is cheaper than it was a
year back. In some districts you can buy a good farm for a ticket back
home, the farmers are so discouraged. Cold feet.” The slang sounded
oddly, somehow. The man’s voice had the cultivated precision of the
purist. “Cold feet. The river’s chilled them. The valley’s losing faith
in the company.”

“What company?” inquired Rickard again.

“There’s but one company to the valley, the one that brought them here,
the D. R. They don’t call the railroad The Company. They have nothing
to do with that problem. They won’t recognize that problem! It’s had
hard luck from the first, the D. R. At the very start, the wrong man
got hold of it. Sather, the first promoter, was a faker; a pretty
thorough faker. The company reorganized, but it’s been in bad odor with
the public ever since.”

Rickard’s eyes left the deep cuts in the land made by the ravaging
waters, and looked at his companion.

“I thought Estrada was the original promoter?” he inquired.

“Estrada’s a recent comer--oh, you mean the general. He started
the ball rolling; that was all. Bad health, following the Bliss
complication, tied his hands. Did you ever hear the story of the way he
colonized his grant?”

Rickard shook his head.

“It is a good story. I wrote it once for the _Sun_. I was out here
then. That was before the doctors sent me, giving me a year if I
lived anywhere else. Reclamation was being talked even then. Estrada
picked up the enthusiasm, and got hold of a big slice of land. The
terms of his purchase were a few cents an acre, fifteen, if I remember
correctly, and a hundred colonists to be established the first year.
Estrada sent in his hundred families, and did not think it necessary to
mention to the government that he was paying the so-called colonists
a dollar a day. They earned their dollar--it was big money in those
days, two dollars Mexican--by digging a canal. When the inspector came
along--there were the hundred families. After he was safely out of the
country, Estrada paid and dismissed his colonists. He had the mile
or so of canal and his tract besides. What’s the difference between
fifteen cents and a hundred dollars? Multiply that by a million and a
half, and you can see what those colonists were to bring to Estrada.
Though they say he died poor.”

The man in the seat ahead was listening. His head was leonine, his body
shriveled. Rickard could see on the neck the ancient burns that had
spared the magnificent head. The rest of the man had been shriveled and
twisted into terrible deformity. Rickard found himself puzzling over
the accident with its accompanying miracle. There was not a scar on the
powerful face.

“Estrada’s business methods were then not different from Sather’s and
Hardin’s!” It was a deep rich organ.

“Oh, you can’t class Hardin with Sather,” protested Rickard’s
companion. “Sather _used_ Hardin. Hardin’s honesty can not be
questioned. It’s not money he’s after. His whole heart is in this
reclamation scheme.”

“Hardin’s a false alarm,” growled the owner of the massive head. “He
makes promises. He never keeps them.”

The older man’s smile was tolerant. “Barton,” he indicated, “is the
president of the water companies. And if you want to hear about a rogue
and a scoundrel, ask the water companies their opinion of Hardin.”

“Well, what sort of a hole has he got us into?” demanded the other with
heat.

“Hardin’s in a hole himself.”

Rickard found himself admiring the distinction in the face beside him.
The sharp-pointed beard in which the gray was appearing gave a dog-like
keenness to the well-modeled head, but the sharpness of the features,
of the long slender nose, the long chin and thin eyebrow lines were
offset, curiously, by the mildness, the resignation, in the steady gray
eyes. If fires had ever burned in them, there were but cold ashes left.

“No one seems to remember that he crucified himself to save the valley.
I’ve a great respect for Thomas Hardin.”

“Yes?” returned Rickard, whose liking had been captured by the speaker.

The impression of distinction sharpened. The stranger wore a laundered,
pongee silk shirt, open at the neck, but restricted by a brown silk
tie; and it was trimly belted. There were but two neckties in the
entire car, and they occupied, Rickard observed, the same seat.

“The beginning of the canal system.”

Rickard looked out upon a flat one-toned country, marked off in
rectangles by plows and scrapers. Farther south, those rectangles were
edged by young willows. He fancied he could see, even at that distance,
the gleam of water.

It was the passing of the desert. A few miles back, he had seen the
desert in its primitive nakedness which not even cactus relieved. He
was passing over the land which men and horses were preparing for
water. And he could see the land where water was.

“That was the way Riverside looked when I first saw it,” commented the
other man who wore a tie. “Come out on the rear platform. We can see
better.”

Rickard followed to the back of the dust-swept stifling car. The
glare on the platform was intense. He stood watching the newly made
checker-board of a country slip past him. Receding were the two lines
of gleaming steel rails which connected and separated him from the
world outside. He was “going in.” Not in Mexico even had he had such a
feeling of ultimate remoteness. The mountains, converging perspectively
toward the throat of the valley, looked elusive and unreal in their
gauze draperies of rose and violet. The tender hour of day was clothing
them with mystery, softening their sharp outlines. They curtained the
world beyond. Rickard felt the suspense of the next act.

It was a torpid imagination, he thought, which would not quicken
over this conquest of the desert. East of the tract, men and teams
were preparing the newly-furrowed ground for the seed. The curved
land-knives were breaking up the rich earth mold into ridges of soft
soil as uncohesive and feathery as pulverized chocolate. It was the
dark color of the chocolate of commerce, this silt which had been
pilfered from the states through which the vagrant river wandered. The
smell of the upturned earth, sweetly damp, struck against his nostrils.
Rickard indulged a minute of whimsical fancy; this was California
territory over which his train was passing, but the soil, that dark
earth those blades were crumbling, was it not the tribute of other
states, of despoiling Wyoming, of ravishing Colorado and Arizona?

To the west, new squares were being leveled and outlined. Shrubby
rectangles were being cleared of their creosote-bush and tough mesquit.
Compared with other countries, the preparation for planting was the
simplest. Horses were dragging over the ground a railroad rail bent
into a V angle which pulled the bushes by the roots and dragged them
out of the way. Beyond, farther west, could be seen the untouched
desert. The surface for many miles was cracked by water-lines, broken
and baked into irregular sand-cakes; the mark of sand which has been
imprisoned by water and branded by swift heat.

Close by, men were putting in with care the seed that was to quicken
the river silt. They were passing a square where the green tips of the
grain were piercing the ground. Now, they were abreast of a field of
matured alfalfa over which the wind raced gratefully. Desert and grain
field; death and life! The panorama embraced the whole cycle.

“Excuse me. I did not hear you.” His new acquaintance had been
endeavoring to get his attention.

The valley man tried to pitch his voice above the rattle of the train,
but the effort ended in spasmodic coughing. The attacks left him weak
and gasping.

“Better go back,” suggested Rickard. He followed the stranger who waved
him to the seat by the open window. He busied himself with the sliding
landscape, withholding his sympathy. He could hear the man drawing in
long deep breaths. “Poor devil! He’s had his sentence!” he gathered.

After a few minutes, the other leaned over his shoulder, his hand
waving toward the passing mountains. “Those are the Superstition
Mountains you can see over yonder. An unusually apt name.”

“Yes?”

“An accidental hit of some tired traveler,” hazarded the colorless
lips. “He had probably been listening to the legends of some unusually
garrulous Indian; could not find the germ of universal religion in the
simple creed, so he called it,--the nameless mountains--‘Superstition.’
I’ve always wished I knew his own name, that we might credit him, this
late, with the inspiration. Have you ever thought,” he deflected, “how
many familiar names are unsponsored? Take the Colorado, for instance.
Melchior Diaz called it the Rio del Tizon; Alarçon, for diplomatic
reasons, gave it Rio de la Buena Guia; Onate changed it to the Rio
Grande de Buena Esperanza, and it was Kino, the Jesuit padre, who
christened it in memory of the blessed martyrs Rio de los Martires. Who
called it first the Colorado? History shuts her lips. And who will ever
call it anything else?”

Rickard was attracted by the man’s educated inflection, as well as by
his musing. “Why Superstition?” he queried.

“Why is it good, you mean? That pile of dark rock stands as a monument
to an effete superstition. It is the gravestone for a gigantic mistake.
Why, it was only the grossest ignorance that gave to the desert the
label of ‘bad lands.’ The desert is a condition, not a fact. Here you
see the passing of the condition, the burial of the superstition. Are
you interested in irrigation?”

Rickard was not given to explain the degree of interest his profession
involved, for the stranger drew a painful breath, and went on.

“Of course you are, if you are a western man. You are, I think?”

The engineer said that he was, by choice.

“Irrigation is the creed of the West. Gold brought people to this
country; water, scientifically applied, will keep them here. Look at
this valley. What was it a few years ago? Look at Riverside. And we are
at the primer stage only. We are way behind the ancients in information
on that subject. I learned at school, so did you, that some of the
most glorious civilizations flourished _in spite of the desert_ which
surrounded them. That was only half a truth. They were great _because_
of it! Why did the Incas choose the desert when their strength gave
them the choice of the continent of South America? Why did the Aztecs
settle in the desert when they might easily have preempted the watered
regions? Then there are the Carthaginians, the Toltecs, the Moors. And
one never forgets Egypt!”

“For protection,” Rickard gave the slighted question an interested
recognition. “Was that not what we were taught at school? The forest
held foes, animal and human. Those nations grew to their strength and
power in the desert, by virtue of its isolation.”

“Superstition!” retorted the man with the pointed beard. “We are babes
at the breast measured by the wisdom of the men who settled Damascus,
or compared with the Toltecs, or those ancient tribes who settled in
Northern India. They recognized the value of aridity. They knew its
threefold worth.”

“An inherent value?” demanded the college-bred man, turning from the
window.

“An inherent value,” declared the exponent of aridity.

“Will you tell me just what you mean?”

“Not in one session! Look yonder. That’s Brawley. When I came through
here, ten years ago, I could have had my pick of this land at
twenty-five cents an acre. They were working at this scheme then--on
paper. I was not alive to the possibilities then; I had not yet lived
in Utah!”

The train was slowing up by a brand-new, yellow-painted station. There
were several dusty automobiles waiting by the track, a few faded
surreys, and the inevitable, country hotel bus. The platform was
swarming with alert vigorous faces, distinctly of the American type.

The man in the seat beside him asked Rickard if he observed the general
average of intelligence in the faces of the crowd below. Rickard
acknowledged that he had been struck by that, not only here, but at
Imperial Junction, where he had waited for the train.

“There is a club in the valley, lately started, a university club which
admits as members those who have had at least two years of college
training. The list numbers three hundred already. The first meeting was
held last week in an empty new store in Imperial. If it had not been
for the setting, we might have been at Ann Arbor or Palo Alto. The
costumes were a little motley, but the talk sounded like home.”

The dust, blowing in through the car doors, brought on another fit of
strangling. Rickard turned again to the window, to the active scene
which denied the presence of desert beyond.

“The doctors say it will have to be the desert always for me.”
The stranger tapped his chest significantly. “But it is exile no
longer--not in an irrigated country. For the reason of irrigation! It
is the progressive man, the man with ideas, or the man who is willing
to take them, who comes into this desert country. If he has not had
education, it is forced upon him. I saw it worked out in Utah. I was
there several years. Irrigation means cooperation. That is, to me, the
chief value of aridity.”

The wind, though still blowing through the car and ruffling the train
dust, was carrying less of grit and sand. To the nostrils of Rickard
and his new acquaintance, it brought the pleasing suggestion of grassy
meadows, of willow-lined streams and fragrant fields.

“It is the accepted idea that this valley is attracting a superior
class of men because of its temperance stand. It is the other way
round. The valley stood for temperance because of the sort of men who
had settled here, the men of the irrigation type.”

The engineer’s ear criticized “irrigation type.” He began to suspect
that he had picked up a crank.

“The desert offers a man special advantages, social, industrial and
agricultural. (I would invert that arrangement if I made over that
sentence!) It is no accident that you find a certain sort of man here.”

“I suppose you mean that the struggle necessary to develop such a
country, under such stern conditions, develops of necessity, strong
men?” evolved Rickard. “Oh, yes, I believe that, too.”

“Oh, more than that. It is not so much the struggle, as the necessity
for cooperation. The mutual dependence is one of the blessings of
aridity.”

“One of the blessings of aridity!” echoed his listener. “You are a
philosopher.” He had not yet touched the other’s thought at the spring.

“You might as well call me a socialist because I praise irrigation in
that it stands for the small farm unit,” retorted the valley man. “That
is one of its fiats; the small unit. It is the small farm that pays.
That fact brings many advantages. What is the charm of Riverside? It
comes to me always like the unreal dream of the socialist come true.
It is a city of farms, of small farms, where a man may make his living
off his ten acres of oranges, or lemons; and with all the comforts and
conveniences of a city within reach, his neighbors not ten miles off!
A farmer in Riverside, or in any irrigated community, does not have to
postpone living for himself or his family, until he can sell the farm!
He can go to church, can walk there; the trolley car which passes his
door takes him to a public library, or the opera-house. His children
ride to school. His wife does not need to be a drudge. The bread wagon
and the steam-laundry wagon stop at her door.”

Rickard observed that perhaps he did not know anything about irrigation
after all! He had not thought of it before in its sociological
relation, but merely as it touched his profession.

“Not going into soil values, for that is a long story,” began the
older man, “irrigation is the answer which science gives to the
agriculturist who is impatient of haphazard methods. Irrigation is not
a compromise, as so many believe who know nothing about it. It is a
distinct advantage over old-fashioned methods.”

“I am one of those who always thought it a compromise,” admitted the
engineer.

“Better call rain a compromise,” retorted the irrigationist. “The
man who irrigates gives water to the tree which needs it; rain
nourishes one tree, and drowns out another. Irrigation is an insurance
policy against drought, a guarantee against floods. The farmer who
has once operated an irrigated farm would be as impatient were he
again subjected to the caprice of rain as a housewife would be were
she compelled to wait for rain to fill her wash-tub. There is no
irregularity or caprice about irrigation.”

“Wonder how the old fellow picked it all up?” mused Rickard with
disrespect. Aloud he said--“You were speaking of the value of the soil?”

“Look at the earth those plows are turning over. See how rich and
friable it is, how it crumbles? You can dig for hundreds of feet
and still find that sort of soil, eight hundred feet down! It is
disintegrated rock and leaf mold brought in here in the making of a
delta. Heavy rainfalls are rare here, though we have had them, in
spite of popular opinion. Were we to have frequent rains, the chemical
properties, which rain-farmers must buy to enrich their worn-out
soils, would be leached out, drained from the soil. I can’t make
this comprehensive, but I’ve a monograph on desert soil. If you are
interested, I’ll send it to you.”

“I should like it--immensely,” assented the engineer, still amused.

“It explains the choice of the Aztecs, of the Incas, of Carthaginians,
the Moors,” observed the stranger. “They chose the desert, not in
spite of the soil, but because of it. I doubt if they were awake to
the social advantages of the system, but it was their cooperative
brotherhood that helped them to their glory. We are centuries behind
them. Look what the acceptance of the superstition has already cost
California! The Mexican Boundary Survey Commission did its work pretty
thoroughly until familiarity with the bad lands they were plodding
through confirmed the old superstition. The international line was
to cut across at the mouth of Hardy’s Colorado. When the surveyors
struck the Gila, they assumed it was the river they wanted it to be;
anyway, it did not matter; it was ‘bad land,’ where even the Indians
were thinning, where only scorpions and rattlers could flourish. The
line was drawn there, and California lost all that area of desert land.
However, a lady got her silk gown!”

The last words were as spice to a tasteless pudding. “A silk gown!” It
sounded piquant.

“That’s a page of unwritten history,” said the stranger, rising. “I’m
getting out here; Imperial. If you come up to Imperial, look me up.
Brandon’s my name. I’ve no card these days!”

“There are several things I want to hear from you,” answered Rickard,
rising also, and following the pointed beard to the platform. “I’ll be
sure to look you up. Mine’s Rickard.”

“There’s my residence,” waved Brandon. “That tent over yonder?” All of
Imperial was easily seen from the car platform. “No, that is a canvas
house. There is a great difference,--in distinction!”

Rickard liked the nicety of speech which to the critical ear is as
pleasing as wit. He watched Brandon step off the car, saw him greeted
and surrounded by a knot of station watchers.

“Hello, Brandon,” Rickard could hear them hail him. “Back home,
Brandon?” “Treated you well at Palm Springs?”

“Poor devil,” he thought again. “Trying Palm Springs for his cough.
Wonder who the old duck is. Country newspaper, I fancy. He did say he
had reported for the _Sun_.”

The young-old man who had spoken to him at the Junction, pushed past
with some bundles. He stopped when he saw Rickard.

“I get out here. If you come to Imperial, hunt me up. I run the _Star_,
the only newspaper in the valley. Glad to meet you.”

“Disposing of my theory about Brandon,” smiled the engineer, going
back into the dusty car. He was interested enough to lean over and ask
Barton who was the man called Brandon. They could see him from the
windows, still surrounded, still smiling that sweet ascetic smile.

“Captain Brandon they call him. He’s one of the old settlers. Was with
Powell, on the second expedition down the river. Then was one of the
big men on the _Sun_.” He tapped his chest significantly. “Bad; came
West, folks thought to die. There’s lots of grit in the old fellow.
He’s written a history of the Colorado River that reads like a novel,
they say. I’ve never read it. I never read books. I’m lucky if I can
get time for a newspaper, and I don’t often get a newspaper.”

Rickard observed that “Captain Brandon” seemed to be well informed on
the subject of irrigation.

“That’s his hobby, that and desert soil. He’s writing a book on
irrigation, not half done yet, but it’s already sold. He’s published a
pamphlet on desert soil. Oh, he knows his subject.”

“College man?”

“Harvard, I think, and then either an English or German university.
I’ve heard, but I’ve forgotten by now. He’s lived in the West,
everywhere they’ve tried irrigation; in Utah, Colorado, California,
and he’s been to Egypt and Syria and all the classic places. Studying,
but he came back again, nearly dead. He goes up to Palm Springs every
little while to get toned up, taken care of. Poor devil!”

The breeze, which was now entering the car windows, had blown over
clover-leafed fields. Its message was sweet and fresh. Rickard could
see the canals leading off like silver threads to the homes and farms
of the future; “the socialists’ dream come true!” Willows of two or
three years’ growth outlined the banks. Here and there a tent, or a
ramada, set up a brave defiance against the hard conditions of the land
it was invading. Rickard leaned out of the window, and looked back, up
the valley which was dominated by the range now wrapping around itself
gauzy iridescent draperies.

“The monument to an effete superstition!” he repeated. “That wasn’t a
bad idea. I hope he won’t forget to send me his monograph.”




CHAPTER IV

THE DESERT HOTEL


HE left the dusty car with relief when the twin towns were called.
The sun, plunging toward the horizon, was sending out long straight
shafts of yellow light, staining the railroad buildings a deeper hue
and playing queer tricks with faces and features. The yellow calcium
isolated two stalwart Indians whose painted faces and streaming black
hair, chains of tawdry beads and floating ribbons made the vacuity of
their brown masks a grotesque contrast. Their survey of the train and
the jostling passengers, was as dispassionate and incurious as though
this brisk invasion carried no meaning nor menace to them.

Rickard had expected to see a Mexican town, or at least a Mexican
influence, as the towns hugged the border, but it was as vividly
American as was Imperial or Brawley. There was the yellow-painted
station of the Overland Pacific lines, the water-tank, the eager
American crowd. Railroad sheds announced the terminal of the road.
Backed toward the station was the inevitable hotel bus of the country
town, a painted board hanging over its side advertising the Desert
Hotel. Before he reached the step, the vehicle was crowded.

“Wait, gen’lemen, I’m coming back for a second load,” called the darky
who was holding the reins.

“If you wait for the second trip, you won’t get a room,” suggested a
friendly voice from the seat above.

Rickard threw his bag to the grinning negro, and swung on to the
crowded steps.

Leaving the railroad sheds, he observed a building which he assumed was
the hotel. It looked promising, attractive with its wide encircling
veranda and the patch of green which distance gave the dignity of
a lawn. But the darky whipped up his stolid horses. Rickard’s eyes
followed the patch of green.

The friendly voice from above told him that that was the office of
the Desert Reclamation Company. His next survey was more personal. He
saw himself entering the play as the representative of a company that
was distrusted, if not indeed actively hated by the valley folk. It
amused him that his entrance was so quiet as to be surreptitious. It
would have been quieter had Marshall had his way. But he himself had
stipulated that Hardin should be told of his coming. He had seen the
telegram before it left the Tucson office. He might be assuming an
unfamiliar rôle in this complicated drama of river and desert, but it
was not to be as an eavesdropper.

“Going in to settle?” The friendly voice belonged, he could see through
the press of arms and limbs, to a pair of alert eyes and a faded
buttonless shirt that had once been blue.

“I did that before I left!” He was tired of the question.

There was a laugh from the seats above.

“Going to try Calexico?”

“I think Calexico is going to try me! If this dust is a sample!”

“Wonder if they are so eager to welcome settlers because they are all
real-estate agents, or if the valley movement is a failure?” reflected
the newcomer.

The heavy bus was plowing slowly through the dust of the street.
Rickard was given ample time to note the limitations of the new town.
They passed two brick stores of general merchandise; lemons and
woolen goods, stockings and crackers disporting fraternally in their
windows. A board sign swinging from the overhanging porch of the most
pretentious building announced the post-office. From a small adobe
hung a brass plate advising the stranger of the Bank of Calexico. The
’dobe pressed close to another two-storied structure of the desert
type. The upper floor, supported by posts, extended over the sidewalk.
Netted wire screened away the desert mosquito, and gave the overhanging
gallery the grotesque appearance of a huge fencing mask. From the
street could be seen rows of beds; as in hospital wards. Calexico, it
was seen, slept out-of-doors.

“Desert Hotel,” bawled the darky, reining in his placid team.

“Yes, sah, I’ll look out for your bag. Got your room? The hotel’s
mighty sure to be full. Not many women yit down this a-way.... All the
men mostly lives right heah at the hotel.”

Rickard made a dive from a swirl of dust into the hotel. The long
line he anticipated at the desk was not there. He stopped to take in
a valley innovation. One end of the long counter had been converted
into a soda-water bar. The high swivel stools in front of the white
marbled stand, with its towering silver fixtures, were crowded with
dust-parched occupants of the bus. A white-coated youth was pouring
colored sirups into tall glasses; there was a clinking of ice; a
sizzling of siphons.

“That’s a new one on me,” grinned Rickard, turning toward the desk
where a complacent proprietor stood waiting to announce that there was
but one room left.

“With bath?”

“Bath right across the hall. Only room left in the house.” The
proprietor awarded him the valley stare. “Going to be here long?” He
passed the last key on the rack to the darky staggering under a motley
of bags and suit-cases. Rickard recognized his, and followed.

“I may get you another room to-morrow,” called the proprietor after him
as he climbed the dusty stairs.

Rickard decided that the one room was not only hot and stifling,
but dirty. The darky thrust his bag through the door and left the
guest staring at the bed. He pulled back the covers; dust and sand
of apparently a week’s accumulation lined the sheets. The red,
gaily-flowered, Brussels carpet was gritty with sand. Rickard rubbed a
reflective finger over the surface of the golden-oak bureau.

A middle-aged chambermaid with streaming rusty hair, entering without
ceremony, caught his grimace.

“It’s not as bad as it looks. I cleaned it up this morning. It’s the
wind. Ain’t it awful? I’ve known people to come into this place when
the wind has been blowing as it has to-day, and seen them leave as soon
as they seen their bed. They had to come back, as there’s no other
place to go, and they’d be no better if there was. But Mr. Patton,
that’s the boss, has me go around regular now, and explain. It saves
his time. I’ll fix it up for you, so you can be easy as to its being
new dirt. It’ll be just as bad as this when you come to go to bed.”

Rickard washed his hands, and fled, leaving the berserker to the clouds
of fury she had evoked. The soda-counter was deserted. The youth,
divested of his white coat, was relieving Mr. Patton at the register.
Rickard followed the sound of voices.

The signals of a new town were waving in the dining-room. The
majority of the citizens displayed their shirt-sleeves and unblushing
suspenders. One large table was surrounded by men in khaki; the
desert-soldiers, engineers. The full blown waitresses, elaborately
pompadoured, were pushing through the swing-doors, carrying heavy
trays. Their transparent shirt-waists of coarse embroidery or lace were
pinned to rusty, badly hung skirts of black alpaca. An apron, the size
of a postage stamp, was the only badge of servitude. Coquetry appeared
to be their occupation, rather than meal-serving, the diners accepting
both varieties of attention with appreciation. The supremacy of those
superior maidens was menaced only by two other women who sat at a table
near the door. Rickard did not see them at first. The room was as
masculine as a restaurant in a new mining town.

A superior Amazon inquired if the gentleman would like vermicelli soup?
As he did not even glance at her magnificent pompadour, he was punished
by being served last through the entire bill of fare.

He had two men at his table. They were engrossed with their course of
boiled beef and spaghetti. Iced tea, instead of wine, was the only
variation from the conventional, country hotel dinner.

Rickard left his indoor view to look through the French windows opening
on a side street. He noticed a slender but regular procession. All the
men passing fell in the same direction.

“Cocktail route,” explained one of his neighbors, his mouth full of
boiled beef.

“Oyster cocktail?” smiled the newcomer.

“The real thing! Calexico’s dry, like the whole valley, that is, the
county. See that ditch? That is Mexico, on the other side. Those sheds
you can see are in Mexicali, Calexico’s twin sister. That painted adobe
is the custom house. Mexicali’s not dry, even in summer! You can bet
your life on that. You can get all the bad whisky and stale beer you’ve
the money to buy. We work in Calexico, and drink in Mexicali. The
temperance pledge is kept better in this town than any other town in
the valley. But you can see this procession every night.”

The Amazon with a handkerchief apron brought Rickard his soup. He was
raising his first spoonful to his mouth when he saw the face, carefully
averted, of the girl he had met at the Marshalls’ table, Innes Hardin.
His eyes jumped to her companions, the man a stranger, and then, Gerty
Holmes. At least, Mrs. Hardin! Somehow, it surprised him to find her
pretty.

She had achieved a variety of distinction, preserving, moreover, the
clear-cut babyish chin which had made its early appeal to him. There
was the same fluffy hair, its ringlets a bit artificial to his more
sophisticated eyes, the same well-turned nose. He had been wondering
about this meeting; he found that he had been expecting some sort of
shock--who said that the love of to-day is the jest of to-morrow? The
discovery that Gerty was not a jest brought the surprised gratification
which we award a letter or composition written in our youth. Were we
as clever as that, so complete at eighteen or twenty-one? Could we,
now, with all our experience, do any better, or indeed as well? That
particular sentence with wings! Could we make it fly to-day as it
soared yesterday? Rickard was finding that Gerty’s more mature charms
did not accelerate his heart-beats, but they were certainly flattering
to his early judgment. And he had expected her to be a shock!

He was staring into his plate of chilled soup. Calf-love! For he had
loved her, or at least he had loved her chin, her pretty childish way
of lifting it. She was prettier than he had pictured her. Queer that a
man like Hardin could draw such women for sister and wife--the blood
tie was the most amazing. For when women come to marry, they make often
a queer choice. It occurred to him that that might have been Hardin--he
had not wanted to stare at them.

That was not Hardin’s face. It held strength and power. The outline
was sharp and distinct, showing the strong lines, the determined mouth
of the pioneer. There was something else, something which stood for
distinction--no, it couldn’t be Hardin.

And then, because an outthrust lip changed the entire look of the
man, Rickard asked his table companions, who was the man with the two
ladies, near the door.

“That, suh,” his neighbor from Alabama became immediately oratorical,
“that is a big man, suh. If the Imperial Valley ever becomes a reality,
a fixtuah, it will be because of that one man, suh. Reclamation is like
a seed thrown on a rock. Will it stick? Will it take root? Will it
_grow_? That is what we all want to know.”

Rickard thought that he had wanted to know something quite different,
and reminded the gentleman from Alabama that he had not told him the
name.

“The father of this valley, of the reclamation of this desert, Thomas
Hardin, suh.”

Rickard tried to reset, without attracting their attention, the group
of his impressions of the man whose personality had been so obnoxious
to him in the old Lawrence days. The Hardin he had known had also large
features, but of the flaccid irritating order. He summoned a picture of
Hardin as he had shuffled into his own class room, or up to the long
table where Gerty had always queened it among her mother’s boarders.
He could see the rough unpolished boots that had always offended him
as a betrayal of the man’s inner coarseness; the badly fitting coat,
the long awkward arms, and the satisfied, loud-speaking mouth. These
features were more definite. Could time bring these changes? Had _he_
changed, like that? Had they seen him? Would Gerty, would Hardin
remember him? Wasn’t it his place to make himself known; wave the flag
of old friendship over an awkward situation?

He found himself standing in front of their table, encountering first,
the eyes of Hardin’s sister. There was no surprise, no welcome there
for him. He felt at once the hostility of the camp. His face was
uncomfortably warm. Then the childish profile turned on him. A look of
bewilderment, flushing into greeting--the years had been kind to Gerty
Holmes!

“Do you remember me, Rickard?”

If Hardin recognized a difficult situation, he did not betray it. It
was a man Rickard did not know who shook him warmly by the hand, and
said that indeed he had not forgotten him.

“I’ve been expecting you. My wife, Mr. Rickard, and my sister.”

“Why, what are you thinking of, Tom? To introduce Mr. Rickard! I
introduced you to each other, years ago!” Gerty’s cheeks were red.
Her bright eyes were darting from one to the other. “You knew he was
coming, and did not tell me?”

“You were at the Improvement Club when the telegram came,” put in Innes
Hardin, without looking at Rickard. No trace of the Tucson cordiality
in that proud little face! No acknowledgment that they had met at the
Marshalls’!

“Oh, you telegraphed to us?” The blond arch smile had not aged. “That
was friendly and nice.”

Rickard had not been self-conscious for many a year. He did not know
what to say. He turned from her upturned face to the others. Innes
Hardin was staring out of the window, over the heads of several crowded
tables; Hardin was gazing at his plate. Rickard decided that he would
get out of this before Gerty discovered that it was neither “friendly
nor nice.”

“If I had known that you were here, I would have insisted on your
dining with us, in our tent. For it’s terrible, here, isn’t it?”
She flashed at him the look he remembered so vividly, the childish
coquettish appeal. “We dine at home, till it becomes tiresome, and then
we come foraging for variety. But you must come to us, say Thursday. Is
that right for you? We should love it.”

Still those two averted faces. Rickard said Thursday, as he was bidden,
and got back to his table, wondering why in thunder he had let Marshall
persuade him to take this job.

Hardin waited a scant minute to protest: “What possessed you to ask him
to dinner?”

“Why shouldn’t I? He is an old friend.” Gerty caught a glance of
appeal, from sister to brother. “Jealous?” she pouted charmingly at her
lord.

“Jealous, no!” bluffed Hardin.

He thought then that she knew, that Innes had told her. The Lawrence
episode held no sting to him. Once, it had enchanted him that he had
carried off the boarding-house belle, whom even that bookman had found
desirable--bookman! A superior dude! He had always had those grand
airs. As if it were not more to a man’s credit to struggle for his
education, even if he were older than his class, or his teacher, than
to accept it off silver plates, handed by lackeys? Rickard had always
acted as if it had been something to be ashamed of. It made him sick.

“They’ve done it this time. It’s a fool choice.”

Again, that look of pleading from Innes. Gerty had a shiver of
intuition.

“Fool choice?” Her voice was ominously calm.

Hardin shook off Innes’ eyes. Better be done with it! “He’s the new
general manager.”

“He’s the general manager!”

“I’m to take orders from him.”

Gerty’s silence was of the stunned variety. The Hardins watched her
crumbling bread on the table-cloth, thinking, fearfully, that she was
going to cry.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Her voice, repressed, carried the threat of tears.
“Didn’t I tell you how it would be? Didn’t I say that you’d be sorry if
you called the railroad in?”

“Must we go over this again?” asked her husband.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me make a goose of myself?”
She was remembering that there had been no protest, no surprise from
Innes. She knew! A family secret! She shrugged. “I’m glad, on the
whole, that you planned it as a surprise. For I carried it off as if
we’d not been insulted, disgraced.”

“Gerty!” expostulated Hardin.

“Gerty!” implored Innes.

“And we are in for a nice friendly dinner!”

“Are you quite finished?” Hardin got up.

As the three passed out of the dining-room, Rickard caught their
several expressions: Hardin’s stiff, indifferent; Gerty’s brilliant but
hard, as she flashed a finished, brave little smile in his direction.
The sister’s bow was distinctly haughty.

In the hall, Gerty’s laugh rippled out. It was the laugh Rickard
remembered, the light frivolous cadence which recalled the flamboyant
pattern of the Holmes’ parlor carpet, the long, crowded dining-table
where Gerty had reigned. It told him that she was indifferent to his
coming, as she meant it should. And it turned him back to a dark corner
in the honeysuckle draped porch where he had spent so many evenings
with her, where once he had held her hand, where he told her that he
loved her. For he had loved her, or at least he thought he had! And had
run away from her expectant eyes. A cad, was he, because he had brought
that waiting look into her eyes, and had run from it?

Should a man ask a woman to give her life into his keeping until he
is quite sure that he wants it? He was revamping his worn defense.
Should he live up to a minute of surrender, of tenderness, if the next
instant brings sanity, and disillusionment? He could bury now forever
self-reproach. He could laugh at his own vanity. Gerty Hardin, it was
easy to see, had forgotten what he had whispered to Gerty Holmes. They
met as sober old friends. That ghost was laid.




CHAPTER V

A GAME OF CHECKERS


THE uneasy mood of the desert, the wind-blown sand, drove people
indoors the next morning. Rickard was served a substantial,
indifferently cooked breakfast in the dining-room of the Desert Hotel,
whose limitations were as conspicuous to the newcomer as they were
non-existent to the other men. They were finding it a soft contrast to
sand-blown tents, to life in the open.

Later, he wandered through the group of staring idlers in the office,
past the popular soda-stand and the few chair-tilters on the sidewalk,
going on, as if without purpose, to the railroad sheds, and then on,
down to the offices of the Desert Reclamation Company. He discovered
it to be the one engaging spot in the hastily thrown-together town.
There were oleanders, rose and white, blooming in the patch of purple
blossoming alfalfa that stood for a lawn. Morning-glories clambered
over the supports of the veranda, and on over the roof. Rickard’s
deductions led him to the Hardins.

What school of experience had so changed the awkward country fellow? He
had resented his rivalry, not that he was a rival, but that he was a
boor. His kisses still warm on her lips, and she had turned to welcome,
to coquet with Tom Hardin! The woman who was to be his wife must be
steadier than that! It had cooled his fever. Not for him the aspen who
could shake and bend her pretty boughs to each rough breeze that blew!

Men tossed into a desert, fighting to keep a foothold, do not garland
their offices with morning-glories! Was it the gracious quiet influence
of a wife, a Gerty Hardin? The festive building he was approaching was
as unexpected--as Captain Brandon! Rickard walked on, smiling.

He was fairly blown into the outer room, the door banging behind him.
Every one looked up at the noisy interruption. There were several
men in the long room. Among them two alert, clean-faced youths,
college-graduates, or students out on furlough, the kind of stuff in
his class at Lawrence. Three of the seasoned, road-coached type were
leaning their chairs against the cool thick walls. One was puffing at a
cigar. The other, a big shy giant, was drawing clouds of comfort from
a pipe. There was a telegraph operator at work in one end of the room,
her instrument rapidly clicking. In an opposite corner was a telephone
exchange. A girl with a metal band around her forehead was punching
connections between the valley towns. Rickard lost the feeling of
having gone into a remote and isolated region. The twin towns were on
the map.

One of the older men returned his nod. The young men returned their
hastily withdrawn attention to their game of checkers. The other smoker
was watching with cross-eyed absorption the rings his cigar was sending
into the air. Rickard might not have been there.

One of the checker players looked up.

“Anything I can do for you? Do you want to see any one in particular?”

“No,” it was admitted. “No one in particular. I was just looking round.”

“It’s the show place of Calexico. I’ll take you around. It is the only
place in town that is comfortable when it’s hot, or when the wind
blows, and that’s the program all summer. Take my place, Pete.”

Pete, the young giant, with the face of his infancy enlarged rather
than matured, slipped into the vacant chair. He had been the first to
discover the stranger, but he had evaded the responsibility. The game
immediately absorbed him.

“It’s nice here,” repeated the young fellow, leading the way. They were
followed by a few idle glances.

Rickard looked with approval at the tall slim figure which was assuming
the courtesy of the towns. The fine handsome face was almost too
girlish, the muscles of the mouth too sensitive yet for manly beauty,
but he liked the type. Lithe as a young desert-reared Indian, his
manner and carriage told of a careful home and rigid school discipline.

It was the type Rickard liked, he was thinking, because it was the type
he understood. He preferred the rapier to the bludgeon, the toughened
college man to the world-veneered man of the field. He revered the
progress of a Jefferson or a Hamilton; he would always distrust the
evolution of a contemporary Lincoln. It is easier, he maintained,
to skip classes, or grades in world discipline, than in a rigorous
college. This was the kind which in his own classes had attracted him.
He had missed them in his years on the road--in Mexico, Wyoming, North
Dakota, where rough material had been his to shape.

He was ushered into a large cool room. The furnishings he inventoried:
a few stiff chairs, a long table and a typewriter desk, closed for the
Sabbath.

“The stenographer’s room,” announced the lad superfluously.

“Whose stenographer?”

“General property, now. Every one has a right to use her time. She used
to be Hardin’s, the general manager’s. She is his still, in a way. But
Ogilvie keeps her busy most of the time.”

Rickard had not heard of Ogilvie. He made a mental register.

“When did Hardin go out?” He knew the date himself. He expected the
answer would trail wisps of other information. He had a very active
curiosity about Hardin. The man’s failures had been spectacular.

The young fellow was thinking aloud. “The dam went November
twenty-ninth. Hardin was given a decent interval to resign. Of course,
he was fired. It was an outrage--” He remembered that he was speaking
to a stranger, and broke off suddenly. Rickard did not question him. He
made another note. Why was it an outrage, or why did it appear so? In
perspective, from the Mexican barranca, where he had been at the time,
the failure of that dam had been another bar sinister against Hardin.

“I see that you are from the University of California?” he said,
following his courier to the door that opened on a long covered inner
porch. Another lawn of alfalfa rested the eyes weary of dust and sand.
A few willows and castor-beans of mushroom habit shut out the desert,
denied the lean naked presence just beyond the leafy screen. Rickard
nodded at the pin of gold and blue enamel.

“Out for a year,” glowed the lad. “Dad wanted me to get some real stuff
in my head. He said the Colorado would give me more lessons--more real
knowledge in a year than I’d get in six at college. I kicked up an
awful row--”

The older man smiled. “Of course. You didn’t want to leave your class.”

“You’re a college man, then.” Rickard uncovered his “frat” pin under
his vest lapel. “Father wasn’t. He couldn’t understand. It was tough.”

“You don’t want to go back now?”

The boy made a wry face. “He expects me to go back in August. Says
I must. Think I’d leave the desert if the Colorado goes on another
rampage? Miss the chance of a lifetime? I’ll make him see it. If I
don’t, I’ll buck, that’s all.”

“You did not tell me your name,” was suggested.

“MacLean, George MacLean,” said the young man rather consciously. It
was a good deal to live up to. He always felt the appraisement which
followed that admission. George MacLean, elder, was known among the
railroad circles to be a man of iron, one of the strongest of the heads
of the Overland Pacific system. He was not the sort of man a son could
speak lightly of disobeying.

“Of course, every one calls me Junior.”

“I guess you’ll go back if he wants you to,” smiled Rickard.

“Oh, but what a rotten trick it would be!” exclaimed the son of the
man of iron. “To throw me out of college--I was daffy to finish with
my class, and to get me here, to get me interested--and then after
I’ve lost my place to pull me back. Why, there are things happening
every day that are a liberal education. They are only just beginning to
understand what they are bucking up against. The Colorado’s an unknown
quantity, even old engineers are right up against it. There are new
problems coming up every day. The Indians call her a yellow dragon, but
she’s a tricky woman, she’s an eel; she’s giving us sums to break our
teeth on.”

The man smiled at the eager mongrel imagery.

“I’ll not go,” said MacLean.

“Fathers seem wise the year after where they seem blind the year
before!”

“I’ll not go!” the boy blustered. Rickard suspected that he was
bolstering up his courage.

“Who has the next room?”

“Used to be the general manager’s. Ogilvie uses it now.”

“And who did you say was Ogilvie?” They turned back into the room.

“You can go in. He’s not here. He is the new auditor, an expert
accountant from Los Angeles. Put in by the O. P. when it assumed
control last year. He used to come down once a month. After Hardin went
out, he came down to stay.”

“Whose say-so?”

“I don’t know. The accounts were rotten, that’s no office secret. The
world knows that. Hardin is blamed for it. It isn’t fair. Look at
Sather’s stone palace in Los Angeles. Look at Hardin’s tent, his shabby
clothes.”

“I’d like to meet Ogilvie,” observed the general manager.

“Oh, he’s not much to meet. A pale white-livered vegetarian, a
theosophist. You’ve seen ’em. Los Angeles is full of ’em. He was here
when Hardin was fired. You could see him see his opportunity. His chest
swelled up. He looked as if he had tasted meat for the first time. He
thought that he could woozle into the empty place! He went back to
Los Angeles, convinced them that the auditor should be here, protect
the company’s interests. It sounded mysterious, sleuth-like, as if he
had discovered something, so they let him bring the books down here.
He is supposed to be ferreting. But he’s ‘woozling.’ He used to be
in the outer office. Said the noise made his head ache, so he moved
in here. All the committee meetings are held here, and occasionally
the directors’ meetings. Water companies’, too. Ogilvie’s taking
notes--wants to be the next general manager, it sticks out all over
him.”

“What’s the derivation of woozle?” this with deep gravity.

“Wait till you see Ogilvie!” laughed his entertainer. Then as an
afterthought: “This is all public gossip. He’s fair game.”

The door opened behind them, and Rickard saw the man whose description
had been so deftly knocked off. He recognized the type seen so
frequently in Southern California towns, the pale damaged exile whose
chance of reprieve is conditioned by stern rules of diet and sobriety.
It was the temperament which must perforce translate a personal
necessity into a religious dogma.

“This gentleman’s just,--is just looking around,” stammered MacLean,
blundering, confused.

The vegetarian nodded, taking off his felt sombrero and putting it on a
chair with care.

The stranger observed that he had pleasant quarters.

Ogilvie said that they answered very well.

“Are there other offices than those I have seen?” Rickard demanded of
MacLean.

He shook his head. “Dormitories. We sleep here, a lot of us when we are
not on duty. At least, we don’t sleep inside, unless it blows us in. We
sleep out there.” He nodded in the direction of the lawn. “We dress and
‘gas’ in there.” His hand waved toward the rooms beyond.

By this time it was apparent that no one, save Hardin, knew of his
coming. He was ahead of Marshall’s letters. He did not like the flavor
of his entrance.

“What provision is being made for a new general manager?”

The question, aimed carelessly, hit the auditor.

“They are not talking of filling the position just yet,” he responded.
“There is no need, at present. The work is going along nicely, better I
might say, adjusted as it now is, than it did before.”

“I heard that they had sent a man from the Tucson office to represent
Mr. Marshall.”

“Did you hear his name?” stammered Ogilvie.

“Rickard.”

The auditor recovered himself. “I would have heard of it, were it true.
I am in close touch with the Los Angeles office.”

“It is true.”

“How do you know?” Ogilvie’s dismay was too sudden; the flabby facial
muscles betrayed him.

“I’m Rickard.” The new general manager took the swivel chair behind the
flat-top desk. “Sit down. I’d like to have a talk with you.”

“If you will excuse me,” Ogilvie’s bluff was as anemic as his crushed
appearance. “I--I am busy this morning. Might I--trouble you--for a
few minutes? My papers are in this desk.”

Rickard now knew his man to the shallow depths of his white-corpuscled
soul. “If I won’t be in your way, I’ll hang around here. I’ve the day
to kill.”

His sarcasm was lost in transit. Ogilvie said that Mr. Rickard would
not be in his way. He would move his papers into the next room
to-morrow.

The engineer moved to the French windows that opened on the alfalfa
lawn. A vigorous growth of willows marked the course of New River which
had cut so perilously near the towns. A letter, “b,” picked out in
quick river vegetation told the story of the flood. The old channel,
there it was; the curved arm of the “b,” one could tell that by the
tall willows, had been too tortuous, too slow for those sweeping
waters. The flow had divided, cutting the stem of the letter, carrying
the flood waters swifter down-grade. The flow had divided,--hm! divided
perhaps the danger, too! An idea in that! He would see that better from
the water-tower he’d spied at entering. Another flood, and a gamble
whether Mexicali or Calexico would get the worst of it. Unless one was
ready. A levee--west of the American town!

“Excuse me, sir--do you need me?” He turned back into the room. He
could see that MacLean was aching to get out of the room. Ogilvie
had visibly withered. A blight seemed to fall on him as his white
blue-veined fingers made a bluff among his papers.

“Thank you.” Rickard nodded at MacLean, who burst into the outer office.

“It’s the new general manager from Tucson--Rickard’s his name.” His
whisper ran around the walls of the room where other arrivals were
tilting their chairs. “The new general manager! Ogilvie woozled for
nothing. You should have seen his face!”

“Did any one know that he was coming?” Silent, the tanned giant, spoke.

“That’s Marshall all over,” said Wooster, bright-eyed and wiry,
removing his pipe. “He likes to move in a mysterious way his wonders to
perform. (Used to sing that when I was a kid!) No announcement. Simply:
‘Enter Rickard!’”

“More like this,” said Silent. “Exit Hardin. Enter Ogilvie. Enter
Rickard.”

“And exit Ogilvie,” cried MacLean.

“It’s a--damned shame,” burst out Wooster. No one asked him what he
meant. Every man in the room was thinking of Hardin whose shadow this
reclamation work was.

“What’s Rickard doing?” asked the infantile Hercules at the
checker-board. The force called him Pete, which was a short cut to
Frederick Augustus Bodefeldt.

“Taking Ogilvie’s measure,” this from MacLean.

“Then he’s doing something else by this time. That wouldn’t take him
five minutes unless he’s a gull,” snapped Wooster, who hated Ogilvie as
a rat does a snake.

The door opened and Rickard came in. Almost simultaneously the outer
door opened to admit Hardin. Who would introduce the new general
manager to the dismissed one? The thought flashed from MacLean
to Silent, to the telegraph operator. Bodefeldt doubled over the
checker-board, pretending not to see them. Confusion, embarrassment was
on every face. Nobody spoke. Hardin was coming closer.

“Hello, Hardin.”

“Hello, Rickard.”

It appeared friendly enough to the surprised office. Both men were glad
that it was over.

“Nice offices,” remarked Hardin, his legs outspread, his hands in his
pockets.

“Ogilvie is satisfied with them.” The men rather overdid the laugh.

“Finding the dust pretty tough?” inquired Hardin.

“I spent a month in San Francisco last summer!” was the rejoinder.
“This is a haven, though, from the street. Thought I’d loaf for
to-day.” Was Hardin game to do the right thing, introduce him as the
new chief to his subordinates? Nothing, it developed, was further
from his intention. Hardin, his legs outstretched, kept before his
face the bland impenetrable smile of the oriental. It was clearly not
Rickard’s move. The checker players fidgeted. Rickard’s silence was
interrogative. Hardin still smiled.

The outer door opened.

The newcomer, evidently a favorite, walked into a noisy welcome, the
“boys’” embarrassment overdoing it. He was of middle height, slender; a
Mexican with Castilian ancestry written in his high-bred features, his
grace and his straight dark hair.

“Good morning, Estrada,” said Hardin with the same meaningless smile.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” The Mexican’s greeting paused at Rickard.

“Mr. Estrada, Mr. Rickard.”

Every one in the office saw Hardin snub his other opportunity. He
had betrayed to every one his deep hurt, his raw wound. When he had
stepped down, under cover of a resignation, he had saved his face by
telling every one that a rupture with Maitland, one of the directors
of the reorganized company, had made it impossible for them to serve
together, and that Maitland’s wealth and importance to the company
demanded his own sacrifice. Two months before Rickard’s appearance,
Maitland had been discovered dead in his bath in a Los Angeles hotel.
Though no one had been witless enough to speak of their hope to Hardin,
he knew that all his force was daily expecting his reinstatement.
Rickard’s entrance was another stab to their chief.

“The son of the general?” The new manager held out his hand. “General
Estrada, friend of Mexican liberty, founder of steamship companies and
father of the Imperial Valley?”

“That makes me a brother of the valley,” Estrada’s smile was sensitive
and sweet.

“He did good work in his day,” added Rickard rather stupidly.

Estrada looked at Hardin, hesitated, then passed on to the checker
players, and stood behind MacLean.

“I saw your father in Los Angeles.”

MacLean’s eager face flushed. “Did you speak to him? Did you tell him
how hard it would be for me to go back?”

“I did what I could. But it was a busy time. There were several
meetings of the board. At the last two, he was present.”

“You mean?”

“He was chosen to fill the vacancy made by Maitland’s death.”

MacLean’s eyes wavered toward Hardin, whose nonchalance had not
faltered. Had he not heard, or did he know, already?

“I’d like to have a meeting, a conference, to-morrow morning.” Rickard
was speaking. “Mr. Hardin, will you set the hour at your convenience?”

Because it was so kindly done, Hardin showed his first resentment. “It
will not be possible for me to be there. I’m going to Los Angeles in
the morning.” He turned and left the office, Estrada following him.

“Oh, Mr. Hardin, you mustn’t take it that way,” he expostulated,
concern in each sensitive feature.

“I’ll take orders from him, but he gave me none,” growled Hardin. “It’s
not what you think. I’m not sore. But I don’t like him. He’s a fancy
dude. He’s not the man for this job.”

“Then you knew him before?” It was a surprise to Estrada.

“At college. He was my--er, instructor. Marshall found him in the class
room. A theory-slinger.”

Estrada’s thoughtful glance rested on the angry face. Was this genuine,
or did not Hardin know of the years Rickard had served on the road;
of the job in the heat-baked barrancas of Mexico where Marshall had
“found” him? But he would not try again to persuade Hardin to give up
his trip to Los Angeles. It might be better, after all, for the new
manager to take charge with his predecessor out of the way.

“MacLean’s coming down to-night,” he threw out, still watching Hardin’s
face. “With Babcock.”

“I won’t be missed.” Hardin’s mouth was bitter. “Estrada, if I had the
sense of a goat, I’d sell out, sell my stock to MacLean, and quit.
What’s in all this, for me? Does any one doubt my reason for staying?
It would be like leaving a sinking ship, like deserting the passengers
and crew one had brought on board. God! I’d like to go! But how can I?
I’ve got hold of the tail of the bear, and I can’t let go!”

“No one doubts you--” began Estrada. Hardin turned away, with an ugly
oath. The Mexican stood watching his stumbling anger. “Poor Hardin!”

In the office, Rickard was speaking to MacLean, whom he had drawn to
one side, out of ear-shot of the checker players.

“I want you to do something for me, not at all agreeable!” His tone
implied that the boy was not given the chance to beg off. “What time
does the train pull out in the morning?”

“Six-fifteen.”

“I’ll have a letter for you, at the hotel at six. Be on time. I want to
catch Hardin before he leaves for Los Angeles. If he’s really going.
I’ll give him to-day to think it over. But he can’t disregard an order
as he did my invitation. I didn’t want to rub it in before the men.”

MacLean stared; then said that he thought he was not likely to!

Rickard left the office in time to see Hardin shutting the outer gate
behind him. His exit released a chorus of indignant voices.

“An outrage!”

“A damned shame!” This from Wooster.

“Hardin’s luck!”

On the other side of the door, Rickard deliberated. The hotel and its
curious loungers, or his new office, where Ogilvie was making a great
show of occupation? He had not seen Estrada. He was making a sudden
dive for his hotel, when the gentle voice of the Mexican hailed him.

“Will you come to my car? It’s on the siding right here. We can have
a little lunch, and then look over some maps together. I have some
pictures of the river and the gate. They may be new to you.”

Rickard spent the afternoon in the car. The twin towns did not seem so
hostile. He thought he might like the Mexican.

Estrada was earning his father’s mantle. He was the superintendent of
the road which the Overland Pacific was building between the twin towns
and the Crossing; a director of the Desert Reclamation Company; and the
head of a small subsidiary company which had been created to protect
rights and keep harmonious relation with the sister country. Rickard
found him full of meat, and heard, for the first time consecutively,
the story of the rakish river. Particularly interesting to him was the
relation of Hardin to the company.

“He has the bad luck, that man!” exclaimed Estrada’s soft tuneful
voice. “Everything is in his hands, capital is promised, and he goes
to New York to have the papers drawn up. The day he gets there, the
_Maine_ is destroyed. Of course, capital is shy. He’s had the devil’s
own luck with men: Gifford, honest, but mulish; Sather, mulish and not
honest--oh, there’s a string of them. Once, he went to Hermosillo to
get an option on my father’s lands. They were already covered by an
option held by some men in Scotland. Another man would have waited for
the three months to pass. Not Hardin. He went to Scotland, thought he’d
interest those men with his maps and papers. He owned all the data,
then. He’d made the survey.”

Estrada repeated the story Brandon and Marshall had told, with little
discrepancy. A friendly refrain followed the narrative. “He has the bad
luck, that man!”

“And the Scotched option?” reminded Rickard, smiling at his own poor
joke.

“It was just that. A case of Hardin luck again. He stopped off in
London to interest some capital there; following up a lead developed on
the steamer. He was never a man to neglect a chance. Nothing came of
it, though, and when he reached Glasgow, he found his man had died two
days before. Or been killed, I’ve forgotten which. Three times Hardin’s
crossed the ocean trying to corner the opportunity he thought he had
found. It isn’t laziness, is his trouble. It’s just infernal luck.”

“Or over-astuteness, or procrastination,” criticized his listener to
himself. He knew now what it was that had so changed Hardin. A man can
not travel, even though he be hounding down a quick scent, without
meeting strong influences. He had been thrown with hard men, strong
men. It was an inevitable chiseling; not a miracle.

“I want to hear more of this some day. But this map. I don’t understand
what you told me of this by-pass, Mr. Estrada.”

Their heads were still bending over Estrada’s rough work-bench when the
Japanese cook announced that dinner was waiting in the adjoining car.
MacLean and Bodefeldt and several young engineers joined them.

It had been, outwardly, a wasted day. Rickard had lounged, socially
and physically. But before he turned in that night, he had learned the
names and dispositions of his force; and some of their prejudices.
Nothing, he summed up, could be guessed from the gentleness of the
Mexican’s manner; Wooster’s antagonism was open and snappish. Silent
was to be watched; and Hardin had already shown his hand.

The river, as he thought of it, appeared the least formidable of his
opponents. He was imaging it as a high-spirited horse, maddened by the
fumbling of its would-be captors. His task it was to lasso the proud
stallion, lead it in bridled to the sterile land. No wonder Hardin was
sore; his noose had slipped off one time too many! Hardin’s _luck_!




CHAPTER VI

RED TAPE


AT ten o’clock the next morning, Hardin, entering the office, again
the general manager’s, found there before him, George MacLean the new
director, and Percy Babcock, the treasurer, who had been put in by the
Overland Pacific when the old company was reorganized. They had just
come in from Los Angeles, the trip made in MacLean’s private car.

“Where’s Estrada?” inquired Hardin of Ogilvie, who was making a great
show of industry at the desk in the center of the room.

Before Ogilvie could open his deliberate lips, Hardin’s question was
answered by Babcock, a thin nervous man, strung on live wires. “Not
here yet.”

Hardin stood in his characteristic attitude, legs outstretched, his
hands in his pockets. “Rickard?”

“Coming back, Ogilvie says. He went out a few minutes ago.”

“Just like Marshall, that.” Hardin moved over to the leather lounge
where MacLean was sitting. Neither man answered him. It was Hardin’s
method of acknowledging the situation.

Rickard entered a few minutes later, Estrada behind him. Ogilvie
followed Rickard to his desk.

“Well?” inquired the new manager.

Ogilvie explained lengthily that he had the minutes of the last meeting.

“Leave them here.” Rickard waved him toward Estrada, who held out his
hand for the papers.

Ogilvie’s grasp did not relax. He stammered: “There is no secretary.
I’ve been taking the minutes--”

“Thank you. Mr. Estrada will read them. We do not need you, Mr.
Ogilvie.”

Ogilvie stood, turning his expressionless eyes from one director to
the other as if expecting that order to be countermanded. Babcock
and MacLean appeared to be looking at something outside through the
vine-framed windows. An ugly smile disfigured Hardin’s mouth.

Rickard spoke again. “Mr. Estrada! We won’t detain you any longer, Mr.
Ogilvie.”

Reluctantly, the accountant relinquished the papers. His retreating
coat tails looked ludicrously whipped, but no one laughed. Hardin’s
scowl deepened.

“Showing his power,” he thought. “He’s going to call for a new pack.”

Estrada pushed the minutes through with but a few unimportant
interruptions. He was sitting at the same desk with Rickard. Hardin,
sensitive and sullen, thought he saw the meeting managed between them.
“It’s all slated,” ran his angry blood. “The meeting’s a farce. It was
all fixed in Los Angeles, or in Marshall’s office.” He whipped himself
into rebellion. He was no baby. He knew about these matters better than
these strangers, this fancy dude! He’d show them!

It took their silent cooperation to hold him down. It became more
apparent to him that they were all pitted against him. He was being
pressed against the wall.

Several times he attempted to bring the tangled affairs of the water
companies before the directors. Rickard would not discuss the water
companies.

“Because he’s not posted! He’s beginning to see what he’s up against,”
ran Hardin’s stormy thoughts. He felt Rickard’s hand in this, although
it was Estrada, apparently, who shelved the mystifications of the
uneasy companies, their rights, their dissatisfactions and their
lawsuits. Babcock seconded the Mexican’s motion to discuss those issues
at the next meeting. “It is a put-up job,” sulked Tom Hardin.

He was on his feet the next minute with a motion to complete the Hardin
head-gate. Violently he declaimed to Babcock and MacLean his wrongs,
the injustice that had been done him. Marshall had let that fellow
Maitland convince him that the gate was not practicable; had it not
been for him, the gate would be in place now; all this time and money
saved. And the Maitland dam, built instead! Where was it? Where was the
money, the time, put in that little toy? Sickening! His face purpled
over the memory. Why was he allowed to begin again with the gate?
“Answer me that. Why was I allowed to begin again? It’s all child’s
play, that’s what it is. And when I am in it again, up to my neck, he
pulls me off.”

This was the real Hardin, the uncouth, overaged Lawrence student! The
new manner was just a veneer. Rickard had been expecting it to wear
thin.

“Why did we begin it, I ask you?” repeated Hardin, his face flushed and
eager. “To make laughing-stocks of ourselves down here? That’s a costly
game for the O. P. to play. What does Marshall know about conditions,
sitting in his office, and looking at maps, and reading letters and
reports from his spies? I’ll give you the answer: he wants the glory
himself. Why did he tell me that he thought my gate would go, and then
start another ten times as costly? He wants all the credit. He’d like
to see my gate a failure. Why does he push the concrete gate ahead, and
hold up mine every few days?”

“I think,” interjected Rickard, “that we all agree with Mr. Marshall,
Mr. Hardin, that a wooden head-gate on silt foundation could never be
more than a makeshift. I understood that the first day he visited the
river with you he had the idea to put the ultimate gate, the gate which
would control the water supply of the valley, up at the Crossing on
rock foundation. Mr. Marshall does not expect to finish that in time
to be of first use. He hopes the wooden gate will solve the immediate
problem. It was a case of any port in a storm. He has asked me to
report my opinion.”

“Why doesn’t he give me a chance to go ahead then?” growled the deposed
manager. “Instead of letting the intake widen until it will be an
impossibility to confine the river there at all?”

“So you do think that it will be an impossibility to complete the gate
as planned?”

Hardin had run too fast. “I didn’t mean that,” he stammered. “I mean it
will be difficult if we are delayed much longer.”

“You are in charge of the construction of that gate?”

Hardin said he was. If it had not been for the floods--

“Have you the force to re-begin work at once?” demanded Rickard.

“I had it,” evaded Hardin. “I had everything ready to go on--men,
material--when we stopped the last time.”

“And you haven’t it now?”

Hardin hated to the soul of him to have to acknowledge that he had not;
he shrank from uncovering a single obstacle that stood between his
gate and completion. He tried to hedge. MacLean, a big man whose iron
wheels moved slowly, was weighing the caliber of the two opposing men.
Babcock, wiry, alert, embarrassed Hardin with his challenging stare.

“Answer my question, please.”

“I should have to assemble them again,” admitted Hardin sulkily.

Rickard consulted his note-book. “I think we’ve covered everything.
Now, I want to propose the laying of a spur-track from Hamlin’s
Junction to the Heading.” His manner cleared the stage of
supernumeraries; this was the climax. Hardin looked ready to spring.

“And in connection with that, the development of a quarry in the
granite hills back of Hamlin’s,” continued Rickard, not looking at
Hardin.

Instantly Hardin was on his feet. His fist thundered on the table. “I
shall oppose that,” he flared. “It is absolutely unnecessary. We can’t
afford it. Do you know what that will cost, gentlemen?”

“One hundred thousand dollars!” Rickard interrupted him. “I want an
appropriation this morning for that amount. It is, in my opinion,
absolutely necessary if we are to save the valley. We can not afford
not to do it, Mr. Hardin!”

Hardin glared at the other men for support; he found MacLean’s face a
blank wall; Estrada looked uncomfortable. Babcock had pricked up his
ears at the sound of the desired appropriation; his head on one side,
he looked like an inquisitive terrier.

Hardin spread out his hands in helpless desperation. “You’ll ruin us,”
he said. “It’s your money, the O. P.’s, but you’re lending it, not
giving it to us. You are going to swamp the Desert Reclamation Company.
We can’t throw funds away like that.” One hundred thousand dollars!
Why, he could have stopped the river any time if he had had that sum;
once a paltry thousand would have saved them--“I didn’t ask the O. P.
to come in and ruin us, but to stop the river; not to throw money away
in hog-wild fashion.” He was stammering inarticulately. “There’s no
need of a spur-track if you rush my gate through.”

“_If_,” Rickard nodded. “Granted. If we can rush it through. But
suppose it fails? Marshall said the railroad would stand for no
contingencies. The interests at stake are too vital--”

“Interests!” cried Tom Hardin. “What do you know of the interest at
stake? You or your railroad? Coming in at the eleventh hour, what can
you know? Did you promise safety to thousands of families if they made
their homes in this valley? Are you responsible? Did you get up this
company, induce your friends to put their money in it, promise to see
them through? What do you know of the interests at stake? You want to
put one hundred thousand dollars into a frill. God, do you know what
that means to _my_ company? It means ruin--” Estrada pulled him down in
his seat.

Rickard explained to the directors the necessity in his opinion of the
spur-track and the quarry. Rock in great quantities would be needed;
cars must be rushed in to the break. He urged the importance of
clenching the issue. “If it’s not won this time, it’s a lost cause,”
he maintained. “If it cuts a deeper gorge, the Imperial Valley is a
chimera; so is Laguna Dam.”

The other men were drawn into the argument. Babcock leaned toward
Hardin’s conservatism. MacLean was judicial. Estrada upheld Rickard.
The spur-track, in his opinion, was essential to success. Hardin could
see the meeting managed between the newcomer and the Mexican, and
his anger impotently raged. His temper made him incoherent. He could
see Rickard, cool and impersonal, adding to his points, and MacLean
slowly won to the stronger side. Hardin, on his feet again, was
sputtering helplessly at Babcock, when Rickard called for a vote. The
appropriation was carried. Hardin’s face was swollen with rage.

Rickard then called for a report on the clam-shell dredge being rushed
at Yuma. Where was the machinery? Was it not to have been finished in
February?

Hardin said that the machinery was ready, waiting in San Francisco.
The hull of the dredge could not be finished for a couple of months at
least.

“Why not get the machinery here? What’s the use of taking chances?”
demanded Rickard.

Hardin felt the personal implication. He was on his feet in a second.
“There are no chances.” He looked at MacLean. “The machinery’s done.
It’s no use getting it here until we’re ready.”

“There are always chances,” interrupted his opponent coolly. “We are
going to take none. I want Mr. Hardin, gentlemen, appointed a committee
of one to see that the machinery is delivered at once, and the dredge
rushed. What’s the date?”

“April eleventh,” clicked the nickel-in-the-slot-machine-Babcock
again. Had any one asked the time, his answer as swift without
consultation would have been as exact. He lived with his watch under
his eye. Every few minutes he assured himself as to his gain on
eternity.

“Get it in before the heavy summer traffic begins,” instructed Rickard.

The working force was informally discussed. Hardin said they could
depend on hobo labor. His enthusiasm took fire; he saw the work begun
on his gate. “That class of men flock like bees to such work as this.
There’s no trouble getting them; they just drop in. Curious, isn’t it,
how such fellows keep track of the world’s work? You build a levee, you
begin a bridge, and there’s your hobo on the spot. It’s good labor,
too, though it’s fickle.” It was the other Hardin, the chiseled man of
affairs and experience. Rickard agreed that they would find such help,
but it would not do to rely on it. The big sewer system of New Orleans
was about completed; he had planned to write there, stating the need.
And there was a man in Zacatecas, named Porter--

“Frank Porter?” sneered Hardin, “that--murderer?”

“His brother,” Rickard answered pleasantly. “Jim furnishes the men for
the big mines in Sonora and Sinaloa. He’ll send us all the labor we
want, the best for our purpose. When it gets red-hot, there’s no one
like a peon or an Indian.”

“You’ll be infringing on the international contract law,” suggested
MacLean.

“No. The camp is on the Mexican side,” laughed Casey. “I’d thought of
that. We’ll have them shipped to the nearest Mexican point, and then
brought to the border. Mr. Estrada will help us.”

The meeting had already adjourned. They were standing around the
flat-top desk. Estrada invited them all to lunch with him, in the car
on the siding. MacLean said that he had to get back to Los Angeles. Mr.
Babcock was going to take him out to Grant’s Heading in the machine. He
had never been there. They had breakfasted late. He looked very much
the colonel to Rickard, his full broad chest and stiff carriage made
more military by his trim uniform of khaki-colored cloth.

“May I speak to you about your boy, Mr. MacLean?”

Hardin caught a slight that was not intended. He pushed past the group
at the door without civility or ceremony.

The steady grave eyes of the big frame looked at Rickard inquiringly.

“He wants to stay out another year. I hope you will let him. It’s not
disinterested. I shall have to take a stenographer to the Heading this
summer. There is a girl here; I couldn’t take her, and then, too, I’m
old-fashioned; I don’t like women in offices. My position promises to
be a peculiar one. I’d like to have your son to rely on for emergencies
a stenographer could not cover.”

MacLean’s grave features relaxed as he looked down on the engineer, who
was no small man himself, and suggested that his son was not very well
up in stenography.

“That’s the least of it.”

“I hope that he will make a good stenographer! Good morning, gentlemen.”

At table, neither Estrada nor his guest uncovered their active thought
which revolved around Hardin and his hurt. Instead, Rickard had
questions to ask his host on river history. As they talked, it came to
him that something was amiss--Estrada was accurate; he had all his
facts. Was it enthusiasm, sympathy, he lacked? Presently he challenged
him with it.

Estrada’s eyes dreamed out of the window, followed the gorge of the New
River, as though out there, somewhere, the answer hovered.

“Do you mean, do you _doubt_ it?” exclaimed Rickard, watching the
melancholy in the beautiful eyes.

Estrada shook his head, but without decision. “Nothing you’d not laugh
at. I can laugh at it myself, sometimes.”

Rickard waited, not sure that anything more was coming. The Mexican’s
dark eyes were troubled; a puzzle brooded in them. “It’s a purely
negative sense that I’ve had, since I was a child. Something
falls between me and a plan. If I said it was a veil, it would
be--something!” His voice fell to a ghost of tunefulness. “And
it’s--nothing. A blank--I know then it’s not going to happen. It is
terribly final! It’s happened, often. Now, I wait for that--veil. When
it falls, I know what it means.”

“And you have had that--sense about this river business?”

Estrada turned his pensive gaze on the American. “Yes, often. I
thought, after father’s death, that that was what it meant. But it came
again. It kept coming. I had it while you were all talking, just now.
I don’t speak of this. It sounds chicken-hearted. And I’m in this with
all my soul--my father--I couldn’t do it any other way, but--”

“You think we are going to fail?”

“I can’t see it finished,” was Estrada’s mournful answer. He turned
again to stare out of the window.

An odd sense of unreality rested for an instant on Rickard. Swiftly
he rejected it. Outside, the sunshine, the work to be done, the river
running wild--

“You’ve been too much in the valley, Mr. Estrada!” Estrada looked at
him, and then his glance went back to the car window. His silence said
plainly: “Oh, I knew you would not believe me!”

“I mean, this country gets on men’s nerves. It’s so--omnipotent! The
victories are all to the river’s side, as yet. We’re pygmies, fighting
Titans. We fear what we have never conquered.”

“Oh, that!” He could see that Estrada would not argue with him. “Oh, we
all get that. The personal feeling, as if it were really a dragon, and
we trying to shackle it with our wisps of straw!”

“A few lace handkerchiefs and a chiffon veil!” sang Rickard’s memory.

“We get the sense of being resented, of angry power. We feel like
interlopers in this desert. She tells us all, in her own terrible,
silent way, ‘You don’t belong here!’”

“That has been quoted to me, silently, too!” laughed Rickard. And they
were on solid ground again.

“Who are the river-men in the valley?” demanded the newcomer. “I want
to meet them, to talk to them.”

“Cor’nel, he’s an Indian. He’s worth talking to. He knows its history,
its legends. Perhaps some of it is history.”

“Where’s he to be found?”

“You’ll run across him! Whenever anything’s up, he is on hand. He
senses it. And then there’s Matt Hamlin.”

“I’ll see him, of course. Has he been up the river?”

“No, but I’ll tell you two who have. Maldonado, a half-breed, who
lives some twenty miles down the river from Hamlin’s. He knows the
Gila as though he were pure Indian. The Gila’s tricky! Maldonado’s
grandfather was a trapper, his great-grandfather, they say, a priest.
The women were all Indian. He’s smart. Smart and bad.”

Estrada’s Japanese servant came back into the car to offer tea, freshly
iced.

“That’s what I want, smart river-men, not tea!” laughed Rickard. “I
want river history.”

“There’s another man you ought to meet.” Before he spoke the name,
Rickard had a flash of telepathy; he knew Estrada would say, “Brandon.”

“He was with the second Powell expedition. He’s written the book on the
river. He knows it, if any man does.”

“That’s so. I’d forgotten about him. I think I’ll run up and have a
talk with him.”

“This instant?” smiled the Mexican, for his guest had risen. “There’s
no train out until to-night.”

“I’ll ask Mr. MacLean to take a passenger. That will save me several
hours; and an uncomfortable trip.”

“You wanted these maps.” Estrada was gathering them together.

Queer, how that name had flashed from Estrada’s mind to his. He hadn’t
thought about Brandon--there was something in it, in the vitality, the
force of thought. If that were true, then why not the other, that odd
sense that Estrada spoke of? Seeing clear!

“Your maps, Mr. Rickard!”

“Thank you. And you can just strangle that foreboding of yours, Mr.
Estrada. For I tell you, we’re going to govern that river!”

Estrada’s pensive smile followed the dancing step of the engineer until
it carried him out of sight. Perhaps? Because he was the son of his
father, he must work as hard as if conviction went with him, as if
success waited at the other end of the long road. But it was not going
to be. He would never see that river shackled--




CHAPTER VII

A GARDEN IN A DESERT


HIS dwelling leaped into sight as Hardin turned the corner of the
street. There was but one street running through the twin towns,
flanked by the ditches of running water. The rest were ditches of
running water edged by foot-paths. Scowling, he passed under the
overhanging bird-cages of the Desert Hotel without a greeting for the
loungers, whose chairs were drawn up against the shade of the brick
walls. His abstraction aborted the hallo of jovial Ben Petrie, who
was leaving his bank for his vineyard, the more congenial half of his
two-sided life. Petrie stood for a minute on the narrow board-walk
watching the hunched shoulders, the angry blind progress. He shrugged.
Hardin was sore. It _was_ pretty tough. Such infernal luck! He got
thoughtfully into his English trap.

Fred Eggers left his motley counter, and joined the group of lounging
Indians outside his store. He had a morning paper in his hand. His pale
blue eyes looked surprised as Hardin’s momentum swept him past. “Mr.
Hardin,” he called ineffectually.

The momentum slackened as Hardin neared the place he called his home.
An inner tenderness diluted the sneer that disfigured his face. He
could see Innes as she moved around in the little fenced-in strip that
surrounded her desert tent. She insisted on calling it a garden, in
spite of his raillery.

“Gerty’s in bed, I suppose,” thought Tom. He had a sudden vivid picture
of her accusing martyrdom. His mouth hardened again. Innes, stooping
over a rose, passed out of his vision.

It came to Hardin suddenly that a man has made a circle of failure when
he dreads going to his office and shrinks from the reproaches at home.

“A ‘has-been’ at forty!” he mused. Where were all his ships drifting?

Innes, straightening, waved a gay hand.

“She’s raising a goodly crop of barrels.” His thought mocked and
caressed her. Her garden devotion was a tender joke with him. He loved
the Hardin trait in her, the persistence which will not be daunted. An
occupation with a Hardin was a dedication. He would not acknowledge the
Innes blood in her. Like that fancy mother of hers? Innes was a Hardin
through and through!

“It’s in the blood,” ran his thought. “She can’t help it. All the
Hardins work that way. The Hardins always make fools of themselves!”

Innes, lifting her eyes from a crippled rose, saw that the black devils
were consuming him again.

“Will you look at this wreck!” she cried.

The wind-storm the previous week had made a sickening devastation
of her labors. The morning-glories alone were scatheless. A pink
oleander drooped many broken branches from which miracles of perfect
flowers were unfolding. The prettiest blossom to Hardin was the
gardener herself. She was vivid from eager toil. Hardin looked at her
approbatively. He liked her khaki suit, simple as a uniform, with
its flowing black tie and leather belt. She looked more like herself
to-day. She had bleached out, in Tucson. She had been letting herself
get too tanned, running around without hats. Sunburn paled the value
of those splendid yellow eyes of hers. He could always tease her by
likening them to topazes.

“Cat’s eyes, why don’t you say it?”

She pushed a teasing lock of hair out of her eyes with one of her
mud-splashed garden gloves. It left a ludicrous smudge across her cheek.

“Each time I leave this garden,” she complained, “I declare I won’t
again. Not even for the Marshalls.” She bent over again to adjust a
bottomless keg around a wind-whipped, moribund plant.

“Quite a keg plant!” he quizzed. “Raising anything else?”

“And the glory of the morning he does not see!” she exclaimed with
theatric intent.

His eyes ran over the pink and purple lines of cord-trained vines
which made floral screens for her tent. Free of the strings overhead,
they rioted over the ramada, the second roof, of living boughs. He
acknowledged their beauty. They gave grace to bare necessity; they
denied the panting, thirsty desert just beyond.

He remembered his own ramada. Gerty had hated it, had complained of it
so bitterly when she came home from New York that he had had it pulled
down and replaced by a V roof of pine boards, glaring and ugly. Gerty
was satisfied, for it was clean; she no longer felt that she lived in a
squaw-house. Let the Indians have ramadas; there was no earthly reason
she should. He had urged that the desert dwellers had valuable hints
to give them. But what was a ramada to him, or anything else?

He nodded at Innes.

“They are doing so much better than the ones you planted at the office.
I wonder if Sam doesn’t water them enough?” His mood was faultfinding.
“Didn’t he water your roses while you were gone?”

“Oh, he _waters_ enough,” smiled his sister. “But Sam’s not for
progress. He won’t see the difference between watering and irrigating.”

“It looks like a train wreck, or a whipped prize-fighter, next day,”
observed Hardin.

“It’s really my fault. I staked it.” She was still mourning over her
calamity. “I forgot to barrel it. Stakes won’t do here. The keg’s the
thing.”

“That’s what they think in Mexicali.” Hardin turned to leave.

“The joke’s as stale as their beer,” retorted Innes. She did not want
him to go so soon. She pointed out a new vine to him. She had brought
it from Tucson; “Kudzu,” they called it; a Japanese vine. And there was
another broken rose, quite beyond the help of stripped handkerchiefs
and mesquit splints.

He followed her around the tent, her prattle falling from his grim
mood. He was not thinking of her flowers except as a mocking parallel.
The desert storm had made a havoc of his garden--a sorry botch of his
life. He and Innes had been trying to make a garden out of a desert;
the desert had flouted them. It was not his fault. Something had
happened; something quite beyond his power. Luck was turning against
him.

Innes, why, she was playing as with a toy. It was the natural instinct
of a woman to make things pretty around her. But he had sacrificed
his youth, his chances. His domestic life, too--he should never have
carried a dainty little woman like Gerty into the desert. He had never
reproached her for leaving him, even last time when he thought it
was for good. The word burned his wound. Whose good? His or Gerty’s?
Somehow, though they wrangled, he always knew it would turn out all
right; life would run smoothly when they left the desert. But things
were getting worse; his mouth puckered over some recollections. Yet he
loved Gerty; he couldn’t picture life without her. He decided that it
was because there had never been any one else. Most fellows had had
sweethearts before they married; he had not, nor a mistress when she
left him, though God knows, it would have been easy enough. His mouth
fell into sardonic lines. Those half-breed women! No one, even when a
divorce had hung over him. Oh, he knew what their friends made of each
of Gerty’s lengthened flights; he knew! But that had been spared him,
that vulgar grisly spectacle of modern life when two people who have
been lovers drag the carcass of their love over the grimy floor of a
curious gaping court. He shuddered. Gerty loved him. Else, why had
she come back to him? Why had she not kept her threat when he refused
to abandon his desert project and turn his abilities into a more
profitable dedication? He could see her face as she stared flushing up
into his that nipping cold day when he had run into her on Broadway.
He remembered her coquetry when she suggested that there was plenty of
room in her apartment! His wife! She spoke of seeing his pictures in
the papers. “He had grown to be a great man!”

That piquant meeting, the week following had been the brightest of his
life. He was sure then that Gerty loved him. The wrangles were only
their different ways of looking at things. Of course, they loved each
other. But Gerty couldn’t stand pioneer life. She had loved him, or
she would not so easily have been persuaded to try it over again. She
yearned to make him comfortable, she said. So she had gone back, and
pulled down his ramada, and put his clothes in the lowest bureau drawer!

“It wasn’t either of our faults,” he ruminated. “It was the fault of
the institution. Marriage itself is a failure. Look at the papers, the
divorce courts. A man’s interests are no longer his wife’s. Curious
that it should be so. But it’s a fact. It is the modern discontent.
Women want different careers from their husbands.”

Yet, how could he help throwing his life into his work? He had
committed himself; it was an obligation. Besides, he was a Hardin;
they take things that way. And, too, a man can not live in the desert
the best years, the vivid years of his life without absorbing its
grim indomitable spirit; without learning to love, to require the
great silent mornings, the vast star-brilliance of the nights; without
falling under the spell of the land, the spell of elusiveness and
mystery, of false distances, illusions; of content.

If it were not for that indefinable something, his allegiance to the
cause which mocked at reasons and definitions; oh, he knew!--he had
tilted with Gerty and been worsted!--he would have resigned from the
company, his company which had dishonored him. Why should he stay to
get more stabs, more wounds? MacLean, what in God’s name had MacLean
ever done for the valley? And Rickard? It was he, Tom Hardin, who had
pulled the valley, and therefore the company, from ruin, and it was
that very act which had ruined him. Yet for his life, were he to go
over it again, he knew he could not do differently. A curious twist
of the ropes which had pulled the company back from the edge of the
precipice and mangled him. Where was the loyalty of his associates?
Loyalty, there was no such thing! They were cowards, all of them.
Afraid of the power of the O. P. Truckling to it! Kotowing to Marshall,
shivering every time he opened those profane lips of his. Bah! It made
his stomach turn. Oh, he saw through their reason for kicking him out.
He hadn’t been born yesterday. This was a big thing, too big not to
rouse cupidity, cupidity of men and corporations. He had been fooled
by Marshall’s indifference; play, every bit of it; theatric. Faraday’s
reluctance? Sickening. It was a plot. Some one had put him up to it,
given him the first suggestion, made him think it was his own. Hot
chestnuts, all right! He was burned all right, all right! And the last
scorch, this pet of Marshall’s! Hardin gave a scantling in his path a
vicious kick.

The girl’s prattle had died. She walked with him silently.

At the door of her tent, she stopped, looking at him wistfully. She
wished he could hide his hurt. If he had only some of the Innes’ pride!

“How are things?” She used their fond little formula.

“Oh, rotten!” growled Hardin, flinging away. The gate slammed behind
him.




CHAPTER VIII

UNDER THE VENEER


AN hour later Innes, blinking from the sun, stepped into the tent,
which had been partitioned with rough redwood boards into a bed-chamber
on the right, a combination dining-room and “parlor” on the left. Her
glance immediately segregated the three stalks of pink geraniums in the
center of the Mexican drawn-work cloth that covered the table. Gerty,
herself, in a fresh pink gingham frock, was dancing around the table
to the tune of forks and spoons. It was just like Gerty to dress up to
her setting, even though it were only a pitiful water-starved bouquet.
She had often tried to analyze her sister-in-law’s hold on her brother;
certainly they were not happy. Was it because she made him comfortable?
Was it the little air of formality, or mystery, which she drew around
her? Her rooms when Innes was allowed to enter them were always
flawless; Gerty took deep pride in her housekeeping. Why was it, Innes
wondered, that she could never shake off her suspicion of an underlying
untidiness? There was always a closed door on Gerty’s processes.

“May I help?” The sun was still yellowing the room to her.

“Hello!” Hardin looked up from the couch where he was lying. Innes
suspected it of being a frequent retreat. She had found it tumbled
once when she ran over early. It was then that Gerty made it understood
that she liked more formality. Innes was rarely in that tent except for
meals now, or during her alternating week of house-chores.

“I was afraid I was late,” said the girl.

“Lunch will be ready in a few minutes,” announced Gerty Hardin. “Won’t
you sit down? There’s the new _Journal_. Sam came to clean this
morning, and I couldn’t get to the lunch until an hour ago.”

Innes, settling herself by the reading table, caught herself observing
that it would not have taken her an hour to get a cold lunch. Still,
it would never look so inviting! If Gerty’s domestic machinery was
complicated and private, the results always were admirable. The early
tomatoes were peeled as well as sliced, and were lying on a bed of
cracked ice. The ripe black olives were resting in a lake of California
olive oil. A bowl of crisp lettuce had been iced and carefully dried.
The bread was cut in precise triangles; the butter had been shaved into
foreign-looking roses. A pitcher of the valley’s favorite beverage,
iced tea, stood by Hardin’s plate. There was a platter of cold meats.

It came home to Innes for the hundredth time, the surprise of such
a meal in that desert. A few years ago, and what had a meal been?
She threw the credit of the little lunch to sulky Tom Hardin lying
on the portière-covered couch, his ugly lower lip outthrust against
an unsmiling vision. It was Tom, Tom and his brave men, the sturdy
engineers, the dauntless surveyors, the Indians who had dug the canals,
those were the ones who had spread that pretty table, not the buxom
little woman darting about in pink gingham.

“Is it because I don’t like her?” she mused, her eyes on the pictures
in the style-book which had just come in that morning. Certainly Gerty
did have the patience of a saint with Tom’s humors. If she would only
lose that set look of martyrdom! It was not for an outsider to judge
between a husband and wife, even if the man were her own brother. She
could not put her finger on the germ of their painful scenes; she
shrank from the recollection of Tom’s temper; his coarse streak, the
Gingg fiber, her own mother had called it. Tom was rough, but she loved
him. Why was it she was sure that Gerty did not love her husband? Yet
there was the distrust, as fixed and as unjust perhaps as the suspicion
of Gerty’s little mysteries.

She said aloud: “This is your last day. My week begins to-morrow.”

Mrs. Hardin adjusted a precise napkin before she spoke.

“I think I will keep the reins for a month this time.” Her words were
reflective, as though the thought were new. “I get my hand in just as
I stop. I will be running out for my visit in a few weeks. It will be
only fair for me to do it as long as I can.”

Again the girl had a sense of subtlety. Whenever Gerty put on that air
of childish confidential deliberation, she hunted for the plot. This
was not far to seek. Her sister-in-law was passing out the hot season
to her.

“It’s all ready.” Gerty’s glance was winging, bird-like, over the
table. Nothing had been forgotten. She gave a little sigh of esthetic
satisfaction. Hardin misinterpreted it.

“I ought to be able to keep a servant for her.” It was like him to
have forgotten the Lawrence days; he was never free of the sense of
obligation to the dainty little woman who was born, he felt, for the
purple. There was nothing too good for Gerty. He felt her unspoken
disappointments; her deprivations. “Of course, she can have no respect
for me. I’m a failure.”

“Doesn’t this give you an appetite?” demanded Innes heartily. “And
I’m to be a lady for three more weeks.” The remark was thoughtless. A
bright flush spread over Gerty’s face. She caught an allusion to her
origin.

Innes saw the blush and remembered the boarding-house. She could
think of nothing to say. The three relatives sat down to that most
uncomfortable travesty, a social meal where sociability is lacking.
Innes said it had been a pleasant morning. Gerty thought it had been
hot. And then there was silence again.

Innes began to tell them of her Tucson visit, when Gerty laid down her
fork. “I’ve meant to ask you a hundred times. Did you attend to my
commission in Los Angeles?”

“I forgot to tell you. I raked the town, really I did, Gerty.” For
there was a cloud on Gerty’s pretty brow. “I could have got you the
other kind, but you said you did not want it.”

“I should think not.” The childish chin was lifted. “Those complicated
things are always getting out of order. Besides, if I had an adjustable
form, everybody’d be borrowing it.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Tom, waking up. “Who’d borrow
your what, Gert?”

“Please don’t call me Gert, Tom,” besought his wife plaintively. “A
figure. I wanted Innes to try to get one for me in Los Angeles.”

“I did try,” began Innes.

“Yours is good enough for any one. Why should you get another?” He was
openly admiring the ample bust swelling under the pink gingham.

“Don’t, Tom.”

Innes tried to explain the sincerity of her search. She had visited
every store “which might be suspected of having a figure.” She could
not bring a smile to her sister’s face. “There was none your size. They
offered to order one from Chicago. They have to be made to order, if
they are special sizes. You are not stock size, did you know that?”

“I should think not,” cried Gerty, bridling. “My waist is absurdly
small for the size of my hips and shoulders.”

Innes wondered if it would be safe to agree with her.

“When will it be here?”

“You’ll be disappointed.” Innes found herself stammering. “But not for
six weeks. I did not know whether to order it or not.”

“And I in Los Angeles with my summer sewing all done! What good will it
do me then?” The pretty eyes looked ready for childish tears.

“I know. That is, I _didn’t_ know what to do,” apologized Innes Hardin.
“I decided to order it as I’d found the place, and was right there, but
I made sure that I could countermand the order by telegram. So I can
this very afternoon. I knew you would be disappointed. I was sorry.”

“I’ll need it next winter,” admitted Gerty, helping herself to some of
the chilled tomatoes. “I’m sure I’m much obliged to you. I hope it did
not put you to much trouble.”

The words raised the wall of formality again. Innes bent over her
plate.

“What made you change your plans?” suddenly demanded his wife of
Hardin. “When Sam came in with your bag, he surprised me so.”

“My boss kept me.” Hardin’s face looked coarse, roughened by his ugly
passion. “Rickard, your old friend. He served a subpœna on me at the
station.”

“Oh,” cried Gerty. “Surely, he did not do that, Tom!”

“Sure he did.” Hardin’s face was black with his evil mood. “I’m only an
underling, a disgraced underling. He’s my boss. He’s going to make me
remember it.”

“You mustn’t say such things,” pouted his wife. “If it does not hurt
you, if you do not care, think how I must feel--”

“Oh, rot!” exclaimed Hardin. The veneer was rubbed down to the rough
wood. Innes saw the coarseness her mother had complained of, the Gingg
fiber.

“I suppose you think I like to take orders, to jump at the snap of the
whip?” He was deliberately beating up his anger into a froth. “Oh,
sure, I do. That’s a Hardin, through and through.”

Again the angry blood flooded his wife’s cheeks. He, too, was throwing
the boarding-house at her.

“You did it yourself.” Gerty with difficulty was withholding the angry
tears. “I told you how it would be. You would do it.”

“Oh, hell!” cried Tom, pushing back his plate.

His sister looked drearily out the wire-screened door. Her view was a
dusty street. Hardin got up, scraping his chair over the board floor.

“And to keep it from me,” persisted the wife. “To let me ask him to
dinner--”

“Does that dismal farce have to go on?” demanded Hardin, turning back
to the table. “You’ll have to have it without me, then. I’ll not stay
and make a fool of myself. Ask him to dinner. Me! I’ll see myself.”

Innes wished she were in the neighboring tent. Tom was lashing himself
into a coarse fury.

To her dismay, Gerty burst into tears. It was killing her, the
disgrace, she cried. She couldn’t endure it. She couldn’t stand it
there; she had not the courage to go to Los Angeles, where her friends
would pity her. It was crushing her. _She_ was not a Hardin; _she_ was
sensitive; she could not justify everything a Hardin did as right, no
matter what the consequences. The pretty eyes obscured, she rushed, a
streaming Niobe, from the room.

The brother and sister avoided each other’s eyes. Innes rose and
cleared the table of the dishes. She made a loud noise with the running
water in the shed, racketing the pans to drown the insistence of
Gerty’s sobbing.

She kept listening for Tom’s step. She wanted to go with him when he
left; he must not reach the office in the blackness of that mood. She
wished he would not betray his feelings; yet she knew it was not he who
was to blame.

When she heard the screen door slam, she flashed out the back way.

“Going?” she called after him. “Wait for me.” She dashed into her tent
for her hat. She had to run to catch up with him.

“I thought I’d go and see Mrs. Parrish,” she caught up, panting. “I’ve
not seen her since I came back, and I felt anxious. Have you heard how
she was?”

“A man’s a fool who’ll bring in a nervous silly woman like that,”
growled Hardin, stalking along. “Any man is a fool,” he added to
himself, “who expects to keep the love or the respect of a woman in
a place like this. Women want luxury, modern women. They can’t stand
hardships.” He was a fool, like Parrish.

“Any of the rigs going over in that direction to-day?” inquired his
sister. She told herself that if Gerty had made that conversational
opening, she would have convicted her of tactlessness. The Parrish
theme was certainly an inspired one!

“I should send MacLean over to the Wistaria. Those Indians shirk if we
don’t jump in on them every day.” Then his face blackened again. “I was
going to send the new machine. But I suppose the boss will be using it.”

All topics were equally dangerous with Tom in this mood!

The telegraph operator told Hardin that Rickard had gone to Imperial
with MacLean.

“Truckling,” sneered Hardin, thrusting out his lip.

Innes felt a thud of anger.

“Wish he could stand a hurt like an Innes,” she thought.

“A toady,” concluded Tom. “How do you like your new boss, boys?” The
men crowded around him. Innes, through an open window, saw MacLean,
Jr., in the company’s new machine, leaving the sheds. She ran out of
the office.

“I won’t listen to you,” she defied her disloyal thoughts. “He’s my
brother. I’ll not listen to you.”

A wide-open smile was on MacLean’s face as he swung the long gray
machine around to the morning-glories.

“Coming to Wistaria? Oh, that’s bully.”




CHAPTER IX

ON THE WISTARIA


“YOU are sure you are feeling better?” insisted Innes.

Mrs. Parrish’s answer was careful. She _thought_ she was feeling
better! She had not had one of those bad nervous headaches for a week.
“It was a week come Sunday, no, it was more than that, it was of a
Saturday when the last bad spell came on. It was one of those hot days,
the second of the three, you remember; oh, but you were in Tucson. Did
you get to Los Angeles?” Her sigh was almost ecstatic. “Los Angeles is
nice. I haven’t been there for two years come September.”

“You surely will go out this summer?” The hectic color, the snapping
restlessness of her hostess’ black eyes disquieted the girl.

“I’ve not decided,” evaded Mrs. Parrish. “Oh, I’m all right! That last
medicine I got from Los Angeles helped me a lot. As I was saying, it
was that hot Saturday, and I had my baking to do. I can’t cook on
Sunday; Jim hates to see me working; I have to get at it when he’s
out of the way. I think the oil must have been bad; I don’t know what
Coulter was thinking of--I always insist on paying for the best; the
cheap sort will smell. Maybe, it wasn’t the oil, but by noon I could
hardly see. I sent back that can, and had them send out new wicks--it’s
a blue-flame stove I use--but of course that didn’t cure the headache.
And the cooking not done.”

Innes suggested that there were two cooks in that family! Everybody
knew that Jim Parrish had developed, through the exigency of desert
conditions and his wife’s headaches, into the most helpful of cooks.

Mrs. Parrish smiled with sad pride. “He’s had to do it too much. He’s
too good to me, Jim is.” She was wishing she had not been grinding
coffee in the lean-to when Miss Hardin came. The automobile was on
her before she had time to get away, and Miss Hardin speaking to her
through the screening. With the old purple flannelette waist on! She
had put it on that morning for “the last time.” She hoped Miss Hardin
would not notice the missing buttons. She stretched a torn and faded
apron of gingham that had once been brown across her knees. She did
not dare take it off. She had put on, too, her old blue alpaca skirt,
promising herself that she would use it for rags, tear it up before
she could ever yield to the temptation of wearing it again. She looked
like a slouch, she knew; and her hands fidgeted over the deficiencies
of her dress. The desert was excuse enough! The washing had to be
sent out of the valley, or it had to be done by one’s self, the water
boiled niggardly on a blue-flame stove. She had good things to wear,
but she could see down the road a long way, and visitors were scarce;
she could sight them a mile off, and get into clean clothes and be
sitting waiting in the tent parlor when the folk drove up. But the new
automobile of the company, seen for the first time, changed that. A
puff, a rumble, and there it was upon her, with Miss Hardin smiling at
her through the screen window!

“Washing or no washing, I’ll have to keep ready to see folks,” she
resolved. She tried to make the hand look casual that was holding the
rebellious waist together over her meager bust.

“It’s been cool since I got home,” cheered Innes.

Mrs. Parrish hoped that Miss Hardin could not see behind the rough
screen into the space that was called a bedroom. The bed was tossed
and tumbled; the night clothes lying around. And she had not washed
last week. “I’d be ashamed to have her see those clothes,” she thought.
“Take this chair, Miss Hardin,” she begged. “It’s more comfortable.”
Innes asked to be allowed to stay where she was, but she had to
surrender to the other’s nervous persistence.

Mrs. Parrish kept her hand over her gaping placket as she made the
change. “Yes, it’s been cool,” she answered, “but, oh, the wind! Ain’t
it terrible? They say as these tents won’t blow down, they are so well
put together. Do you believe it, Miss Hardin? That the ‘spider’ coming
down so low shelters it so that it couldn’t blow over?”

“Of course they won’t blow over!” chirped Innes Hardin.

Mrs. Parrish sighed. “That’s what Jim says. I wish I could believe
it. I’m not doubting you, or him, neither, Miss Hardin; I know you
mean what you say. But when the wind blows, and the tent creaks, and
strains, oh, I know then as it’s coming down; I can’t sleep those windy
nights. I just lie and plan which way I’ll jump when it goes.”

Innes tried to laugh at her, but the woman’s fear was too real.

“I’ve made myself learn to love the wind,” she urged. “Don’t you think
you could, too? Try to think of it as gay; as the air of the world on
some mad, reckless romp. It gets into your blood, then, and you want to
run, to dance. ‘Oh, the whole world is glad of the wind!’”

“The wind in Nebraska’s like that, but this! Why, it sounds like angry
devils to me, all shrieking to me to get out; that I don’t belong here.
I cover up my ears with the bedclothes, but it’s no use. I can hear
them just the same: ‘I’ll blow you away. I’ll blow you away.’ And then
the dust it brings; the dirt! There’s no use trying to be clean.” The
mouth muscles twitched unpleasantly.

“How is the neuralgia?” inquired Innes, helpless against this
determined pessimism.

“Better. That new medicine is helping that. I seemed to wear out the
good effects of those powders.”

“Have you begun to sleep out-of-doors yet?”

Mrs. Parrish shivered. “I wouldn’t sleep a wink. I’d be waiting for
Indians all night.”

“The Indians are harmless,” cried Innes. “They wouldn’t hurt any one.”

“They’re Indians!” persisted Mrs. Parrish. “I’ll never get over being
afraid of their dark faces. They’re heathens.”

Innes turned her eyes hopelessly away from the woman’s twitching face.
She looked out the wire-meshed door beyond the line of stakes which
stood for the proposed canal. She wondered when MacLean, Jr., would be
coming back for her.

“Is that a company rig?” she asked.

“I declare if it isn’t the Busby wagon!” exclaimed Mrs. Parrish,
jumping up and going to the door. Her dress threatened to leave her.
“She’s driving the roans. There’s somebody with her. It must be Mr.
Busby!”

The wretched room was then fully revealed to the guest. There was a
rent in the loud-patterned couch cover of green and red; the table
cover, a fringed imitation damask, was askew. Disorder leaped from
beneath the couch, from the boxes by the door, from the room beyond.
A graphophone perched uncertainly on the edge of the table. A pile of
_Youth’s Companions_ toppled uncertainly away over a pine box. There
were a few pictures from _Life_ tacked upon the board walls; a few were
pasted to the canvas top-walls. Innes segregated the two influences.
The graphophone, the file of _Youth’s Companions_, the pictures
from _Life_, these were the contributions of Jim Parrish toward the
elevating of their sordid life. The dirt, the disorder made up no
less a heroic subscription from the wife, who was too frail for the
sacrifice, too fond and too proud for a surrender.

“How can you see so far?” Innes asked. “I thought I could see farther
than most people, but this glare blinds me.”

“If you lived over here in Number Six, miles off from everybody, with
nobody to see, unless it’s the engineers or those black Indians, you’d
learn to know folks miles off. It’s--yes, it is Mr. Busby. He’s been
promising to bring her over here to sit with me the first time he
came to inspect the Wistaria. It’s to come right past here when it’s
finished. I’ll be seeing folks then. But I shouldn’t complain of not
having visitors. Two in one day!”

To Innes Hardin the excitement seemed all out of proportion to the
cause. Dark somber blotches were coming out on the woman’s skin. “Sit
down. It’s too warm for you by the door.”

“They might go past,” began Mrs. Parrish, when a smell of burning
food smote both their nostrils. “The rice and codfish’s burning,” she
exclaimed, and fled to the kitchen in the lean-to.

She was not back in time to greet her guest, whose vigorous entrance
struck at once the note of middle-aged, experienced authority. Innes
had met her but once before, but she recognized the species, the
woman who has the best recipe for bread, the most valuable hints for
housekeepers; handy in the sick room, indispensable at accouchements; a
kindly irresistible vulture.

Their talk was of the coming heat, the new canal; the difference it
would make to “Number Six”; the melon crop.

Mrs. Parrish came fluttering back, her brown apron changed for a clean
white one. A few pins sealed the gap in the unutterable purple waist.
She could not get another without passing through the sitting-room, and
she had a feeling of shame to emphasize her embarrassment before Miss
Hardin. Her cheeks were redder, her eyes more glittering.

She established Mrs. Busby on the wire-collapsible couch, with the
green and red flowered cover. The guest preferred a straight chair, but
Mrs. Parrish would not hear of it. She herself had a rocker. Perched on
one edge of it, she rocked back and forth violently, until her chair
kept grating against Innes’. The girl pitied the woman’s excitement,
wondering at it.

Mrs. Parrish was worked up to almost hysterical sociability. It was as
if a deep desert well had been tapped. Her rocker swaying interminably,
she told them of her life at home, of the farm they were just clearing
of the mortgage; of her love for Nebraska. She would never forget that
day when a friend, they wouldn’t know him, but it was Sam Kirkland,
anyway! when he came through on his way back East to get his family. He
told the wonderful story of the Imperial Valley--of the country below
sea-level, where even cactus would not grow. To their skeptical ears he
had unfolded a tale of rich soils, of desert redemption--of irrigation
“which made Jim Parrish just sit up, I can tell you.” The early crops,
the water scientifically applied, the hothouse heat, the millions in
sight. Was he, Sam Kirkland goin’ back? Well, sure. He was no man’s
fool. He knew opportunity when he saw it.

And then the pamphlets! When they began to come she fell to watching
her Jim uneasily. All their friends were in Nebraska; and her doctor.
“Let well enough alone,” says I. “How can I live without Doctor Pratt,
who knows all my symptoms? But Jim just would come!” She related
the weary minute details of their home-breaking; of their move from
Nebraska. Her impressions of California, deeply registered, were
passed on to her guests. Her horror of the valley. Her fear of the
Indians--her fear of the wind, of centipedes, and she knew that the
water was typhoidal--

“Typhoidal? Bosh!” interjected Maria Busby. She had something to say
about the water, but she could not get it in. The rocker grew more
agitated. “The very rocker which had been brought in on a wagon from
Old Beach! That was before the railroad came in; every one had to wagon
it from Old Beach. But that was before their time!

“I don’t sleep. That’s the trouble with me,” she jumped back to her
ailments, her nervous eyes passing from Mrs. Busby’s face to Innes
Hardin’s. “Jim calls me the desert watch-dog. I feel as I must keep an
ear and eye trained on the desert to see what it’s going to do next; or
the river; or the Indians.”

Mrs. Busby thought she saw a chance to talk of the water, and why it
was not typhoidal. But she was not swift enough. Innes was cheered to
hear the chug of the company automobile. Before another stream of talk
started on its irresistible flow, she made her escape. Through the
screen door, as she was borne away, she could see Mrs. Parrish, still
wildly rocking.




CHAPTER X

FEAR


MRS. Parrish’s chair continued to plunge. It rocked and pitched like
a ship in a storm. Her tongue gathered excitement from the motion.
Mrs. Busby looked with anxiety at the graphophone perching uncertainly
on the pine box. The curved rocker was threatening it. Mrs. Parrish
drew back, and the danger was once again averted. She was plowing her
way now toward the wire couch covered with the red and green tapestry
ordered from a circular from Howe and Wort’s, Chicago. Mrs. Busby,
usually placid, caught a little of the excitement. If she had nerves
she told herself, she would be turned crazy. As it was, nerveless, and
poised by the support of a newly acquired philosophy, she watched,
hypnotized, the menace of that desperate rocker. Two lurid spots glowed
in the cheeks of her hostess. The excitement of hostess-ship was
consuming her. Entertaining, in simple folk vocabulary, means talking.
So Mrs. Parrish talked.

When her ailments were exhausted, she began on her neighbors’. Mrs.
Busby caught her breath as the rocker jabbed the pine box carrying the
talking-machine. “I wonder why she wants a talking-machine?” she asked
herself with the grim humor which had won sturdy Sam Busby twenty years
before when he had acquired the habit of buying bread at the Home
Bakery in a suburb of Boston where Maria Mathes served.

Mrs. Parrish was embarked now on the sea of a neighbor’s woe, the
rocker working toward the couch. A newcomer into the valley, Mrs.
Dowker, was the subject of another Æneid. It transpired that Mr. Dowker
had been reading desert literature, too. He had heard of wonderful
cures effected by desert air. He dreamed to make a fortune and recreate
a sickly wife. Mrs. Dowker from a hospital bed begged to be left behind
for a year. Mrs. Parrish dwelt on the Dowker pilgrimage with ghoulish
realism. Mrs. Dowker was failing under the labors of desert life; the
little boy was always ailing. It was hard to get bottled water “in
there.” Mrs. Dowker had to boil every drop they drank.

Mrs. Busby saw her chance and grabbed it. “I don’t believe in boiled
water,” she announced. Mrs. Parrish was ready to pick up her thread,
but Mrs. Busby was not to be ousted.

“I don’t believe in all this fuss about bottled water, nor in boiled
water, either. The water of a place is the water one should drink. You
breathe the air, why shouldn’t you drink the water?” Her logic was
terrifically convincing to herself. “To be consistent, why shouldn’t
you bring in bottled air? The water of a place is the water that agrees
with one in that place. Why, that’s as plain as poverty! Look at the
Indians. They’ve been drinking this water for a hundred years, and
over. Did you ever hear of an Indian dying because he drank too much
water?” It was a touch of the Maria Mathes sardonic humor.

Mrs. Busby quoted Mrs. Hadley. “Didn’t every one scare her into
thinking that the canal water was not fit to drink, and didn’t she
boil every drop that went down a Hadley throat?”

“But that was different,” tried to interpose Mrs. Parrish, but Mrs.
Busby held the rostrum.

“And that first year, wasn’t the three of them, herself and her two
grown sons, down with typhoid? Where’d they get it? Out of the air? You
can’t talk to me of boiled water.”

“Do you think it was the boiled water that killed Joe Hadley?” demanded
Mrs. Parrish, fear reducing her black eyes to points of startled light.

“There’s the facts,” said her guest with an oracular wave of the hand.
“Take ’em, or leave ’em.” And then she practised passing on her second
lesson. “It was the _fear_ of the water as killed them. That’s my
belief.”

“Fear?”

“Fear,” declaimed Mrs. Busby, rising out of reach of the suspended
rocker, and taking the Morris chair deserted by Innes Hardin. “Fear is
_poison_.” She watched the effect of her words, for a careful second.
She had no intention of being entertained any more!

She answered the round question in Mrs. Parrish’s eyes.

“I’m only just beginning it--I see it as plain as prophecy, but it’s
hard to explain. The fear of a thing gives you a thing itself. There
is no such thing as pain.” A loud protest from Mrs. Parrish warned her
into guarding her outposts. “There is no such thing as pain. It is only
_fear_ of the pain which gives it to you. It is so clear to me; I wish
I could explain it. But I’ve some pamphlets; I’ll send them over by
Sam, the next time he comes over to the Wistaria. This new canal ought
to be helping you over here,” she hazarded.

“I heard as you were taking that up, the new thoughts,” Mrs. Parrish
returned to the main issue. “Is that a part of it?”

“Fear? you mean. Have you never thought yourself into a toothache?”

Parrish toothache had been too recent to be imaginary. “It’s decay,
usually, with me,” she faltered. “Decay, and then the nerves get
exposed. Mine die easily. I just lie awake sometimes, all night,
dreading as one of my nerves will die, and with no good dentist this
side of Los Angeles.”

“Didn’t I tell you so?” Mrs. Busby thrilled over this unexpected ally.
“Well, if you agree that you can think yourself into a pain, can’t you
think yourself out of it? It must work both ways. That’s logic.”

“Not a toothache.” The black beady eyes, shut obstinately over their
conviction. “That’s real. Perhaps you never had one?”

“Not since I’ve begun to study. And besides, they’re false. They’re not
mine, the teeth, I mean. Didn’t you never guess it? Pretty good work, I
tell Sam. They fool every one. He put in two large gold fillings in the
front teeth, so as they’d look just like the ones I lost. There’s Sam
coming now. I promised I’d not keep him waitin’. I’ll send you those
leaflets. And I’ll come out and explain them some day. But I’m busy
now, getting ready for the hot weather. Goin’ out this year?”

Mrs. Parrish thought not.

Sam Busby shouted through the door that he was in a hurry; that he had
to leave her at home, and get out to Grant’s Heading. There was trouble
there. A messenger had just caught him.

Mrs. Busby’s farewell to Mrs. Parrish had to be casual. She clambered
up into the seat beside her short stubby master. Sam had a short
blackened pipe between his teeth, obviously his own. No store or
dentist would acknowledge them. His sombrero, battered and sunburned,
was pulled low over his jolly blue eyes.

She opened a large black cotton umbrella.

“She’ll never grasp it,” she was thinking aloud.

“Grasp what?” the humorous eyes turned toward her.

“The new thoughts. If I could only get her to throw away that shelf of
medicines.”

“Now, for the lord’s sake, don’t go proselyting, Maria.”

“How can I, when I haven’t learned to hold a thought yet, myself?”

“Hold a--what? Whatever you are talking about?”

“You hold a good thought--it’s like the Catholics crossing themselves
with holy water, only it isn’t. It keeps off bad thoughts--trouble. It
sounds easy, but it’s terribly hard.”

“Jew Peter!”

She mistook his exclamation. “Well, you just try it yourself. Sometime,
when you’re just a-dyin’ for a smoke, just you hold the thought that
you are smokin’, and see if it’s easy.”

He looked at her a few minutes reflectively before speaking. Was Maria
losing all her humor? He had been noticing a tendency to dictate, a
growing dogmatism. Jew Peter! Like her mother! How he had dreaded the
corpulent and dogmatic Mrs. Mathes, whom he had learned to respect at
a distance, a very complete distance! He had loved Maria not only for
herself, but for the dissimilarity to her mother. Come to think of it,
matronhood, middle-aged matronhood, brought dictatorial authority
with the dreaded double chin. On every hand, one sees young girls and
gaiety. Does the gaiety go with the girlhood? He stole a distrustful
look at Mrs. Busby. He had not heard her laugh or crack a joke for a
long while. He felt cheated, as though he had bought a piece of goods
that did not wear well.

“Maria Busby,” he said solemnly, “when it’s time for me to take to
holdin’ thoughts, it’ll be time for me to quit holdin’ anything. Now,
what I’ve always liked about you was that you were not eternally
meddlin’ and fussin’ like other men’s wives. You’ve minded your own
business. That’s what I liked. Keep to it. I don’t care what new fad
you pick up. Pick ’em all up. Only don’t force ’em down other folks’
throats. That’s what I could never understand in women. They can never
do anything alone. If they find a new medicine, they’ve got to make
some one else try it. They love company so much that they want to carry
some one along to the other side if the drug happens to be fatal.
That’s all I can make out of it.”

“Sam,” Mrs. Busby’s voice was tremulously earnest, “this is so
wonderful. You aren’t willing to let me help you with it?”

“Am I needin’ help?” His sturdy rotund body deflected her missionary
zeal for an instant.

“You might be sick.” She yearned to protect his unguarded body with
the shining wonderful armor she had discovered. She could not be happy
in this new religion with her Sam stalking alone outside in the black
terrors of the night. She began to realize why religion demands its
martyrs. She sighed deeply.

“What’s the matter? Feelin’ poorly?”

“Oh, no. I’m all right. It’s you.”

“Oh, I’m poorly, am I? Well, if this is feelin’ poorly, I’d be
afraid to feel well. Something would bust.” He shook such a vigorous
repudiation that the mares took it as a command, and several miles had
flown past before he had them calmed.

“Frightened?” He threw the word over his shoulder to a disheveled Maria
Busby, clinging to her bonnet. The mares were still quivering.

Through white lips, Mrs. Busby murmured that she was all right, now!

“What’s that you were tryin’ to tell me a way back?” he asked when the
mares had settled down into a sober gait.

“There’s no such thing as pain,” began Mrs. Busby. She must always
begin there. It was the initial letter of her creed.

“I thought you said something about not having fear?”

“Oh, I knew I couldn’t explain it to you, you’re such a mocker, Sam
Busby. But I’ve got books for you to read. They’ll show you.”

“It’s not another sort of Electropoise?” grinned her spouse. “Do you
remember, Maria, how you used to have me sittin’ there, one end of that
infernal machine in a pail of water, the other tied around my leg,
keep me sittin’ like a fool waitin’ for currents. Nary a current, or a
raison Paddy would say. Holy smoke!”

She held up a solemn finger. “See that?”

“Anything the matter? Another felon?”

“I can think a pain in that finger.”

“Why should you?”

His levity threw her argument off the track. She had planned a
physical, scientific proof. How by taking thought, she could gather the
blood at a stated point; how congestion would inevitably follow. The
sequence evaded her.

“I thought there was no such thing as pain?”

“Don’t try to trap me. Just listen. If I can think a pain there, why
can’t I think it away?” The sequence came to her. “See, I think the
blood to the tip of my finger. It congests. There is inflammation; a
swellin’.”

“Does it hurt much?” She saw a twinkle in his eyes.

“Of course not.”

The two drove on in silence, busy with the thoughts which must divide
them. Sam decided that Maria had parted with her charm, her sense of
fun. And then he gave himself up to his routine. Baldwin’s alfalfa
was fine this spring. If the railroad could handle it, what a crop of
melons the valley would harvest that year! There was a stoppage in the
canal. The water looked stagnant. He forgot Maria.

She was facing a noble lonely martyrdom. This truth which was being
revealed to her, which was dawning above her sky as a wonderful shimmer
of light, she must follow where it led. Sam’s obstinacy would keep him
out. No, they would not bicker; she was above that. She never quarreled
with any one. It must be a closed subject between them; their first
barrier. She felt very righteous and holy. He stopped at their house, a
square pine cottage, built by jovial Sam Busby, and bossed by Maria.

As he was driving through the pine-board gate, he pulled the gray mares
on their startled haunches. Real concern was in his honest face.

“Sure nothing’s the matter with that finger, Maria?”

“Shucks!” tossed Maria Busby.




CHAPTER XI

THE RIVALS


FROM the window of the adobe office building of the company, Hardin saw
Rickard jump from the rear platform of the train as it slowed into the
station. He noticed that the new manager carried no bag.

“Wonder what he’s decided to do about the head-gate. He didn’t waste
much time out there.” Hardin was fidgeting in his seat, his eyes on the
approaching figure. His desk was cluttered with untouched papers; there
was a report to be made; Hardin had several times made a great show of
getting out his books, sharpening his pencils, but he was as restless
as a girl when a lover’s declaration lingers. Marshall had held up the
gate--what did Marshall know about it, he’d like to know, sitting at
his office desk in Tucson? They were losing valuable time. He wondered
what Rickard would report to his chief; he vowed to himself that he
would not show his eagerness by inquiring. “Ask him, please him by
truckling? I’d see the gate rot first.”

Rickard passed through the room, nodding to his office force. The
door of the inner office shut behind him. Hardin stared at the blank
surface. He moved restlessly in his swivel chair. Did the fellow think
a big thing like that could hang on while he unpacked his trunks
and settled his bureau drawers? He picked up a pencil, jabbing at
the paper of his report. He covered the sheet with figures--three
hundred--six hundred. Six hundred feet. Whose fault that the intake
had widened, doubling its width, trebling its problem? Whose but
Marshall’s, who had sent down one of his office clerks to see what
Hardin was doing? Wouldn’t any man in his senses know that the way
Maitland would distinguish himself would be by discrediting Hardin, by
throwing bouquets to Marshall; praising _his_ plan? They all go at it
the same sickening way! Office clerks, bah! Sure, Maitland had advised
against the completion of the gate. Said it would cost more in time and
money than Hardin’s estimates. “Thanks to Maitland it did,” growled
Hardin, scrawling figures over the page. “By the time Maitland finished
monkeying with that toy dam of his the river had widened the break from
three hundred to six hundred feet. For that, they throw mud at me. Oh,
it makes me sick.” Hardin flung his broken pencil out of the window.

Rickard reentered the room. The question leaped from Hardin.

“The head-gate--are you going on with it?”

Rickard looked curiously at the flushed antagonistic face of the man he
had supplanted. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Hardin had
taken to drinking. It made his answer curt.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!”

“I have no report to make, Mr. Hardin, until I see the gate.”

“And you went to the Crossing without going down to the head-gate?”
Hardin did not try to conceal his disgust.

“I did not go to the Crossing.”

“Didn’t go--!” Hardin’s mouth was agape. Then he rudely swiveled his
chair. The door slammed behind Rickard.

Hadn’t been to the Crossing? Then where in Hades did he go? “Truckling
to MacLean! Those office clerks! I know them. Jumping for favors from
the man higher up.” He ticked off on his fingers the days the new
manager had already squandered. Saturday, he threw in perversely the
day of Rickard’s arrival, Saturday, Sunday, he loafed all day Sunday,
Monday--and this was Wednesday. What could a man find in the valley
to do if he didn’t rush straight to the gate? The gate upon which the
whole valley hung? Gerty’s dinner occurred to him. “He never intended
to come,” he reflected with satisfaction. “He’ll have to be starting
for the Heading to-morrow. Already, it’s a farce, five days!”

He halted MacLean who was passing him, a stenographic pad under his
arm, a battered copy of _Thorns and Orange Blossoms_ in his hand. He
was cramming night and day, requisitioning the good-natured to read
aloud at a snail’s pace. He had found the novel under Bodefeldt’s
bureau and had held up Pete to give him a page of dictation from the
classic.

“Are you going to the Crossing to-morrow?” Hardin knew he should be too
proud to betray his eagerness, but the words ran away with him.

“Not to-morrow. Mr. Rickard just told me he might not be able to get
off until next week.”

Hardin’s anger sputtered. “Next week. Why does he rush so? Why doesn’t
he go next year? The Colorado’s so gentle, it’d wait for him, I’m sure.
Next week! It’s a put-up job, that’s what it is. Oh, I can see through
a fence with a knot-hole as big as your head. He doesn’t want to
finish the head-gate. He wants to put off going until it’s too late to
go on with it; I know him. He’d risk the whole thing, and all the money
the O. P. has chucked into it, just to start with a clean slate; to get
the glory of stopping the river himself. It turns my stomach; it’s a
plot.” The lower lip shot out.

MacLean’s attention was deferential. He had always liked Hardin; all
the fellows did. But he was jumping off wrong this time. He’d brought
it all on himself.

“One would think he’d been brought up in a convent, he finds the valley
so distracting. Time to go to dinners. Sickening!”

MacLean did not understand the allusion.

“He said,” MacLean hesitated, wondering if the statement had been a
confidence. But Bodefeldt had been there. “He said something about a
levee for the towns. He’s got to investigate that before he goes to the
front.”

“A levee? Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” Hardin addressed the
stenographer in the transparent shirt-waist. “Does he think we’re going
to have another flood this season? Thinks it’s going to reach the hotel
and wet his clothes? Take the starch out of his shirts?” He flung out
of his chair, throwing the papers back into a drawer.

He stamped out of the office, mad clear through. To this crisis they
had sent down a dandy, a bookman who wanted to build a levee. Oh, hell!
He laughed out his bitterness aloud, and did not care that Coulter, who
kept the store, and two gaily dressed squaws turned to look after him.
For it was a crisis, and the O. P. was making it so. They should have
learned their lesson by this time. Trust _Maitland_? And now, Rickard!

“They’ll come crawling after me to help them after this fellow’s buried
himself under river mud, come calling to me as they did after Maitland
failed. ‘Please, Mr. Hardin, won’t you come back and finish your gate!’
I’ll see them dead first. No, I’ll be fool enough to do it. I can’t
help myself. I’m a Hardin. I have to finish what I’ve begun.”

It was not because this was a pet enterprise, the great work of his
life, that he must eagerly eat humble pie, take the buffets, the falls,
and come whining back when they whistled to him. He told himself that
it was because of his debt to the valley, to the ranchers. He saw
himself sacrificing everything to a great obligation. “Who was the
Bible fellow who led his people across the desert? I must polish up my
Bible,” he resolved. He remembered that he had not opened one since his
mother’s death, and that was so long past that the thought brought no
physical thrill.

The colonists were about desperate. Who could blame them? The last
year’s floods had worked havoc with their crops; this year had been a
horror. The district they called Number Six was a screaming irony of
ruin. The last debauch of the river had made great gashes through the
ranches, had scoured deep gorges which had undermined the canals on
which the water supply for Number Six depended. The suits were piling
up against the D. R., damage suits, and they hold up his gate, while
he gets the curses of the valley. And Mr. Rickard thinks he’ll build a
levee!

Hardin was in the mood to fancy slights. He was convinced that Petrie
went back into the bank to avoid him. Two ranchers, Hollister and
Wilson, from the Palo Verde, busy with their teams, did not return his
halloo. The ranchers hated him. “That’s what you get for crucifying
yourself.”

He flung himself on the couch in the tent. Gerty was laying a careful
cloth for supper. A brave determined smile was arranged on her lips.
The noon storm had passed. She hummed a gay little tune. If there was
anything Hardin hated, it was humming.

“You’ll have your dude to dinner all right,” her husband announced.
“He’s in town.”

“Yes, I know,” rejoined his spouse. “I had a letter from him yesterday.
From Imperial.”

Tom sat up glaring. “He wrote to you from _Imperial_?”

His wife misplaced the accent. She misunderstood Tom’s scowl. It was
the old story over again. Whenever those two men came together, the
old feeling of jealousy must be revived again! It was unpleasant, of
course, very unpleasant to have men care like that, but it made life
exciting. Life had been getting a little stale lately; like a book
of obvious even plot. Rickard’s entrance into the story gave a new
interest, a new twist. She hummed an air from a new opera that had set
the world waltzing.

Hardin’s thoughts did not touch her at the hem. He was at the
head-gate, his gate. What the deuce had Rickard gone to Imperial for?
If he wasn’t the darndest ass! Imperial! And the gate hung up!

“For God’s sake stop that buzzing!”

The happy little noise was quenched. Innes, entering at that moment,
heard the rough order. She looked imploringly at her sister-in-law.

“Supper’s on the table,” cried Gerty, the fixed determined smile still
on her lips.




CHAPTER XII

A DESERT DINNER


INNES HARDIN was completing her simple toilet. Not even to please Gerty
would she “dress up” for this dinner! It would have been easy for her
sister-in-law to postpone it. How could she expect Tom to go through
with it! She couldn’t understand Gerty!

An hour ago, hearing distinctly the whir and splash of egg-beating, she
had run over to the neighboring tent. The clinking of cake-tins had
suddenly silenced. “Excuse me, won’t you?” Gerty’s voice had come from
the lean-to, the little kitchen shed. “I’m lying down.”

“Lieing, yes!” grimaced the Hardin mouth to its reflection in the
mirror. How many times that week had she been repulsed by a locked
door, a sudden curtain of silence, or a “Run away for a while. I’m
trying to catch a nap.” Easy now to see why Gerty had wanted to “hold
the reins” that week!

She didn’t need to pierce those canvas walls to know that there had
been feverish activity for this dinner. A new gown would appear
to-night, made secretly. An exquisite meal, and no one must comment on
its elaboration. Twice Tom and she had been asked to take their lunch
at the hotel. “Because of a headache!” A headache!

Tom’s wife could not even shop openly! Bundles had always the air of
mystery, never opened before Tom or herself. She must have yards of
stuff laid away, kept for sudden emergencies.

“She can’t help it. It’s her disposition. She can’t help being
secretive. Look at your face, Innes Hardin!” What was it to her, the
pettiness of a woman whom an accident of life had swept upon the beach
beside her? Gerty was not her kind, not the sort she would pick out for
a friend. She was an oriental, one of the harem women, whose business
it is in life to please one man, keep his home soft, his comforts
ready, keep him convinced, moreover, that it is the desire of his life
to support her. Herself dissatisfied, often rebellious, staying by him
for self-interest, not for love--ah, that was her impeachment. “Not
loving!”

Soberly, she covered her plain brassière with a white waist of cotton
ducking. A red leather belt and crimson tie she added self-consciously.
“Where is my bloodstone pin?”

Hadn’t she spent an hour at least matching that particular leather
belt? But he was a man, in battle. The head-gate held up; it was too
bad. Silent, Bodefeldt, Wooster, Grant, all of them fighting mad
because of the deadlock at the Heading. All up in arms, at last,
against Marshall, because of this cruel cut to their hero, Hardin.
Her eyes glowed like yellow lamps, as she recalled their fervid
partisanship.

“Only one man who can save the valley, and that’s Tom Hardin.” Wooster
had said that; but they all believed it. The loyalty of the force
made her ashamed of her soft woman fears. For there were times when
she questioned her brother’s executive ability. He had a large loose
way of handling things. He was too optimistic. But those men, those
engineers must know. It was probably the man’s way of sweeping ahead,
ignoring detail. The verdict of those field-tried men told her that the
other, the careful planning way, was the office method. Rickard, as a
dinner neighbor, she had found interesting; but for great undertakings,
a man who would let a Gerty Holmes jilt him, ruin his life for him! The
whole story sprang at last clear, from the dropped innuendos.

She adjusted a barrette in her smoothly brushed hair. Slowly, she
walked over to the neighboring tent.

Gerty frowned at the white duck. “You might at least have worn your
blue!”

“You’re elegant enough for the two of us. Isn’t that something new?”

Gerty said carelessly that she had had it for a long time. For she
had had the material a long time! It wasn’t necessary to explain to
her husband’s sister that it had been made up that week. She hoped
that she didn’t look “fussed-up.” Would Mr. Rickard think she was
attaching any importance to the simple little visit? For it was nothing
to him, of course. A man of his standing, whom the great Tod Marshall
ranked so high, probably dined out several times each week, with
white-capped maids and candelabra! If Tom had only made the most of his
opportunities. What a gamble, life to a woman!

She made a trip into her bedroom and took a reassuring survey in her
mirror. The lingerie frock _would_ look simple to a man who would never
suspect it of handmade duplicity. Her glass declared the hand-whipped
medallions casual and elegant. And a long time ago, a lifetime ago,
Rickard had told her that she always should wear blue, because of her
eyes.

Innes from the next room could hear Gerty teasing Tom to wear his
Tuxedo.

“Isn’t one dude enough for you?” growled her surly lord. Innes
recognized the mood, and shrank from the ordeal ahead. It was the mood
of the Hardin in the rough, the son of his frontier mother, the fruit
of old Jasper Gingg, whose smithy had been the rendezvous for the
wildest roughs, the fiercest cattlemen in Missouri.

“I’d let him see you know what’s what, even if we do live like gipsies.”

The answer to that was another growl. Innes could hear him dragging out
the process, grumbling over each detail. That confounded laundry had
torn his shirt. He hadn’t a decent collar to his name. Where was his
black string tie? If Gert _would_ keep his things in the lowest drawer!
Hang that button! Gerty emerged from the encounter, her face very red.
Innes could see her biting her lips to keep the tears back as she put
the last touches to the table.

“She’s tired out,” thought the sister of Tom Hardin. “She’s probably
fussed herself to death over this dinner.”

A few minutes later Rickard arrived in a sack suit of tweeds. Gerty’s
greeting was a little abstracted. How could she make Innes understand
to tell Tom to change his coat? The duty of a host, she suddenly
remembered, was to dress down rather than up, to the chances of his
guest. She regretted bitterly her insistence. Was ever any one so
obtuse as Innes? Mr. Rickard would see that they thought it a big
event. She was watching the curtain where Tom would emerge. And his
coat was a style of several seasons ago and absurdly tight! She made
an unintelligible excuse, and darted behind the portière.

Tom’s face was apoplectic. He was wrestling with a mussed tie; the
collar showed a desperate struggle.

Gerty made wild signals for him to change his clothes. She waved a hand
indicating Rickard; she pointed to Tom’s sack suit lying on the floor
where he had walked out of it.

“What is it all about?”

“Ssh,” whispered his wife. Again the wild gestures.

“Well, aren’t you satisfied? Don’t I look like a guy?”

He could be heard distinctly in the next room. Gerty gave it up in
despair. She dabbed some more powder on her nose, and went out looking
like a martyr; a very pretty martyr!

Rickard praised the miracles of the tent. Gerty’s soft flush reminded
Innes of their old relation. “Exit Innes,” she was thinking, when Tom,
red and perspiring, brought another element of discomfort into the room.

Gerty ushered them immediately to the table. She covered the first
minutes which might be awkward with her small chatter. Somewhere she
had read that it was not well to make apologies for lack of maid
or fare. Besides, Mr. Rickard remembered Lawrence! That dreadful
dining-room, the ever-set table! How she had hated it, though she had
not known how fearful it was until she had escaped.

“We are simple folk here, Mr. Rickard,” she announced, as they took
their places around the pretty table. That was her only allusion to
deficiencies, but it covered her noiseless movements around the board
between courses, filled up the gaps when she made necessary dives into
kitchen or primitive ice-chest, and set the key for the homeliness
of the meal itself. The dinner was a triumph of apparent simplicity.
Only Innes could guess the time consumed in the perfection of detail,
details dear to the hostess’ heart. The almonds she had blanched, of
course, herself; had dipped and salted them. The cheese-straws were her
own. She did not make the mistake of stringing out endless courses. An
improvised buffet near at hand made the serving a triumph.

Rickard praised each dish; openly he was admiring her achievement.
Innes, remembering the story Gerty had told her in dots and dashes, the
story of the old rivalry, glanced covertly at Tom sulking at the head
of his own table.

“Poor sulky Achilles,” she thought. “Dear, honest old bear!”

“Innes!” cried Mrs. Hardin.

She turned to find that the guest was staring at her. She had not heard
his effort to include her in the conversation.

“Mr. Rickard asked you if you like it here?”

“Thank you, why, of course!” Her answer sounded pert to herself.

Her sister-in-law hastened to add that Miss Hardin was very lonely, was
really all alone in the world; that they insisted on her making her
home with them.

Innes had with difficulty restrained a denial. After all, what other
home had she? Still the truth had been deflected. She recalled the
sacrifice it had been to cut her college course in order to make a
home in the desert for the brother who had always so gently fathered
her, who had helped her invest her small capital that it might spell
a small income. She recalled his resistance when she had called in a
mortgage; who could watch that mad scapegoat of a river playing pranks
with desert homes, and not yearn to help? Not a Hardin. She still
gloried in remembering that she had at least driven one pile into that
rebellious stream, even if when she left the valley it would be as a
breadwinner. She was prepared. She was a good draftsman; she would go
as an apprentice in an architect’s office. She had already settled on
the architect!

“Are you going to Los Angeles again soon?” She heard the new manager
address his host.

“I’m taking orders!”

There was another awkward moment when Hardin pushed back his plate
declaring he had reached his limit; it was too big a spread for him! It
was the stupid rudeness of the small bad boy; even Innes flushed for
her sister-in-law.

With resolution, Gerty assumed control of the conversation. Her rôle
sounded casual; no one could have suspected it of frequent rehearsal.
They must not talk of the river; that was taboo. Railroad matters were
also excluded. Equally difficult would be reminiscences of Lawrence
days. So she began brightly with a current book. Had Mr. Rickard read
_The Home of Joy_ that every one was discussing? Rickard confessed he
was a barbarian; he had not read a book that was not on engineering
for many a month. He had read a review or two, and several minutes
were contributed to a discussion of the problem it covered. The
theater proved a safe topic, and by that natural route, they reached
New York. Innes, who had never been farther East than Chicago, was
grateful to play audience. Hardin, who knew his New York perhaps
better than either, refused to be drawn into the gentle stream. Gerty
skimmed easily the cream of modern issues; she read her newspaper
religiously each morning; they talked of popular movements. There had
been a demonstration in the streets of London, rock-throwing mobs of
suffragettes the week before.

“Surely, they proved their equality,” observed Casey Rickard. Innes was
angry with herself for smiling.

“What about their right?” She wanted to urge the right of the
wage-earners, the taxpayers. Taxation without representation, but she
heard her chance pass by. Gerty had danced on to another topic.

Things must be kept sprightly. Had Mr. Rickard met many of the valley
people? And it was then that she threw her bomb toward the listening
silent Hardins. She would like Mr. Rickard to meet some of their
friends.

He said that he would be delighted, but that he was planning to leave
shortly for the Heading.

“Of course.” She did not give her husband time to speak. She meant
afterward! She was planning to give something, a bit novel, in his
honor. She refused to see the glare from the angry man in his outgrown
dinner coat. She did not glance toward the sister. What did Mr. Rickard
think about a progressive ride?

“It sounds very entertaining, but what do you do?”

There was a loud guffaw from Tom. With deepened color, Gerty told her
idea. A drive, changing partners, so he could meet all the guests.
There was such a handsome girl in the valley, a Miss Morton. Visiting
her brother, young Morton, of Philadelphia, the Mortons. His father a
millionaire, himself a Harvard graduate, and he was running a melon
ranch in the desert! There were the Youngbergs; Mr. Youngberg, the
manager of the great A B C ranch, which belongs to Senator Graves,
you know? Mrs. Youngberg, the senator’s own niece. And the Blinns, Mr.
and Mrs. Blinn, not _quite_ the same class of people, but so jolly
and entertaining. Mr. Blinn makes you scream! And young Sutcliffe,
the English zanjero, a remittance man, of course. Englished, the word
wasn’t so pretty; it meant ditch-tender.

“And the Wilson girls. I was forgetting about them. They are with their
brother, who owns one of the big ranches here. He is picking grapes,
think of it, off vines not four years old.”

“Yes, it is a wonderful land,” agreed her guest.

“I think it will surprise you to find so many nice people in here; it
certainly did me. One doesn’t expect to find congenial people in a
new country like this. They say it is the quick rewards which attract
ambitious men. Why, how much was it Jones cleared off his place last
year, Tom? He was sending tomatoes east in February, grown in the open.
This is really a huge forcing bed, isn’t it? I’ve heard it said, too,
that there is an intellectual stimulus which attracts one class, and
develops the other. Do you agree with that, Mr. Rickard?”

Just like the sparrow, darting from bough to bough! He answered,
gravely, that they certainly used a dictionary of their own! He had
been to a meeting of the water companies, up at Imperial the other day.
He turned to his host. “The fluency of some of those men surprised me!”

“We’re not all dubs!” gruffed Hardin.

Gerty swept up her ruffles; her laugh sounded hard instead of gay. It
was a kindness for a newcomer to bring in a breath of fresh air from
the outside. They did get stale, they couldn’t help it.

Rickard remembered that he had to get back to his hotel. He had
letters to write. It had been a splendid dinner! And what a wonderful
home she had made out of a sand-baked lot, out of a tent! He spoke of
the roses and the morning-glories. His eyes fell on the open piano, the
reading table with the current magazines. Now, he couldn’t understand
why they ever went to that hotel!

Gerty’s eyes were shining as deep pools of water on which the sun
plays. She looked almost infantile as she stood by the two tall men,
her head perched bird-like. “Good-by! and I hope you’ll come again!”

Of course he’d come again!

“And you will let me know when you return, so that I may set the date
for my party?”

Innes did not get his answer. She had been observing that he was not
taller than her brother. He looked taller. He was lean, and Tom was
growing stocky. She wished he would not slouch so, his hands in his
pockets! In Tucson, before she knew that she must dislike Rickard, she
had had an impression of virile distinction, of grace, a suggestion
of mastered muscles. He had _known_ that it was her brother he was
supplanting--did he get any satisfaction from the fact that it was the
husband of the woman who had jilted him? Anyway, she did not like him.
She could never forgive a hurt that was done to her own. She was a
Hardin.

“Innes! Mr. Rickard said good night!”

She gave him the tips of her cool browned fingers. Her eyes did not
meet his; she would not meet that laughing scrutiny.

“Good night, Mr. Rickard.”




CHAPTER XIII

THE FIGHTING CHANCE


“CASEY’S back; spying!” announced Wooster at mess one evening. By that
time, the feeling against “Marshall’s man” was actively hostile. There
had been a smudge of slumbering fires before Rickard had left the
towns. Fanned by much talk during his absence, it had burst into active
blaze. They were ready to show their resentment against the man who
had supplanted Hardin, their Napoleon, if it cost them their places.
By this time the cause of the desert was as compelling to these hardy
soldiers as were the lily banners of France to the followers of the
Little Corporal.

Rickard was not expected. He had been gone less than a week. The
effect of his return was that of a person who returns suddenly into a
room, hushing an active babel of tongues. He knew what he would find,
ample reasons why! He was not given the satisfaction of locating any
particular act of disobedience. The men presented a blank wall of
politeness, reasonable and ineffectual. Silent explained, briefly,
that he had not been able to collect enough men. Most of the force was
busy in the Number Six District, trying to push the shattered Wistaria
through by a new route before that year’s crops were entirely ruined. A
gang was at Grant’s Heading; the floor needed bracing. Another squad,
Irish’s, was in the Volcano Lake Region, where they were excavating
for the new head-gate.

“No hurry for that.” Rickard was glad to pick a flaw in such a perfect
pattern. “You might have withdrawn those men, and put them to work on
the levee.”

“I was given no authority to do that.”

The chief pretended to accept the reason; else it were a case of
changing horses in mid-stream. What he had seen at the Heading, his
peep at the exposed valley, his gleaning of the river’s history had
convinced him that in haste and concentration lay the valley’s only
chance. He must refuse to see the insubordination of the engineers,
the seasoned desert-soldiers. He needed them, must win their
confidence if he could. If not, they must save the valley, anyway! The
imperturbable front of Silent, his bland big stare, exasperated him;
easier to control the snapping terrier of a Wooster. He had told Silent
distinctly to gather his men and rush the levee. A good soldier had
made a better guess than his, and had stopped the casual work at Black
Butte, or had found Indians! Thoughtfully, Rickard followed that last
suggestion across the ditch into Mexicali.

He gathered all the recruits he needed that morning. The Indians,
lazy Cocopahs, crept out of their huts to earn a few of the silver
dollars held out to them by the new white boss. A few Mexican laborers
were bribed to toss up earth to the west of the town. Estrada, at his
request, put a squad of his road force at the service of the manager.
He could not spare many men.

The railroad had already started the line projected by Hardin to
Marshall the year before, a spur across the desert, dipping into Mexico
between the lean restless sand-hills, from Calexico to Yuma. The
Mexican government had agreed to pay five thousand dollars a mile were
the road completed at a certain period. Estrada was keeping his men on
the jump to fill the contract, to make his nation pay the price. The
completion of the road meant help to the valley; supplies, men, could
be rushed through to the break.

In spite of his haunting sense of ultimate failure, the growing
belief in the omnipotence of the Great Yellow Dragon as the Cocopahs
visualized it, Estrada’s work was as intense as though he were
hastening a sure victory. The dauntless spirit of the elder Estrada
pushed the track over the hot sands where he must dance at times to
keep his feet from burning. Many of the rails they laid at night.

“Hog-wild!” exclaimed Hardin when he saw the levee for the first time.
“Gone hog-wild.” To him, the growing ridge of fine earth, like a soft
heap of pulverized chocolate, was an absurd proof of misdirected
energy. He walked down with Silent after dark to the gorge the river
had cut on its last wild debauch, and stood on the newly upturned mound
of earth. There was no water running now in the flood channel; it was a
deep dry scar.

“It would be a good idea if it were necessary. It can do no harm.”

“Do no harm, and the gate hung up! He makes me sick. We’ve had all the
floods coming to us this twenty years. He’s locking the barn after the
horse is gone.”

The calm beauty of that desert night was wasted on the man whose life,
he told himself, had been dishonored. He did not smell the pungent
breath, the damp moist sweetness of the newly turned earth; did not
see the star-pricked canopy spreading out toward illimitable horizons.
The moon trailed its cold pale light across the sky, but Hardin could
not see. His view was a world of his making, a country peopled by his
energy, the people who had turned him down. The eyes that were looking
at the levee were no longer seeing another man’s folly; they were
visualizing his head-gate, the gate that meant safety to the valley,
the gate he was not allowed to complete. He was living over again, step
by step, the chain of events that led to this exasperating deadlock;
himself, incapacitated, helpless, seeing the thing which should be
done, powerless to do it. The men who might win, petty enough to let
the wish to put him in the wrong override the big opportunity to save
the valley! He wondered again why he had not the sense to get out.

“And kick the whole bucket over,” he grumbled. “I would, too, if I had
the sense I was born with. Get out, and begin over again somewhere. Not
stay for more kicks. They’d find they’d be wanting me back again. I
will get out. I’ll not stay a month longer.”

“Rickard’s gone hog-wild,” he told his family the next morning.
“Building a levee between the towns! The man’s off his head.”

“There really isn’t any danger?” Gerty’s anxiety made the deep blue
eyes look black.

Innes looked up for Tom’s answer. His face was ugly with passion.

“Danger! It’s a bluff, a big show of activity here, because he’s
buffaloed; he doesn’t know how to tackle the job out there.”

It had begun to look that way to more than one. It was talked over at
Coulter’s store; in the outer office of the D. R. Company where the
engineers foregathered; among the chair-tilters who idled in front of
the Desert Hotel. “The man does not know how to tackle his job!” A
levee, and the gate held up! What protection to the towns would be that
toy levee if the river should return on one of its spectacular sprees?
A levee, and the intake itself not guarded? He was whispered of as an
incompetent; one of Marshall’s clerks. He was given a short time to
blow himself out. A bookman, a theorist.

“As well put sentinels a few miles from prison, and leave the jail
doors open!” This was Wooster’s gibe. All saw the Colorado as a
marauder at large. “And a little heap of sand stacked up to scare it
off! It’s a scream!”

Mrs. Hardin found it difficult to meet with diplomacy the confidences
which inevitably came her way. As Hardin’s wife, she was expected to
enjoy the universal censure the new man was acquiring. Gerty’s light
touches, too slight for championship, passed as a sweet charity. Her
own position those days was trying. She did not yet know her diplomatic
lesson.

Apparently unaware of the talk, Rickard spent the greater part of his
time superintending the levee. He could trust no one else to do it, no
one unless it were Estrada, who was rushing his steel rails through to
the front, and was needed there.

Things were moving under his constant goading. The extra pay was
showing results. He should be at the Heading now, he kept telling
himself, but he was convinced that the instant he turned his back,
the work on the levee would stop; and all the reasons excellent! Some
emergency would be cooked up to warrant the withdrawal of the hands.
Chafe as he might at the situation, it was to be guerrilla warfare.
Not a fight in the open, he knew how to meet that, but this baffling
resistance, the polite silence of the office when he entered,--“Well,
they’ll be doing my way pretty soon, or my name isn’t Rickard. That’s
flat.”

He was fretting to be at work, to start the wheels of the O. P., its
vast machinery toward his problem. He knew that that organization, like
well-drilled militia, was ready for his call. The call lagged, not
that he did not need men, but there was no place ready for them. The
camp, that was another rub. There was no camp! It was not equipped for
a sudden inflation of men. The inefficiency of the projectors of this
desert scheme had never seemed so criminal as when he had surveyed the
equipment at the intake. “Get ready first; your tools, your stoves,
your beds.” That was the training of the good executive, of men
like Marshall and MacLean. Nothing to be left to chance; to foresee
emergencies, not to be taken by them unaware. The reason of Hardin’s
downfall was his slipshod habits. How could he be a good officer who
had never drilled as a soldier? There was the gap at the intake,
Hardin’s grotesque folly, widened from one hundred feet to ten times
the original cut; widening every day, with neither equipment nor camp
adequate to push through a work of half the original magnitude. Cutting
away, moreover, was the island, Disaster Island; it had received apt
christening by the engineers, its baptismal water the Colorado. The
last floods had played with it as though it were a bar of sugar. There
was no rock at hand; no rock on the way, no rock ordered. Could any one
piece together such recklessness?

Rickard knew where he would get his rock. Already he had requisitioned
the entire output of the Tacna and Patagonia quarries. He had ordered
steam shovels to be installed at the quarry back of old Hamlin’s.
That rock pit would be his first crutch, and the gravel bed,--that
was a find! As he paced the levee west of the towns, he was planning
his campaign. Porter was scouring Zacatecas for men; he himself had
offered, as bait, free transportation; the O. P. he knew would back
him. He was going to throw out a spur-track from the Heading, touching
at the quarry and gravel pit, on to the main road at Yuma. Double track
most of the way; sidings every three miles. Rock must be rushed; the
trains must be pushed through. He itched to begin. It never occurred to
him that, like Hardin, he might fail.

“Though it’s no pink tea,” he told himself, “it’s no picnic.” At
Tucson, he knew that the situation was a grave one, but his talk
with Brandon, who knew his river signs as does a good Indian, made
the year a significant, eventful one. Matt Hamlin, too, whose shrewd
eyes had grown river-wise, he, too, had had tales to tell of the
tricky river. Maldonado, the half-breed, had confirmed their portents
while they sat together under his oleander, famous throughout that
section of the country. And powerfully had Cor’nel, the Indian who
had piloted Estrada’s party across the desert, whom Rickard had met
at the Crossing, deeply had he impressed him. The river grew into a
malevolent, mocking personality; he could see it a dragon of yellow
waters, dragging its slow sluggish length across the baked desert
sands; deceiving men by its inertness; luring the explorer by a mild
mood, to rise suddenly with its wild fellow, the Gila, sending boat and
boatmen to their swift doom.

Rickard was thinking of the half-breed, Maldonado, as he inspected
the new stretch of levee between the towns. He had heard from others
besides Estrada of the river knowledge of this descendant of trapper
and squaw, and had thought it worth while to ride the twenty miles from
down the river to talk with him. The man’s suavity, his narrow slits
of eyes, the lips thin and facile, deep lines of cruelty falling from
them, had repelled his visitor. The mystery of the place followed him.
Why the ’dobe wall which completely surrounded the small low dwellings?
Why the cautious admittance, the atmosphere of suspicion? Rickard had
seen the wife, a frightened shadow of a woman; had seen her flinch when
the brute called her. He had questioned Cor’nel about the half-breed.
He was remembering the wrinkles of contempt on the old Indian’s face as
he delivered himself of an oracular grunt.

“White man? No. Indian? No! Coyote!”

Though he suspected Maldonado would lie on principle, though it might
be that two-thirds of his glib tissue were false, yet a thread of truth
coincident with the others, Brandon and Hamlin and Cor’nel, might be
pulled out of his romantic fabric.

“When the waters of the Gila run red, look for trouble!” He doubted
that they ever ran red. He would ask Cor’nel. He had also spoken of a
cycle, known to Indians, of a hundredth year, when the Dragon grows
restless; this he had declared was a hundredth year.

On the road from Maldonado’s, Rickard had met several Indians swaying
from their saddles; a half-breed lurching unsteadily toward Yuma. He
had made note of that. Who was selling liquor to those Indians, those
half-breeds? Maldonado could have told him, Maldonado who wore the
dirty unrecognizable uniform of a rurale. Rickard was going to use
Indian labor; must depend, he knew, for steady work, the brush clearing
and the mattress weaving, on the natives. If any one was selling
mescal and tequila within a day’s ride of the Heading, it was his place
to find out.

Following his talk with Maldonado, and the accidental happy chance
meeting with Coronel at the Crossing, Rickard had written his first
report to Tod Marshall. Before he had come to the Heading, he had
expected to advise against the completion of the wooden head-gate
at the Crossing. Hamlin had given him a new view-point. There was a
fighting chance. And he wanted to be fair. Next to being successful, he
wanted to be fair.

He smiled as he remembered MacLean’s cramped fingers after the
dictation was done. “Holy Minnie,” he had exclaimed, rubbing his
joints. “If you call that going slow!”

“It’s time to be hearing from Marshall,” Rickard was thinking, as he
walked back to the hotel. “I wonder what he will say.” He felt it
had been fair to put it up to Marshall; personally, he would like to
begin with a clean slate; begin right. Clumsy work had been done, it
was true, yet there were urgent reasons now for haste; and the gate
was nearly half done! He had gone carefully over the situation. The
heavy snowfall, unprecedented for years, a hundred, according to the
Indians,--on the Wind River Mountains--the lakes swollen with ice,
the Gila restless, the summer floods yet to be met; perhaps, he now
thought, he had been overfair in emphasizing the arguments for the
head-gate. For the hundred feet were now a thousand feet--yet he had
spoken of that to Marshall: “Calculate for yourself the difference in
expense since the flood widened the break. It is a vastly different
problem now. Disaster Island, which they figured on for anchor, is a
mere pit of corroding sugar in the channel. An infant Colorado could
wash it away. However, a lot of work has already been done, and a lot
of money spent. There is a fighting chance. Perhaps the bad year is all
Indian talk.”

A guess, at best, whatever they did! It was pure gamble what the tricky
Colorado would do. Anyway, he had given the whole situation to Marshall.

In his box at the hotel was a telegram which had been sent over from
the office; from Tod Marshall. “Take the fighting chance. But remember
to speak more respectfully of Indians!”

“Marshall all over,” laughed his subordinate. “Now, it’s a case of
hustle! But dollars to doughnuts, as Junior says, we don’t do it!”




CHAPTER XIV

HARDIN’S LUCK


TWO days later, there was a shock of earthquake, so slight that the
lapping of the water in Rickard’s bath was his intimation of the
earth’s uneasiness. In the dining-room, later, he found every one
discussing it. “Who could remember an earthquake in that desert?” “The
first shake!”

“The Indians might have something to say about that,” thought Rickard.

His pompadoured waitress was ready to fall into hysteria. “Several
dishes fell off the pantry shelves. Give me a Kansas cyclone to an
earthquake, I say, every time. For there is always a cyclone cellar.
But the earth under your feet! Me for Kansas, every time!”

After he had placed his breakfast order, while waiting for his
eggs--“Ten minutes in boiling water, off the stove, mind!”--Rickard
got the Crossing on the telephone. Matt Hamlin answered the call. He
insisted on describing the exact place he had stood when the shock
came. It wasn’t anything of a quake. A baby to the shake of ’67. No
harm done out there. While he was on the line, Rickard heard the sound
of other voices. “It’s Silent just in from the Heading.” “Hello,
there,” cried Rickard. “Don’t hang up. Ask him about the gate. Any
damage done?”

Silent, himself, came on the wire. The gate was all right. “That was
nothing of a quake.” Rickard then got Grant’s Heading. The temblor had
been felt more there, but no serious damage had been done. Rickard went
back to his boiled eggs. The earthquake was forgotten.

During the morning, unfathered, as rumors are born, the whisper of
disaster somewhere spread. Their own slight shock was the edge of the
convulsion which had been serious elsewhere, no one knew quite where,
or why they knew it at all. The men who were shoveling earth on the
levee began to talk of San Francisco. Some one said, that morning, that
the city was badly hurt. No one could confirm the rumor, but it grew
with the day.

Rickard met it at the office late in the afternoon. The word was
growing in definiteness. There was trouble up North. A terrible
disaster; people had been killed; towns were burning. There was a
report of a tidal wave which had swept San Francisco. Another quoted
that San Jose had telegraphed all the wires from San Francisco down;
that San Francisco was burning. He went direct to the telegraph
operator’s desk.

“Get Los Angeles, the O. P. office. And be quick about it.”

In ten minutes, he was talking to Babcock. That human clock confirmed
some of the ugly rumors. The wires between San Francisco and the rest
of the world _were_ down; impossible to get any word from there.

“Any relative there?” he inquired with sympathy on tap. Such messages
had been coming in all day.

“Oh, no. How much do you know? How do you know it?” persisted Rickard.

Babcock said that the damage by earthquake to that city was not known,
but it was afire. San Jose had confirmed it. Oakland had reported
the flames creeping up the residence hills of that gay western city.
Cinders were already falling in the transbay town.

Rickard dropped the receiver. “Where’s Hardin?”

Tom Hardin emerged from a knot of men who were talking in a corner by
the door.

“Where’s that machinery?”

“What machinery?”

Rickard saw the answer to his question in the other’s face.

“The dredge machinery. Did you attend to that? Did you send for it?”

“Oh, yes, that’s all right. It’s all right.”

“Is it here?”

Hardin attempted jocularity. “I didn’t know as you wanted it here. I
ordered it sent to Yuma.”

“Is it at Yuma?”

Hardin admitted that it was not yet at Yuma; it would be there soon; he
had written; oh, it was all right.

“When did you write?”

Hardin reddened under the catechism of questions. He resented being
held up before his men. The others felt the electricity in the air.
Hardin and his successor were glaring at each other like belligerents.

“I asked when did you write?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday!” Rickard ripped out an oath. “Yesterday. Why at all, I’d
like to know? Did you understand that you were ordered to get that
here? Now, it’s gone.”

“Gone?” The others crowded up.

“San Francisco’s burning.” He walked into his inner office, mad clear
through. The group around Hardin were tearing his wisp of news. San
Francisco on fire. The city of their fun gone.

He was not thinking of the ruin of the gay young city; not a thought
yet did he have of the human tragedies enacting there; of homes, lives,
fortunes swept into that huge bonfire. As it affected the work at the
river, the first block to his campaign, the catastrophe came home to
him. He had a picture of tortured, twisted iron, of ruined machinery,
the machinery for his dredge. He saw it lying like a spent Laocoön,
writhing in its last struggle. He blamed himself for leaving even such
a small detail as the hastening of the parts to Hardin’s care, for
Hardin wasn’t fit to be trusted for anything. No one could tell him
now the man was unlucky; he was a fool. A month wasted, and days were
precious. A month? Months. Hardin’s luck. Oh, hell!

Then he began to speculate, as he cooled, over the trouble up yonder.
A whole city burning? They would surely get it under control. He began
to think of the isolation; the telegraph wires all down. That might
happen anywhere! He walked to the door and looked thoughtfully at the
company’s big water-tower. That wasn’t such a bad idea! He picked up
his hat, and went out.




CHAPTER XV

THE WRONG MAN


MRS. Hardin heard from every source but the right one that Rickard had
returned. Each time her telephone rang, it was his voice she expected
to hear. She began to read a meaning into his silence. She could think
of nothing else than the strange coincidence that had brought their
lives again close. Or _was_ it a coincidence? That idea sent her
thoughts far afield.

She was thinking too much of him, for peace of mind, those days of
waiting, but the return of the old lover had made a wonderful break in
her life. Her eyes were brighter; her smile was less forced. She spent
most of her days at the sewing-machine. A lot of lace was whipped on
to lingerie frocks of pale colors. She was a disciple of an eastern
esthete. “Women,” he had said, “should buy lace, not by the yard, but
by the mile.”

She had attended his lectures while in New York, acquiring a distaste
for all her possessions. He had taught her to disdain golden-oak, to
fear bric-à-brac, to forswear all vivid colors. She could see no charm
in the tailor-made girl, in Innes’ trig shirt-waists and well-cut
skirts. The yellow khakis always outraged her sense of beauty. The
girl’s ideas on fitness would have shocked and wounded her.

As her fingers worked among the laces and soft mulls, her mind roved
down avenues that should have been closed to her, a wife. She would
have protested, had any one accused her of infidelity in those days,
yet day by day, she was straying farther from her husband’s side. She
convinced herself that Tom’s gibes and ill-humor were getting harder to
endure.

It was inevitable that the woman of harem training should relive the
Lawrence days. The enmity of those two men, both her lovers, was
pregnant with romantic suggestion. The drama of desert and river
centered now in the story of Gerty Hardin. Rickard, who had never
married! The deduction, once unveiled, lost all its shyness. And every
one saw that he disliked her husband!

She knew now that she had never loved Tom. She had turned to him in
those days of pride when Rickard’s anger still held him aloof. How
many times had she gone over those unreal hours! Who could have known
that his anger would last? That hour in the honeysuckles; his kisses!
None of Hardin’s rougher kisses had swept her memory of her exquisite
delight--delirious as was her joy, there was room for triumph. She had
seen herself clear of the noisy boarding-house. Herself, Gerty Holmes,
the wife of a professor; able to have the things she craved, to have
them openly; no longer having to scheme for them.

It was through Rickard’s eyes that she had seen the shortcomings of
the college boarding-house. She had acquired a keen consciousness of
those quizzical eyes. When they had isolated her, at last, appealing
to her sympathy or amusement, separating her from all those boisterous
students, her dream of bliss had begun.

In those days, she had seen Hardin through the eyes of the young
instructor, younger by several years than his pupil. Her thud of
disappointed anger, of dislike, when the face of Hardin peered through
the leafy screen! To have waited, prayed for that moment, and to have
it spoiled like that! There had been days when she had wept because
she had not shown her anger! How could she know that everything would
end there; end, just beginning! Her boarding-house training had
taught her to be civil. It was still vivid to her, her anxiety, her
tremulousness--with Hardin talking forever of a play he had just seen;
Rickard growing stiffer, angrier, refusing to look at those lips still
warm with his kisses!

And the next day, still angry with her. Ah, the puzzled desolation of
those weeks before she had salved her hurt; with pride, and then with
love! Those days of misery before she could convince herself that she
had been in love with love, not with her fleeing lover! Hardin was
there, eager to be noticed. That affair, she could see now, had lacked
finesse.

Rickard had certainly loved her, or why had he never married? Why had
he left so abruptly his boarding-house, in mid-term? Doesn’t jealousy
confess love? Some day, he would tell her; what a hideous mistake hers
had been! She ought not to have rushed into that marriage. She knew now
it had always been the other. But life was not finished, yet!

The date set for her summer “widowhood” had come, but she lingered.
Various reasons, splendid and sacrificial, were given out. There was
much to be done.

“I wish she would be definite,” Innes’ thoughts complained. She was
restless to make her own plans. It had not yet occurred to her that
Gerty would stay in all summer. For she never had so martyrized
herself. “Some one must be with Tom. It may spoil my trip. But Gerty
never thinks of that.” She believed it to be a simple matter of
clothes. It always took her weeks to get ready to go anywhere.

“But I won’t wait any longer than next week. If she does not go then, I
will. Absurd for us both to be here.” It was already fiercely hot.

Gerty, meanwhile, had been wondering how she could suggest to
her sister-in-law that her trip be taken first. Without arousing
suspicions! Terribly loud in her ears sounded her thoughts those days.

Her husband flung a letter on the table one evening. “A letter to you
from--Casey.”

She tried to make the fingers that closed over the letter move
casually. She could feel them tremble. What would she say if Tom asked
to see it?

It was addressed to her in her husband’s care. Hardin had found it at
the office in his mail. And she going each day to the post-office to
prevent it from falling into his hands! She gave it a quick offhand
glance.

“About the drive, of course. Supper’s getting cold. Look at that
omelet. Don’t wait to wash up. It will be like leather.”

When she had finished her meal, she read her letter with a fine show
of indifference. “He sets a date for the drive.” She put the letter
carelessly into her pocket before her husband could stretch out his
hand. It would never do for jealous Tom to read that: “Your letter was
received two weeks ago. Pardon me for appearing to have forgotten your
kindness.”

“The nerve,” growled Tom again, his mouth full of Gerty’s omelet. “To
take you up on an invitation like that. I call that pretty raw.”

“You must remember we are such old friends,” urged his wife. “He knew I
meant it seriously.”

“Just the same, it’s nerve,” grumbled Hardin, helping himself to more
of the omelet, now a flat ruin in the center of the Canton platter.
His resentment had taken on an edge of hatred since the episode of the
dredge machinery. “To write to any one in my house! He knows what I
think of him; an ineffectual ass, that’s what he is. Blundering around
with his little levees, and his fool work on the water-tower.”

“The water-tower?” demanded his sister. “What’s he doing with that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” rejoined Tom largely, his lips protruding. He had
been itching to ask some one what Rickard was up to. Twice, he had seen
him go up, with MacLean and Estrada. Once, there was a large flare of
light. But he wouldn’t ask! Some of his fool tinkering!

His sister’s gaze rested on him with concern. He had too little to do.
She guessed that his title, consulting engineer, was a mocking one,
that his chief, at least, did not consult him. Was it true, what she
had heard, that he had made a fluke about the machinery? He was looking
seedy. He had been letting his clothes go. He looked like a man who has
lost grip; who has been shelved.

She knew he was sleeping badly. Every morning now she found the couch
rumpled. Not much pretense of marital congeniality. Things were going
badly, there--

“Everybody has accepted,” Gerty was saying. “They have been waiting for
me to set the date.”

“And you cater to him, let him dangle you all. I wonder why you do it,
unless it’s to hurt me.”

“Hurt you, Tom,” cried his wife, her deep blue eyes wide with dismay.
“How can you say such a thing? But if it is given for him, how can I do
anything else than let him arrange the day to suit himself? It would be
funny for the guest of honor not to be present, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t see why you want to make him a guest of honor,” he retreated,
covering his position.

Gently, Gerty expressed her belief that she was doing the best thing
for her husband in getting up a public affair for his successor. She
did think that Tom would see that it showed they had no feeling.

“I think it a fine idea,” agreed Innes heartily. “I’m sure Tom will,
too, when he thinks about it.” But she did not give him any chance to
express himself. “How are you going to manage it, Gerty? You said it
was going to be progressive?”

“We shall draw for partners,” said Mrs. Hardin. “And change every half
a mile. The first lap will be two miles; that will give some excitement
in cutting for partners.” Easy, being the hostess, to withhold any slip
she pleased, easy to make it seem accidental!

“When is this circus coming off?” inquired her husband.

“Mr. Rickard says he will be back on the first; that he’ll be free on
the second.”

Hardin scraped his chair over the pine-board floor which Gerty had
helped Sam to treat until it looked “hard.” Each alternate strip had
been stained dark, the whole waxed and rubbed until it almost gave a
shadow, the housekeeper’s idea of elegance.

“For half an hour, I’ll listen to Mrs. Youngberg tell me how hard it
is to have to do without servants, as she’s never done it in her life
before. For another half-mile, Mrs. Hatfield will flirt with me, and
Mrs. Middleton will tell me all about ‘her dear little kiddies,’ Sounds
cheerful. Why didn’t you choose cards? No one has to talk then.”

There was an interval when his wife appeared to be balancing his
suggestion. “No, I think it will have to be a drive; for I’ve told
every one about it.”

“Well,” remarked her husband, “I only hope something will happen to
prevent it.”

“Tom!” exclaimed Gerty Hardin. “What a dreadful thing to say. That
sounds like a curse. You make my blood run cold.”

“Shu!” said Hardin, picking up his hat. “That was no curse. You
wouldn’t go if it rained, would you?”

“Oh, rain!” She shrugged at that possibility.

“Well, you wouldn’t go if the wind blows!” retorted Hardin, leaving the
room.

A minute later he stuck his head through the door.

“Mrs. Youngberg’s outside.”

“Mrs. Youngberg!” cried Gerty, pleasantly fluttered. She ran out into
the street without waiting to pick up a hat. “For I’ll make her come in
this time,” she thought. “I won’t stand craning my neck and squinting
up at her as if she were the great high executioner.”

Mrs. Youngberg leaned out from the box buggy, and kissed her. “How are
you these days?” Her voice was solicitous.

“Oh, splendid!” Gerty smiled gaily toward the occupant of the buggy,
but the desert sun deflected the smile into a grimace. “Won’t you come
in to-day? Do tie up, and have a little visit.”

“Oh, I can’t this morning. I have a hundred errands to attend to, and
I must get back in time to get lunch for my family. I lost my maid;
isn’t it terrible down here? You can’t keep a girl for a week. I don’t
mind cooking for my husband, but I do draw the line at being cook for
the hired men. And the coarse things they like! You can’t always cook
a double meal. And I lost one of the best workers we ever had, that
was when we first came here, because he didn’t like the food I gave
him. Stuffed eggs, and Waldorf salad. What do you think of that? It’s
quantity they want, and that man went off and said I’d starved him.”

“Do come in,” urged Gerty, squinting at the sun.

“I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t. My husband likes his meal prompt,
and the men simply come in and sit down, and watch you until it’s
ready.”

“Yes, I know,” interposed the other, half-blinded. “But surely you can
stay a minute. I have so many things to tell you.”

“I, too. I want to have the ladies of the Improvement Club in to tea
before I go out; I think it will be Friday. After I sound the ladies a
little, I’ll let you know.”

“Last year, she would have had _me_ set the day.” Gerty was on the
outlook for stings; she felt that she had lost her position in the
valley set.

“Of course, that includes Miss Hardin,” added Mrs. Youngberg, drawing
up the reins.

“I wanted to talk to you about the drive,” cried Mrs. Hardin. “It is to
be on the second. Will you take this as the invitation, or must I write
to you?”

“Please, don’t write.” And Mrs. Youngberg was driving off when a
thought seemed to strike her.

“I saw the levee as I was driving past. What in the world is that for?
Does Mr. Hardin think there will be bigger floods than we’ve had
already? Isn’t the New River deep enough to carry all the flood waters?”

Mrs. Hardin had never had her tact so completely taxed. She balanced
her answer carefully, with apprehension. Almost anything would sound
wrong quoted as from her. She was Hardin’s wife; his success or failure
must still involve her. She could hear her answer quoted to Mr.
Rickard. “Mr. Hardin hoped it would not be necessary.” And then warmly
she praised Rickard’s foresight in case anything did happen!

She went into the house, flushed and blinking and uncomfortable,
revolving a better, more diplomatic answer. She was convinced that that
last question had been the object of the visit. These top-buggy visits,
as Innes called them, annoyed her. It was an irritation to all the
women of the towns, for Mrs. Youngberg never had time to get out; she
always would keep them standing restive under the glare of desert sun.
From the wife of Youngberg, they would never have endured it. Senator
Graves made the situation a trifle delicate.




CHAPTER XVI

THE BEST LAID SCHEMES


IT was the forenoon of the second. Several times during the morning
Gerty left her preparations to take forecasts of the weather. It was
not so hot as it had been and there was a moon. She congratulated
herself; it would be a fine night.

Her tent door was locked all morning. A new variety of salad was on
the way, the latest New York idea. For hours, Gerty’s fingers were
shredding the skins from muscat grapes which were to be chilled, and
served with French dressing on crisp desert lettuce. The grapes, too,
were desert bred. It was a long task, and while her fingers worked, her
mind ran ahead nervously to the few name-cards that had to be finished,
white cards with a design of the palo verde, the characteristic tree
of the region. The color scheme was pastel green and white. Pistachio
ice-cream and vanilla had been ordered from Los Angeles, and Gerty
herself had colored the cream peppermints. Innes had suggested using
the yellow blossoms of the mesquit, but Mrs. Hardin hated yellow; it
was too “positive.”

Her eyes watched the clock hands. Eleven o’clock, and those
candle-shades not done! More time than she had reckoned on had gone
into the building of the white mull lingerie dress; it had pressed her
with the shades and cards. And she had no time to work at night, for
the Hardins were always around then. Not that there was any reason why
she should not occupy herself indeed just as she chose, but she hated
interference. If there was anything she resented more than another,
it was interference. Rather than explain why she wanted name-cards,
or must have paper shades for the candles, or moreover why it was
necessary to have a frock that had not been seen before, she preferred
to lock her doors and work “like mad.” Tom’s ridicule was so stupid,
and his sister was getting to be like him; not that she said much, but
she had such a scornful look!

The clock hands were flying. She stopped to count the grapes already
peeled and seeded. “At least fifteen to each plate,” she had
calculated. “And twenty guests, twenty times fifteen--three hundred.”
She counted them again. “Only two hundred!” The clock hands ticked
away another half-hour. Her fingers began to go wild; several finished
grapes fell to the floor. “I’ll wash them off,” she thought.

She was peeling the two hundred and fiftieth, when there was a sound of
wheels. A clear “Oo-hoo” summoned her.

“It is Mrs. Youngberg.” She was horrified. “And she wasn’t to come
until after lunch.” She slipped off her gingham apron and ran out
breathless to the sidewalk.

“Hope you don’t mind my coming early,” called Mrs. Youngberg. “It was
now or never. Can you come with me?” She waved to the greens in the box
buggy. “And are these enough?”

“Oh, yes,” responded Gerty absently. She was wondering what in the
world she would do about the unpeeled grapes, and the unfinished shades
and the name-cards. Perhaps she could do with eleven. Innes had offered
to help; she supposed she could put her to work at the grapes. But she
hated to have people help, people who looked scornful and superior. She
could hear her say: “Why all this fuss? Why not a simpler salad?” If
worse came to worse, she could put a plain card at her husband’s place,
and her own. She needed Mrs. Youngberg’s help with the table--

“I’m afraid I’m putting you out,” her friend was taking note of the
discomfiture. “You are not ready?”

Mrs. Hardin hastened to deny that. “Oh, yes! I was just thinking what
I’d take along. Will you come in?” For once, she was grateful to the
Youngberg habit of the buggy. She took the answer for granted, and the
tent door mangled the response of the niece of Senator Graves.

When she came out, her arms were overflowing with bundles. A large hat
box surmounted the smaller ones, held in place by her chin. The top
bulged open. As she reached the sidewalk, her progress grew precarious,
for a slight wind was blowing. She had not closed the hat box in fear
of her precious shades.

“Give me something,” cried Mrs. Youngberg. She caught the band-box.
A gust of evil wind raised the top; one of the shades blew out, and
Gerty, helpless with crockery in her hands, watched it tumble toward
the irrigation ditch. It danced, the pretty thing of pastel green and
white, on the surface of the muddy stream.

“You can save it,” cried Mrs. Youngberg. “Oh, what a pity!” For as she
spoke it collided with a floating branch. Mud-splashed and ruined, it
sailed down the street.

“Oh, never mind that,” protested Gerty with magnificence. She forced a
cheery smile as she clambered over her parcels into the buggy.

“And I was one short already!” she remembered as they drove down the
main street, the buggy heaped high with boxes holding the treasured
shades, the cards and napkins, and a few choice plates. The supper
was to be at the hotel, but Gerty planned to use her own dishes and
cutlery--to give it a home-like feeling! Coulter’s two clerks gaped
at them from the store as they passed; the buggy trailing long willow
branches, and Gerty with her boxes obscuring her vision.

In front of Fred Eggers’ store the usual group of Indians lounged, the
squaws careening in many ruffles, the bucks brave in paint and shirts,
heavy with beads. Young Morton bowed to them from the bank windows on
which a man was laboriously working. He had already finished a faint
black outline, The Desert Bank, and was beginning to fill in the first
letter with gold-leaf. The festive buggy made quite a stir in the
desert town; every one had heard of the progressive drive.

“The ditch is running very high this morning,” observed Mrs. Youngberg,
noting its muddy flow.

“Somebody is irrigating his melons.” Mrs. Hardin’s observation was a
trifle absent. She liked the attention they were attracting. How she
would love to be in a position where she could use her social talents!

Mrs. Youngberg was reining up in front of the Desert Hotel. Half a
dozen men jumped forward to tie the mare, and to help the ladies
with their bundles. Gerty declared she would not let them carry the
packages; she would send the boy after them. She felt the importance of
a leader of society.

“You don’t mind if I do a few errands first,” called Mrs. Youngberg
after her. Gerty whirled, her cheeks red, her eyes seeing not Mrs.
Youngberg but a vision of the kitchen at home; the unpeeled grapes, the
candle-shades, the waiting name-cards.

“Why, I thought you were going to help me,” she cried, her
consternation shrilling her voice.

“I shall be right back,” reassured her friend. “You may rely on me.
Mr. Youngberg could not come in this morning; he gave me a list a yard
long. And I must see Mrs. Blinn about the Improvement Club; it can’t be
put off. I’m not going to fail you. You may rely on me.”

It was really too provoking. The whole morning had gone wrong. Mrs.
Hardin marched into the hotel, her color high. She might have guessed
that Mrs. Youngberg would fall down; she always did. She should have
relied on some one else, that homely Towne girl who is always so
good-natured!

Already ruffled, she found everything to be exasperating in the Desert
Hotel. She had taken it for granted when Patton had promised her the
use of the dining-room weeks before that she could arrange the table
as she would use it at eleven. He upset all her plans by telling her
he needed the space; he had not intended to give her that impression.
She had said, he reminded her, that she needed the room for an eleven
o’clock supper.

She was convinced that she detected a difference in his manner to her.
“He would never have treated me so last year. We are nobodies, now!”

The very best he could do, Mr. Patton assured her, was to let her
arrange the table in the drummers’ sample room whence it could be
carried “all set” into the dining-room after it was properly cleared.
“I have to consider my girls,” he said. “If I ask them to do anything
extra, they would throw the whole waitresses’ union in my face.”

“Give me a soda lemonade, Mr. Patton,” ordered Gerty, moving to the
white and silver counter. “I’ll think it over.”

When she returned to the attack, he was still obstinately fearful to
antagonize the maids. “Servants are not servants in California!” He led
the way to the drummers’ room, where she had an inspiration.

“Let me have this room, Mr. Patton,” she urged. “It will be so much
cozier, and we can move the piano in, and have music without it being
so public as it is in the hall.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hardin, I’d like to accommodate you, but there’s
always drummers coming in here. There’s sure to be one or more on that
six o’clock train. It’s right after supper they spread their samples.”

“Then they’d ruin my table!” cried Gerty.

“Oh, no, I’ll give them another table, Mrs. Hardin,” protested Patton.
“It’s the best I can do. I can’t afford to lose their custom. You see,
they pass it about, from one place to the other, and if anything they
don’t like happens, the first thing your custom has fallen off.”

Haughtily, Gerty had to succumb. She found her next block when she
wished to bank the willow greens in the dining-room. It lacked a few
minutes to twelve. The doors of the dining-room would be thrown open to
the patrons of the hotel; she compromised on vases. They brought her a
few small affairs which refused to stand when filled with the top-heavy
branches.

“I’ve got some crockery jugs in the kitchen,” Patton volunteered. “I’ll
have them washed and sent in to you.”

“And I’m waiting for the cloth, Mr. Patton. None of mine was long
enough.”

Patton confessed that his were too short for the long drummers’ table,
but she could use two. No one would ever see where they doubled in the
center.

“Oh, very well,” cried Gerty Hardin. Her nerves were on edge with the
delay. She busied herself with unpacking her bundles, listening for
the sound of Mrs. Youngberg’s buggy wheels. The table was fully set,
the candle-shades placed, the name-cards adjusted, even the willows
arranged as best she could in the gray crockery jugs before Mrs.
Youngberg returned.

She professed herself entranced with everything. And where had she got
the idea of those darling shades? The green blotting-paper cut out
stencil-wise in the design of water lilies, the white paper lining
making the petals, was altogether charming and original. Would Mrs.
Hardin mind if she copied them?

Mrs. Hardin’s answer was a little strained. “Of course, I do not mind.”
Mrs. Youngberg decided to use pink and green when she made her copies;
the white _was_ a little insipid! She was taking keen note of the
arrangement of the guests, of her husband’s name and Mrs. Hatfield’s,
side by side.

“Is it all right?” inquired Mrs. Hardin, watching her face. “It’s the
hardest thing to place people, I think.”

Not for the world would Mrs. Youngberg have suggested her annoyance.
Every one put her husband next to Mrs. Hatfield. He did not like that
incorrigible coquette! Every one knew by this time that rightfully she
was a grandmother. Her divorced husband was in a remote background
with the children and grandchildren. The second husband was a minus,
negative enough to maintain the tie which Mrs. Hatfield’s coquetry
must put under severe strain.

“Admirable,” said Mrs. Youngberg. She wondered if Mrs. Hardin knew that
a wind was rising? She would not tell her. “Admirable,” she repeated.

Gerty’s eye casually observed every corner of the hall as the two
women made their way out. She wanted to look at the register to see if
Rickard’s name were there, but her self-consciousness withheld her. He
might see her. Not until it was too late did she reflect that she might
have announced a curiosity as to new arrivals. The street reached, she
stared blankly at the wind-struck town; then at Mrs. Youngberg.

“Isn’t it a shame?” murmured her friend. “I hated to tell you.”

Ready to cry was Gerty. Even the wind sided against her party. It was
blowing down the main street like a baby hurricane with the colic. Her
hat was wrenched from its moorings.

“It’s not so bad as it used to be,” shrieked Mrs. Youngberg, clambering
into the buggy. “Before the alfalfa was planted!”

The loungers had left the sidewalk. Up-stairs, the disheveled
chambermaids were making the beds in the overhanging bird-cage. The
street was deserted, save for the Cocopahs who flanked the door of
Eggers’ store like bronze inscrutable sentinels. Two squaws came out to
watch the progress of the wind-blown buggy. Their wide ruffled skirts
were blown into balloons. Large colored handkerchiefs, sewn together
into a cloak, bellied with the breeze. They watched the two white women
incuriously, steadily. Mrs. Youngberg was hanging on to her Mexican
sombrero with her left gauntleted hand. Gerty was grabbing her pretty
sun hat with her tired fingers.

As they passed the bank, the workman was leaving his job; the day was
not propitious for gold-leaf. Two words were completed, “The Desert.”
The rest of the letters were inconspicuous skeletons.

Gerty jumped out at her tent door. She would not risk asking Mrs.
Youngberg in. The unexpected might happen.

“You are going just the same?” called Mrs. Youngberg, her mouth full of
dust.

Mrs. Hardin nodded. “Sure.” She ran in to her wilting grapes.




CHAPTER XVII

THE DRAGON TAKES A HAND


THE company’s automobile honked outside. Hardin frowned across the
table at his wife. “You’re surely not going such a night as this?”

Gerty gave one of her light, elusive shrugs. No need to answer Tom
when he was in one of his black moods. This was the first word he had
spoken since he had entered the tent. She had warned Innes by a lifted
eyebrow--they must be careful not to provoke him. Something had gone
wrong at the office, of course! How much longer could she stand his
humors, these ghastly silent dinners?

“The river on a rampage, and we go for a drive!” jeered Hardin.

The flood was not serious--yet! Tom loved to cry “Wolf!” No one was
alarmed in town--Patton, Mrs. Youngberg, would have told her. Of
course, one never knew what that dreadful river would do next, but if
one had to wait always to see what the river’s next prank would be, one
would never get anywhere!

Innes was leaving the table. “Well, I suppose I should be lashing on
my hat!” Gerty’s pretty lips hardened as the girl left the tent. These
Hardins always loved to spoil her enjoyment. They would like her to be
a nun, a cloistered nun!

At the opening of the door, the wind tore the pictures from the piano,
wrenching the faded green mandarin skirt which Gerty had brought from
San Francisco. Her sketches were flung to the floor. Gerty ran into her
room, shutting herself in against further argument. Tom fastened the
outer door, replacing the sketches that stood for the sum and height of
his wife’s several flights, her separate career.

He was still staring through them, when his wife came back into the
room, powdered and heavily veiled against the wind. A heavy winter
ulster covered the new mull gown which she had not worn at supper,
though Innes could have helped her with the hooks! But there was always
so much talk about everything!

They had to face the gale as the machine swept down the wind-crazed
street. “Never saw such a blow in all the time I’ve been here,” yelled
Wooster over his wheel to Hardin.

“Where’s Mr. MacLean?” Gerty leaned over from the back seat where she
had been huddling. She felt awkwardly conscious of not having invited
Wooster. She did not have any other reason for excluding him, except
that she did not meet him at the other houses. Still, if Rickard were
not coming--they would be short a man.

“He had some work to finish--he asked me to take out the machine,”
called Wooster without turning. The dust was blinding him.

“He’s probably coming later!” cried Gerty to Innes, and then she
huddled in her corner again. It was easier not to talk; one had to
scream to be heard.

It was too bad to have a night like this! And all her work--Tom and his
sister would have it go for nothing! She was made of stubborner stuff
than that. Life had been dealing out mean hands to her, but she would
not drop out of the game, acknowledge herself beaten--luck would turn,
she would get better cards. To-night she was tired. It had been a hard
scrambling day. Several times she could have cried. Sam was so stupid,
she could not make him understand where he was to leave things at the
hotel--if anything happened to those shades, or to that salad!

In the hall of the Desert Hotel, the party was assembling. Mr. and Mrs.
Blinn were already the center of a group, flinging matrimonial volleys.
Innes could hear Blinn’s loud voice as she entered the door: “That was
before we were married. Now, it’s very different. That’s what matrimony
does.” Every one knew they covered their devotion with chronic jeers.
She steered toward another corner where the Wilsons held court.

“Too bad, isn’t it?” Mrs. Youngberg advanced toward Gerty, who was
looking for Rickard. She did not like to ask if he had come.

Howard Blinn broke off to greet his hostess. “You saved our lives by
being a little late,” he exclaimed. “Our dinner was late. It’s always
late, since the Improvement Club was organized!”

Mrs. Hardin’s roving eye scoured the hall. Rickard was not there.
Patton called her from the desk. Some one wanted her at the telephone.
It was Rickard, of course, at the office; to say he had been detained.
The fear which had been chilling her passed by.

It was not Rickard on the wire, but Mrs. Hatfield, loquacious and
coquettish. She urged a frightful neuralgia, and hoped that she was
not putting her hostess to any inconvenience at this last moment. She
wanted to prolong the conversation--had the guests all come? Were they
_really_ going? Then she must be getting old, for a night like this
dismayed her! Gerty felt her good night was rudely abrupt. But was she
to stand there gabbling all night, her guests waiting?

She prayed that Rickard would be there when she returned. What a
travesty if the guest of honor should disappoint her! Though he was
not among the different groups, her confidence in his punctiliousness
reassured her. She must hold them a little longer. She flitted gaily
from one standing group to another; she outtalked the jolly Blinns. Her
eyes constantly questioned the clock.

“How long are you going to wait for Mrs. Hatfield?” Her husband came
up, protesting.

“Mrs. Hatfield,” she explained distantly, “is not coming. We are
waiting for Mr. Rickard.”

“He didn’t come in on that train; he’s at the Heading.” Hardin added
something about trouble at the intake, but Gerty did not heed. Tom had
known and had not told her when there was yet time to call it off!

“A pretty time to tell me!” Had he been looking at her, he would have
been left no illusions. Her blue eyes flashed hate.

“I did not know it until we got here. There was a message from MacLean
at the desk, waiting.”

MacLean was not there, either!

“Quarreling?” cried Blinn, drawing nearer. “I must separate husband and
wife. Depend upon me to take your part, Mrs. Hardin.”

A heroic smile answered him. A joke, that!

“We are all ready,” she cried. “Mrs. Hatfield and Mr. Rickard can not
come.” Not for worlds would she give in to her desire to call the whole
grim affair off; let them think she was disappointed, not she. Though
the world blew away, she would go.

She found herself distributing slips of mangled quotations. The white
slips went to the women; the green bits of pasteboard to the men. She
held a certain green card in her glove: “Leads on to fortune.” Rickard
might come dashing in at the last moment, the ideal man’s way; a
special, perhaps; it did not seem credible that he would deliberately
stay away without sending her word.

“I’ve drawn my own wife!” cried Blinn, with exaggerated ruefulness.

Youngberg was moving through the groups. He could not find his
half-quotation. “Who has the rest of this?” he was demanding.

Gerty read it over his shoulder. “Gang aft a-gley. Oh, the best laid
schemes. That’s Miss Wilson.”

In a burst of laughter, the company discovered then that the guest of
honor was also absent. Mrs. Hardin hurried them out to the waiting
buggies.

When she had seated the chattering crowd, Gerty discovered that Tom had
drawn Mrs. Hatfield, and was planning a desertion. Blankly, they faced
each other. “Well, let’s get it over.” His words sounded brutal to his
wife, whose nerves were flayed by the day’s vexations. Drearily, they
drove together down the flying street. The wind was at their backs, but
it tore at their hats, pulled at their tempers. Their eyes were full of
street dust. Through the gloom, they could see the two finished words
gleaming from the plate-glass windows of the bank: “The Desert.” Even
dull imaginations could get that prophecy--the town blotted out by
flying sand; The Desert come again into its own.

A flash of light as they were leaving town brightened the thick
dust-clouds. “What was that?” cried Gerty. She was ready for any
calamity now. “Not lightning?” Again, the queer light flashed across
the obscured sky. Tom roused himself to growl that he hadn’t seen
anything. And the dreary farce went on.

Innes’ partner was young Sutcliffe, the English zanjero. He was in the
quicksand of a comparison between English and American women, Innes
mischievously coaxing him into deeper waters, when there was a blockade
of buggies ahead of them.

“The A B C ranch,” cried Innes, peering through the veil of dust at the
queer unreal outlines of fences and trees. “It’s our first stop.”

“Oh, I say, that’s too bad,” began Sutcliffe. Innes was already on the
road, her skirts whipped by the wind into clinging drapery.

Gerty’s party found itself disorganized. Partners were trying to find
or lose each other. “Get in here!” Innes heard the voice of Estrada
behind her. He had a top buggy. She hailed a refuge.

“Splendid!” she cried. “What a relief!” Climbing in, she said: “I hope
this isn’t upsetting Gerty’s arrangement.”

“Arrangement! Look at them!” The women were hastening out of the dust
swirl into any haven that offered. With little screams of dismay, they
ran like rabbits to cover.

Gerty found herself with Blinn. At the next stop, there was a block
of buggies. “No use changing again!” She acknowledged herself beaten.
“Let’s go on. What are they stopping for?” Dismal farce it all was!

She was pushing back her disheartened curls when the beat of horses’
hoofs back of them brought the blood back into her wind-chilled cheeks.
“Rickard!” she thought. “He must have come in a special!” The gloom
suddenly disgorged MacLean.

“Hardin! Where is he?”

“What’s up?” yelled Blinn. “Is it the river?” MacLean’s face answered
him. His ranch scoured again--“God Almighty!”

“The river!” screamed the women. The men were surrounding MacLean,
whose horse was prancing as if with the importance of having carried a
Revere. “The levee!” called MacLean. “Where’s Hardin?” He spurred his
mare toward Hardin, who was blacker than Napoleon at Austerlitz.

“You’re needed. They’re all needed.” The other voices broke in, the
men pressing up. This threatened them all. Blinn’s ranch lay in the
ravaged sixth district. Nothing would save him. Youngberg belonged to
Water Company Number One; their ditches would go. Hollister and Wilson,
of the Palo Verde, saw ruin ahead of them. Each man was visualizing
the mad onward sweep of that destroying power. Like ghosts, the women
huddled in the dust-blown road.

“Where is it now?” demanded Blinn.

“It’s here, right on us. You’re all needed at the levee,” bawled
MacLean.

The levee! There was a dash for buggies, a scraping of wheels, the
whinnying of frightened horses. Some one recalled the flashes of light
they had seen on leaving town. “What were those lights--signals?”

“From the water-tower.” MacLean’s voice split the wind. “The wires
are all down between the Crossing and the towns. Coronel was on the
tower--he got the signal from the Heading--he’s been there each night
for a week!” This was a great night--for his chief, Rickard!

Gerty Hardin caught the thrill of his hero-worship. How splendid, how
triumphant!

Innes found herself in her brother’s buggy. His horse, under the whip,
dashed forward. Suddenly he pulled it back on its haunches, narrowly
averting a jam. “Where’s MacLean?”

The boy rode back. “Who’s calling me?”

“Give me your horse,” demanded Hardin. “You take my sister home.”

Gerty Hardin’s party was torn like a bow of useless finery. Facing the
wind now, no one could talk; no one wanted to talk. Each was threshing
out his own thoughts; personal ruin stared them in the face. Every man
was remembering that reckless exposed cut of Hardin’s; pinning their
hope to that ridiculed levee. The horses broke into a reckless gallop,
the buggies lurching wildly as they dodged one another. The axles
creaked and strained. The wind tore away the hats of the women, rent
their pretty chiffon veils.

The dusty road was peopled with dark formless shapes. The signals had
spread the alarm; the desert world was flocking to the gorge of the New
River, to the levee. Gerty was swept past the stores which had gaped at
her in the morning. Coulter’s was deserted. At Fred Eggers’, a candle
flickered behind a green curtain. Gerty could see the half finished
sign on the plate-glass windows of the bank. “The Desert” shone wanly
at her.

The women were dumped without ceremony on the sidewalk, under the
screened bird-cage of the Desert Hotel. Shivering, her pretty teeth
chattering, Gerty Hardin ushered them into the deserted hall. The
Chinese cook snored away his vigil in an armchair by the open fire.
The men had rushed away to the levee.

“Women must wait,” Gerty’s laugh was hysterical. “We can do no good
down there.” She threw herself, conscious of heroineship, into the
ordeal of her spoilt entertainment.

It was always an incoherent dream to Innes Hardin, that wild ride
homeward, the lurching scraping buggies, the apprehensive silence, this
huddling of women like scared rabbits around a table that had else
been gay. The women’s teeth shivered over the ices. Their faces looked
ghastly by the light shed by Gerty’s green shades. She wished she were
at the levee. She simply must go to the levee. “I’m going to get a
wrap,” she threw to Gerty as she passed. “I left it in the hall.”

She stole through the deserted office, past the white and silver soda
fountain, and out into the speeding blur of the night. Formless shapes,
soft footed, passed her. As she sped past the French windows of the
dining-room she could get a view of the shattered party. The candles
were glittering; some overzealous maid had lighted them when the table
was carried into the dining-room. No others could be found. The Chinese
cook was that instant entering with a large lamp backed by a tin
reflector. Mrs. Youngberg was huddled in her fur cape. A sight to laugh
over, when it became a memory! The eyes of several of the women were
visualizing ruin, Mrs. Blinn among them. The others wore sleepy masks.

Innes made a dive into the darkness. There was a dim outline of
hastening figures in front of her. She could hear some one breathing
heavily by her side. They kept apace, stumbling, occasionally, the
moving gloom betraying their feet. A man came running back toward the
town. “It’s cutting back!” He cried. “Nothing but the levee will save
the towns!”

The levee!

The harsh breathing followed her. As they passed the wretched hut of
a Mexican gambler, a sputtering light shone out. Innes looked back.
She saw the wrinkled face of Coronel, who had left his water-tower.
His black coarse hair was streaming in the wind, his mouth, ajar,
was expressionless, though the fulfilment of the Great Prophecy was
at hand. Beneath the cheek-splotches of green and red paint rested a
curious dignity. The Indian was to come again into his own.

What was his own, she questioned, as her feet stumbled over loosened
boarding, a ditch crossing she had not seen. More corn, perhaps more
fiery stuff to wash down the corn! More white man’s money in the brown
man’s pocket--that, his happiness. Why should he not thank the gods?
His gods were speaking! For when the waters of the great river ran back
to the desert, the long ago outraged gods were no longer angry. The
towns might go, but the great Indian gods were showing their good will!

She joined a group at the levee, winding her veil over mouth and
forehead. Dark shapes swayed near her. The wind was making havoc of the
mad waters rushing down from the channel. The noise of wind and waters
was appalling. Strange loud voices came through the din, of Indians,
Mexicans; guttural sounds. Men ran past her, carrying shovels, pulling
sacks of sand; lanterns, blown dim, flashed their pale light on her
chilled cheeks.

Not even the levee, she knew then, would save the towns. This was the
end.




CHAPTER XVIII

ON THE LEVEE


HARDIN did not go home that night. He was feeling to the quick
the irony of his position; his duty now to protect the levee he’d
ridiculed; now the only hope of the towns! The integrity of the man
never faltered, though his thoughts ran wild. Like the relentless
hounds of Actæon, they pursued him, barking at his vanity.

He started the anxious ranchers at sacking sand. Bodefeldt ran up
to tell him that there was a hill of filled sacks over in Mexicali.
“Rickard had a bunch of Indians working for a week.”

The confusion of the shy fellow did not escape Hardin. Oh, he knew
what Bodefeldt was thinking, what every one was saying! They were all
laughing at him. The coincidence of this extraordinary flood had upheld
Rickard’s wild guess, haloed his judgment. It was all a piece of his
infernal luck. Sickening, that’s what it was! His orders scattered. He
ran up and down the levee, giving orders; recalling them when he found
he was repeating Rickard’s.

This new humiliation, coming on the heels of the dredge fiasco, put
him in execrable temper. He shouted his orders over the noises of the
night. He rated the men, bullied them. No one did anything right!
Lord, what he had to put up with! The other men, the ranchers and
engineers, saw in his excitement certainty of the valley’s doom.

The wind and the darkness contributed to the confusion. Eager shovels
were tossing up earth before any one could tell where the danger point
would be. The water was not yet high enough to determine the place of
battle. Sacked sand was being brought over from Mexicali. Fifty pair
of hands made short work of Rickard’s “Hill.” Lanterns were flashing
through the darkness like restless fireflies. The wind and rushing
water deadened the sound of the voices. It was a battle of giants
against pygmies. In the darkness, the giants threatened to conquer.

At three in the morning, a horseman rode in from Fassett’s, one of the
big ranches to the north, cut by the New River.

“The river is cutting back,” he called through the din, “cutting back
toward the towns.”

A turn in the gorge, a careless dump-pit had pulled the river like a
mad horse back on its haunches. It was kicking back.

“They are short-handed up there. They need help.”

“Dynamite,” cried Silent and Hardin antiphonally. They happened to be
standing near.

“We must have dynamite,” bawled Hardin. “Are the wires down between
here and Brawley? We must get a wire somehow to Los Angeles, to rush it
down here this morning.”

“It’s here. There is a carload on the siding,” yelled Silent.

Hardin did not need to ask by whose orders it was there. An angry scowl
spoiled his face.

“Put some on the machine.” He was turning away.

Silent called after him. Did Mr. Hardin think it was safe? There was no
road between the towns and Fassett’s. The night, the explosive,--should
they not wait till morning? The question threw his late chief into a
rage.

“Did I ask you to take it?” It was the opening for his fury. “Safe!
Will the towns be safe if the river cuts back here? The channel has got
to be widened, and you talk of your own precious skin! Wait till I ask
you to take it. Get out the machine. I’ll take it to Fassett’s myself.”

Silent left the levee, smarting. As he fumbled for the lanterns hanging
in the shed where the machine was stalled, he lived over those last
few years; with Hardin in the desert. When had he ever hesitated over
a risk of life? When had he thought of his own safety? But this was
a foolhardy thing, no matter who took the machine. Daylight would be
here in a few hours. The way to Fassett’s, through the ravaged country,
was scarred by other floods. There was a half-mile of levee to be
covered; a ticklish thing by day to carry a machine over the narrow
mound, scraping bottom all the time. By night--with dynamite in the
bumping tonneau it was a gamble--and the wind blowing like this. But
he wouldn’t let Hardin take it, he would show Hardin what he meant by
“safe”!

By the pale flicker of the single lantern he got out the long gray car,
nosed like a hound, filled the tank with oil, the canteens with water
from a filter in the adjoining shop. He backed the machine out of the
shed and sped through the darkness toward Mexicali, where the car of
explosives was isolated.

He went over his grievance while he handled the dangerous stuff. The
boss was taking chances; that was what he meant. He was not afraid of
danger. Afraid!

Hardin, buttoned up to the ears, his soft hat pulled tight over his
forehead, was waiting impatiently. Here was something to be done; he
coveted the activity.

“I thought you were never coming,” he grumbled.

“Let me take it!” pleaded the engineer.

“Nonsense, there is no danger.” Hardin saw personal affection in the
plea. He put his hand affectionately on the man’s shoulder.

“But you are needed here.”

“The trouble is not here; it won’t be either, if we blow out the
channel. Here, jump out.”

“I want to go.” Silent kept a stubborn hold on the steering gear. He
felt Hardin’s place was at the levee.

“You go home and catch a nap; this is my job.” He was standing on the
step. “Crank her.”

There was nothing for Silent to do but to get out. Hardin pointed the
long nose of the car into the darkness. She was off like the greyhound
she suggested, missing a telegraph pole by half an inch.

“Just like him,” mused Silent. “The slimmest margins, the biggest
chances, that’s Tom Hardin.” The touch on the shoulder had dispelled
his grouch.

“Just like Hardin to insist on carrying the dynamite to Fassett’s.”
Spectacular, maybe, like all of his impulses, but splendid and fearless
as the man himself. “He never knows when he is beaten,” glowed the
engineer. “If this valley ever comes into its own, it will be because
of Tom Hardin.”

“Who is in charge here?” a woman’s voice was piercing the racket of
wind and wave.

The dawn was breaking. Down the New River he could see the wind
whipping the water into white-capped fury. “Vicious,” he muttered.
“Those heavy waves play the Old Harry with the levee.”

“Where is my brother?”

“Miss Hardin!” cried Silent.

“Where is he?” demanded Innes. Her hair streamed away from her face.
Her cheeks were blanched. Her yellow eyes, peering into the dusk,
looked owlish. Her wind-spanked skirts clung to her limbs. To Silent
she looked boyish, as though clipped and trousered. “Where is my
brother?” she repeated.

Silent told her without reservations where he had gone and why. There
was no feminine foolishness about that sister of Hardin’s. A chip of
the old block. Funny, the men all thought of her as Hardin’s daughter
on account of the difference of age. As to a comrade, proudly, he
bragged of the taking of the dynamite over that roadless waste.

“Whom did he leave in his place?” She did not see him shake his head.
“I want George Whitaker to be sent home. He is coughing his head off
down the levee, he is wet to the skin; he was being doctored for
pneumonia a week ago.”

Silent knew, only, that he himself was not in charge! Hardin had
ordered him to bed.

“Maybe Mr. Estrada?” she hazarded.

“He is not here, he went down the road to look after the track. Hardin
went off in such a hurry, I guess he told nobody,” chuckled the
engineer, still glowing.

“Then I’m it!” cried Innes Hardin. “Will you take my orders, Silent?”

“Sure,” he chuckled again.

“Send George Whitaker home. And not to report till to-morrow morning.
Say Hardin said so. You needn’t say which Hardin.”

She pinned up her blown hair, the wind fighting her. Her thoughts
would accuse Tom! Perhaps the apparent confusion was all well ordered;
perhaps this was the way men worked when the need was desperate, when
homes were at stake! Yet, there was Tom racing across the country when
a lieutenant would have done as well. Was he losing his grip? The
earthquake episode had frightened her. She knew he lacked discipline,
of school, and gentle home-training. The struggle with the wilderness
had absorbed his parents. She knew he was oversanguine, careless of
details, careless of the means to his ends. Perhaps it was because she
was a woman, and fearful, and saw things in a womanish way. Perhaps
all strong men, men who achieved great results, attacked them as Tom
did. The daring chance, for Tom always. A corner to be turned, he must
always take the sharpest curve. If he were as reckless with other
people’s lives as he was with his own--

The voice of Silent was in her ear. “He is gone. I’ve sent him home.”

The yellow eyes gleamed prankishly in the half light. “Will you take
more orders from me, Silent?”

“You’re the captain!”

“I saw Mr. Dowker down there. His wife is sick. Send him home, say
Hardin said so.”

She called after him; “Parrish, too, if you can find him!”

She watched the white-capped waves break into harmless spray against
the levee. A little higher, and those waves would not be harmless. If
the wind kept up, if those waters rose--ah, these men would be needing
their strength to-night!

The dawn was creeping in like a laggard culprit. The whitecaps caught
the light, scattering it as foam. The flashing lanterns grew pale;
Innes could discern some of the faces. She saw Coronel wrapped in a
gray blanket, squatting on the newly-raised bank. His unbound hair
slapped his old weathered mask. “The map of the desert furrowed on his
face,” Captain Brandon had once said. She wrapped her coat around her
head.

Silent came back. “Dowker’s gone, I couldn’t find Parrish.” He cut his
words off with a click, for through the rush of the wind and water came
the whistle of a locomotive.

“A special!” cried Silent. Hardin’s sister and his friend looked at
each other, the same thought in mind: Rickard, in from the Heading!

On her face Silent saw the same spectacular impulse which had flashed
over Hardin’s features a short time before.

She put her hand on his arm. “Silent, you’re his friend. Straighten
this out. We can’t have him come back--spying--and find this.” She
waved her hand toward the disorganized groups.

“I’d take more orders,” suggested the engineer.

“Then send a third of them home, tell them to come back to-night at
six. Send away the other third, tell them to come back at noon. Keep
the other shift. Say you’ll have coffee sent from the hotel, tell them
Hardin says to stop wasting stuff. Tell them, oh, tell them anything
you can think of, Silent, before he comes.” Her breakdown was girlish.

She could hear the signal of the locomotive; coming closer. Then she
could hear the pant of the engine as it worked up the grade. It was a
steady gentle climb all the way from the Junction, two hundred feet
below sea-level, to the towns resting at the level of the sea. It
quickened her thought of the power of the river. Nothing between it and
the tracks at Salton. Nothing to stop its flow into that spectacular
new sea whose basin did not need a drop of the precious misguided flow.
She could hear the bells; now the train was coming into the station;
she would not wait for Silent. She did not want to meet Rickard.

No one saw her as she left the levee. She passed Silent, who was
issuing orders. She heard him say, “The boss says so.”

She took the road by the railroad sheds, to avoid the dismissed shifts,
moving townward. At full speed, she collided with a man, rounding the
sheds’ corner. It was Rickard. Her veil had slipped to her shoulders
and he saw her face.

“Miss Hardin!” he exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”

“I was looking for my brother.”

“You ought not to be out at night alone here.”

“It’s morning!”

“With every Indian in the country coming in. I’ll send Parrish with
you.”

She recognized Parrish behind him. She tried to tell him that she knew
every Indian in Mexicali, every Mexican in the twin towns, but he would
not listen to her. “I’m not going to let you go home alone.”

She blinked rebellion at the supplanter of her brother. But she found
herself following Parrish. She took a deep pride in her independence,
her fearlessness. Tom let her go where she liked. She had an impulse
to dismiss Parrish; every man was needed, but he would obey Rickard’s
orders. MacLean had told her that! “They don’t like him, but they mind
him!”

Rickard made his way down to the levee. “Where is Hardin?” he asked of
every one he met. The answer came pointing in the direction where Innes
had stood.

He made a swift inspection. It was not so bad as he had feared. Orders
had scattered in the night; but it might have been worse.

Silent came up to explain that Hardin had gone up to Fassett’s just a
few minutes ago to carry dynamite. The river was cutting back there.
“Good,” cried Rickard, “that’s bully!”

“He left me in charge,” glibly lied the friend of Hardin. “Any orders,
sir?”

“Things are going all right?” began the manager. He stopped. From above
came a dull roar.

“Dynamite!” cried Rickard.

The friend of Hardin had nothing to say. “I thought you said he went
only a few minutes ago?” demanded his chief.

There was another detonation. Down the river came the booming of the
second charge.

“That’s dynamite for sure,” evaded Silent.

“Not a minute too soon!” declared Rickard, going back to his
inspection.




CHAPTER XIX

THE WHITE REFUGE


THE town woke to a matter-of-fact day. The sensational aspect of the
runaway river had passed with the night. The word spread that the flood
waters were under control; that the men had gone home to sleep, so the
women got breakfast as usual, and tidied their homes. The Colorado was
always breaking out, like a naughty child from school. Never would
the cry of “The river!” fail to drag the blood from their cheeks. But
relief always came; the threatened danger was always averted, and these
pioneer women had acquired the habit of swift reaction.

That afternoon, Mrs. Youngberg was to entertain at the A B C ranch the
ladies of the Improvement Club. It was a self-glorification meeting, to
celebrate the planting of trees in the streets of Calexico, and to plan
the campaign of their planting. Mrs. Blinn drove into town to get Gerty
Hardin. Neither woman had seen her husband since the interrupted drive
the night before.

“I don’t know whether I should go,” Mrs. Hardin hesitated, her face
turned toward the A B C ranch. “Perhaps there is something we could do.”

“I have just come from the levee.” Mrs. Blinn’s jolly face had lost its
apprehension. “The water has not risen an inch since breakfast. Most of
the men have been sent home. When Howard didn’t come home to lunch, I
grew anxious. But Mr. Rickard says he sent him to Fassett’s with more
dynamite.”

“Dynamite!” shuddered Gerty. “Aren’t you terribly afraid?” So Rickard
was in town! Her breath fluttered. Strange, how her spirits rose!

Mrs. Blinn wondered if the wife was the only person in the town who
had not heard of Hardin’s melodramatic ride that morning. She decided
that the story had been purposely withheld. She would not be the one to
inform her.

“Would you mind--” Gerty laid a well-kept hand on her friend’s knee.
“Would you mind turning back? I’d be more _comfortable_ if I could see
Tom or Mr. Rickard; hear what they think about it.”

“But Mr. Rickard told me,” began Mrs. Blinn.

“I’m worried about Tom,” cried Gerty, flushing. Danger to Tom was a new
thought. With Rickard in town the levee beckoned irresistibly. Were it
Mrs. Youngberg, with her sharp eyes, or Innes, she would not dare, but
Mrs. Blinn was dull; she would never suspect anything!

Mrs. Blinn’s devotion to her husband, who was the butt of her fond
ridicule, and the center of her universe, made her believe all women
like herself. Gerty’s high color, she thought, meant anxiety.

“Of course we’ll turn back.”

“There he is,” thrilled Gerty.

Mrs. Blinn’s eye swept the street. “Where? Your husband?”

“No, Mr. Rickard. Passing the bank. There, he’s stopped. I wonder if he
is going in? You call him, Mrs. Blinn.”

Obediently her friend hailed Rickard. He turned back to the windy
street. He felt boyish: the crisis was giving him mercurial feet. He
loved the modern battle. Elements to pit one’s brains against, wits
against force!

Gerty Hardin’s face was flushing and paling. “The river,” she faltered.
“Should we be alarmed, Mr. Rickard?”

Smiling, he assured her she should not be alarmed; the levees would
protect the towns.

She found it hard to meet his eyes; they had always made her conscious
in the old Lawrence days. They suggested controlled amusement, a
critical detachment. She used to hunt for the cause. Now she was
experienced, yet his smile still gave her that old hampered sense of
embarrassment.

“She is anxious about her husband,” Mrs. Blinn had to explain. Gerty
bit her lip. What a parrot Mrs. Blinn was!

“Mr. Hardin is up at Fassett’s ranch, he will be coming back to-day.
I told your husband, Mrs. Blinn, to catch a nap and then relieve Mr.
Hardin.”

Gerty found a significance in his words, he had said “Mr. Hardin,” and
“your husband, Mrs. Blinn.” It was enough to weave dreams around.

“A nap,” exclaimed Mrs. Blinn, “why, he didn’t come home.”

“I think I saw him go into the men’s quarters.” Distinctly Rickard had
heard Blinn’s jolly voice as he had left the levee: “If I’m to catch a
nap, I’ll not go home. No sleeping there!”

“We can’t do anything, Mr. Rickard, to help?” urged Gerty Hardin, her
voice tremulous.

“I hope we won’t have to call on you at all.”

There was no excuse to linger. Gerty threw a wistful little smile at
parting.

The brown mare’s head was turned toward the country. Rickard turned
back to the bank.

He looked again at the plate-glass windows. Two words were finished,
The Desert, brilliant in gold-leaf. The rest of the sign still stood
in its dim skeleton! Boyish mischievous blood raced in his veins that
morning. He went in.

“Mr. Petrie in?” he asked the cashier. Young Oliver said he was not.
“He is tying vines to-day.”

“When are you going to finish that window?”

“Why, after this flood, I guess, Mr. Rickard.” The question was
unexpected. Every one knew Casey now by sight. The cashier glanced at
his tie. Casey had forgotten his pin that morning.

“That’s the way it looked to me. There is too much desert in this town,
_Desert_ Hotel, _Desert_ Reclamation Company, and now this--The Desert!
If you would only put ‘_bank_’ on it! It looks as though you thought
you were going to be washed out, as if you were saving your gold-leaf.
A bank has got to keep up a bold front, if it’s only plate-glass, Mr.
Cashier.”

“Hold on!” called young Oliver. “Wait a minute, Mr. Rickard. I guess
you did not understand what I meant. There is no one to finish this
lettering! The man who was doing it owns a ranch over in Wistaria. He
is the only man who can do it. He is down at the river, fighting to
save his crop.”

“Then I’d finish it myself,” said Rickard, “or get some one down from
Los Angeles who could,” and left the bank.

A sign hanging from a neighboring door, “For Sail,” caught his eye.

The owner of the store peered out at the group of giggling Indians.
“Fried Eggs,” as the irreverent young engineers had dubbed him,
waved them away from an empty crate. It was not a bad simile,
thought Rickard, smiling at the orange-colored mop which crowned the
albumen-like whiteness of the house-bleached face of Fred Eggers. He
stopped to watch the man’s queer antics. From shelf to counter he
bounced, an anxious eye on his open crate on the platform where the
group of covetous squaws and bucks encroached. Rickard was vastly
amused. Eggers waddled out of the door, obscured by his bales of
brilliant calico. He waved back the Indians. He threw his bundle into
the crate, and sidled into the store for another load, his eyes still
challenging the Indians. His distress was comical. They were his best
customers; he must not drive them away, but he could not trust them.
He snatched up a bolt of blue and white gingham, and was back on the
platform. “Stand back, stand back,” he urged. “Don’t you see that you
are in my way?”

They giggled maddeningly.

The man’s distress was maudlin. He jumped sidewise into his store,
picking up his scattered stock by finger sense only, his eyes riveted
on the squaws. Haste, concern, were written all over the corpulent
unwieldy body, in the unlined pasty face of “Fried Eggs.”

“Moving away, Mr. Eggers?” Rickard called out to him.

It had been a long time since he had been dignified by that name. He
turned to answer, and in that instant a swarthy Amazon snatched a small
roll of turkey red calico, and hid it under her amply ruffled skirt.
He did not see his loss.

“I’m getting ready to move if I have to. The river don’t look good
to me, that’s sure.” He shot a quick glance of suspicion at the
blank-faced Indians, snickering by the door. The bucks had brilliant
bandannas wound around their mud-crusted heads. The black stiff hair of
the women streamed in the wind which puffed their skirts into balloons.

“It cost me three thousand, the lot, the shop and the stock. I’d take a
thousand.”

“I’d give you that,” Rickard began roguishly.

“Done!” cried Fred Eggers.

“_But_,” objected the newcomer, “it would be taking a mean advantage of
you. You’re playing sure to lose.”

Eggers sat on the edge of his crate and looked at the man who had said
he would give him a thousand for his goods.

“If you stay and the river ruins your stock you will probably save your
store; you’ll surely keep your lot.” Eggers shook his head. “You’ll
probably lose nothing, the water is not coming up here. If you sell to
me, for a thousand, or to any one else you’re fixed to lose two. Oh,
stay and bluff it, Eggers.”

So it was only a joke, then. “You won’t buy it,” the house-whitened
face was crestfallen.

“You won’t sell, if you take time to think it over,” called Rickard,
moving on.

Eggers felt something moving behind him. A squaw drew back from the
crate. One hand was lost under her flowing cloak of gaudy colored
handkerchiefs.

“Stop that,” he yelled. “Here you Indians, vamose. D’ye hear me?
Vamose.”

The group of Indians drew back but only a few steps, giggling. The
sidling motion began again. Rickard, laughing, looked over his shoulder
at Eggers’ absurd dilemma.

On the morning-glory-covered veranda of the adobe offices of the Desert
Reclamation Company, Ogilvie was waiting.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mr. Rickard.” His tone was
sepulchral and foreboding.

“It’s a big place, the towns. Hard to find any one, unless it’s an
accident.” He made for his office, followed by Ogilvie. Rickard, who
had had two hours of sleep, felt refreshed and rollicking. This was
some fun! These dismal fearful citizens! He and Marshall would show
them what a railroad force could do!

He threw himself into his swivel chair and looked up at the expert
accountant whose blue-veined hands were describing circles with his
straw hat.

“I think,” plunged Ogilvie, “that this is no place for the papers of
the company.”

“No?”

“They ought to be in Los Angeles,” stammered the accountant, forgetting
his speech.

“If I’m not mistaken, you persuaded them contrarily a few months ago!”

Ogilvie squirmed. “Oh, but the flood,”--his pallid skin showed a
flexibility that almost suggested animation. “That alters everything.”

“The flood? Why, I think we can fix that.”

“I may go?”

“No, I did not say you might go. I agree with you that the papers
belong here, where we may have easy access to them instead of having
to go to Los Angeles every time we want to have a question of history
or authority answered.”

The man whose woozling had come to nothing cleared his throat. “This
office is not safe--”

“I said I’d fix that.”

“I’d like to write to Los Angeles, telling them about the flood. The
wires are down--”

“You don’t need authority from Los Angeles. I’ll fix you up. You know
that rise, east of the town? Back of the school? I’ll have a tent
rigged up there--”

“The wind,” objected the accountant.

“The wind won’t hurt the papers. I’ll send up a safe and a bed.”

“A safe suggests money, valuables--the Indians!” murmured Ogilvie.

“I’ll give you a gun.” Rickard was enjoying himself. The fellow was a
driveling coward. MacLean’s word fitted him like a glove: woozling!

That afternoon Rickard was not too busy to order a tent stretched on
the rise back of the schoolhouse. It was not all mischief! The office
building might go! A safe was lugged across town. Ogilvie dismally
bossed the proceedings. The platform must be tight; he mentioned
snakes. He wanted a spider, but there was neither lumber nor men to
spare; he spoke of wind-storms. He wanted double doors, one of screen
wire; he had a good deal to say about flies.

Toward evening an iron bed was hauled to the tent which the younger
engineers, fresh from their day’s rest, had spied and already
christened the White Refuge. Ogilvie showed the two impassive Mexicans
why it should be placed so that his feet pointed north; he explained
thoroughly about magnetic currents. There, they left him, with his
papers.

The disappointed tenant of the White Refuge sat down on the foot of
his bed, and dismally reviewed the situation. The hurried platform of
the tent was creaking ominously. The canvas walls sagged and strained
against the wind. He rehearsed the situation.

The burning of San Francisco had flooded the southern part of the state
with clerks and accountants; to Los Angeles they had come in droves. He
could not leave the towns, defying Rickard, and expect to find another
place with the Overland Pacific Company. He wished, in deep gloom, that
he had not bought those hundred shares in the smaller organization. It
had appeared to him as a crowning bit of diplomacy, and put him, he
thought, on the same basis as the directors, Hardin, Gifford and the
others. But it had left him strapped. He had had to borrow to make up
the hundred shares. He had only just paid that debt. The Desert Bank
held less than fifty dollars to his credit. That sum between him and
poverty! He decided to brave it out, though physical discomfort hurt
him like pain.

He listened to the rising of the wind. The worst storm, old-timers had
told him, in fifteen years.

“What was that?” He bounced up from his bed. Hardin’s cannonading shook
his frail tent. He sat down again. He remembered a performance given by
Edwin Booth in Boston. _Lear_, it was. He had insisted that the storm
scene was grotesquely exaggerated. He could not hear the actors’ voices
over the storm! Now, he revised his criticism. The man who had staged
that play had been in the desert; that desert. It was a fearful night.

He decided that it was not safe to undress, so he threw himself across
his painted bed. Every few minutes the deep detonations of Hardin’s
charges up at Fassett’s ranch jarred the platform.

Down at the levee, the night-shifts were piling brush, dragging it to
threatened points where the lapping waves broke over the levee; sacking
sand, piling it in heaps. On the other side of the gorge, Rickard
was blowing out the west channel to let the increasing flood waters
through. Up the gorge, but below Fassett’s ranch now, following the
retreating platoons of the river, Hardin was toiling, directing his
men. He had refused to listen to Blinn. Sleep, with the river cutting
back like that, hazarding the valley? Rest? He couldn’t rest with that
noise in his ears. Why, man, this spells ruin!

The wind rose to a gale. Ogilvie’s tent bellied and swelled. The waves
were blowing over the levee. At midnight, the alarm was sounded. The
sleeping shifts scrambled out of their beds, full dressed, and rode or
ran down to the river. The bells of the two churches kept ringing. Pale
women and children followed the men down to the embankment. There was
work for every one that night. Men were hustling like mad to raise the
levee an inch above the rising fury of the river. The women rushed back
to their homes, bringing baskets, old tins, coal-oil cans, anything
to scoop or carry earth. They dragged down worn-out clothes, bags of
scraps, fire-wood; they were fighting now for their future.

Men stood a few feet apart measuring each white-foamed wave to be ready
when it should strike the bank. Wired with hog-fencing on the river
side, the long timbers chained in place to take the blows of the waves,
the levee threatened to melt before each rush of the river. Shovels
stood at attention to throw earth on each new break; to raise the
levee an inch above the lapping waters. Earth could not now be wasted.
The women were cautioned to conserve their ammunition. Teams from the
ranches brought in hay; wagon-loads of brush for the dikes.

Down the stream rushed masses of débris; logs, sections of fence,
railroad ties. Every eye on the bank followed their course. Where would
that floating wreckage lodge? Long poles jumped to shove off into the
stream the drift which must not be allowed to lodge, to impede that
stream for an instant. Swift eyes, swift hands, needed that night!
And all night long into the gray of the morning, over the roar of the
rushing water, and the whistling of the demons of the wind, boomed the
dynamite at Fassett’s. In the White Refuge, Ogilvie miserably slept.




CHAPTER XX

OPPOSITION


THE second night of the flood, the women of the towns dragged brush
and filled sacks for the men to carry. It was past midnight when Innes
Hardin left the levee. While her feet and fingers had toiled, her mind
had been fretting over Tom. Two nights, and no rest! It was told by men
who came down the river how Hardin was heroically laboring. She yearned
to go to him; perhaps he would stop for a few hours to her entreaty.
But an uncertain trail across country, with the dust-laden wind in her
face? She decided to wait for the dawn. A snatched sleep first, but
who would call her? She would sleep for hours, so weary every muscle.
Her mind fixed on Sam as the only man in town who had time to saddle a
horse for a woman.

She went in search of him. She found that the long adobe office
building had already taken on the look of defeat, of ruin. The
casements had been torn from the partitions; the doors and windows were
out. The furniture had been hauled up to the White Refuge for safety.
She went hunting through the ghoulish gloom for the darky, turning her
lantern in every dark corner. She knew that she would find him sleeping.

Then she heard steps on the veranda. She ran toward them, expecting
to see Sam. She swung her lantern full on two figures mounting the
shallow steps. Rickard was with her sister-in-law.

“Oh, excuse me!” she blurted blunderingly. Of course Gerty would take a
wrong intention from the stupid words!

The blue eyes met those of Innes with defiance. It was as though she
had spoken: “Well, think what you will of it, you Hardins! I don’t care
what you think of me!”

What indeed did she think of it? Why should she feel like the culprit
before these two, her words deserting her? It was Gerty’s look that
made her feel guilty, as though she had been spying. To meet them
together, here at midnight, why should not _they_ feel ashamed? She had
done nothing wrong. And Tom down yonder fighting--and they make his
absence a cover for their rendezvous--

“I’m looking for Sam!” The effort behind the words turned them into an
oratorical challenge.

“So are we. I want to send him home with Mrs. Hardin. She’s worn out.”

“She can go home with me. I am going directly. As soon as I give a
message to Sam.” She instantly regretted her words, abruptly halting.
It came to her that Rickard would insist upon delivering her message.
Of course, he would oppose her going. Some petty reason or other. She
knew from the men that he was oppositional, that he liked to show his
power. Not safe, he would say, or the horse was needed, or Sam too busy
to wait on her!

“You can not go home alone, you two. The town is full of strange
Indians. Give me your lantern, Miss Hardin; I’ll rout out that darky.”

Rebelliously she gave him the lantern. The light turned full on her
averted angry eyes.

A haughty Thusnelda followed him.

Sam was discovered asleep in the only room where the windows had not
yet been attacked. His head rested on a bundle of sacked trees which
the ladies of the Improvement Club had planned to plant the next day.
Deep snores betrayed his refuge.

“Here, Sam! I want you to take these ladies home. Chase yourself.
They’ve been working while you’ve slept. I thought you’d have all these
windows out by now.”

Gerty had to supply the courtesy for two. She told Mr. Rickard in her
appealing way that he had been very kind; that she “would have been
frightened to death to go home alone.”

Innes had to say something! “Good night!” The words had an insulting
ring.

The wind covered a passionate silence, as the two women, followed by
Sam, yawning and stretching, made their way down the shrieking street.
“It was true,” Innes was thinking. She had at last stumbled on the
rout, but it was not a matter of personal, but moral untidiness; not a
carelessness of pins or plates, of tapes or dishes. It was far worse; a
slackness of ethics. It meant more unhappiness for Tom.

As she put her foot on the step leading to her tent, it discovered
something, bulky, resistant.

“Sam,” she cried. “Come back!”

Both Sam and Mrs. Hardin came running from different directions. An
Indian, dead-drunk, lay sprawling across her steps.

“Oh, suppose we had come alone?” moaned Gerty.

“Well, we didn’t,” retorted her sister with intentional rudeness. “What
can you do with him, Sam?”

It was a half-hour before Sam could get the reeling Cocopah started
toward Mexicali.

“Don’t forget to call me at five!” cried Innes after him.

Her aching muscles told her that she could not have slept four hours
when the darky was back, knocking at her door.

“All right,” she pulled herself together. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I’ll have to hold him, Miss Innes,” came the negro voice through the
screen door. “He’ll get all tangled up in the rope. The winds got him
all skittish.”

She came out, rubbing her eyes; her khaki suit creased where she had
lain in it. She asked him if he had seen her brother.

Sam, whom sleep had been occupying, answered evasively. “I’m not
looking for him yet-a-way, Miss Innes! The river’s cuttin’ back, mighty
fas’, they say. A third of a mile in twenty-fo’ hours. If it keeps up
that-away, it’ll be on us right soon. Mr. Hardin he’s not a-comin’ back
so long’s he’s got that there river to fight.”

“I’m going after him. He’s got to stop for me. Don’t tell any one, Sam,
where I’ve gone.”

“You oughtn’t to be goin’ alone, Miss Innes,” he called after her
loping horse. “The new boss wouldn’t like it. He’s mighty careful about
womenfolk!”

She sent a mocking grimace over her shoulder. “Pff!”

Sam grinned. “If she ain’t jes’ the spit of her brother!” His pace
lagged. It had been a hard night’s work!

Innes’ horse loped through the silent streets.

“I’ll run past the levee; perhaps Tom has come back.” It occurred to
her that there might be a message at the hotel. She pulled on her left
rein, and swept past the deserted adobe.

The gorge of the New River was but a rod or so now from the west side.
Sam was right. If the scouring out of the channel could not be kept to
the farther bank, the towns must go. The levee wouldn’t help them then.

She knew the danger; she had heard the engineers talk with Tom. The
gradient from Yuma to the Basin was four feet to the mile, in land
which corroded like sugar. The very thing which had helped them in
their initial labor of canal building would militate against the safety
of the valley now, with the marauding Dragon at large.

As she reined in her horse, Rickard stepped out on the sidewalk. He,
too, was heavy-eyed from a snatched nap.

“Were you looking for me?”

The scorn in the girl’s face told him that his question was stupid. For
_him_!

“Has my brother come back?”

He said he did not know. “You can see, I have been dreaming!” She would
not smile back at him, but rode off toward the levee. Rickard stood
watching her.

Down the street, Fred Eggers was opening his store. She could see two
Indians peering in through the open door.

Was this the river? West of the levee, a sea of muddy water spread
over the land. There was yet a chance to save the towns, the _town_,
she corrected herself, as her eye fell on the Mexican village across
the ditch. For Mexicali was doomed. Some of the mud-huts had already
fallen; the water was running close to the station-house.

She saw Wooster standing near, calculating the distance, the time,
perhaps, before the new station would go. Over the door, in freshly
painted letters, were the words--“Ferro Carril de Baja California.” To
the east, a few feet only away, was one of the monuments of the series
placed by the engineers of the Gadsen survey. They marched from Yuma to
the sea in the path of the old Santa Fe trail, marking on the way the
grave of many a gold-seeker.

She hailed Wooster. Ruin was presaged in the lines of his forehead.

“Pretty bad?” she cried.

He shook his head.

“Is Tom back?”

“He’s over there, now. Fighting like all possessed. He’ll work till he
drops.” Wooster was proud of that method.

“We all know Tom!” Her pride sprang up. “But he’s got to stop for a
while. I’m going up after him.”

“Not if my name’s Wooster. I’ll go. He’ll mind me.” What if he were
dropping, himself, with sleep and fatigue? It was a chance to serve
Hardin; to bring a smile of gratitude to the eyes of this little
comrade of the desert, whom the engineers adored in their several
fashions. Wooster’s worship was louder than the others; the younger men
shyer, but more fervent. Wooster found her calm boyish eyes beautiful,
but not disturbing. But she was a Hardin; and a pretty one. Wooster
would serve a Hardin, or a pretty woman, were his last hour come.

“Can you?” she cried; meaning--“Would you be so good?”

“Can I? He’ll mind me,” bragged Wooster. His small bright eyes snapped
over some recollections. “I’ve made him rest before when he didn’t want
to. I can do it again.”

“It’s terribly good of you, but I mean, can you get away?”

“I’m through here.” He omitted to say that he was to report at six in
the evening. “I’ll send him back to you, Miss Hardin.”

“You’re terribly good,” she repeated.

She watched the flowing river, swollen with wreckage. She saw, with
comprehension, a section of a fence; somebody’s crop gone. There was a
railway tie, another! The river was eating up Estrada’s new road-bed?
A cry broke from her as a mesquit on the coffee-colored tide caught on
a buried snag. The current swirled dangerously around it. Instantly,
the water rose toward the top of the levee. Men came running to pry
away the tree. A minute later, it was dancing down the stream. They
raised the bank against the pressing lapping waves. There, the tree
had stuck again. They ran down the levee with their long poles. Each
time that happened, unless the obstruction were swiftly dislodged, she
knew it meant an artificial fall somewhere, a quick scouring out of
the channel. The men were working like silent parts of a big machine;
the confusion of the first night was gone. From their faces one would
not guess that their fortunes, their homes, hung on the subduing of
that indomitable force which had not yet known defeat, which had turned
back explorer and conquistador. Ah, there was the lurking fear of it!
Victory still lay to its credit; the other column was blank.

“Mr. Parrish,” she called.

A man on the bank paused, shovel in hand.

She spurred her horse abreast of him.

“How is your wife?”

“Pretty bad. I had to leave her at midnight. I couldn’t get no one to
stay with her. The women have to mind the ranches these days. She had a
spell of her neuralgia. She couldn’t have come with me any way.” He was
torn between his duty and his fears.

“When do you go back?”

“I don’t know. We are all needed here. Mexicali’s going. I’ll be lucky
if I get sent back to-night.”

“It’s going down the Wistaria?”

“Enough to scare her. The ranch’s as good as gone already. What good’s
the land if we can’t get water up to it?”

“I know,” murmured Innes.

“I’m not blaming any one, Miss Hardin. Unless it’s myself. I ought
never to have brought her here. Not until the river’s settled. The
wind’s the worst to her; she’s that scared of the wind.”

“I’ll go and bring her home with me. You’ll feel better to have her
near town,” she suggested.

“That’s first-class.” His relief was pathetic. His dull fidelity,
his love for that nervous wreck of a woman, rose that instant to the
dignity of a romance. She thought of the purple flannel waist, the
untidy home, the smell of burning rice, of scorched codfish, the loving
struggle of the woman who dared life in the desert beside her mate,
lacking the strength to make it tolerable to either.

“I’ll bring her home with me,” she repeated.

She did not wait for his gratitude. Her horse was turned back to town.
She saw Wooster coming toward her. His snapping black eyes shot out
sparks of anger.

“He won’t let me go.”

“Who won’t let you?” But she knew.

“Casey. Says he’ll send some one else. I said as nobody else’d make
Hardin stop. He said as that was up to Hardin.”

Of course, he wouldn’t let Wooster go! Her offer to Parrish suddenly
shackled her.

“Orders me to bed,” spat Wooster. “Wonder why he didn’t order gruel,
too. It’s spite, antagonism to Hardin, that’s what it is!” She believed
that, too. Tom was right. Rickard did take advantage of his authority.

She did not see Rickard until he stood by her side.

“I’m sorry not to spare Wooster, Miss Hardin. But there’s stiff work
ahead. He’s got to be ready for a call. If Hardin insists on spoiling
one good soldier, that’s his affair. I can’t let him spoil two.”

Wooster shrugged, and left them. “Spoiling good soldiers!”

“I’ve taken Bodefeldt off duty. I told him to relieve Hardin.”

Bodefeldt who blushed when any one looked at him! He would be about as
persuasive to Tom as a veil to a desert wind! She turned away, but not
before Rickard saw again that transforming anger. Her eyes shone like
topazes in sunlight. She would not trust herself to speak. Wooster was
waiting for her. Rickard could hear the man repeat. “I’m sorry, Miss
Hardin. It’s an outrage. That’s what it is.”

Queer, they couldn’t see that it was Hardin’s fault; Hardin, who
was up the river fighting like a melodramatic hero; fighting without
caution or reserve, demoralizing discipline; he couldn’t help admiring
the bulldog energy, himself. That was what all these men adored. He’d
clenched the girl’s antagonism, now, for sure! How her eyes had flashed
at him!

Hello! There was a tree floating down toward the station-house....

“Bring your poles!” he yelled.




CHAPTER XXI

A MORNING RIDE


INNES was loping toward the Wistaria, the wind in her face till she
turned west by the canal. It occurred to her then, that she did not
know how she was going to cross the river; it cut the canal; that was
the cut which was threatening that district. She had not thought to ask
Parrish whether they boated it across, or if there was a cable across
the stream. She would not turn back, she would meet some one.

She was a part of a fleeing universe; the wind, the dust-clouds,
the victorious racing river, her good horse loping free--herself on
the edge of the mad wild world! Because she was young, and life was
dramatic to her, the wind took possession of her spirit, which spread
its wings toward the broad sweep of moving plains, to the sharp jagged
line of dust-obscured mountain. The conflict of Titans called to her;
it was a great music drama; the wind had its own wild rôle; the river,
the fervid lover, and the desert a lean, brown Indian maid resisting
his ardor. The Valkyrie’s call burst from her. She was riding to it;
she threw the five splendid notes against the shriek of the elemental
battle.

Desperate pygmies, all of them; ants, protecting their little ant-hill
against Titans--Ogilvie in his tent, Eggers a prisoner to fear--the
women planting their little trees, the men defending their toy levee
against the Dragon and the strength of its ravished mate; absurd,
impotent the weak human effort! Had she caught Estrada’s feeling? She
had taxed him often with skepticism. True, he has not answered her,
except with those truthful, melancholy eyes of his!

Queer, that reserve--with her, when she knew what she knew! What
had given her the conviction that he did not want to tell her that
he cared? Why did he guard his lips, when his eyes, his mind cried
out to her, not only when she was with him, but in the night, when
all the world slept, and he miles from her, his need wakening her,
chaining, was it imagination, or was this--Love? His affection
deeper than all the others, and he the only one she did not have to
remind,--continually remind!--of their soldiery.

_Good soldiers!_

Had she been too quick to take offense that morning? Could she expect
that he--Mr. Rickard--could not see the failings she herself feared?
Tom was splendid, heroic, yes, but a good soldier? The other had taken
a soldier’s drilling--Eduardo had told her of Wyoming, and the Mexican
barrancas--Tom was unjust in that--unjust to Marshall. Rickard was not
a bookman. Even if she did not like him--!

She saw Busby, who was driving away from the Wistaria.

She hailed him. “Tell me,” she called. “How do you get over?”

“They’ve strung a cable. Looking for Mrs. Parrish?”

His wagon was heaped high with household loot, tins and frying-pans,
brooms and a battered graphophone. Something had happened! The wind
drowned her words, but her hands challenged his cargo.

“Her tent blew down! She’s over at my house.” He drove abreast of her.

“_Her_ tent!”

That it should be her tent to go! She thought to ask if Mrs. Parrish
had been hurt, but Busby did not hear the question.

“I’ve just been over to see what I could save. The Indians would be
carrying these away. A woman sets a store by her pots and pans and
dishes. The dishes, well, they’re gone, of course; splinters!”

“Then there is no use going there--I’ll go over to your place.”

“Go back by Jones’ ranch,” shouted Busby over his shoulder. “It’s
quicker than the road ahorseback.”

Her pagan joy was quenched. Her pace was now a sober one. He had not
said if Mrs. Parrish was hurt.

The tidy farm of the Busbys looked wind-blown and dispirited. The young
orange trees had torn from their stakes; they curved away from the
castigating wind. The alfalfa fields had withstood the blight, and the
young willows which fringed the ditch, doubling to the breeze, sprang
back like elastic when it passed.

Mrs. Busby came out on the porch to meet her. Innes was tying her
horse. “How is she?” she demanded.

“Asleep, I think. Tie him fast. This wind makes the beasts restless.
Come right in.”

Not even a desert storm would be allowed to meddle with that interior.
The room Innes entered was freshly dusted. It was glaringly ugly; neat
and comfortable. Tiers of labeled boxes rose from a pine shelf; a
motley collection of calico bags hung from hooks beneath.

“How did you get her here? How did you know?” demanded Innes.

“She told us herself. She must have _crawled here_.”

“Crawled! She _was_ hurt, then!”

“Who told you? Where’d you hear it?”

“I met Mr. Busby. _Was_ she hurt?”

“Did he find anything? Was he goin’ there or was he comin’ away? I
guess there wasn’t much left with that roof fallin’ in.”

There was a sound from the room beyond. Mrs. Busby disappeared. A
minute later, she beckoned from the darkened chamber. Innes crept in
fearfully.

It was a terrible face that looked up from the pillow. A red gash had
mutilated the cheek; the nose was scraped. Worse to Innes was the
motion of the features--the eyelids, the lips, the chin were twitching
the face into a horror. From the staring eyeballs, a crazed appeal shot
up.

“She’s anxious as you shan’t tell her husband. He’s got his work to do.
She sent word by Busby as she’s all right.”

“I shan’t tell him,” said Innes pitifully.

A hand that looked like a claw picked at the coarse white spread. The
jerking mouth was trying to tell her something. Mrs. Busby leaned over
the bed.

“She’s worrying about Mrs. Dowker. Now, if that doesn’t beat all! I’m
tellin’ her you’ll go and see if they’re all right. The boy is sick.”
An open wink disavowed the obligation.

“Of course, I’ll go,” cried Innes, not heeding the signal. “Is--is her
arm broken?”

Mrs. Busby was silent. The woman on the bed had to answer that
question.

“It--fell on me. I--always--knew it would. I got under the bed. A beam
struck my arm.”

Innes pointed to the skilful bandage.

“Who set it?”

“I did.” Mrs. Busby showed embarrassment. Frontier skill and her new
faith were not yet in harmony. “It wasn’t no time to argue.”

The morning was gone when Innes turned from the Dowker tent. She was
despondently comparing life to a vise, “that is, woman’s life!” How
much easier to be a man, to fight the big fight, than the eternal
wrestle with dirt and disorder! No, a woman’s life is a river, she
changed her comparison whimsically, a shallow stream ending in a--sink!
Small wonder that the sad asylums were full of women, women from the
farms. Tom’s work would help that, the Hardins, the Estradas; she had
heard Captain Brandon tell of the deliverance promised by the gospel
of irrigation! The women on the farms of to-morrow would not have
isolation or pioneer toil for their portion. But these were the real
pioneers, these women! Theirs was the sacrifice.

Gerty called to her from the neighboring tent as she was entering her
own.

“Do you mind cleaning up for me to-day? Tom may come home. I left the
dishes last night, and I’ve got one of my terrible headaches.”

Soon she had the hot water waiting for the tray of scraped dishes. She
had planned to go back to the river. “A shallow stream ending in a
sink!” she chirped to a rueful reflection from one of Gerty’s new tins.
“Oh, smile, Innes Hardin! You look just like a Gingg!”




CHAPTER XXII

THE PASSING OF THE WATERS


BABCOCK came rushing down from Los Angeles that morning to see what in
thunder it was all about. He asked every one he met why some one didn’t
get busy and stop the cutting back of that river? There was no one at
the offices of the company to report to him! Why, the building was
deserted! Ogilvie’s letters had prophesied ruin. It all looked wrong
to him. Going on to the levee, he met MacLean, Jr., who was coming
away. The boy told him vaguely that he would find Rickard around there,
somewhere.

“I’ll hunt him up for you.”

“Why, they are letting it get ahead of them!” Babcock’s manner
suggested that he was aggrieved that such carelessness to his revered
company should go unpunished. Something, he told MacLean, might have
been done before the situation got as bad as this!

His excited stride carried him across the dividing ditch, which now
was carrying no water, into Mexicali. MacLean had to lengthen his step
to keep pace with him. The havoc done to the Mexican village excited
Babcock still more.

Estrada, just in from his submerged tracks, was lounging against an
adobe wall. His pensive gaze was turned up-stream. The posture of
exhaustion suggested laziness to Babcock, who was on the hunt for
responsibility. He was more than ever convinced that the right thing
was not being done.

“Estrada!”

Estrada took his eyes from the river. Babcock looked like a snapping
terrier taking the ditch at a bound. MacLean, Jr., a lithe greyhound,
followed.

“What the devil are you doing to stop this?” A nervous hand indicated
the Mexican station gleaming in its fresh coat of paint; to the muddy
water undermining its foundation.

Estrada drew a cigarette out of his pocket; lighted it before answering.

“Not a God damn thing. What do you suggest?”

A big wave struck the bank. The car on the siding trembled.

“Another wave like that and that car’ll go over,” cried Babcock,
jumping, mad. “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you hustle--all of
you?” He would report this incompetency.

Down the stream came a mass of débris, broken timbers, ravaged brush, a
wrenched fence post, a chicken coop. A red hen, clinging to its swaying
ship, took the rapids.

“Hustle--what?” murmured Estrada.

Babcock glared at him, then at the river. His eye caught the
approaching wreckage. Men came running with their poles. The caving
bank was too far gone. The instant the drifting mass struck it, there
was a shudder of falling earth, the car toppled toward the flood
waters, the waves breaking into clouds of spray.

Human responsibility fell to a cipher. The river’s might was
magnificent. Even Babcock, come to carp, caught the excitement. “Come,
MacLean,” he cried. “Watch this! The station’s going!” He joined
Estrada by the adobe wall.

“Have a cigarette?” murmured Eduardo.

His eyes glued to the lurching station-house, Babcock took a
brown-paper-rolled cigarette from the proffered box.

“Look,” he cried. “There, she’ll go. See that--”

There was a splash of splintering timber; a Niagara of spray as the
building fell into the flood. A minute later, a wreckage of painted
boards was floating down-stream.

At table Babcock resumed his campaign. “The trouble with you all, you
have cold feet. You’re all scared off too soon.”

Wooster, up from his nap, looked across the table. “Cold feet? So you’d
have if you had been up for nights, wetting your feet on the levee, as
some of us have, as Hardin has. Mine are cold all right.” He lifted an
amazed foot. “Cold! Look here, boys, they’re wet!” The men looked to
find the water creeping in--Babcock climbed on his chair.

“This means the station,” cried Wooster. Every man jumped. If the
waters had got to _them_, it wouldn’t be long before they were reaching
the O. P. depot! The tracks would go-- They were piling out of the door
when the telephone caught them. It was a message from Rickard. A car
was to be rigged up, papers, tickets and express matter taken from the
station. The river was cutting close to the track. The car would be the
terminal, a half-mile from town.

The situation looked black. Coulter, Eggers, began to pack their stock.
The levee, it was said, would not hold-- Half of Mexicali was gone.
Calexico would go next. Rickard’s Indians were kept stolidly piling
brush and stuffed sacks on the levee. This, the word ran, would be the
fierce night--no one expected to sleep.

They were preparing for the big battle, the final struggle, when the
grade recession passed the town. Spectacular as was its coming, there
was an anticlimax in its retreat. The water reached the platform of the
depot, and halted. The town held its breath. There was some sleep that
night.

The next day, the nerves of the valley relaxed. The river was not
cutting back. The men at the levee dropped their shovels, and went back
to the discussion of their lawsuits. Their crops were ruined; too much
water, or too little. Whatever way they had been hurt, the company
would have to pay for it!

A small shift guarded the river. Rickard, in his room at the Desert
Hotel, and Hardin up the river, slept a day and a night without waking.
The chair-tilters picked up their argument where they had left it:
was the railroad reaping a harvest of damage suits when they should
be thanked instead? Faraday, the newspapers reported, was trying to
shift his responsibility; he had appealed to the president. Their
correspondence was published. The government was in no hurry to
take the burden. A telegraphic sermon, preaching duty, distributing
blame, was sent from Washington. Perhaps not Faraday himself was more
disturbed than the debaters of the Desert Hotel.

“The railroad’s no infant in arms! It wasn’t asleep when it took over
the affairs of the D. R.” Here spoke the majority. “A benefaction! It
was self-interest! When the river is harnessed, who’ll profit the most
from the valley prosperity? It can afford to pay the obligations; that
is, it could. It will find a way,” the ravens croaked, “of shaking the
Desert Reclamation Company’s debts; of evading the damage suits. Look
how Hardin was treated!”

The feeling ran higher. For many of the ranchers were ruined; there
was no money to put in the next year’s crop unless the promises of the
irrigation company were kept. A few landowners, and others who had not
completed their contracts, distrusting the good faith of the company,
or its ability to pay, had “quit” in disgust, to begin again somewhere
else. Parrish, and Dowker, and others of the “Sixth” scoured district
had secured the promise of employment at the Heading. Work, it was
expected, would be begun at once now that the danger to Calexico had
passed.

MacLean and Estrada met outside the water-tower.

“Have you been up?” Estrada nodded toward the platform that carried the
great tank. “Come up with me. They say it’s worth seeing.”

“Can’t.” MacLean was plunging toward the office, his boyish face
indicating the enjoyment of his importance. “Too much work. The office
work is all piled up. The office, itself, looks like the day after a
fire! They’re putting back the windows. Casey and I have a desk between
us. We’re requisitioning quarries, and scraping the country with a fine
comb for labor. Jinks, but it’s great!”

Estrada climbed alone the steep inner staircase of the water-tower.
He was thinking of the young American, vaguely envying him. There was
something the other had that he wanted. He himself could work as hard
for the river; but shout for it? That was where he stopped. He lacked,
he could admit it to himself, the quality of enthusiasm. A son of
Guillermo Estrada,--lacking enthusiasm!

From the platform he looked down over the submerged country. To the
west, the muddy waters spread out over the land. Eleven miles, he had
heard it said, were covered. His sympathy was seeing, not a drowned
country, but submerged hopes. The pain of it, the histories beneath
it, tugged at his heart. Distantly, he could see the ravaged district
of the Wistaria, spoiled for this year surely, perhaps forever made
useless. Not until the waters withdrew, would they know the extent of
the ruin. From the north, between Fassett’s and the towns, steadily
advancing, Hardin’s gang was still serenading; the boom of his drums
came clearly through the still air.

Below him lay the valley of his father’s vision. The story of that
desert journey had been told him so vividly, so variously that he
had made himself one of the party. Coronel was there, the general,
and Bliss--dead soon after; Hardin, Silent. Out of a clear morning,
following the storm, flashed the mirage which came to Estrada
as prophecy,--the city vision which summoned him to fulfil the
Fremont-Powell dream. “That barren land, and a rich river flowing over
yonder!” His father’s vibrant voice returned to his memory; how often
had he heard him cry: “The young men pressing in from the congested
cities to get their living out of that unworked soil; a clean living,
Eduardo!” And Silent had told him how the general had looked like a
prophet of ancient Israel that mystic morning when he turned from the
mirage of spires and turrets and tender colored walls, exclaiming,
“God! If I were young like you, Silent, I’d build that city! that city
that we see!”

And now, the cities, embryonic, were there, but would they stay? Built
like the parabled city upon sand--sand without water!--would they not
crumble and melt away, even as the mirage had faded? He forced himself
to translate his conviction into material reasons. The desert was
convincing. With its past defying history, its future appealed to the
imagination as unchanging, eternal. Even now, those houses down yonder,
in their ugly concreteness, were less real than the idea of the desert
surrounding the little patch of civilization. Brandon’s words, from his
monograph on desert soils, recurred to him. “The desert is a condition,
not a fact.” To him, the desert was a fact.

Eduardo was conscious that he was thinking with the surface of his
mind. He was withholding the belief in the negative sense which
told him that he would never see that river subdued to service. A
skeptic, Innes had called him! He made himself argue it out as a
matter of temperament; his father’s had been optimistic, fervid; his
was detached and analytical. The general had been militant; he was
a dreamer. To him, this was a drama of form and color, a picture, a
panorama--Parrish, Hardin, each in his place.

Had he but the dynamic energy which had swept his father through
his vivid, versatile life! Once, under the spell of the general’s
magnetism, he had been able to force that zeal, that enthusiasm,
to recharge his own weakened batteries; but later, while flinging,
perhaps, a track across a waste of sands, and a squaw’s bright skirt
against a cloud-free sky, or a buck’s striped breast rising from a
clump of creosote, would make his work a grind again. He had misplaced
himself. What else, then, should he be doing?

Often, and now, looking down on that chocolate-colored land, it
would come to him that his was the yearning, the wistfulness of the
painter. Those purple mountains flushing to rosy points against a
clear blue sky, that rushing water, what did it rouse in him? A sense
of militancy, as with Rickard and Hardin, MacLean, all of them? It
pricked instead, an irritation, a feeling of incompleteness. He wanted
something; could a man be homesick for what he never had?

It was not the valley scheme alone, which made of his mind a
battle-ground. Did he not meet life so, with a ready hand and a lagging
spirit? That girl down there! Had he the blood of his father in his
veins, would he not take her of the steady boyish gaze, match her
sweetness with just loving? What was it that told him it would never
be? Why did he keep guard over lips and eyes? She looked at others with
the same level, straightforward frankness she gave to him; the game
was, perhaps, yet to him who ran! If it were going to be, there would
be a spring of joy within his heart. It was not going to be. He had
asked before, and it had answered.

Whose was the answer, that came to him, sometimes at call, often
unbidden? Intangible as moonlight, real as the voice of a friend? Can
you see a voice? No substance to a voice? Let it come to again, let it
tell him of that river; should he see it, the vision of his father, of
the others, he, Eduardo?

Standing in the wash of clear sunlight, his arms outstretched to the
land his father’s vision had peopled, he sent out his call that he
should see that dream fulfilled, the river conquered. Give him back his
belief! Give him back the courage that would make him one with the folk
down there!

Out of that land of silence came, as a wave of darkness, a mist
shutting out the sun, separating him from his fellows, the answer. No
need to question that! Had it ever erred? Slowly, as a dream-walker, he
went down the tower steps, and mingled with men again.

A week later, he was standing on the same platform. The sky was still
fleckless; the painted flat mountains made sharp points into the vivid
blue of the sky. The heat was holding off. The desert was spelling out
her siren lure. But her lover had retreated to his gipsy bed; her brown
lean breast was no longer pillowing him.

In the gorge west of the town, the water was now confined. The
recession of the waters disclosed the ravaged Palo Verde, its
shattered vineyard set in a square of eucalyptus trees, young giants
of three years’ planting. Northward, Estrada caught the gleam of
sunshine on broad barley-fields; he saw the glistening foliage of the
orange orchards, Busby’s and the others. Between him and the eastern
range spread miles of sweet-smelling alfalfa. Young willow growth
checker-boarded the country, marking the canal system. All that in a
few years; the miracle of irrigation. He had seen virgin desert, as
this had been when his father had crossed with Bliss and Hardin; six
years before, when he had first seen it, it was still desert, such as
he was flinging a track across, of creosote-bush, and tough mesquit
roots, and here and there, the arrow-weed. Who could tell of the next
six years? Perhaps, the rest would be vanquished, and the river yet a
meek water-carrier? But he knew!

On the veranda of the office, an hour later, he met Rickard, carrying
his Gladstone.

“I’m off!” The American halted, poised, as if for the next step of a
dance, so it appeared to Estrada. His eyes were glowing, as though a
boy springing toward vacation.

“The Heading? Have you had word yet?”

“They’re still passing the buck to each other! But I’ll be there when
it comes. You’ll see that Dragon scotched yet, Estrada!”

He carried the look of victory. But so also, had Tom Hardin! So once
had the general! And the river still running to the sea!




CHAPTER XXIII

MORE ORATORY


FOUR men sat at a small table in a corner of the crowded hotel
dining-room, in El Centro. Their names made their corner the
psychological center of the room. Marshall was always a target of
speculation. MacLean, straight and soldierly in his mustard-colored
clothes, was, as usual, the man of distinction. Black started the
whisper going that the dark stranger was General de la Vega, the
Mexican commissioner.

What was he doing in that group? Babcock completed a combination which
encouraged speculations and head-shakings. The room was jammed with
valley men. The meeting of the ranchers and the several water companies
had been called for that afternoon, the summons signed by Faraday
himself. Nothing else had been talked of for a fortnight.

It was known throughout the valley that the work at the intake was not
yet begun; that Rickard was waiting there for orders; that Faraday and
the president of the United States were involved in correspondence as
to the responsibility for the future control of the river. Faraday’s
eagerness to shift his burden was looked upon as suspicious. It was in
the air that the officers of the Overland Pacific would demand a recall
of the damage suits before they would complete the protective works at
the Heading. The men of long vision, members of the water companies,
and Brandon, through the valley _Star_, were pointing out that the
valley’s salvation depended on the immediate control of the river;
that the railroad, only, had power to effect it. These conservatives
were counseling caution. Only that morning, the _Star_ had issued
an extra, a special edition pleading for cooperation. “If the river
breaks out again,” warned Brandon’s editorial, “without immediate
force to restrain it, reclamation for that valley is a dream that is
done. And the only force equal to that emergency is the railroad. Why
deliberately antagonize the railroad? The Desert Reclamation Company,
it is well known, is bankrupt. For the instant, the railroad has
assumed the responsibilities of the smaller organization. Apply the
same situation to individuals. Suppose a private citizen is in straits,
and another comes forward to help him. Must every creditor assume that
the Samaritan should pay the crushed citizen’s bills? In the present
issue, self-interest should urge consideration. Better a small loss
to-day that to-morrow may amply refund, than total ruin in the future.”

“Subsidized by the O. P.!” With the whisper ran a wink. The advice of
all the conservatives was believed to be business policy. Black and
others were inflaming public spirit. During the week that followed
Faraday’s call, there had been meetings of the various water companies;
incendiary excitement had demoralized the discussions. “The pledges of
the Desert Reclamation should be kept.”

Hardin, from his morose unshared table, could see the anxious curiosity
setting toward the railroad group. Over glasses, heads were close
together. Near him, the talk ran high. Scraps of inflammable speeches
blew his way from Barton’s party.

Hardin’s mouth wore a set sneer. “Water company talk!” Black was
haranguing his comrades. “Stand out against them. Don’t let them bluff
you. Marshall will try to bluff you. Stand together!” Barton’s resonant
organ broke through the clatter. “Marshall is not going to bluff us.”
Grace and Black began to talk at once. Hardin’s lip grew rougher.
Where had they all been if it had not been for him? Why, he’d pulled
them from their little farms back East, where they were toiling--where
they’d be toiling yet. They’d had the vision of sudden wealth--they
hadn’t the grit to work for it, to wait for it! How many years had he
been struggling? He was a young man when he’d gone into this thing, and
he was old now.

His eyes fell on Hollister from the Palo Verde, with Youngberg and his
wife, who in pale gray cloth looked as though she were on her way to a
reception. He scowled at the leveling of gold lorgnettes in Morton’s
group--the eastern swells there for a possible sensation! And Senator
Graves had thought it important enough to come down from Los Angeles?
The tall duffer with him, his head gleaming like a billiard ball, was
probably the New York lawyer who was dickering for the A B C ranch.
He had read of it in the Los Angeles papers; a big syndicate thought
this the time to get in cheap, when confidence was at a low ebb. “It’s
high-water mark with Graves, or nothing,” scowled Hardin. “He’s no
spring chicken. They’ll all make money out of this valley, but me. I
haven’t tried to make money; I’ve made the valley! And is there a more
hated man in this room? Sickening!”

Coffee and cigars had been reached of the midday dinner. Babcock was
nervously consulting his watch. “Shouldn’t we arrange the meeting?”
he asked for the third time. The social and casual air of the meeting
had teased him. What had the political situation in Mexico to do with
the important session confronting them? His fussy soul had no polite
salons; office rooms every one of them. MacLean looked to Tod Marshall
to answer.

“I think it will arrange itself,” his voice was silken. “It is to be a
discussion, a conference. You can’t slate that.”

“We could program,” began Babcock, looking at his watch again.

“I don’t think we’ll have to.” Marshall smiled across the table.
“You’ll find this meeting will run itself. There is not a man here who
is not burning to speak. Look at them now! Drop a paper in that crowd,
and see the blaze you’d get! You can open the meeting, Mr. Babcock, and
I would suggest that you call on Mr. de la Vega first.”

“And next?” Babcock’s nervous pencil hovered over his note-book.

“The rest will resolve itself.” Marshall’s eyes were twinkling. “We’ll
find our cue. I’ll kick you under the table when I want to talk. You
can’t program against passions, Babcock.”

“But we ought to be starting.” Fussily Babcock marshaled them from
their leisurely cigars. “It is getting late.”

The eyes of the dining-room followed the party as they filed past
the buzzing tables. Faraday was not in town; Marshall represented
that power. As he walked out, bowing right and left, his right hand
occasionally extended in his well-known oratorical, courteous gesture.
His black tie was stringing down his shirt-front; his black clothes
were the worse for his lunch. But no one, save the eastern girls,
saw spots or tie. The future of that valley lay in that man’s hand,
no matter how Black or Grace might harangue. In five minutes, the
dining-room was emptied.

The main street was lined with groups of ranchers, who had driven in to
the advertised meeting. On some of the wagons, men were finishing their
basket lunches. The sun was mild; the sky clear.

Hardin overheard bits of eager argument as he threaded the crowded
street, his head down, avoiding recognition.

“The Service’ll try to get in.” “The O. P.’s got a good thing.” “I tell
you, the railroad’s in a hole.” “Faraday’s a fathead.”

As snow gently falling, had gathered the first damage suits of the
ranchers. The last flood had precipitated a temperamental storm. Men
were suing for the possible values of their farms, impossible values
of crops. Not alone the companies had been blanketed with the accusing
papers, but against Mexico the white drifts had piled up. Mexico! No
one knew better than Hardin how absurd it was to accuse the sister
country of responsibility. A pretty pickle they were in! Where was it
all going to end?

The town teemed with importance. In the whole valley, this was the one
place which could house the expected crowd. The spectacular new city,
which had sprung full grown from the head of its Jovian promoter,
Petrie, whose outlying lands must be brought into value, had justified
itself. It had offered its theater. Toward that white-painted building,
fresh as crude wine, the groups were turning. To Hardin, borne along
with the stream which overflowed from the narrow walks, came the memory
of a forgotten tale: a palace raised in a single night was scarcely
more spectacular than this town of a year’s growth. A theater, a
steam-laundry, an ice-plant, and his eyes included two new book-stores,
new at least to him. Where would all this have been if it had not been
for him? And what was he? An outcast in their midst, no one speaking to
him! But they’d need him yet; they’d be turning to him. It would be all
right, somehow! He’d make Gert proud of him!

Groups of men were standing around the entrance to the Valley Theater,
where the lithographed bill-boards were still proclaiming five weeks of
grand and comic opera. One week of successful programs, the preceding
spring, and the roistering singers had disbanded to form a melon
company. They had rented a tract, some tents, and had gone in pursuit
of swift money. After the harvesting of their crops, the heat of the
summer and the clink of the dollars in their pockets had discouraged
the completion of the engagement. Abandoning their intention, the
genial troupe had swept out of the steaming valley to tell their merry
story on the Rialto.

In the lobby, Hardin ran up against Brandon, who was following a news
scent. Through the valley it was being rumored that subscriptions were
to be asked for the completion of the work. If this were the intention,
there would be a hot meeting, worth sending to the _Sun_. The war-horse
was treading battle-ground.

“You are going on the platform?” assumed the newspaper man. “No? Then
will you sit with me?”

“If you will sit up-stairs,” scowled Hardin, “I don’t want to be
dragged on to the platform.”

He led the way up the dusty dark steps to the balcony, and on to the
rear where the ceiling sharply slanted. They established themselves in
seats by the wall. The air had a dry smell of old tobacco and stale
perfumes; of face powders. Brandon had a minute of coughing.

When they had entered, only a few seats were occupied. That instant,
the crowd crushed in. Men and women jostled one another in the narrow
aisles; the chairs filled up; some of the younger men jumped over
chair-backs, as sheep over rocks. Hardin and Brandon leaned over to see
the inrush. They saw Barton’s shriveled body and leonine head borne in
by his friends. Senator Graves was entering a proscenium box with his
companion.

“That’s Hawkins, who represents the Eastern syndicate that’s bargaining
for the A B C,” informed Brandon.

“I could have got that land for ten cents an acre when I began this
work, if I’d looked out for myself! It would have been better if I had
looked out for myself; what thanks do I get for only working for the
valley?” grouched Hardin. “What’s Graves holding out for?”

“One thousand an acre, and he’ll get it,” answered Brandon. “That
soil is as rich as gold dust. Hello, there’s Watts, of Water Company
Number Two; and John Francis, and Green and Ford. They’ve not sent
representatives from the water companies, Hardin! They’ve come as a
body!”

His excitement communicated itself speedily to his companion.

“Something’s going to drop, sure!”

“And Wilson, with Petrie. I didn’t know _he_ was in any of the water
companies.”

“Is there anything in the valley he’s not in?” All of them with the
idea of making money; all but himself!

Down in the orchestra, Black from the Wistaria was haranguing a group
of gesticulating ranchers. Phrases climbed to the men on the balcony
seats. “Keep their pledges. Promise makers. Let them look at our crops!”

“Every man thinking of himself, of his own precious skin!” sneered
Hardin.

Hollister and the Youngbergs were seen taking their seats near the
orchestra stand, behind the bickering merry Blinns. Morton was filling
the other proscenium with his eastern guests.

Brandon had to surrender to an attack of coughing. He leaned, spent,
against the wall. “That audience,” he gasped, “represents several
million dollars--of dissatisfaction.” The phrase had come to him in his
paroxysm. He would use it in his story for the _Sun_. If there was a
story.

“If Marshall expects to coerce those men, I lose my guess. Then he’s no
judge of men,” cried Hardin. “Look at those faces.” The floor was a sea
of impassioned features.

“Something’s going to drop,” echoed Brandon.

From the wings, Babcock’s inquisitive glasses were seen to sweep the
house. Hardin could catch the summons of an excited forefinger to the
group unseen. There was a minute of delay. Then Babcock’s nervous
toddle carried him on to the stage which had been set for _Robin Hood_,
the scenery deserted when the singers had rushed out of the valley.
Babcock’s striped, modern trousers looked absurdly anachronistic
against the background of old England. There was a titter from Morton’s
proscenium box where the lorgnettes were flashing.

De la Vega followed Babcock. There was a hush of curiosity. The house
did not know who he was. Behind him, soldierly, stiff, stalked MacLean.
Marshall’s entrance released the tongues. There was an interval of
confusion on the stage. Babcock, like a restless terrier, was snapping
at the heels of the party. At last, they were all fussily seated. De la
Vega was given the place of honor. Marshall, Babcock put on his left,
MacLean on the right.

Babcock raised his staccate gavel. A hush fell on the house. His words
were clipped and sharp.

“You have left your plowing to come here. You are anxious to hear what
we have to say to you. You can not afford to be indifferent to it. You
acknowledge, by your presence, a dependence, a correlation which you
would like to deny. Irrigation means cooperation, suffering together,
struggling together, succeeding together. You prefer the old individual
way, each man for himself. I tell you it won’t do. You belong in other
countries, the countries of old-fashioned rain. You want to hear what
we have to say to you, the company who saved the valley, the company
you are suing. But you have also suits against Mexico. There is a
gentleman here who has a message from Mexico about those suits. I have
the honor, gentlemen, to introduce, Señor de la Vega.”

There was a gentle stir of released hazards. The Spaniard approached
the footlights, his survey sweeping the house.

“That wasn’t bad,” murmured Brandon, opening his note-book.

“Ladies,” bowed the Mexican. “Gentlemen, Mr. Chairman. It is with an
appreciation of the honor that I accepted for to-day the invitation
of Mr. Marshall to speak before you, to speak _to_ you; I must tell
you first my thought as I sat there and looked at you, the youth, the
flower of the American people. A few years ago, we were calling this
the great Colorado Desert; now, the world calls it the hothouse of
America. This theater is built over the bones of gold-seekers, who
dared death in this dreaded desert to find what was buried in those
mountains beyond. The man, I say, who crossed this desert, took the
hazard of death. It was a countryman of mine who piloted, fifteen years
ago, a little band of men, across the desert. Perhaps he camped on this
very spot. It is not impossible! It is here, perhaps, that he got his
inspiration. He saw a wonderful territory; he dreamed to quicken it
with the useless waters of the Colorado. You will all agree that it was
Guillermo Estrada who dreamed the dream that has come true; that it
was through him that some of your countrymen secured their privilege
to reclaim this land. Later, when one of your countrymen found he
could not fulfil his promise to you, the promise to deliver water to
your ranches, he came to my nation and got permission to cut into
the river on our territory. Most gladly did Porfirio Diaz grant that
privilege. For that, to-day, you are suing him. This, I am told, is
your complaint.”

His abrupt pause betrayed a confused murmur of voices. De la Vega’s
polite ear tried to differentiate the phrases. There was a jumble of
sound. De la Vega looked inquiringly at Babcock, who waved him on.

“It has nothing to do with the history, but I would like to say in
passing that so assured were your people of our friendly feeling toward
you that they did not wait to receive permission from Mexico to make
the cut. Your people were in a hurry. Your crops were in danger. First
the lack of water, then too much water damaged your valley. A few
acres--”

A voice from the crowd cried out, “A few acres? Thousands of acres.”
Instantly others were on their feet. “Thousands of acres. Ruin.” One
man was shouting himself apoplectic.

Babcock’s gavel sounded a sharp staccato on the table.

“Thousands of acres.” De la Vega was unruffled. “And more than that.
The valley, it must be remembered, does not stop at the line. Mexican
lands, too, have been scoured by the action, the result of the action
of your irrigation company. It was a mutual,” he paused, and a quaint
word came to his need. “A mutual bereavement. It did not occur to us to
accuse you of our troubles. Your damage suits pained and astonished us.
But they gave us also a suggestion.”

The rustling and the murmurs suddenly ceased. A prescient hush waited
on De la Vega. “You have been advised to sue us. To sue us for giving
you that concession. Therefore, the only answer is for us to withdraw
that concession! You accuse us, for giving it to you. That concession
is valuable. What else _can_ we do? Before your damage suits were
filed, we were approached by others for the same privilege. If you
do not withdraw your suits, my nation sends word to you that you may
not take water from the Colorado River through Mexican soil. You will
not be without water probably long; I have said that concession is
valuable! Other arrangements will probably be made so that the valley
will be given water. I would like to take your answer to my government.”

It was several seconds before the house got its breath. The import of
the diplomat’s words was astounding. Barton got to his feet, yelling
with his great bass voice, “Betrayed!” His shrunken finger indicated a
youth with “R. S.” in black letters on his collar. “The valley has been
betrayed.”

In the balcony, the uproar was deafening. Around Hardin and Brandon
words were thudding like bullets. “Reclamation Service.” “That’s
their game.” “The concession!” “They won’t get it.” “Betrayed. We are
betrayed.”

Down-stairs, Babcock’s gavel rapped unheard. Behind the excited figure
wielding the stick, sat Marshall, his unreadable, sweet smile on his
face. His eyes were on Babcock, who was vainly clamoring for order.
“Program that meeting?”

Hollister was trying to make himself heard to Barton over two rows of
seats, but his voice was like a child’s on an ocean beach. Barton was
surrounded by eager anxious men. The audience had split into circles of
haranguing centers. It was impossible to get attention. Hardin could
see Marshall pull Babcock by the tails of his coat. Unwillingly, he
could see Babcock allow the crowd five minutes by his consulted watch.
Then again, the gavel danced on the table. Marshall was still smiling.
Babcock’s shrill voice split the din. “Order.” The ocean of voices
swallowed him again.

“We won’t let them in,” Grace was bellowing, “the valley won’t stand
for it.”

“Take your medicine,” thundered the big organ of Barton. “I warned you,
Imperial Valley.”

“Betrayal,” groaned the crowd.

“A pretty international block.” Brandon was smiling, too. This was
better than he had expected. A rattling good story the _Sun_ would
have. Bertha would read it over her breakfast rolls. “This is history.”

Down in the orchestra, Barton was holding a hurry-up meeting of the
water companies. De la Vega had stepped back and was consulting with
Tod Marshall.

Babcock pulled out his watch, his gavel calling for attention. This
time he was heard.

De la Vega approached the footlights, a questioning look on his face.

“We ask for a little time,” began Barton. Instantly the house was on
its feet. “Withdraw the suits. Give him your answer. Give him our
answer. We don’t want the Service. The valley don’t want the Service.
Withdraw the suits.”

Barton’s moon face looked troubled. “We can’t answer for all the
ranchers.”

“Yes, you can,” screamed Grace, jumping up and down like a baboon. “If
you don’t, I’ll answer for them. Don’t you see, it’s a trick? It’s a
trick. I see the hand of the O. P. in this.” Friendly hands pulled him
down into his seat.

The audience was chanting. “Withdraw the suits. Take your
medicine.--Don’t lose the concession.--Lord, the Service!--Give them
the answer, now.”

Barton held up a withered hand. The undeveloped body was dignified by
the splendid head. “Don’t withdraw your concession. I think I can say
that Mexico will not be sued.”

Again, the shout went up. “Answer like a man. Think! Good lord! Say we
withdraw the suits!”

“We withdraw the claims against Mexico.” Barton sat down to a sudden
hush. The first blood had been let.

Once more Babcock’s glasses swept the house. He rapped the table.

“That’s not all. We’ve got more to say to you. Gentlemen, Mr. Marshall.”

Marshall stepped forward to a silence which was a variety of tribute.

He bowed. “I will be brief. Mr. Faraday has asked me to take his
place here this afternoon. It’s only fair. If it were not for my
interference, he would not be involved in this situation. I think you
will grant that it is Mr. Faraday’s company which can save the valley?”

“To save its own tracks!” yelled a voice from the balcony.

Marshall sent a soft smile heavenward. “Incidentally. And its traffic.
Why don’t you say it? We don’t deny that. The Overland Pacific’s no
altruist.”

There was a jeer which rose into a chorus. “Altruist! Octopus. That’s
what it is.”

Marshall’s hand went up. “If you want to hear me?” He waved away
Babcock’s descending gavel. “I was told it would cost two hundred
thousand dollars to close that break of yours. Do you want the actual
figures? It has eaten already a million, and the work is not yet
done. You know the history of the undertaking. The Desert Reclamation
Company was in straits. Faraday promised his help on the condition that
the affairs of the Desert Reclamation Company would be controlled by
his company. He took the control. He inherited--what? Not good will.
Threats, damage suits. Do you think that snow-slide of complaints is
going to encourage him to go on? This is what I came here to talk
to you about. You ranchers don’t want to cut your own throat. Now,
there’s a good deal going on about which you are in the dark. Faraday’s
got a right to feel he’s shouldered an old man of the sea. He’s been
trying to dislodge it. He’s appealed to the president. Ever since we
came into this, the cry from Washington has been, ‘Do this the way we
like, or we’ll not take it off your hands.’” A murmur of angry voices
started somewhere, swelling toward the balcony.

“We don’t want the government--” began the rising voices. Marshall’s
voice rang out:

“But the government wants--you! Unless you will help save your own
homes, the government will have to, in time. It’s got to. Up there at
Laguna, have you seen it? There’s nothing going on. They’re watching
us. That’s a useless toy if our works are washed out. Faraday says
_this_ to you--” Not a sound in the stilled house. “Unless you withdraw
your damage suits, he won’t advance another damned cent.”

Sharply he sat down before the audience realized that his message was
finished. The house had not found its voice, when Babcock’s gavel was
pounding again for attention. The question, he felt, had not been put
to them completely. Perhaps, they did not gather the full import of Mr.
Marshall’s message. Mr. MacLean would follow Mr. Marshall.

MacLean’s superb figure rose from a tree-paneled background.

“He should sing _Brown October Ale_,” suggested Brandon to Hardin
humorously.

Hardin’s eyes were on MacLean. What did he know about it? What could he
tell those men that they did not know? MacLean was a figurehead in the
reorganized irrigation company. Why hadn’t they called on him, Hardin?
He knew more about the involved history of the two companies than the
whole bunch on the stage down yonder. He could have told them, he could
have called on their justice, their memory--

MacLean was speaking.

“Mr. Marshall has likened the river project to the old man of the sea.
He has it on his back, while it is busily kicking him in the shins!

“Mr. Marshall has given you Mr. Faraday’s message. He has asked you
to dismiss your damage suits. I ask you to do more than that. Put
your hands in your pockets! Come out and help us. You don’t want the
government. I am told that is the sentiment of the valley. When you
called to them, they wouldn’t help you; they wouldn’t give you an
adequate price. Congress will soon be adjourning. What is Mr. Faraday
to say to Washington? Is he going to close that break? That depends
on you. Withdraw your suits. Do more. Stop fighting against us. Fight
_with_ us--”

The audience stirred ominously, angrily. Before MacLean was done, a
voice screamed from the balcony. “You can’t quit. That’s a threat.
You’re in too deep. You can’t fool us. You’ve got to save yourself.
You’ve got to go on. Tell Faraday to tell that to Washington.”

The uproar was released. Black, from the Wistaria, jumped on his
chair. “I am speaking for the valley. We can’t help. You know it.
We’re stripped. We’re ruined. You think to threaten us with the
government--if we wait for the government to decide, the valley is
gone--and the railroad’s money with it. I tell you, your bluff won’t
go. We want justice. We are going to have justice.”

“Justice!” came from the surging ranchers.

“Fair play,” yelled Black. “You can’t trick us. We were not born
yesterday. We have rights. The company brought us here. What did we
give our money for? Desert land? What good is this land without water?
We bought water--we were pledged water. Give us back the money we’ve
put in--that’s what we’re asking for. We won’t be scared out of our
rights.”

There was a growling accompaniment from the back rows, herding together.

“Order,” cried Babcock, thumping his gavel. “Let Mr. Black have the
floor.”

Black had not stopped. Wildly his hands cut the air. His speech, though
high-pitched, had a prepared sound; it worked toward a climax. He gave
individual instances of ruin. “Grace, Willard Grace, his crop gone, his
place cut in two. Hollister and Wilson, of the Palo Verde, the ranch
a screaming horror. Scores of others.” He would not mention his own
case; and then he itemized his misfortunes. Parrish, his place scoured
beyond all future usefulness. What had they come into the valley for?
Who had urged them? There were pledges of the D. R., water pledges.
That was all those ruined men were pleading, the redemption of those
pledges. Individual ruin, what did it mean? A curtailing of luxuries,
of personal indulgence. “I tell you, it means food, bread, potatoes;
milk for the babies; or starvation.”

Black had touched the deep note. This was the answer. This was what
they wanted to say.

“You ask us to help you, us, we who are taxed already to our breaking
point. You say your company won’t go any further. What does that help
mean to you? Poverty? A few thousands, a million to the O. P., a
corporation, what does a loss mean to them? Poverty! I tell you, no.
A smaller dividend, maybe, to whom? Yes, to whom? To the men who live
in Fifth Avenue, whose wives are dragged about in limousines. Withdraw
their suits? Help Faraday, and ruin men like Parrish? Men of the
valley, what is your answer to Faraday?”

The crowd was on its feet, swaying and pushing. The air was fetid with
breaths. Wilson’s crowd had forgotten its lorgnettes. “No,” yelled the
ranchers. “We say, no.”

A boy made his way from the wings, a yellow envelope in his hand.

Babcock waved him on to Marshall. The audience was crying itself
hoarse. Babcock lost control of the meeting in that minute of turning.
Hollister, of the Palo Verde, was striving to be heard; Babcock’s
hammer sounded in vain. But Marshall’s eye had caught a spark from the
yellow sheet. He sprang forward, throwing the despatch toward MacLean.
His excitement caught the eye of the crowd. “The river!” There was a
sudden hush. “The river’s out again!” A groan swept through the house,
there was a break toward the doors.

Marshall’s voice halted them. “Men of the valley.” The audience, swayed
again, listened. “Hear me. The river’s running away again down yonder.
This is a message from Rickard. It’s broken through the levee. It’s
started for the valley. Now, who’s going to stop it? Who can stop it?
Can you? Where’s your force, your equipment? Who can rush to that call
but the company you are hounding? I gave you Faraday’s message. His
hand’s on the table. Not another cent from him unless you withdraw
those suits. You say you have given me your answer, Black’s answer. Now
the river plays a trick. It calls your bluff. Shall we stop the river,
men of the valley? We can. Will you withdraw your suits? You can. What
is your answer now, Imperial Valley?”

The scene broke into bedlam. Men jumped to their chairs, to the velvet
rim of the boxes, all talking, screaming, gesticulating at once. The
_Yellow Dragon_ was never so fearfully visualized. Out of the chaos of
men’s voices came a woman’s shriek, “For God’s sake, save our homes.”
It pitched the panic note. “Save the valley! Stop the river!”

Marshall’s Indian eyes were reading that mass of scared faces as though
it were a sheet of typed paper. “Barton,” he called through the din.
“Where’s Barton?”

Two men lifted Barton’s puny figure upon their shoulders. His vibrant
voice rolled above the shouting. “The valley withdraws its suits
against the company.”

“Then the company,” yelled Marshall’s oratory, “the company withdraws
the river from the valley!” Pandemonium was loose. There were cheers,
and the sound of women sobbing. Barton was carried out on the shoulders
of his henchmen. Black led a crowd out, haranguing to the street.
Morton’s party waited for the house to empty. De la Vega, from the
wings, watched the scene with polite curiosity.

Picking their way past a painted side shift of merry England, MacLean
and Babcock followed Marshall from the stage.

On the street, Marshall fell back to MacLean. “That was a neat trick
the river threw in our hands.” His voice had dropped from oratory; the
declaiming fire was gone from the black eyes. “It’s only a break in
the levee. Rickard says he can control it; estimates two weeks or so.
It may cost the O. P. a few thousand dollars, but it saved them half a
million. Now we’ll have that game of poker, MacLean!”

In the balcony, Hardin was staring at Brandon.

“If that wasn’t the devil’s own luck!”




CHAPTER XXIV

A SOFT NOOK


INNES traveled, gleefully, in a caboose, from Hamlin Junction to
the Heading. She could not stay away a day longer! Never before
had Los Angeles been a discipline. Her surprise was still fresh
over the change in her friends, two girls who had been her comrades
during her unfinished college course. She had left, in the spirit of
self-sacrifice, to look after Tom. They had finished, but their two
years of wifehood had made a wider gap than her break. Their plans of
individual accomplishment all merged into new curtains for the guest
chamber, and surprise dishes for Tom and Harry! Why had it fretted
her, made her restless, homesick? Then she had discovered the reason;
history was going on down yonder. Going on, without her. She knew that
that was what was pulling her; that only!

The exodus of engineers had started riverward in July. Gerty went with
Tom, and she had made it distinctly clear that it was not necessary for
Innes to follow them. Ridiculous for two women to coddle a Tom Hardin!
Unless Innes had a special interest!

Her pride had kept her away. But Tom did not write; Gerty’s letters
were social and unsatisfactory; the newspaper reports inflamed her. The
day before she had wired Tom that she was coming. She had to be there
at the end!

There was no one to meet her. Tom was down on the levee work; the camp
was deserted. She found her way to the Hardin tents, helped by the
Chinese cook whom she found installed behind a clump of mesquits.

Gerty welcomed her stiffly. Assuming a conscientious hostess-ship, she
caught fire at her waning enthusiasms. The arrangement of the tent, of
the simple furniture, did not Innes find it sweet? That smaller tent to
the west of theirs had been added that morning. A Mexican was even then
carrying in a wash-stand and an iron bed. Outside, in a hand-cart, were
a couple of chairs, a basin and pitcher of gray enamel.

“If we had known you were coming, we would have been ready for you,”
suggested Gerty.

Innes’ gaze had been turning outward to the lines of canvas, making
a white glitter on the alkali floor of the encampment, trapezium in
shape. Stark in outline, vivid in color, she saw the desert again as a
savage; her terms, brutal, uncompromising. But were they taking her on
her terms, these intruders? They were making her over to their wishes,
as a man makes unto his liking the wife of his satisfied choice? She
was following a thought born of her late visit. Strange, the zeal
which would remake the sweetheart, thought peerless! Her mouth curved
with ironic tenderness. Gerty’s treble notes fell around her ears. She
was listening to her own musing, and watching the dripping arm of the
dredge as it dug a trap for the Colorado.

The prattle grew insistent, interrogative. She had to look at shelves,
at cupboards, at a clever ramada which was both pergola and porch.
Returning to the outer tent, she went back to the door, her Hardin
pulse leaping to the implication of that dredge-arm swinging low in the
river.

“Isn’t it all cozy?” Gerty’s eyes shone on her contrivances. “It all
means work. It has taken two whole months to get it to look like
this. Every piece of lumber had to be coaxed for, and you’d think the
carpenter was a ward boss, he’s that haughty.”

Gerty looked younger and prettier. Her flush accented her childish
features which were smiling down her annoyance over this uninvited
visit.

“I had the ramada put up after the shed; an afterthought. They gave me
a tent for a kitchen at first--as if I could cook in a tent! We eat in
the ramada. The flies ate us up, so I sent for screen wire, and had it
enclosed. It isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than it was. The flies
will get through that roof. It keeps one busy to remember to have fresh
brush piled over it. It dries so quickly in this sun. Isn’t it hot
here? Hotter than the towns ever were; don’t you think so?”

Innes said she had not been there long enough yet to tell!

“We have all the home comforts, haven’t we?” Innes’ gaze swept
the disguised tent with its home-made sketches and cushions and
_art-nouveau_ lamp-shades--even the green mandarin skirt had found a
place on the center-table made of rough pine. “Why shouldn’t we be
comfortable when we are to be here for months? I’m going to brave it
out--to the bitter end, even if I bake. It is my duty--” She would make
her intention perfectly clear! “There ought to be at least one cozy
place, one soft nook that suggests a woman’s presence. We have tea
here in the afternoon, sometimes. Mr. Rickard drops in.” The last was a
delicate stroke.

“Afternoon tea? At the Front? Is this modern warfare?” The girl draped
her irony with a smile.

“Warfare? What do you mean?” Gerty turned from the new chafing-dish and
percolator she had intended showing to Innes.

“I thought this was a battle.”

“All the more reason for having a pleasant corner to rest in,”
triumphed Mrs. Hardin. “And the comfort the men take in it, the Service
men especially! By the way, Innes, I met Mr. Estrada on the _Delta_
last evening and told him you were coming. I asked him to take you over
the encampment. He was perfectly willing to do it, although it’s an old
story to all of them, now. You’ve no idea how many newspaper men have
been down here. It’s been quite exciting.” She caught herself in time
to add: “Though it has been unendurably hot! This is a model camp, as
you will see. That’s why Mr. Rickard can get such work out of his men;
he has made them so comfortable.”

“You need not have gone to so much trouble--” Innes told herself that
she was perverse. Just peevishness to dislike plans being made for her!
Gerty’s polite sentences had a way of ruffling her. She ought not to
suspect deviousness.

Gerty was stealing a pleased survey in the mirror through the rough
door that opened into the division called her bedroom. The sunburned,
unconscious profile of Innes was close to her own. Pink and golden the
head by the dark one. She looked younger even than Innes! Good humor
returned to her.

“We are going to dine on the _Delta_ to-night.” She pinned up a
“scolding lock,” an ugly misnomer for her sunny clinging curls! The
mirror was requisitioned again. “That’s the name of the new dredge. It
was christened three weeks ago, in champagne brought from Yuma.”

“You christened it?” Innes, following a surmise, stumbled on a
grievance.

“No!” sharply. Then a minute later, “They’d asked Mrs. Silent, old
man Hamlin’s daughter. I suppose Mr. Rickard thought he had to. Mr.
Hamlin’s the pioneer here, he’s such a dreadful old man. Besides,
they’re always asking the men up to dinner. They can get a real _meal_
there,--Mrs. Silent has a stove, and they keep chickens.” She frowned
toward the chafing-dish and percolator; stern limitations theirs!

“You said _dine_ on the _Delta_. Do you mean they have meals there?”

“You should see it,” cooed Gerty. “It’s simply elegant. It’s a floating
hotel, has every convenience. Some of the young engineers have a sort
of club there, they have brought in their own cook from Los Angeles.
The camp cook, Ling, has his hands full. He does very well, but it must
be very rough. The _Delta_ has worked things up here.”

“Going to wear that?” They were standing now by the door of Gerty’s
dressing tent. Over the bed a white lingerie gown was spread.

“I live in them. It’s so hot,” shrugged Mrs. Hardin.

“However do you manage to get them washed?”

Mrs. Hardin did not think it necessary to relate her struggles, nor
her chagrin to find that no one thought important the delivery of her
weekly wash to Yuma. Only because she would resent possible comment
did she refrain from recounting her trials with Indian washerwomen. She
recalled some tattered experiments that she had made--

“I’ll look like your maid, Gerty!” Innes’ exclamation was rueful. “I
didn’t bring anything but khakis.”

“If that isn’t just like you, Innes Hardin!”

“Why, I thought of you as living in the most primitive way; as roughing
it! Oh, yes! I remember throwing in, the last minute, two piqués to
fill up space. But I never dreamed I’d need them.”

“Why, we have dances on the _Delta_, and Sunday evening concerts;
you’ll be surprised how gay we are. You knew the work at Laguna Dam is
being held up? The government men of the Reclamation Service are down
here all the time. But it’s time to be getting ready.”

“You’ll be ashamed of your sister. Tom’s going, of course?”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about Tom, he does just as he feels like.”

Later, Tom flatly refused to accompany them.

“I thought as much.” Gerty shrugged an airy irresponsibility. Innes
could detect no regret.

“Where will you get your dinner?” His sister was uncertain how far she
might venture into this domestic situation.

“Oh, anywhere,” brusked Tom.

“At the mess-table, the regular eating tent. He usually goes there when
there is a dinner at the _Delta_. He doesn’t dance, you know.”

They passed a cot outside the tent. “Who sleeps there?”

“Tom.” The eyes of the two women did not meet.

Innes made no comment.

“He finds the tent stuffy.” Gerty’s lips were prim with reserve. They
walked toward the river in silence. As they reached the encampment,
Gerty recovered her vivacity.

“That’s Mr. Rickard’s office, that ramada. Isn’t it quaint? And that’s
his tent; no, the other one. MacLean’s is next; we all call him Junior
now. The kitchen’s behind those mesquit trees. They gave the only shade
in the camp to the cook!” She made a grimace men would have found
adorable, lost quite on Innes Hardin.

“There’s Junior, now,” dimpled Gerty Hardin.

But his eyes were too full of Innes to see mature dimples. His
boyishness lacked tact. It was nearly three months since he had
seen her; a desert of days, those! The difference in the quality of
his greetings smote Gerty like a blow. Until her mirror told her
differently she would feel youthful. And she had never considered Tom’s
sister attractive, as a possible rival. Yet, after a handshake, she saw
that to MacLean, Jr., she did not exist.

A boat was anchored to a pile on the muddy stream. MacLean jumped in.
“I’ll hold it steady.”

Innes scrambled past his waiting hand, and steadied herself toward the
stern. “I’ll steer.”

Mrs. Hardin and her lace ruffles were placed carefully in the bow.

“Can you climb up that ladder?” MacLean asked Innes.

“Climb? I’m a cat! Didn’t you know it?”

A group of welcoming faces was bending over the rail as they drew up in
the shadow of the dredge. Innes was on the ladder before MacLean could
secure the boat. She had disappeared with the welcoming young engineers
who had much to show her, before Mrs. Hardin and her lace ruffles were
over the side.

Gerty was deeply piqued. Until now, the field had been hers, divided
distantly by the Silent kitchen. She might perhaps have to change her
opinion of Tom’s sister. Boys, she had to concede, the younger men,
might find her attractive, boyishly congenial; older men would fail to
see a charm!

The arrangement at table annoyed Gerty. The boss, MacLean explained
gaily, would not be there for dinner. He had been called down the
levee, taking Irish with him. He might come in later. Two men from the
Reclamation Service tried to entertain Mrs. Hardin.

“Did you get Jose Cordoza?” demanded Bodefeldt under cover of a rush of
voices, and then crimsoned because every one stopped to listen to him.

“He promised to bring his guitar, and to get a friend who has a
mandolin, if the strings are not broken!” laughed Crothers of the
railroad.

“Cordoza plays wonderfully!” cried Mrs. Hardin. “If I were eighty, I
could dance to his waltzes!”

“The deck’s ripping,” cried MacLean, his eyes still full of Innes
Hardin, “and in the moonlight it’s a pippin!”

“It isn’t a battle.” Innes looked around the gay rectangle. “It’s play!”

The thought followed her that evening. Outside, where the moonlight was
silvering the deck, and the quiet river lapped the sides of the dredge,
Jose’s strings, and his “_amigo’s_” throbbing from a dark corner,
made the illusion of peace convincing. This was no battle. Breck, of
the Reclamation Service, was dancing with her. The modern complexity
of the situation fell away from her; the purpose of the _Delta_, of
the gathering army of laborers, of the pile-drivers in the river, was
obscured. The concentrating struggle against the marauding Dragon of
the Colorado delta, that was the illusion. It was easy to believe
herself again at Mare Island, or Annapolis--the _Delta_ a cruiser, and
young Breck one of Uncle Sam’s sailors.

Later, Gerty passed her, two-stepping divinely. Before her partner
turned his head, Innes recognized the stiff back and straight poised
head and dancing step of Rickard. Every muscle in control; it was the
distinction of the man. She admitted he had distinction, grudgingly.
She could not think of him except comparatively; always antithetically,
balanced against her Tom. She wished Tom would not slouch so. Tom had
all the big virtues, none of his faults was petty. But he was being
nagged into unloveliness.

“I’m tired; let’s rest here.” She drew into the shadow of the great arm
of the dredge. They watched the dancers as they passed, MacLean playing
the woman in “Pete’s” arms, Gerty with Rickard, two other masculine
couples. The Hardins were the only women aboard.

It was because of Tom that Innes felt resentment when the uplifted
appealing chin, the lace ruffles fluttered by. Tom, lying outside an
unfriendly tent!

“Don’t they dance superbly?” Breck’s eyes were following the couple,
too.

“Come on, let’s dance.” She pretended not to hear him.

It was easy, in that uncertain light, to avoid Rickard’s glance of
recognition. Estrada, who had come aboard with the manager, sought her
out, and then Crothers, of the O. P. Again, she saw Rickard dancing
with the lingerie gown. There seemed to be no attempt to cover Gerty’s
preference; for Rickard, she was the only woman there! Because she was
Tom’s sister, she had a right to resent it, to refuse to meet his eye.
Small wonder Tom did not come to the _Delta_!

Going in with MacLean, Jr., to the mess room for a glass of water, she
met Rickard, on his way out. She managed to avoid shaking hands with
him. She wondered why she had consented to give him the next waltz.

“He’ll not find me,” she determined. Whatever had made her assent?
Easy in that womanless group to plead engagements. She led MacLean
into innocent but eager conspiracy. He followed her gladly to the
dark corner of the deck where Jose’s guitar was then syncopating an
accompaniment to his “_amigo’s_” voice.

  “_A donde ira veloz y fatigada,
  La golondrina que de aqui se va?_”

“How beautiful!” cried Innes. “But how sad.” She had picked up some
Spanish in the towns. “I have never heard that before.” She leaned over
and asked Jose if he would not write it out for her. Unblushingly, Jose
said he would; “Mañana.”

“Dollars to doughnuts, he can’t write even his own name!” whispered
Junior. “But I’ll see that you get it mañana!” he added. He would type
it for; anything she wanted, he would get for her!

To her surprise, Rickard penetrated her curtain of shadows.

“Our dance, Miss Hardin? Give us _Sobr’ Las Olas_, again, Jose.”

The hand that barely touched his arm was stiff with antagonism. He
stepped off at once to the music; they had no points of contact,
these two. No eager threads of talk to be picked up and turned into a
pattern. She told herself that he had to dance with her--politeness,
conventionality, demanded it. But, instantly, she forgot her
resentment, and forgot their awkward relation. It was his dancing, not
Gerty’s, then, that was “superb.” Anybody could find skill under the
leadership of that irresistible step. She was just an ordinary dancer,
yet she felt as though she had acquired grace and skill. And then the
motion claimed her. She thought of nothing; they moved as one to the
liquid falling heat. She passed Estrada, just arrived. His smile fell
past her. He stood watching them. The girl was not talking. He could
not make out the still fixity of her face.

The music dropped them suddenly, isolating them at the stern of the
deck. The silence was complete. It was a moment of unreality, the
rhythmic blood still in motion, the wistfulness of the moonlight
falling on peaceful waters. Rickard broke it to ask her what she
thought of the camp.

Her resentments were recalled. She blundered through her impression of
the lightness, the gaiety.

“So you think we ought to be solemn?” His tone teased her. The eyes
that always confused Gerty were on her. She again tried to be vocal.

“It does not suggest a battle-ground, I mean. The talk to-night at
table, the dancing, the fun! It does not seem like a battle camp--”

“You’ve been in a battle camp, Miss Hardin?”

She would not be flouted. “The atmosphere--it’s a camp vacation.”

“A work camp does not have to be solemn. You’ll find all the grimness
you want if you look beneath the surface.” She thought, later, of what
she might have said to him, but then she stood silent, feeling like a
silly child under his light mockery.

The guitars were tuning up. “Shall I take you back? I have this dance
with your sister.”

She thought of Tom--on his lonely cot outside his tent. She forgot that
she had been asked a question. He was dancing again with Gerty! If that
silly little woman had no scruples, no fine feeling, this man should
at least guard her. If he had been her lover, he should be careful; he
must see that people were talking of them. She had seen the glances
that evening! The business relation between the two men should suggest
tact, if not decency! It was outrageous.

Rickard stood waiting to be dismissed; puzzled. Through the uncertain
light, her anger came to him. She looked taller, older; there was a
flame of accusing passion in her eyes.

It was his minute of revelation. So that was what the camp thought!
The wife of Hardin--Hardin! Why, he’d been only polite to her--they
were old friends. What had he said to call down this sudden scorn?
“Dancing--again--” Had he been all kinds of an ass?

“My turn, Miss Innes!” demanded MacLean, Jr.

“Oh, yes,” she cried, relief in her tone.

Rickard did not claim his dance with Mrs. Hardin. He stood where the
girl had left him, thinking. A few minutes later, Gerty swept by in
the arms of Breck. Her light laughter, the laughter that had made the
Lawrence table endurable, came to him in his unseen corner. Later,
came Innes with Junior; the two, thinking themselves unseen, romping
through a two-step like two young children. He was never shown that
side of her. Gay as a young kitten, chatting merrily with MacLean!
Should her eyes discover him, she would be again the haughty young
woman!

He’d gone out of his way to be polite to the wife of Hardin. What did
he care what they thought? He’d finish his job, and get out.

The sound of oars came to him; the splashing of waves against the
dredge. He leaned over. A boat was tying by the ladder.

“Hi, below!” called Rickard.

“Come for Mr. Crothers,” the voice from the shadows answered. “He told
me to come for him at ten o’clock.”

“Hold on!” Rickard was clambering over the side. “I’m Rickard. I’ve got
to get back to camp. You can come again for Crothers.”

A minute later, he was being rowed back to camp.




CHAPTER XXV

THE STOKERS


“COMPLETE, isn’t it?” Estrada was leading Innes Hardin through the
engineers’ quarters.

“Yes, it’s _complete_!”

Her brother had told her at breakfast that morning how grandly they
had been wasting time! She would not let herself admire the precision
of the arrangements, the showers back of the white men’s quarters, the
mesquit-shaded kitchen. Gerty’s elaborate settling was of a piece, it
would seem, with the new management. Housekeeping, not fighting, then,
the new order of things!

Tom was afire to get his gate done. She knew what it meant to him; to
the valley. The flood waters had to be controlled. That depended, Tom
had proved to her, on the gate. And the men dance and play house, as if
they were children, and every day counting!

She thought she was keeping her accusations to herself, but Estrada was
watching her face.

“We are here, you know, for a siege. There are months of work ahead,
hot months, hard months. The men have got to be kept well and
contented. We can’t lose any time by sickness”-- He wanted to add “and
dissensions.” The split camp was painful to him, an Estrada. “Even
after we finish the gate, if we do finish it--”

She wheeled on him, her eyes gleaming like deep yellow jewels. “You’ve
never thought we could finish it!”

Estrada hesitated over his answer.

“You are a friend of Tom’s, Mr. Estrada?”

“Surely! But I am also an admirer of Mr. Rickard, I mean of his
methods. I can never forget the levee.”

She had to acknowledge that Rickard had scored there. And the burning
of the machinery had left a wound that she still must salve.

“You have no confidence in the gate?”

“The conditions have changed,” urged Estrada. “You’ve seen the
mess-tent? As it was planned, it was all right, a hurry-up defense.
Marshall all along intended the concrete gate for the permanent intake.
Have you seen the gap the Hardin gate is to close? Have you heard
what the last floods did to it? It’s now twenty-six hundred feet, and
Disaster Island, which your brother planned to anchor to, swept away!
If it can be done, it will, you can rest assured, with Rickard--” he
saw the Hardin mouth then!--“and your brother’s zeal, and the strength
of the railroad back of them. I haven’t shown you the office yet. Can
you stand this glare? You ought to have smoked glasses.”

“I have. I forgot them.” She pulled her wide Mexican brim low over her
eyes.

The camp formed a hollow trapezium; the Hardins’ tents, and Mrs.
Dowker’s, were isolated on the short parallel. Rickard’s ramada and his
tent were huddled with the engineers’. Across, toward the river, behind
Ling’s mesquits, began another polygon, the camp of foremen and white
labor. Some of these tents were empty.

“Is this Mexico, or the states?” asked Innes.

“Mexico.” She wondered why he halted so abruptly. She did not see, for
the glare in her eyes, a woman’s skirt in the ramada they approached.

Estrada marched on.

Outside the ramada, the two women met. Gerty’s step carried her past
like a high-bred horse. Her high heels cut into the hard sand. There
was a suggestion of prance in her mien. She waved her hand gaily at the
two, cried, “How hot it is!” and passed on.

Innes saw Rickard at his long pine table used for a desk.

“I can see it all from here.” Not for money would the sister of Tom
Hardin go in!

Estrada saw by her face that the hope of conciliating the ex-manager by
the sister was a false trail. She threw a curt nod to MacLean whom her
glance just caught.

“Where are we going now?”

“I’m planning a trip to Arizona!” he returned. “You think this is all
play. Now I’m going to show you the ‘stokers.’”

A few minutes later, he called out to her: “Step high!”

She looked at the ground, and then inquiringly at him. The ground was
as flat as a hardwood floor.

“You are crossing the line,” he announced. “You are now in Arizona.”

“I thought the Indian camp was in Mexico, too?”

“No, across the river to avoid custom’s duty. See those roofs of
boughs?”

He was making for a knoll from whence they could get a view of the
river, and of the Hardin gate.

Her memory isolated a word of his. “The stokers--who are they?”

“We call them that. The brush-cutters. They look for all the world like
the poor wretches in the ship’s engine-room.”

“Indians?”

“I wish they were. No, Mexicans. Rickard couldn’t get enough Indians,
and Mexicans can’t stand this.”

Beyond them stretched the river of yellow waters, dividing like the
letter Y, the east branch the dry bed of the Colorado. From a distance
they could see the great arm of the dredge drop into the mud of the new
channel, by which the water was to be diverted through the Hardin gate.
Innes watched the bucket rise, dripping with soft silt, saw the elbow
crook as the arm swung slowly toward the bank.

“That’s where you danced last night,” he observed.

“I thought I was on a cruiser!”

“A cruiser’s also a battle-ship!”

A hot sweet smell rose from the bank. She thought her sudden sway of
faintness was from the sun.

“It’s too much for you. That’s the arrow-weed.”

“I’ve smelt arrow-weed before. This is different.”

“Not in quantity before, Miss Hardin. I shouldn’t have brought you
here. We will go back.”

“Is this what they are cutting?”

“They’re the stokers.”

“I don’t see them.” Her eyes questioned the mat of undergrowth.

“You can’t.”

She could not detect a human figure moving in the clot of branches.
Then she caught the gleam of a machete. A face peered from an opening,
blackened and strangling. Her cry sounded like pain.

“Oh, did you see him?” Dripping with sweat, gasping, it made a horrid
sight.

“It’s not all play!” he observed.

“Look what he is doing, no, not that one.” From the tangle came running
a dripping human. He tossed his hands, staring up at the burning bowl
of a sky. No help there! The sun-baked sands, glittering like brass,
gave no escape. He raised his hands, and they could see him take the
poise of diver; like a projectile he shot into the pool of living green
beneath.

“He thinks it’s water,” whispered Innes.

“_He’s_ got it,” cried Estrada, caught with excitement. “It’s a
madness. One man died yesterday.”

“Died!”

“Why, no white man, for they’re white, those Mexican, can stand
that hole. It’s an inferno. There have been two deaths already. If
another goes, they’ll walk out. I’ve told Rickard; he knows. They’re
superstitious as niggers--the third death--they’re boiling with
discontent already. Then where’ll we be, where’ll the gate be?” The
graceful indolence of the Cardenas was gone; he was all Estrada now,
vehement and impassioned.

“He may die?”

“I shouldn’t have brought you here!”

He tried to get her away. Her eyes would not leave that pool of living
green, the hole that the poor wretch had thought was cooling waters.
The smell of cut arrow-weed, sickly sweet, smote against her nostrils.
Then she saw a movement in the undergrowth. A group of men were
pulling him out--she saw his face, distorted, livid. His lips were
chattering; he screamed like a raucous ape.

“Did you see him?” she breathed.

“I saw _them_,” his answer was grim. He watched them, their composite
expression foreboding, as they bore to camp the struggling madman.

“Is he really mad? Do they get over it?”

“They get over it!” He did not tell her how! To divert her, he told her
that these were the men for whom Porter had been scouring Zacatecas.

“Mexicans don’t take kindly to a contract when it means arrow-weed.
Rickard’s Indians haven’t come yet, the men Forestier’s promised; he’s
the Indian agent. The hoboes are still wandering in, but not in the
numbers we expected. Rickard was right. You can’t count on that sort of
labor.”

Rickard was right? She glanced sharply at the beautiful face of her
companion. Then who was wrong? She was growing sensitive, ready for a
slight to hit her brother.

“If they go, I wouldn’t swap places with Rickard.” The Mexican was
moody.

For the first time, she forgot to notice the incongruity of his
speech. His years at an American college had given him a vocabulary
which belied his nationality. She was resenting his concern. Every one
thinking of Rickard! What responsibility was his? He was here to direct
the work, but if it failed, was the stigma not all her brother’s? She
flamed into speech.

“It’s a snap for him, for Mr. Rickard,” she cried. “All the pioneering,
the breaking of earth has been _done_! Your father, Mr. Estrada, and
my brother paved the way for him. With the entire equipment of a great
organization like the O. P. behind him--money, men, everything, it
isn’t fair. He’ll walk in and win, and the world will think he did it.”

“You wouldn’t like it to fail, would you? And it’s not so easy as you
think, Miss Hardin.” He was carefully picking his way. “He’s told he
has a free hand, but he hasn’t. The work’s stopped up there at Laguna;
there’s no use going on with that until we make good. If we can’t
control the river here, their quicksand works go, but you know that?”

She nodded. Tom had told her all that.

“Those men are swarming in here like bees to honey. They’ve been told
to help, and then they are curious. They have all got ideas of their
own. And they’re talking and writing to the higher-ups. It all gets
back to Rickard, sooner or later.”

“He doesn’t have to please them,” murmured the girl.

“Not directly. But the O. P. didn’t go into this forever! The road was
the most deeply interested corporation with power. Marshall got Faraday
to promise to put up the money. He promised to make it good with his
own money if he couldn’t stop the river. I heard this on the inside!
But he wanted it stopped his way. He wanted his own men in, men who
would take his orders--” he pulled himself away from thin ice. “The O.
P. did not expect to get in as they have. Now, they can’t get out! The
work’s got to please the Service men, or it won’t be recommended to the
government. That’s what’s tying Rickard up--that, and other things.”

It sounded new to her.

“And some of these fellows are yelling so, you can hear them in
Washington.” She stole an amused look at him. How American he was!

They were back at the encampment. Slowly, they walked across the open
space, which was glittering in the sun. Innes was acknowledging,
silently, a headache. The trip, she said to herself, had depressed her.

When they reached the Hardin tents, she felt obliged to offer
hospitality. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Estrada? My sister would love to
make a cup of tea for you.” She knew her invitation lacked cordiality.
Her temples were bursting. “It’s an eye headache,” she told herself. “I
should have had my glasses.”

She tried to forget it as she thanked him for “her trip into Mexico,”
and renewed her invitation to tea.

He said he had to go, but he lingered. He said good-by, and stayed. His
look held hers for that instant, the look she could never fathom. Then
he turned away. She watched him out of sight.

At table, that evening, her family heard with surprise Gerty’s
announcement that they were to eat in the mess-tent with the men. It
was too hot to cook any longer; this had been one of the hottest days
in the year.

“Let me cook!” urged Innes. “It’s only fair. And I want to do something
to justify my being here.” Her words recurred to Gerty later.

“Sometimes the autumn heat is the worst. Besides, it is all arranged.
We begin to-morrow. You heard too, then, what Mr. Rickard said about
not wanting women in camp?”

“No, I did not! But to be here without doing anything, just being one
more mouth to feed, and head to cover--I’d feel more comfortable,” she
added.

“He gave it out in the towns that he did not want men’s wives or
families following them to the Heading. He made an exception for Mrs.
Parrish--she was too timid to leave, and Mrs. Dowker, and, of course,
it was different with me.”

Innes felt uncomfortable.

“It’s all right being with Tom,” she began.

“Why is it all right? Who am I?” He lifted his eyes from his plate. It
came home to Innes that it was not his camp any longer. She thought,
then, that she would go back to Los Angeles the next week.

She expected to hear a protest to the new arrangement from Tom. She was
to see a new development--sullen resignation. If he would accept it,
she must not argue. Both sister and brother knew why it was too warm to
cook any longer. Gerty found them both dull.

“That poor Mexican.” She remembered Estrada’s concern. “The one who
went mad? Have you heard how he was?”

“Dead. The peons are all stampeding.”

“Who’s stampeding?” Gerty came back from a deep reverie. Lavender, it
had just been decided, was to be the color of the next frock. It was
cool and not too positive. She must remember to send out for samples
that day. She could not recall having heard Rickard express himself
about colors. She wondered if he had preferences or aversions to
shades. He must like green; she remembered he had admired that mandarin
skirt. “And if the lavender fades, I can rinse it in purple ink.”

Innes was telling Tom of the tragedy of the afternoon.

“Oh, don’t,” cried Gerty, pushing away her plate. “I can’t hear of such
things.” They saw that her pretty eyes were full of tears. “You know I
can’t.”




CHAPTER XXVI

THE WHITE OLEANDER


MRS. Hardin’s descent on the office that afternoon was successful, but
not satisfactory. She had found the manager brief to curtness. She was
given no excuse to linger. She traced Rickard’s manner to the presence
of MacLean, and snatched at her cue. She, too, could be businesslike
and brief. Her errand was of business; her manner should recommend her!

Rickard had seen her making straight toward the ramada. It was not the
first time; her efforts to line her nest had involved them all and
often. But to-day, he was in a bad humor.

“For the lord’s sake,” he groaned to MacLean as she approached. “More
shelves! I wonder if she thinks the carpenters have nothing to do but
rig up her kitchen for her?”

MacLean’s grin covered relief. He had never heard Rickard express
himself on the subject before. Could he believe, he speculated, that
her frequent appeals for assistance were serious? “The dead-set
Hardin’s wife was making at Casey,” was the choice gossip and
speculation of the young engineers on the _Delta_.

MacLean had a bet up on the outcome. He grinned more securely.

“I am not going to spare any more carpenters,” growled Rickard. It
was an inauspicious day for Mrs. Hardin’s visit. Things had gone
wrong. Vexations were piling up. A tilt with Hardin that morning, a
telegram from Marshall; he was feeling sore. Porter’s men had marched
out, carrying their dead. Desperately they needed labor. Wooster had
just reported, venomously, it appeared to Rickard’s spleen, increasing
drunkenness among the Indians.

Gerty’s ruffles swept in. Her dress, the blue mull with the lace
medallions, accented the hue of her eyes, and looked deliciously cool
that glaring desert day. Her parasol, of pongee, was lined with the
same baby hue. Her dainty fairness and childish affability should have
made an oasis in that strenuous day, but Rickard’s disintegration of
temper was too complete. He rose stiffly to meet her, and his manner
demanded her errand.

She told it to him, plaintively. It was getting so hot! Her kitchen was
a veritable Turkish bath these days. At noon, it was terrific. Her eyes
were appealing, infantile.

“It’s not shelves.” MacLean’s grin sobered.

Would it be too much to ask, would Mr. Rickard mind in the least, he
must be perfectly frank and tell her if they would be in the way at
all, but while this hot spell lasted, could they, the three of them,
eat in the mess-tent with the men?

“Surely!” Rickard met it heartily. She would find it rough, but if she
could stand it, yes, he thought it a good idea. His eagerness suggested
relief to one listener. The Hardins’ meals had been a severe drain on
that office. The new arrangement offered a cessation of petty problems.

Her point so easily gained, she knew she must go. She acknowledged
interrupting business, but there was one thing more. Would Mr. Rickard
tell her how to trace a lost bundle? If she were at home, of course,
she would not have to ask any one, but here, so far away from express
offices! A package had been sent to her from Chicago, it must be months
ago. It reached the towns shortly after she left. She had written
casually there to forward it; it had not yet come. She really did not
know how to begin.

“Make a note of that, MacLean,” Rickard volunteered. He was still
standing. “He’ll send a tracer out after it, Mrs. Hardin.”

And then there was nothing for her to do but go. Her retreat was
graceful, without haste, dignified. There was a womanly suggestion of
business decorum. She smiled a farewell at MacLean, who was watching
the approach of Innes Hardin and Estrada. The neglected smile passed on
to Rickard, accented. He did not see the aborted entrance of Hardin’s
sister and the young Mexican. He was itching to be at his work.

He let out a growl when Mrs. Hardin was out of ear-shot.

“What in thunder did she want all those shelves for? And cupboards
and a cooling closet? Every week since she came, she had to have a
carpenter, and I couldn’t refuse; you know what they’d think, that I
was trying to show my power. Shucks! What in Halifax do women come to
a place like this for? There’s Hardin--brings in two women to cook for
him, and now, please may they all eat with the men?”

His secretary subdued a chuckle. He was visualizing a procession of
boxes of choice Havanas--from Bodefeldt, Hamlin and the rest of the
gang. He need not buy a smoke for a year.

“Must think this is a summer resort!”

Rickard threw himself back in his chair. “Take this letter, MacLean.
To Marshall.” Then his worry diverted him. “Who in thunder is selling
liquor to my Indians?”

“Just that way?” quizzed MacLean.

“Hold on; that letter can wait. You get the horses up, MacLean, and
we’ll ride down to Maldonado’s. He’ll have to get busy, and clear up
this thing, or I’ll know why. I’ll threaten to report him for laziness.
It’s his place to stop this liquor business, not mine.”

A few hours later, they were approaching the adobe walls of Maldonado.
They found the gate locked. A woman, whose beauty had faded into a
tragic whisper, a ghastly twilight of suggestion, came to their knock,
and unbarred the gate for the white strangers. She left them by the
white oleander whose trunk was like that of a tree. MacLean sniffed
like a young terrier. “What’s the matter with the place?”

Mystery hung over the enclosure like a pall. Their voices fell
inevitably to a whisper. Once, it had been a garden; now, only the
oleander defied the desert. Dry ditches told the story of decadence.
Once, the river had wandered by, a stone’s throw away. Maldonado had
turned some of its flow into his adobe court. But the river channel was
dry, and a dead vine clung to the house walls; fell, shrinking in the
breeze, from the roof.

The woman came out to say that Maldonado would follow in “_un
momento_.” To Rickard she looked like the dried vine quivering from the
wind. She asked the señors would they sit? The house was not fit; she
was cleaning.

Maldonado, his face creased from his nap, came out, but not in “_un
momento_.” He had been busy--“some wretched fellows!” Rickard knew
the man was lying. He had been asleep. The woman had interrupted his
siesta. His eyes were almost lost; he blinked; he said it was the sun.
The day was so hot. _Dios mio_, why did she stand there and not take
pity on the señors, dying of thirst as they must be. A glass of water.
It was his shame that he might not offer them wine--but he was a poor
man--with wife and children. His eyes shifted from Rickard to MacLean.

The woman quivered away from the group. She disappeared in the house.

“Glasses,” called Maldonado after her.

Her “_Si_” sounded like a hiss.

Rickard told his errand. Maldonado sputtered and swore. By the mother
of Mary the Virgin, that thing would be stopped. It would be looked
into, the rascal would be caught. He pulled back his cotton coat,
mussed with sleep as was his face. He showed to the señors, with pride,
his badge. He was a rurale; he was there to uphold the law. If the
señors would but follow him, they would see that he did not sleep at
his post. He had caught some of those drunken Indians on the road. He
had brought them here.

They followed him around the house, through the wrecked garden.
Maldonado shrugged at the stumps as they passed, ruins that had once
been roses. MacLean felt his mouth pucker with repulsion as he watched
the figure in striped cotton, the eyes lost in their sleepy folds of
flesh, the cruel evil mouth. He was drawing from the pocket of his
cotton pantaloons a bunch of iron keys, tied with a dirty string. They
were approaching a shed, a cattle shed, it appeared to the guests.
Maldonado unlocked a gate of bars.

“Would the señors look in there?”

On a bed of old straw, three inert figures sprawled; theirs complete
oblivion.

Maldonado, kicked one of the figures with his feet. “Drunken swine.”
He locked the door with majesty. He had proved his services, his
ruraleship.

“But where do they get it?” demanded Rickard, turning back into the
sunshine.

“Certainly,” the man evaded, “there is an ‘oasis’ somewhere. Perhaps,
the señor remembers, I told him before, back in the sand-hills,
‘somewhere.’”

“Why don’t you find it?”

Maldonado was going to find it, surely! The señor must have patience.
His hands were so full. He remembered the bunch of iron keys that he
dropped in his pocket. Every action of the man was surreptitious,
Rickard was noting. Maldonado would stand watching! “I’m doing my duty,
señor.”

“If you are so busy, Señor Maldonado,” suggested Rickard, “I can help
you. I’ll send down a few men to help search. How many would you like?”

He expected a minute’s hesitation, but there was none. Oh, it was not
necessary. Later, maybe, he would call on señor but it chanced that
next week, or the next, a squad of rurales was to be there for that
very purpose sent for by Maldonado. Oh, he was awake to his duty! The
señor would be satisfied. There would be no more drunken Indians.

“Slick,” thought Rickard.

The woman was waiting by the oleander with glasses. She filled them
from an olla hanging in the shade of the tree. It was cold as if iced.

Rickard saw her shrink every time she had to pass Maldonado. Obviously,
the fellow was a brute. She was aware of his displeasure. She winced at
a word from him.

Both men were glad to go. Rickard left a piece of silver in the woman’s
hand. He hoped Maldonado had not observed him.

They were riding away when a cry broke the stillness of the air. “Hark,
what was that?” MacLean turned a shocked face toward Rickard. “A woman?”

It was anguished, strangled almost at birth. The men waited, but there
was silence in the patio.

“He got that money all right,” speculated Rickard.

“Struck her!”

“Or kicked her. That fellow is a brute.”

“Aren’t you going back?”

“Going back? What would we get for our pains? Make it all the worse for
the woman. You noticed he called her his _wife_? The rurales are not
supposed to marry. It’s their unwritten law. But if she is, do you know
what that means? She’s his goods, his chattel; his horse, his ox, his
anything. You’re not in the states. We can’t do anything.”

There is perhaps no more absorbing topic than “wife” to the man who has
not yet acquired one. Rickard and MacLean let an unrecorded silence
fall between them. The word had sent them both traveling down secret
trails. MacLean was thinking of the girl he intended to marry, when he
was grown, of a girl with yellow eyes; Rickard of a mistake he had once
nearly made. His wife, if ever he had one, must be steadier than that;
she must not carry her sex like a gay flag to the breeze. His instinct
of flight, distaste had justified itself at camp. She was a light
little woman. He was beginning to feel a little sorry for Hardin!

“I’ll race you into camp, MacLean!”

Their horses, released, sprang toward the Heading.




CHAPTER XXVII

A WHITE WOMAN AND A BROWN


FOR a few weeks, Mrs. Hardin found the mess-tent diverting. Before
the _Delta_ had expanded the capacity of the camp, her soft nook had
been overtaxed, her hospitality strained. The men of the Reclamation
Service, thrown into temporary inactivity, were eager to accept the
opportunity created for another. Failing that other, her zeal had
flagged. Events were moving quickly at the break; Rickard was absorbed.
Mrs. Hardin told herself that it was the heat she wished to escape;
not to her own ear did she whisper that she was following Rickard, nor
that the percolator and chafing-dish, her shelves and toy kitchen were
a wasted effort. As inevitably as a diamond finds a setting, so did
Gerty Hardin. She would return to it later, gathering luster from its
suggestion of womanliness. Sometime, the pretty play would be resumed.
All this subconsciously, for she hung a veil between her processes. She
kept on good terms with herself by ignoring self-confidences. She would
have called morbidness the self-analysis of those who dig deep into
their psychology for roots of motives, who question each trailing vine.

Rickard, the discovery unfolded slowly, took his meals irregularly. His
breakfast was gulped down before the women appeared; his dinners where
he found them.

“No wonder!” reflected Gerty Hardin. “Ling’s cooking is so bad.”
Discontentedly, she pictured Rickard as finding solace in the Hamlin
kitchen; reveling in Mrs. Silent’s chickens and eggs. The camp butter
was shocking. She found Ling’s large quantities unpalatable.

There came a butterless epoch; a horrid gap. Ling did not _manage_
right. Butterless toast and broiled chicory! Small wonder the manager
foraged for his meals. Somehow, the thought of Rickard living as did
Hardin in times of stress, as the bird of the air, did not occur to the
woman who thought of Rickard as different, a gentleman who required
luxury. She had created a man from her own imaginings; she was evolving
a woman to meet the approbation of her creation.

A dinner of pale oily beans, followed by a dessert of prunes swimming
in a pallid sirup, gave her a morning of reflection. The Hamlin kitchen
was giving her uneasiness. Her own abilities, unoccupied, were ironic.
She worked out a mission as she lay across her bed that hot afternoon.

“To justify my being here.” A phrase of Innes recurred to her; it
became now her own.

Her duty became so clear that she could no longer lie still.
Immediately, she must retrieve her weeks of idleness; what must Rickard
think of her? In spite of the scorching space that lay between her
tent and the ramada, of the sun beating down like burning hail on the
glittering sand, she must dress and seek out Rickard.

She buttoned herself thoughtfully into a frock of pale-colored muslin,
cream slipping toward canary. White was too glaring on a red-hot day
like this. Pink was too hot, blue too definite. Pity the lavender dress
was still a fabric of dreams! A parasol of pastel green, and she
looked like a sprig of fragrant mignonette. The exertion of dressing
brought the perspiration to her face. It had to be carefully dusted
with powder. Strange, how she used to think the summers of the desert
insupportable. After a torrid season of New York in her toy apartment,
that humid sticky heat, that shut-oven of smells, this was to be borne.
Already, the desert was improving; for she herself had not changed, of
course.

It was the ice! She decided that any place could be endured once ice is
procurable. Even bad butter is disguised when frozen into bricks. Her
thoughts rounded the circle, brought her back to her grievances. Ling
certainly needed help.

She found the open space of the trapezium swarming with strange dark
faces. So silent their coming, she had not heard the arrival of the
tribes. Over by Ling’s coveted mesquits gathered an increasing group of
bucks with their pinto ponies which had carried them across a country
of glaring distances. She isolated the Cocopahs, stately as bronze
statues, their long hair streaming, or wound, mud-caked under brilliant
head-cloths. Foregathering with them were men of other tribes; these
must be the Yumas and Deguinos, the men needed on the river. Tom had
told her that the long-haired tribes were famous for their water-craft.
These were the men who were to work on the rafts, weave the great
mattresses. A squad of short-haired Pimas with their squaws and babies
and their gaudy bundles, gaped at the fair-haired woman as she passed.
They were dazed and dizzy from their first long railroad ride. The
central space was filling up with Pimas and Maricopas, Papagoes,
too; she knew them collectively by their short hair. These were the
brush-cutters to replace the stampeding peons. This, then, meant the
beginning of real activity. Tom would at last be satisfied. He would no
longer sulk and rage alternately at the hold-up of the work.

It began to look dramatic to her. She picked her way through the
stolid groups, the children and squaws staring at her finery, at the
queer color of her hair. The value of the enterprise pricked at her
consciousness. And she was going to help it; in her own way, but that
was the womanly way! She wished that she had thought of it before.

Her bright darting glance discovered MacLean under one of Ling’s
mesquits. He was poring over some of his own hieroglyphs in his
stenographic pad. One of her bright detached smiles reached him. He
followed her direction, his mouth puckering.

Before she reached the ramada, she saw that another woman was there.
She caught an impassioned gesture. Her only surmise rested on Innes.
The visitor, following Rickard’s eyes, turned. Gerty saw that she was
dark; she looked the half-breed. The brown woman drew back as the white
woman entered. Gerty smiled an airy reassurance. She herself would
wait. She did not want to be hurried. She told Rickard that she had
plenty of time.

“There is something you want to tell me?” Rickard’s patience was
courteous but firm. He would hear her errand first. Gerty, remembering
MacLean’s banishment to the mesquits, the imploring attitude of the
stranger, determined that she would not be sent away.

“Will you excuse me, señora? It will be only a minute.”

She was to tell her errand, and briefly! Gerty swept past the intruder.

“Sit down, Mrs. Hardin?”

Resenting the inflection, she said she would stand. Her voice was a
little hard, her eyes were veiled, as she told her mission. Her usual
fluency dragged; she felt a lack of sympathy. She saw Rickard look
twice toward the Mexican; she knew she was not holding his attention.

Biting her lip, she acknowledged that Ling was doing the best he could,
at least the best he knew how, but of course, he had his limitations.
He needed an assistant; his hands were over-full. She remembered the
phrase in time to hurl it to its place; she wanted to justify her
presence in camp. In short, she proposed a commissary department,
herself in charge.

Rickard had a weak moment. Outside, the place was teeming with Indians
to be enrolled and placed in camp. Forestier, the Indian Outing Agent,
who had come in on the train with three of the tribes, was waiting in
the neighboring tent. Rickard wanted some new work begun to-morrow;
there were but a few hours left of this day. There were letters,
despatches to be got off.

“I’d like to feel I was of some use,” urged Gerty again, this time
prettily, taking him back into her friendship again. “My heart is bound
up in this undertaking; if I’m allowed to stay, I’d like to help along.
This is the only way I can, the woman’s way.” It was a proud humility.
Did not Rickard think that the best way, the only way? She knew he
would think so, indeed!

“Aren’t you taking a good deal on yourself, Mrs. Hardin?”

Then she forgave his hesitation quite, as it was of her he was
thinking. “Not if it _helps_.” Her voice was low and soft, as if this
were a secret between them.

“It’s not so easy as you think.” He could see Forestier leave his tent,
glance toward the ramada. Then he saw him join MacLean by the mesquits.
This was no time to argue a petty question. It would do no harm to try.
“Why, of course, anything you want, Mrs. Hardin.” And, remembering her
former position, he added: “The camp’s yours as much as mine.”

A glad smile rewarded him. She went out, reluctantly. She knew the ways
of those half-breeds! She could understand a little Spanish, so she
made her step drag. The silence behind her was disquieting. The brown
woman with the wreck of beauty in her tragic eyes was staring after
her; she did not see Rickard’s gesture.

There was a new significance in MacLean’s absence from the ramada.
What could that woman have to say that MacLean must not hear? She did
not see the mewling babes, half naked, who gaped at her as she passed
the squaws. The stolid groups parted for her, and she moved through,
oblivious to their color and charm, to the historic import of it all.
For the first time, the weak tenure on her old lover came to her. Not a
sign had he yet given of their understanding, of the piquant situation.
Themselves, old sweethearts, thrown together in this wilderness. What
had she built her hopes on? A word here, a translated phrase, or
magnified glance. She would not harbor the new worry. Why, it would
be all right. She used Tom’s phrase, the one she hated, in solemn
unconsciousness. Life had evidently planned that from the first. Fate
insisted on repairing her mad mistake.

At her tent, letters were waiting to be written; letters to her grocer
in Los Angeles, one to Coulter, in Calexico. She was going to begin
her régime by serving good butter--iced butter. No more oily horror
melting on a warm plate. She remembered a new brand of olives put up in
tins; Rickard, she remembered, loved ripe olives. She would show them
all what a woman with executive ability could do.




CHAPTER XXVIII

BETRAYAL


“SIT down, señora. Don’t be frightened. We won’t let him hurt you.”
Rickard vulgarized his Castilian to the reach of her rude dialect.

Her work-sharpened fingers moved restlessly under her reboso. She
pulled it together as though the day were not scorching. Her eyes
questioned his sympathy. A flash of desperate courage had left her weak
and tremulous. She stood by the long pine table looking hopelessly down
on the señor whose eyes had twice looked kindly at her.

“Sit down,” he repeated, and motioned to a chair.

For long years her misery had been silent; her tongue could not tell
her story. She shook her head. “Take your time, take your time,”
counseled the manager. He feared a burst of hysteria.

There was a sound of feet outside the ramada. The Indians, passing
and repassing, brought a gleam of anger to her eyes. She recalled her
wrongs; they lashed her into fury. Familiar as was Rickard with the
peons’ speech in their own country, he could not keep up with her
history. Lurid words ran past his ears. Out of the jumble of abuse, of
shame and misery, he caught a new note.

“You say Maldonado, _himself_, sells liquor to the Indians?”

“Ssh, señor!” Some one might hear him! She looked over a terrified
shoulder. Maldonado had told her he would kill her if she ever told--it
came to her, as a shock, what she was doing, what she had done. It
meant ruin for them all--for the muchachos. That had slipped out, the
selling of the liquor. She could have told her story without that; she
wanted to deny it. Relentlessly Rickard made her repeat it, acknowledge
the truth.

“Ssh, señor, it has been so for many years, since I went there, oh,
years ago. No one knows, who would suspect a rurale, a rurale who does
his duty? He would kill me--”

“Stop shaking. No one is listening.” Rickard forced a tone of
brutality. The poor wretch, he suspected, had been trained by the whip;
he threatened to send for Maldonado.

“No, I will tell you, will tell you everything, señor. It is an
easy trick, señor. No one would take the word of an Indian against
Maldonado, a rurale. And the drink makes the men crazy, or stupid.
Afterward, he does not remember where he got the tequila. Maldonado
whips him, the Indian does not know it is the same hand, and when he is
turned loose, he would kiss his feet-- Or perhaps, Maldonado sends him
to Ensenada--who believes him when he swears the rurale who arrested
him made him drunk, señor? Twice, three times, Maldonado’s life was in
danger--but the law made quick work of an Indian who tried to kill a
rurale. He would kill me, señor--would Maldonado.”

“Go on,” drove Rickard.

Her bony fingers worked restlessly. She was shaking with terror.

“Is it known that he keeps liquors there?” Rickard saw he would have to
help her.

“Oh, no, señor. Not even the Indians. They come, by accident. If
they have no money, they are sent on. If they have--” Her curving,
black-shrouded shoulders shrugged. “The walls are thick. They leave
their money and their wits behind them. Sometimes, they wake a mile
down the river, under the willows. They have come back to tell their
wrongs to their friend, Maldonado, who promises to help them, to find
the thief who has wrung those cotton pockets. It would make you laugh,
señor, but if he finds it out, he will kill me.”

“What makes you tell me, now?” Rickard hunted for the ulcer. He knew
there was a personal wrong. “What has Maldonado been doing to you? Has
he left you?”

The veil of fear was torn from her eyes. The trembling woman was gone,
a vengeful wildcat in her place. “Left me, Maldonado? Left his home,
where he traps the Indian with one coin in his pockets? No, señor.
He brought her to our home, _there_, Lupe, the wife of Felipe, the
Deguino. Felipe had found a wife in Nogales, had brought her down to
the river, a mile below the oleander. She found the desert dull; she
had the city’s foolishness in her head. Felipe was gone a good deal.
Maldonado sent him to Ensenada with some poor wretches. Maldonado was
never at home then; I told him not to fool with Felipe; the Indian was
dangerous; he had hot blood. Maldonado struck me--he kicked me--he said
I was jealous--and hit me again.” Rickard saw jealousy in the unveiled
eyes of hate. She pressed her hand to her breast. Her movement betrayed
pain; whether a bruise, or a deeper hurt to the heart of her he could
not guess.

She told the climax simply, her hand pressed over her bosom. “Maldonado
told me to get a big meal--_tortillas_ and _enchilades_, metates: I
told him that it was for Felipe; I could see a black plot in his eyes.
He laughed at me; when I said I would not cook for that treachery, he
cursed me, he kicked me again.” She threw off the reboso, dragging her
dress loose. “Don’t,” frowned Rickard. He had seen a welt across her
shoulder--a screaming line of pain.

She wound the reboso around the dishonored shoulder. “I cooked his
tortillas, his dinner! There was a big meal. There was a lot of
liquor--Felipe was drunk; the tequila made him mad, quite mad. He
seemed to know something was wrong; he fought as Maldonado dragged him
to the cell, the señor remembers the cell? The next day, Maldonado
sent for two rurales, Felipe drank the pitchers of wine he put through
the bars, but there was no liquor in sight when the rurales came! They
started the next day for Ensenada, taking Felipe; that day, Maldonado
brought Lupe home. I said she could not stay and he laughed in my face,
señor. He put me outside the walls. He thought I would beg to be let
in the next morning, come sneaking in like a dog that has been beaten,
wash the faces of the muchachos, grind the corn for the metates, but
I could stand it no longer. I beat that gate until my fingers bled. I
remembered the kind face of the señor, and then I came here. You will
help me, señor?”

“What is it you want me to do?” But he knew what she wanted him to do!

“Send that woman away. Make him send Lupe away. Let me stay here until
he is over his anger. He is not bad, Maldonado, when he is not angry.
Make him set Felipe free; _he_ will keep that Lupe from my house, from
the children.”

Rickard shook his head. “I shall have to look into this thing. If this
is true, it’s prison for your husband. You won’t have to fear Lupe.”

“Prison, señor? For Maldonado? You will never get him. He will swear it
is not so. He will kill me; he will know that I have told. They will
not believe my word against his.”

She was verging toward a spasm of terror. To quiet her, Rickard said
that they would have other proof. And her husband would have no more
power to hurt her; Maldonado’s crimes would protect her from him.

He could see the struggle in her soul; he knew she wanted to say she
had been lying to him. It was not that sort of revenge she wanted; she
wanted her husband. She wanted him to help her get her husband back.
The revenge sought to trap Lupe--

“When he gets out, he will kill me, señor.”

“Ah, but that will be a long time, señora! And you will have
protection. You will get a divorce-- He is your husband, señora? You
are married to him?”

She screamed at him. MacLean looked up from his note-book. “A divorce?”
She was approaching hysteria. “_Si_, señor, he is my husband. We were
married in a church. Never would I get a divorce from my husband. No,
not Lucrezia Maldonado.”

Rickard back-stepped, to calm her. It would be all right, anyway. She
would be protected. He would see that Maldonado did not harm her. He
would look out for her and the children, and she might stay here, in
camp, until the thing was settled. In the meantime, she must rest--

He wanted to get rid of her. Maldonado and his villainy must wait.
The Indians were waiting to be registered. They were to be sent to
their camp, tribe by tribe. Forestier was waiting for him. MacLean was
waiting--

“You will let me work for you, señor?”

“There’s always work. I won’t have to send my washing to Yuma, and
I haven’t had a button sewed on for months--nor has MacLean, nor
Jenks--you can darn their socks, and help Ling with the beds; we can
keep you busy, señora. And you can go back to the children pretty soon.”

The terror was seizing her again. Before she could begin her pleading,
he called to MacLean.

“Ask Ling to find a tent for Señora Maldonado. Tell him to give her a
good meal.”

Her eyes appealed to Rickard over her shoulder. Her body wavered with
fatigue. Her eyes were cavernous, with dark radiating shadows.

“How did you get here?”

“I walked, señor.”

“Walked! You must be dead. Get to bed. You’ll be all right in the
morning.” A twenty-mile walk to escape the cruelty of the brute whom
she would not divorce because of a few priest-mumbled words! Not hers
the sacrament of love, of vows mutually kept, yet he knew that he could
not depend on her testimony to convict that scoundrel down the river.
One glance from his eye, and she would be a shivering lump of fear
again.

He must trap the rogue. Some Indian, that was the plan. He would ask
Coronel. Coronel, himself, could not play the game; Maldonado would
not sell liquor to the white man’s friend. He was too wily for that.
But some buck--Coronel would make the choice. An Indian who would go to
the adobe, pretend intoxication; be clear-headed enough to betray him.
That infernal place must be closed. The woman had come in the nick of
time. Those tribes were to be guarded as restless children--

He went out to meet Forestier.




CHAPTER XXIX

RICKARD MAKES A NEW ENEMY AND A NEW FRIEND


THE coming of the Indians gave the impetus the work had lacked. Under
Jenks, of the railroad company, a large force was put on the river;
these, the weavers of the brush mattresses that were to line the
river-bed. On the banks were the brush-cutters; tons of willows were
to be cut to weave into the forty miles of woven wire cable waiting
for the cross-strands. Day by day, the piles of willow branches grew
higher, the brush-cutters working ahead of the mattress workers in
the stream. In the dense undergrowth, the stolid Indians, Pimas and
Maricopas and Papagoes, struggled with the fierce thorn of the mesquit
and the over-powering smell of the arrow-weed. As tough as the hickory
handles they wielded, they fought a clearing through dense thickets, in
the intense tropic heat.

It was a glittering day. A copper sun rode the sky; the desert sand
burned through the shoe leather. Down-stream, the Brobdingnagian arm of
the dredge fell into the mud of the by-pass, dropping its slimy burden
on the far bank. Twenty-four hours of sun, and the mud bank would
resemble a pile of rocks that wind and sun again would disintegrate
into a silt. Down the long stretch of levee, the “skinners” drove their
mules and scrapers; two pile-drivers were setting in the treacherous
stream the piles which were to anchor the steel-cabled mattresses to
the river-bed. It was a well-organized, active scene. Rickard, in his
office, dictating letters and telegrams to MacLean, Jr., felt his
first satisfaction. Things were beginning to show the result of months
of planning. Cars were rushing in from north and east; every quarry
between Los Angeles and Tucson requisitioned for their undertaking.

A shadow fell on the pine desk. Ling, in blue ticking shirt and white
butcher apron, waited for the “boss” to look up. He stood wiping the
perspiration from his head, hairless except for the long silk-tapered
queue.

“Well, Ling?”

“I go tamale.” His voice was soft as silk. “I no stay.”

It was a thunderclap. There was no one to replace Ling, who was drawing
down the salary of a private secretary.

“You sick?” demanded Rickard. Lose Ling? It would be more demoralizing
to the camp than to lose an engineer.

“Ling no sick.”

“Maybe you want more money?”

“Plenty get money.” The yellow lean fingers spread wide apart. “Money
all lite. Bossee all lite. No likee woman. Woman she stay, Ling go.”

“Mrs. Hardin!” Rickard woke up.

“She all time makee trouble. She talkee butter--butter, butter. All
time. She clazy. She think woman vellee fine cook. She show Ling
cookee plunes. Teachee Ling cookee plunes! I no stay that woman.”
Unutterable finality in the leathern face. Rickard and MacLean, Jr.,
exchanged glances which deepened from concern into perplexity. They
could not afford to lose Ling. And offend Mrs. Hardin, the camp already
Hardinesque?

Rickard grew placating. “Now, see here, Ling, you no understand.
Mrs. Hardin a nice lady; nice home, she like things first-class. You
understand things first-class?”

Sourly, Ling vouchsafed that he, too, understood things first-class.
“She say bad plunes. Too much water. She bossee me all time. Mr.
Lickard likee lady, keep lady, no keep Ling.”

Rickard looked at his watch. He wanted to be off. He had been promising
himself an afternoon for three weeks, since the day the tribes came
in. He must start things moving at Maldonado’s. Coronel, who had come
in from Yuma yesterday, had told him of an Indian who would do the
trick for him, who could withstand liquor, and pretend to reel with it.
Already, he had lost some of his Indians. They might wander back; the
chances were good that they had been “sent up.” He needed every Indian.
But more he needed Ling. He spent another half-hour in wheedling. They
met at the starting place. “Ling go tamale.”

“Oh, lord,” groaned the manager, capitulating. “All right, Ling. I’ll
speak to Mrs. Hardin to-morrow.”

Even that would not do. The two men made out that Mrs. Hardin was to
invade his quarters that evening and teach the outraged Chinese how to
cook prunes. That insult had caused the rebellion. “She come, I go.” It
was a statement, not a threat. Rickard succumbed.

“All right, Ling. I’ll stop it.” With the dignity of an oriental
prince, Ling pattered out of the tent. Rickard was puckering his lips
at his secretary. “I’d rather take castor oil.”

“Take time!” laughed MacLean, Jr.

“I can’t do that,” Rickard’s reply was rueful. “I can’t take chances
with Ling. More Hardin trouble, or my name’s not Casey. We’ll quit for
to-day, Junior. If I’m to head her off, I’ll have to be moving some.”

A half-hour later, MacLean saw his chief leave his tent. He was in
fresh linens; and MacLean noticed that he had a pin in his tie.

“I wouldn’t swap places with him this minute! She’ll be as mad as a wet
hen!”

Heartily, Rickard, too, was disliking his errand. But there was no
shirking it. Ling must be appeased. “And, already, they have enough
reason to dislike me. And here comes this to make matters worse!

“It’s not their fault, it’s Hardin who’s inflaming them with his
wrongs. Lord, what does the man want? Here was his precious scheme
going to pot for lack of funds, and bad management, and he goes whining
to Marshall for help, and now he’s sore because he got what he asked.
He wants to be the high-muck-a-muck; he pretends it’s the valley
salvation. If it were that, he’d be whistling, instead of kicking.”

Mrs. Hardin, from her bed by her screen window, saw him coming. She
slipped into a semi-negligee of alternate rows of lace and swiss
constructed for such possible emergencies. She did not make the mistake
of smoothing her hair; her instinct told her that the fluffy disorder
bore out the use of the negligee. She was sewing, in her ramada, when
Rickard’s knock sounded on the screen door.

Despite his protests, she started water boiling in her chafing-dish. He
had not time for tea, he declared, but she insisted on making this call
of a social nature. She opened a box of sugar wafers, her zeal that of
a child with a toy kitchen; she was playing doll’s house.

Rickard made several openings for his errand, but her wits sped like a
gopher from his labored digging. He suggested that she was working too
hard.

“Oh, I love it,” she declared. “It justifies my being here. I know
you must think women a nuisance here at camp, Mr. Rickard. I like to
do my little best. And Ling needed help. We get along pretty well. He
is crude, of course. What could you expect? I’ve taken the liberty of
sending out for some extra things. And that reminds me, has my bundle
been heard from? Isn’t that the most mysterious thing? It left Chicago,
why, it must be months ago.”

Rickard said that the missing bundle had been last heard from in Tepic;
by some stupid mistake, it had got into the hands of the Mexican
officials, “who were playing ball with it!”

“The mistake came in having it sent here; this is Mexico; everything
gets balled up the instant it crosses the line. If you’d had it sent to
Yuma now--but you were speaking of orders, camp orders--”

“I’m not going to trouble you with that,” cried Gerty, filling up his
cup with an aromatic blend of tea she had sent for to Los Angeles. So
far, it had been wasted on the men of the Service, boys, most of them.
She felt more at home with Rickard than ever before. The quizzical,
amused glance of appraisement was gone, replaced by an earnestness
she misread. She met his mood with womanly dignity; she tutored her
coquetries, withheld her archness. She remembered a day when her
flirtations had deflected her whole life; she no longer said “ruined.”
One battle lost? “Time to fight another!” She placed a wafer or two on
his protesting plate.

He brought up Ling’s contrariness, and he found they were discussing
the Indians. There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask about
them. Was it true the popular impression that they caked their heads
with mud to--clean their hair? It was true? How dreadful! She liked to
believe that it was some religious custom, a penance of some kind.

Rickard saw another opening. He related his plan of having the camp
on the Arizona side of the river to save duties on food stuffs; they
ate, the Indians, in Arizona, and slept in old Mexico: “It saves the O.
P. a nice little sum every month. It’s not an easy thing to manage a
commissary, as you know--”

The new hole was dug, but the gopher was out of sight. She spoke of a
new book the critics were praising.

He found he would have to discard diplomacy, blurt out his message; use
bludgeons for this scampering agility.

He put down his cup; no, he would not have any more. “Thank you just
the same. It is really delicious. I feel like a truant, sipping tea
here. I’m forgetting my errand.” He stood. She had never seen him
hampered by embarrassment before. Her smile was gently encouraging,
womanly sweet. She really admired him, more than any one she had ever
known. His reserve called to her always, to reach his ideals, ideals
she could only guess at. Her mind grasped at the concrete; she believed
him impatient of external coarseness. She was always conscious of her
dress, her surroundings, her table when he was present.

“My mission is a little awkward, Mrs. Hardin. I hope you will take it
all right, that you will not be offended.”

“Offended?” Her face showed alarm.

“It’s about Ling. He’s a queer fellow, they all are, you know.” He was
blundering like a schoolboy under the growing shadow in Gerty’s blue
eyes. “They resent authority, that is, from women. He is a tyrant, Ling
is.”

“I think you are right, Mr. Rickard. He is an unruly servant. But you
could replace him easily.”

“Oh, but we couldn’t. It’s no easy matter to get a cook while it’s hot
like this; and a camp cook, who can cook quantities, and yet make them
palatable--”

Then what was it he was trying to say? The blue eyes met his at last
squarely, a glint of warning in them he would not see.

“I have to give in to him, we all do; have to humor him. We’ve spoiled
him, I guess.”

“Yes?” Ah, she would not help him. Let him flounder!

“He wants to be let alone; he doesn’t appreciate your kind help, Mrs.
Hardin.”

“Oh!” Her eyes were hot with tears; angry tears. She would not for the
wealth of that desert let him see her cry. This was so different from
what she had expected. This was what he had come to say. She could
not speak, nor would not. She sat in her spoiled doll’s house, all
her pleasure in her toy dishes, her pretty finery, ruined. She would
no longer meet his eyes; mocking, forever, let them be! She had been
so proud of her managing, and here he listens to the complaints of a
Chinese cook! Complaints against her, against Gerty Holmes, the girl
he had once loved! He could not care if he could humiliate her so. She
stared at her hands lying limp over the hand-whipped negligee. The
azure hue of the silk slip beneath had lost its charm to her. It was
the most vivid moment of her life. Not even when Rickard had left her,
with his kisses still warm on her lips, had she felt so outraged. He
was treating her as though she were a servant--discharging her--because
she was the wife of Hardin. Her eyes grew black with anger; she hated
them both; between them, their jealousy, their rivalry, what had they
made of her life? She suddenly realized that she was old. If she were
young, he would not flout her like this. She remembered the woman she
had seen in his ramada; she had heard that the Mexican was in camp,
employed by Rickard. Her thoughts were like swarming hornets.

“He’s an ungrateful beast, Mrs. Hardin, if he doesn’t appreciate your
labors. I’d let him struggle alone. As I say, we’ve spoiled him.”

“He has been complaining?” It was all she could say with control.

“He’s a tyrant. I told him I would not let you waste your kindness one
instant longer--”

Oh, she understood! A bitter pleasure to see him so confused. Rickard,
before whose superior appraisement she had so often wilted! She would
not help him out, never! She rose when he paused. He thanked her for
meeting him half-way, and her smile was inscrutable.

“So I’m discharged?”

He misunderstood her dignity, as before he had misconstrued her
flirtations.

Gerty drooped under the sudden coming of age. She knew she must be old.

“Or he would not treat me so! he would not treat me so!”

“You can’t be discharged, if you’ve never been employed, can you? Thank
you once again, and for your tea. It was delicious. I wish Ling would
give us tea like that.”

Boorish, all of it, and blundering! Why wouldn’t he go? When he had
hurt her so! had hurt her so!

Her hand met his, but not her eyes. If he did not go quickly, something
would happen; he would see her crying. The angels that guard blunderers
got Rickard out of the tent without a suspicion of threatening tears.
She threw off her negligee and the pale blue slip; the tears must wait
for that. Then she flung herself on her bed, and shook it with the
grief of wounded vanity.

MacLean looked up as Rickard reentered the office.

“It went all right,” nodded his chief, cheerful now that was out of the
way. “She didn’t mind. Tired of it already, I guess.”

MacLean looked at him thoughtfully. Funny for as keen a man as Rickard
to be a dolt about women. No woman would forgive that; Gerty’s kind
of women. Mind! Mind being turned down? He’d find out later what she
thought about it. That was his blind side. And she’d been throwing
herself at him ever since she came to the Heading. Everybody had seen
it--hold on, everybody did not include Rickard, himself. MacLean, Jr.,
softly whistled.

That evening, the chief had a visitor. The wife of Maldonado, some of
the fear pressed out of her eyes, brought in his laundered khakis,
socks, darned and matched; all the missing buttons replaced.

“I haven’t worn a matched sock,” he told her, “for months. That’s
great, señora.”

He wanted to get to bed, but she lingered. She wanted to talk to
him about her troubles; he had cautioned her against talking about
them in camp, so she overflowed to him whenever she found a chance;
about Maldonado, the children; Lupe. It was getting wearying; but he
could not shove the poor thing out. She wanted him to say again that
Maldonado could not harm her. He reminded her of the solution; she
could leave him.

“And go to hell! Oh, no, never would I do that. It would be a mortal
sin.”

Rickard stretched. He had to be up early in the morning.

“The señor has been very kind,” the woman’s gratitude resembled a
faithful dog’s.

“Oh, it was nothing.” His lids were drooping. At five the next morning!

“The señor, he is lonely?”

“Lonely!” He laughed in her puzzled face. Great Scott, he was dying for
sleep! He did not catch her drift.

“The señor, he is so kind, and he is lonely. He has no one to sew for
him, to mend his clothes, to keep his tent. I am so grateful to the
señor.”

Had she misunderstood his suggestions about a divorce? Rickard sat up.

“You are doing very well for me. Thank you. And now, good night,
señora. I’m up early in the morning.”

There was something on her mind. She walked toward the entrance of the
tent-house, but turned back.

“I have a sister, señor, who would be good to you, mend your clothes,
when I am gone. The señor will be lonely, then, is it not so? She is
grown now, almost fifteen. She is _muy sympatica_, can sew, and can
cook--”

“Oh, lord--” cried Rickard.

Her refrain was insistent. “The señor is lonely; you need a _mujer_.”

“No _es posiblé_,” his answer was rough to her savage, childish
kindliness.

The señor was so kind, he would be kind to her sister--

“_Por Dios_, no!” cried Rickard.

Señora Maldonado gave a sharp intake of breath, an aborted scream.
Rickard, too, saw a man’s figure outside the screen door. The Mexican
woman pressed a frightened hand to her heart. Of course, it was the
vengeful Maldonado--he would kill her--

“If I am intruding,” it was the voice of Hardin.

“Come right in,” welcomed Rickard. “Get along, señora.” The Maldonado
slipped out into the night, her hand still against her heart.

Hardin, a roll of maps under his arm, entered with a rough sneer on his
face. A dramatic scene, that, he had interrupted! And Rickard who did
not like to have women in camp. White women!

Rickard, still sleepy, asked him to sit down.

“Thank you, no. I wanted to speak to you about those concrete aprons.
They tell me you’ve given an order not to have them.”

“The order’s from Tucson.” Rickard yawned covertly.

“A child’s order!” exploded Hardin. “Why doesn’t Marshall come and see
for himself? Brush jetties! It will never stand!”

“He is coming.” Rickard wrinkled the sleep out of his eyes. “He will be
here next week.”

“It’s a crime!” Hardin unfolded his map, spreading it over the table.
A bottle of ink was upset in his eagerness. Rickard was thoroughly
awake by the time he had mopped the purple black flood with towels and
blotting-paper. Hardin recovered his map, but slightly damaged. Two of
Rickard’s books were ruined.

“See here,” cried Hardin, still excited. “Calculate that distance. If
this is a farce, Marshall ought to say so.” He pulled a chair up to
the ink-stained table. “Brush aprons! He’s wasting our time, and the
company’s money.”

Rickard resigned himself to a long argument. It was three o’clock when
Hardin let him turn in.

When he was getting ready for bed, he remembered the melodramatic
scene Hardin had entered upon. He stared comprehendingly at the screen
door--seeing, with understanding, Hardin’s coarse sneer--the Maldonado,
breathing fast, her hand over her heart. “Of course, he’ll think--good
lord, these people will make me into an old woman! I don’t care what
the whole caboodle of them think!”

Five minutes after blowing out his candle, he was deeply sleeping.




CHAPTER XXX

SMUDGE


FROM her tent, where she was writing a letter that lagged somehow,
Innes Hardin had seen Rickard go to her sister’s tent. She did not
need to analyze the sickness of sight that watched the dancing step
acknowledge its intention. It meant wretchedness, for _Tom_. At a time
when he most needed gentleness and sympathy, rasped as he was by his
humiliations and disappointments--how could any woman be so cruel? As
for Rickard, he was beneath contempt--if it were true, Gerty’s story,
told in shrugs and dashes. She had jilted him for Tom; and this his
revenge? Did it hang together, if he still loved her? Loved Gerty?
How was it that those clear-sighted, quizzical eyes had not at once
penetrated her flimsy evasions, her deviousness? Could he ever have
cared, or was the story a web of vanity? Still caring, what would be
the end of it all?

She had not known that she had such feeling as the thought roused in
her. It proved what the blood tie is, this tigerish passion sweeping
through her, as her eyes watched that closed tent--it was love for Tom,
pity for Tom. Sex honor, why, Gerty did not know the meaning of the
words! Were she not a harem woman, a cheap little vain thing, she would
not be flirting in a time like this--getting on the track with her
coquetries.

She pulled herself away from her wire-netting window, and took up her
pen. What had she been writing about? “They are working steadily on the
permanent concrete gate, and pushing the wooden gate to control the
autumn floods--” How long would it be before Tom would see what every
one else was seeing? What would he do when he knew? Hating Rickard
already, bitter as he was--

She was not so biased as he. She could see why Marshall had had to
reorganize, or Faraday, whoever it was who had done it. Estrada had
shown her; and MacLean. Her sense of justice had done the rest. Rickard
had proved his efficiency; the levee, the camp, the military discipline
all showed the general. Whether he were anything of an engineer, time
would tell that. MacLean thought so, and Eduardo, but the others did
not, the older engineers, hot-headed for Tom. It was a long call he was
making!

Where had she left off? “The wooden gate--” her letter as wooden! And
how could she vitalize it without telling the personal history which
was animating the endeavor into drama? Her brother, Mr. Marshall,
the new manager-- Suppose Tom were to come back? She must watch for
him--make some excuse to pull him in if he should come back before that
other went-- Hateful, such eavesdropping! A prisoner to that man’s
gallivanting!

For an instant she did not recognize the figure outside Gerty’s tent.
Her fears saw Tom. She reached the screen door in time to see Rickard
lift his hat to a disappearing flurry of ruffles.

She had seen the ruffles, but she could not see the distress behind
that swiftly shut door. Angry eyes watched Rickard’s step swing him
toward Ling’s mesquits. She was still standing, her brown hands tightly
laced, when he emerged, and swung toward his ramada.

How much later was it that he came out again into that wash of
sunlight, followed by MacLean, who had his absorbed look on that was
almost adoration? How long had she been standing there? After they had
gone, she would take a walk. The letter could wait till the morning.

From the levee that day, she had a glimpse of the Mexican woman on her
knees by the river, rubbing clothes against a smooth stone. A pile of
tight-wrung socks lay on the bank. Innes stood and watched her.

“I must remember to speak of her to Gerty,” she determined. “She
probably does not know that there is a washerwoman in camp.”

Then she speedily forgot about it; forgot even her anger of the
afternoon. The skinners driving their mules over the hot sands, the
mattress weavers twisting willows through the steel cables, the
pile-drivers pinning down the gigantic carpet as it was woven to the
treacherous bed of that river, the Indians cutting arrow-weed, that
dredge-arm swinging low--the diversified panorama caught her as it
always did.

It was so big, the man-work! Behind the big fight lay its purpose. Not
only to save the homes of that far-reaching valley, but to make room
for the homes of the future. Always a thrill in that, the work for
those yet unborn!

Still sleeping that land was, land that would feed a nation. Stretching
north to the strange new sea, that made this one with the age of fable,
reaching over into Mexico, its lateral boundaries the distant unreal
mountains, here was a magic soil that piratical rains had not filched
of its wonders. Here tired out men, from their tired out farms, would
find homes, here the sick would find healing in its breath, safety and
succor in its spaces--that dredge-arm swinging across the channel would
make all that come true!

It was a week later before she remembered to speak of the Mexican woman
“who could wash.” The two women were on their way to their tents from
the mess-breakfast. Señora Maldonado was leaving MacLean’s tent with a
large bundle of used clothes held under her arm.

“She washes for the men. I’m going to ask her to do my khakis for me.
It’s too much to keep asking those busy men to see that my bundle of
wash is sent out and brought back.”

“More impossible,” she added, following Gerty into her tent, “is it to
do it myself. It’s too hot. And khakis are stiff rubbing. Perhaps this
woman would be willing to do all our laundry?”

Gerty had been wondering what she would say to Innes. The speech which
needed only an introduction was stirred into the open.

“You must not,” her voice trembled with anger, “you must not ask that
woman.”

Innes was staring out of the tent door, watching the arm of the dredge
as it dipped and rose from the river. She did not see the flag of rage
flung in her sister’s cheeks.

“I don’t care at all how she mangles them, so they are clean, and
_I_ do not have to make them so!” She interpreted the counsel from
experience. She knew the fastidiousness of Mrs. Hardin. She had no
ruffles to care about. “It’s a blessed miracle to find some one who
will wash for you.”

“I don’t mean that.” Each word was curt and icy. “She is not to be
spoken to.”

The girl asked her bluntly what she meant.

“You must not give her your washing--must not speak to her. I’ve not
mentioned it before. I--I hoped it would not be necessary. Tom told me
not to speak of it.”

“_Tom_ told you not to speak of it? Not to speak of what?”

Gerty hesitated. Her husband, having relieved himself of his scorn, had
made her see the necessity for not repeating that scene in Rickard’s
tent. That did not prevent her speaking of what she herself had seen,
what she surmised. But Innes must not speak of it; their position
practically depended on him, now.

Innes, bewildered, asked her what in the world she was talking about?

“You must have observed--Mr. Rickard?”

The girl’s ear did not catch the short pause. “Observed Mr. Rickard?”

“The coolness between us. I scarcely speak to him. I don’t wish to
speak to him.”

When had all this happened, Innes demanded of herself? Had she been
asleep, throwing pity from outdated dreams?

“I won’t countenance a common affair like that.” Her eyes, sparkling
with anger, suggested jealous wrath to Innes, who had her first hint of
the story. She had learned never to take the face value of her sister’s
verbal coin; it was only a symbol of value; it stood for something
else.

Gerty had been suffering with abscessed pride, inflamed vanity. This
was the first relief; the angry venom spent itself.

The yellow eyes were on the dredge bucket as it swung across the
channel, but they did not register. She was angry, outraged; she did
not know with whom. With Gerty for telling her, with Rickard, with life
that lets such things be. If Gerty would only stop talking! Why would
she string it out, tell it all over again? She hated the hints which
the accented voice was making. She jumped up. “Oh, stop it!” She rushed
out of the tent, followed by a strange bitter smile that brought age to
the face of Gerty Hardin.

In her own tent, Innes found excuse for her lack of self-control. She
did not like the color of scandal; she hated smudge. Gerty had _told_
her nothing, only hinted, hinted! What was it Tom did not want her to
know? She would not think of it. She would be glad that something had
occurred to check the foolish little woman’s folly. Gerty had said the
whole camp knew it; knew why the Mexican woman was in camp! She did not
trust Gerty in anything else; why should she trust her in that? She
would not think of it.

True or not, it was better for Tom. She assured herself that she was
glad that something, anything, had happened before her brother learned
the drift of things. There was nothing now to worry about. She would
forget Gerty’s gossip.

But she remembered it vividly that week as she washed her own khakis;
as she bent over the ironing-board in Gerty’s sweltering “kitchenette.”
She thought of it as she returned Rickard’s bow in the mess-tent the
next morning; each time they met she thought of it. And it was in her
mind when she met Señora Maldonado by the river one day, and made a
sudden wide curve to avoid having to speak to her.




CHAPTER XXXI

TIME THE UMPIRE


A BLAZING sun rode the heavens. The river was low; its yellow waters
bore the look of oriental duplicity. Men and horses were being driven
to take advantage of the continued low water. Each day was now showing
its progress. The two ends of the trestle were creeping across the
stream from their brush aprons, as though sentient, feeling their way;
watching the foe; ready to spring the trap when the river was off guard.

“Things are humming,” wrote MacLean, Jr., to his father, who was
inspecting the survey below Culiacan for the new line on the west
coast. The focus was indeed visible. A few weeks of work, at the
present rate, and the gap would be closed, Hardin’s big gate in it; the
by-pass ready; the trap set for the Colorado. The tensity of a last
spurt was in the air.

It was inspiring activity, this pitting of man’s cumulative skill
against an elemental force. No Caucasian mind which did not tingle,
feel the privileged thrill of it. To the stolid native, as he plodded
on his raft all day under a blazing sky, or lifted his machete against
the thorny mesquit or more insidious arrow-weed, this day of well-paid
toil was his millennium, the fulfilment of the prophecy. His gods had
so spoken. Food for his stomach, liquor for his stupefaction; the
white man’s money laid in a brown hand each Sunday morning was what
the great gods forespoke. The completion of the work, the white man’s
victory, would be an end of the fat time. A dull sense of this deepened
the natural stolidity of their labor. Hasten? Why should they, and
shorten their day of opportunity? Saturday night, feasting, dancing;
then a day of rest, of stupor. To-day is theirs. The gods are speaking.

Between the two camps oscillated Coronel, silently squatting near the
whites, jabbering his primitive Esperanto to the tribes. His friendship
with the white chiefs, his age and natural leadership gave him a unique
position in both camps. Forestier consulted him; Rickard referred to
him. He was too lordly to work; long ago, he had thrown his fate with
the Cocopahs whose name was a synonym for majestic idleness.

“But he’s worth a dozen workers,” Hamlin had once told Rickard. “Get
Coronel on your side. He’s got influence; they do as he says.” Behind
that grizzled mask, Rickard surmised a pride of authorship in the
reclamation project. Coronel had known Powell; he had crossed the
desert with Estrada; that his proudest boast. Assiduously, Rickard
cultivated the old Indian who crouched days through by the bank of the
river.

The engineers felt the whip of excitement. Silent, up at the Crossing,
at work on the great concrete head-gate, which would ultimately control
the water supply of the valley, was prodding his men to finish before
the winter storms were on. His loyalty to the Hardin gate did not admit
a contingency there, but it was the thought which lurked in every man’s
mind. Never a man left his camp in the morning who did not look toward
that span crawling across the treacherous stream, measure that widened
by-pass. Would the gate stand? Would pilings driven through brush mats
into a bed of silt, a bottomless pit, hold against that river, should
it turn and lash its great tail? The Hardin men halloed for the gate,
but looked each morning to see if it were still there. The Reclamation
Service men and the engineers of the railroad were openly skeptical;
Sisyphus outdone at his own game! Estrada and Rickard looked furtively
at the gate, with doubt at each other. Uneasiness electrified the air.

Hardin, himself, was repressed, an eager live wire. His days he spent
on the river; his nights, long hours of them, open-eyed, on his back,
watching the slow-wheeling, star-pricked dome of desert sky. His was
the suspense of the man on trial; this was his trial; Gerty, Rickard,
the valley, his judge and jury. Gradually, the peace of the atom lost
in infinity would absorb him; toward morning he would sleep. But the
first touch of dawn would bring him back to the situation; the sun not
so tender as the stars! Dishonored,--he had to make good, to make good
to the men who loved him, to prove to Gerty who scorned failure-- By
the eternal, he must prove to Gerty! She must give him respect from
those scornful eyes of hers. If ever he had worked, in his life, he
must work for his life now! The gate grew to be a symbol with him of
restored honor, an obsession of desire. It must be all right!

Rickard was all over the place, up at the Crossing with Silent at the
concrete gate, Marshall’s gate; down the levee inspecting the bank
with untiring vigilance; watching the mat-makers on the rafts weave
their cross-threads of willow branches and steel cable; directing,
reporting. “Watching every piece of rock that’s dumped in the river,”
complained Wooster. “Believe he marks them at night!”

They were preparing for the final rush. In a week or two, the work
would be continuous, night-shifts to begin when the rock-pouring
commenced. Large lamps were being suspended across the channel,
acetylene whose candle-power was that of an arc light. Soon there would
be no night at the break. When the time for the quick coup would come,
the dam must be closed without break or slip. One mat was down, dropped
on the floor that had already swallowed two such gigantic mouthfuls;
covered with rock; pinned down to the slippery bottom with piles.
Another mat was ready to drop; rock was waiting to be poured over it;
the deepest place in the channel was reduced from fifteen to seven
feet. Each day the overpour, anxiously measured, increased. A third
steam-shovel had been added; the railroad sent in several work-trains
fully equipped for service; attracted by the excitement, the hoboes
were commencing to come in, from New Orleans where the sewer system
was finished and throwing men out of work; from Los Angeles, released
by the completion of the San Pedro breakwater; from San Francisco they
were turning, the excitement over. No fat pickings there!

It was a battle of big numbers, a duel of great force where time was
the umpire. Any minute hot weather might fall on those snowy peaks
up yonder, and the released waters, rushing down, would tear out the
defenses as a wave breaks over a child’s fort made of sand. This was a
race, and all knew it. A regular train despatch system was in force
that the inrushing cars might drop their burden of rock and gravel and
be off after more. The Dragon was being fed rude meals, its appetite
whetted by the glut of pouring rock.

Tod Marshall came down from Tucson in his car. The coming of the
_Palmyra_ and Claudia rippled the social waters at the Front for days
ahead. Gerty Hardin, to whom had been rudely flung days of leisure,
though she still hated Rickard, wondered if she were not glad that
her hours were to be her own when the grand Mrs. Marshall came. For
Marshall was a great man, the man of the Southwest; his wife, whom she
had not yet met, must be a personage. Gerty’s position as a helper
of Ling’s might have been misunderstood. Yet too proud to tell her
astonished family that she wanted to desert the mess-tent, she shook
herself from her injury, and “did up” all her lingerie gowns. Mrs.
Marshall was not going to patronize her, even if her husband had
snubbed Tom. It was hot, ironing in her tent, the doors closed. It
would have hurt her to acknowledge the importance of the impending
visit.

Everything carried a sting those indoor hours. She was aflame with hot
vanity. Twice, she had openly encouraged him; twice, he had flouted
her. That was his kind! Men who prefer Mexicans--! She would never
forgive him, never!

She followed devious channels to involve Tom’s responsibility. There
was a cabal against the wife of Hardin. Working like a servant! she
called it necessity. Everything, every one punished her for that one
act of folly. Life had caught her. She saw no way, as she ironed
her mull ruffles, no way out of her cage. Her spirit beat wild wings
against her bars. If she could see a way out!

She really was not free to establish an honest independent life.
Horticulturists speak of the habit of a plant. Psychologists take the
long road and find a Mediterranean word; temperament. Gerty was a vine;
its habit to cling for support. Her tendrils had been rudely torn,
thrown back at herself; world-winds were waiting their chance at her--a
vine is not a pretty thing when it trails in the dust-- Sometimes she
would shiver over her ironing-board when she thought of the dust. She
knew her habit, which she, too, called temperament. Nothing to do but
to stay with Tom!

Maddening, too, that Rickard would not see that he had hurt her. His
bow was just as friendly as before. Friendly! Was that all it had ever
been? At the mess-table, she caught his eyes turning toward, resting
on, Innes Hardin. The girl herself did not seem to notice--artful,
subterranean, such stalking! That was why she had come running back to
the Heading! That the reason of her anger when she had hinted of the
Maldonado. She learned to hate Innes. Before the girl’s return, she
had had a chance; she knew she had had a chance. He had been caught by
youth, ah, that the truth that seared! Youth! Youth that need not fear
the morning light, the swift passing months! _She_ had no time to lose.
Her heart felt old.

The mess-meals grew intolerable to her. She would watch for the
shock of those conscious glances that she felt every one must see.
She, Gerty Hardin, cast aside for a hoyden in khakis! The girl’s
play at unconsciousness infuriated her. Deep! Ah, she knew now her
game! Riding fifteen miles down the levee to pay a pretended visit
to a laborer’s wife, Mrs. Parrish! As if she were interested in Mrs.
Parrish! Jolting in a box-car to see the concrete head-gate with
MacLean; walking with Estrada, meeting Rickard, of course, everywhere;
her yellow khakis in every corner of the camp. A promiscuous coquette,
she changed the word to “careful”; playing her cards slowly; waiting
for victory to make a hero of Rickard; pretending to take issue with
Tom--ha, she knew her, at last!

Her first call at the _Palmyra_ discovered the mistress in a wash gown
of obscure cut and color, with a white apron a serving maid might wear.
Knitting her pale-colored wools, Mrs. Marshall had little to give out
but monosyllables. Gerty was forced to carry the conversation. Mrs.
Marshall did not appear to see her visitor’s correctness, the harmony
of color, the good lines. Time thrown away, that laundering!

That avenue dull, time again hung heavily. The gay evenings on the
_Delta_ were abandoned; the men coming back from the river too tired,
too warm to dance. She began to discover it was hideously hot. Perhaps,
she might go out, after all--

She decided to tell her family that it was too warm to continue the
commissary activity; Rickard was enough of a gentleman to let her cover
her hurt; she could safely assume that! Yet it stung her to think what
Innes might be thinking, what, perhaps, he had told her! Every one
must be wondering, speculating! In her life, Gerty had felt keenly but
twice; each time Rickard it was who had hurt her. That mocking superior
eye of his! Bitterly she hated him.

“Tom,” she said one night. He turned with a swift thrill of
expectation, for her voice sounded kind; like the Gerty of old. “I have
always heard that Mr. Marshall has terribly strict ideas--for every one
but himself, I mean!”

“That’s a good one.” It was the first laugh in weeks of moodiness.
Hardin was thinking of the poker games.

“I’m serious. I think he ought to hear of that Mexican woman.”

“Have you heard anything else?”

There was no new thread in her fabric of suspicions. To Hardin, it
brought a memory of time past to be sitting thus familiarly together,
Gerty in her negligee, her hair disarranged, looking up into his face.
He did not suspect he was a pawn in her scheme of retribution.

“It ought not to be allowed.” The blue eyes were purpling with anger.
“Mr. Marshall ought to be told. It is demoralizing in a camp like
this. I thought you said the governor of Lower California had sent a
commandant here.”

“To suppress liquor-selling and gambling.” Hardin did not say that the
request had come from Rickard.

“And persons without visible means of support,” quoted his wife with
triumph.

“That does not apply to the Mexican,” frowned Hardin. He did not want
to be dragged into this.

“You ought to tell Mr. Marshall,” persisted Gerty.

“I tell Marshall anything against his pet clerk?” The Hardin lip shot
out. “He’d throw me out of the company.”

The pretty scene was spoiled. To his dismay, she burst into a storm
of tears, tears of self-pity. Her life lay in tatters at her feet,
the pretty fabric rent, torn between the rude handling of those two
men. She could not have reasoned out her injury, made it convincing,
built out of dreams as it was, heartless, scheming dreams. Because she
could not tell it, her sobbing was the more violent, her complaints
incoherent. Tom gathered enough fragments to piece the old story.
“Ashamed of him. He had dragged her down into his humiliation.” His
sweet moment had passed.

He spent a few futile moments trying to comfort her.

“Don’t come near me.” It burst from her; a cry of revulsion. He
stared at her, the woman meeting his eyes in flushed defiance. The
hatred which he saw, her bitterness, corroded his pride, scorched his
self-love. Nothing would kill his love for her; he knew that in that
blackest of moments. His affection for her was part of his life. It
went cringing to her feet, puppy-like, but he called it back, whipped
it to its place. That was all over now. No woman could dread him twice
like that. He shivered at what he had seen. The man breathed deep as
he got up and looked about him. It was over. He would not elaborate
his awakening with words. He would never forget that look of dread, of
hate. He left her tent.

That night, the cot under the stars had no tenant. Hardin had it out
with himself down the levee. Strange that this bitter man could have
the same hopeful blood in him which had whipped his pulse at Lawrence!
He was still a young man, and God! How tired he was! He was in a net of
bitter circumstance. What was he to do, where to go? He was too old,
too tired and sore to begin over again, and the bitter irony of it! He
only wanted what he had lost, the love of the woman who hated him, the
respect of the valley into which his life had been sucked. God! He was
tired.

He saw the dry forsaken channel of the Colorado; grim symbol of his
life! Where was the youthful hope, the conviction that everything
would come his way? The potential richness of the soil upturned by
yesterday’s shovel on the dike found him cold. That night, there was
no future to his bitterness. Hunting for the fault, he found the real
Hardin, not the man he had been spending his days with, the man he had
expected to be, but the man the world saw passing. Perhaps life holds
no more tragic instant than when we stand over the grave of what we
thought we were, throw the sod over the ashes, facing the lonely yoking
with the man that is. Hardin shivered unto himself; and grew old.

That valley might fulfil Estrada’s vision and his labor; might yield
the harvest of happy homes; but his was not there. He had been the
sacrifice.




CHAPTER XXXII

THE WALK HOME


CLAUDIA MARSHALL sat at the head of her stately table in the _Palmyra_,
mute as a statue but for the burning eyes which followed her Tod.
To Innes, her guest, she was renewing the impression of heroic
resignation. It was a tragic presence, of brooding solicitude.

Not easy to believe that this was once the most vivacious coquette
of Guadalajara! The American girl had often wondered if it had been
Tod Marshall’s sentence, only, which had changed the butterfly into
a gentle martyr. Listening to her brilliant host, she let her mind
wander to the silent woman near her. What was it she was mourning, her
position in San Francisco, the honors her Tod had had to relinquish?
Was worldliness, thwarted ambition, her sorrow? Then why didn’t she
enjoy the distinctions he poured into her seemingly indifferent hands,
those busy fingers knitting, knitting, paying no attention to the
labels he won? She might have made a splendid circle, herself the
center, if that _was_ the thing she loved. Eduardo had told her once,
in relating the family history, that the instant Tod Marshall had risen
in Claudia Cardenas’ sky, the coquette of Guadalajara had left her old
orbit; she herself, forever a satellite, to this new sun. But that
could not have silenced her vivacity, thrown that burning fire into
her tragic eyes!

“I saw Cor’nel to-day, mother!” Innes caught the opportunity to glance
at her. She had her first intuition. Claudia had flinched! “_Mother?_”

“That’s a character, Miss Innes! Have you talked with him?”

“With him!” echoed Innes. “_To_ him! Will he talk?”

“Ah, we are cousins, brothers!” chuckled her host. And then her
discovery intrigued her; she could hear the words of Tod Marshall; he
was telling anecdotes of the old Indian; faintly, she heard him--“As a
fly to molasses, is Cor’nel to the river;” but her subterranean thought
was with the woman at the head of the table. Childlessness! Of course.
How was it that she had never sensed it before! That her sentence, her
renunciation. And he calls her “mother!”

A phrase of Marshall’s caught her. “A Yuma, Cor’nel? I always thought
him a Cocopah.”

Marshall’s fine head was thrown back in laughter. “Too much work,
Yuma!” He was mimicking the old Indian’s laconic brevities. “Marry
Cocopah. Go live Cocopah. No work, Cocopah!”

Mrs. Marshall, it struck Innes, was hastening the dinner. She overheard
her sending back a course. “It’s too much, Tony!” And as the coffee
was being passed, she could not wait longer to open her work-bag
which she had carried to the table. Her steel needles began to “put
in” the sleeve of an infant sack; white soft worsted, with a scallop
of blue wool. The work did not absorb her attention. Seemingly, she
was engrossed in her Tod. Though her fingers never faltered, her
gaze followed him. Tragically centered it was to Innes Hardin; her
discovery accenting that sad stare which had the persistence of polar
attraction. He was her universe, of apprehension, rather than her
joy. And the girl, watching, found a pitiful thought; he was also her
limitation; her fond sentence. Loving him; fearing for him; having life
and love meet, and end in him!

No definite horizon, in truth, here, save as her husband made, or rose
above it. The world, as related to him only, came to Claudia in her
Tucson hotel, or her box rooms in the _Palmyra_. Her other interest,
the orphanage of Santa Rosalia at Tucson; for whose babies she cut and
sewed and sent an interminable procession of tiny garments.

Priestly counsel had turned her to vicarious motherhood. The priests,
never her Tod, had heard her complaints of her abridged life. The blow
that had sent Tod Marshall to the desert, had forbade her motherhood
She was overflowing with maternal passion. And the doctors and priests
told her that resignation, consecration, life in a minor key, soft
pedal pressed, was the price she must pay for her few happy months
of wifehood. Into her eyes had come the look that Innes had found
tantalizing; the gaze of fervent abridgment.

She had never grown to feel at ease with her husband’s countrywomen;
and they could not understand her gulf of silence. The nearest approach
to a woman friendship was with Innes Hardin, and this, without a bridge
of speech. There had been many terrible hours before the orphans’
call had been heard. Then, those her Tod did not fill, she learned to
crochet into soft baby-smelling jackets for the Santa Rosalia babies.
Some day, perhaps, she might be brave enough to approach Tod with her
plea; perhaps he might let her take one of those helpless darlings.
To do that, she must lay bare her ache to him--not yet had she found
the daring. Until then, the Santa Rosalia Orphanage! Her room at the
Rosales Hotel was lined with work-boxes and knitting bags filled with
tender rainbow wools. Unsewn slips lay in snowy piles waiting for
Tod’s days of absence. They needed her undivided attention; he liked
to see her listening to him. She had learned to crochet with her eyes
shut that she might work without distracting him. The balls of wool
lost their baby fragrance in the fumes of his tobacco; that the one
dissipation she did not protest against. Late hours, excitement, might
abridge the life she so passionately policed; but she would not demand
the sacrifice of his cigar. The babies must have their sacques; so
lavender sticks and sachet bags made a fumigating compromise.

Claudia could not lessen her sorrow by sharing it. Only by a flash of
intuition could Innes have penetrated her secret. Divined, it chained
her sympathy. Her look listening to Tod Marshall, her memory gathered
pitiful evidence of the renunciation. Dull, never to have felt it
before!

Marshall’s cigar followed the coffee. Tony, the white-capped Italian
cook of the _Palmyra_, was removing the cups. Innes was carrying her
double interest, listening to Tod Marshall’s broad sweep, getting a
new view-point as he minimized the local scheme--feeling that silent
presence at the head of the table.

Then something drove Claudia from her mind. What Mr. Marshall had said
swept a disturbing calcium on Tom. What if, truly, the river fiasco
could be traced to that overzealous hand? To Tom, this undertaking
blotted out the rest of related big endeavor; but that was not the
way her host was looking at it. He was too courteous to give her
discomfort; he had not said it directly. But always it met her, rose up
to smite her, wherever she was. “If this is a failure, then it’s hell
to pay at Laguna.” That the reason of the importance of this section;
as it affected other enterprise, as it was related to irrigation in the
lump. Not because it was Tom, who had started it, the general who had
conceived it--Marshall, who with his railroad was carrying it through.
Not for personal reasons; as a block of the great western activity
to fit into its place in the mosaic. More and more disturbing, her
thoughts of Tom!

Can a man change equipment, method, his entire habit of life, in a
five-minute walk from home to office? She had to meet a question of her
host. Yes, she had heard of Minodoka. Yes, it was a big undertaking.
She saw him well started toward the Salt River country before she went
back to meet her fear. Was it not egotism, personal pride, that was
making her cover her eyes, like any simple ostrich? _Her_ brother.
Assume him anybody else’s brother! Grant a man a moment of apparent
distinction given him by a distinguishing enterprise. That moment of
distinction his betrayal, unless the method of the man is big enough to
rise equal to it!

Big issues had never found this man, her host, wanting. He had pulled
opportunity from a denying fate; he had _made_ big issues. It gave her
a strange sinking of the heart as she put him in her brother’s place;
the river then would not be running into a useless sea! Because he had
the trick of success; his big opportunities did not betray him! Ah,
now she had touched the thought. It paled her pride in being a fervid
Hardin. There was a looseness in the method. The dredge fiasco--the
wild night at the levee--no isolated accidents those. Hardin’s luck!

A flush of miserable shame came to her. How they had all been trying
to spare her--Eduardo, these kindly Marshalls--MacLean! She loved Tom
just the same, just as fondly, perhaps more tenderly, even; for the
limitations of his upbringing, his education, he was not to blame!
It did not justify Gerty’s resentments--that was a personal feeling,
a craving for distinction; hers, a wistful shame that Tom, not being
equal to his opportunity, must drag it down with him, cancel forever
that vision! It must not be a failure--it must succeed! She was
turning, impulsively, to ask Tod Marshall if he thought, could he think
it probable that they would fail, when a step that sent the blood to
her face took the car’s stairs at two leaps. Now, indeed, the dinner
was spoiled.

“That’s Rickard,” Marshall came back from Salt River. “I forgot to tell
you that I asked him to dinner. He couldn’t get away. He said he’d run
in for coffee. Hello, Rickard. Thought you’d forgotten us!”

“More coffee, Tony,” ordered Mrs. Marshall, after she had greeted her
guest. “A cup for Mr. Rickard.”

She hadn’t thought of that contingency! She found herself shaking hands
with him. Could he not hear her mind, ticking away at the Maldonado
episode?

Of course, he would insist on seeing her to her tent. Punctilious,
always. Well, she just wouldn’t. She didn’t know how to prevent it, but
she just wouldn’t! Perhaps, she could slip out, some way. She would
watch her chance. She would ask Mrs. Marshall--that was it, ask to be
shown--anything. Then she would slip away. Mrs. Marshall’s needles were
clicking. Her eyes were on her Tod’s face, watching for the first sign
of fatigue. Tony carried in liqueurs. Rickard allowed his glass to be
filled, but Innes noted that he did not touch it. She remembered that
he had not refused it at her sister’s dinner. She was in a mood to carp.

“No spirits, either?” She thought she detected a mockery akin to hers
in Marshall’s tone.

“Can I do what I won’t let my men do, sir?”

“Not smoking yet, I see!”

“I think I’ve learned to dislike it, for myself--” added Rickard. “Can
I talk shop for a while?”

They withdrew to a cushioned window seat. Innes could hear bits of
their talk. Rickard, she gathered, was urging a warm protest against
a policy of his superior. She caught enough scraps to piece together
their opposition. “Reclamation Service,” “Interference,” “A clean
slate--” and then “We’re handicapped enough,” she heard Rickard say,
and then caught a quick glance in her direction.

Marshall’s answer was judicial. Again Innes got the wide view, the
broad sweep. She remembered what Eduardo Estrada had told her of
Rickard’s complications. This was what they were talking of. Marshall
advocated a hospitality to their ideas, if set; “Where it is possible.
‘Be soople, Davy, in things immaterial,’” he twinkled. “Remember your
Stevenson? Government men are a bit stilted, and we rough railroad men
can teach them a point or two, I agree with you, but we’re looking far
ahead, Rickard. And it’s all the same thing, Laguna, Imperial. If it’s
to be the same system, stands to reason they want it done their way,
eh? Can’t see it? Wait till you’re old like me.”

His Claudia looked at him with quick anxiety. He was not old. And
he looked well. Sometimes, she almost believed he _was_ well. That
terrible sword--

Innes had found her chance. She asked to be shown over the car. Mrs.
Marshall put aside her wools and led the way through Tony’s domain,
who would have had them linger. A large diamond blazing on his finger
pointed out ingenious cubby-holes and receptacles. He wanted to tell
the young lady of his wonderful luck; how he had been picked up by
Mr. Marshall--half dead in San Francisco--and brought down to the
Southwest. He had not coughed for a month. He tried to tell her of
his brilliant salary, “one hundred and fifty, Mex.,” but his mistress
abridged his confidences.

“Tony would talk all night,” she explained as she led the way back
through the sitting-room to her sleeping compartment.

Here Innes confided her plan. She wanted to slip out. “She would not
interrupt their evening; Mr. Marshall had business to discuss--”

Mrs. Marshall would not hear of it. She felt that Tod’s evening had
been long enough; that he should be in bed after his long day of
observation on the river. But she said that Mr. Marshall would never
forgive her if she let Miss Hardin go home alone. Her opposition was
softly implacable.

Innes went back to the sitting-room of the car angrily coerced. Rickard
was still closeted, conversationally, with his superior.

She endured a half-hour of crippled conversation. She, herself, was not
easily vocal. She felt that Mrs. Marshall liked her in her own silent
remote way, but they needed Tod Marshall to bridge over the national
gap. Swift fraternization, as between socially equipped women, was not
possible with them. She tried many subjects. There were no points of
contact, she told herself.

At last, desperately, she rose to go. Of course, he must insist upon
going with her. Of course!

“I was going back early, anyway. I’m to be up at dawn to-morrow.”

The good-bys were said. She found herself walking rebelliously by his
side. “No, thank you!” to the offer of his arm.

The night was bright with stars. “Bright as day, isn’t it?” Because her
voice was curt, and she had not used his name, the rising inflection
helped a little! Hateful, to stumble over a rut in the road! Of course,
he’d make her take his arm! Of course!

Rickard grasped her elbow. She walked along, her head high, her cheeks
flaming, anger surging through her at his touch.

Stupid to press this companionship, this awkward silence on her. If he
thought she was going to entertain him, as Gerty did, with her swift
chatter, he’d be surprised! Any other two people would fall into easy
give-and-take, but what could she, Innes Hardin, find to chatter about
with this man stalking along, grimly grasping her arm? Close as they
were, his touch reminding her every minute, between them walked her
brother and her brother’s wife--and there was the Mexican--hateful
memory! Of course, she could not be casual. And she would not force it.
He had brought this about. Let him talk, then!

Oppressive that silence. Then it came to her that she would ask him the
question that his coming had aborted. A glance at his face found him
smiling. He found it amusing? Not for worlds, then, would she speak.
And they stalked along. Unconsciously, she had pulled herself away from
him. He took her hand, and put it in the crotch of his arm. “That’s
better,” he said. She wondered if he were still smiling.

Their path led by his tent. Neither of them noticed a subdued light
through the canvas walls. As they reached the place, a figure darted
from the door.

“Oh, señor, I thought you would never come.” It was the wife of
Maldonado. Her expression was lost on Innes. The face was quivering
with terror.

“Mr. Rickard,” Innes’ words like icicles, “I will leave you here. It is
quite unnecessary to come farther.” Quite unveiled her meaning!

It came so quickly that he was not ready; nor indeed had Gerty’s
innuendos yet reached him. But the situation was uncomfortable. He
turned sharply to the Mexican. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Oh, señor,” she gasped. “It is the worst. The señor said I was not
to go home; and I tried, _Dios mio_, how I tried to obey. But the
children, little Rosita, not yet four? How could I know that that woman
fed them, or combed their hair? I crept in, just to see--and _Dios
mio_!” She covered her face with her hands.

“Come in,” he took her roughly by the arm. She would wake up the camp
with her crying. He put her in a chair. “Now tell your story.” The
woman had got to be a nuisance. He couldn’t have her coming around like
this. He had seen that look in the girl’s eyes--the Mexican’s rocking
grief was theatric. He wouldn’t have her coming around. It didn’t look
right--“Murdered? Who did you say was murdered?”

She lifted a face, frightened into haggardness. “Maldonado and the
girl.”

The night was stripped to the tragedy. “You found them?”

Her face was lifted imploringly to his. “The señor knew best. I should
never have gone. Will they come after me? Will they come and take me?”
Her terror was physical. Her teeth were chattering. She was exhausted
from running. She had stumbled, blindly, the distance between the camp
and her home. “Oh, señor, it was not I. By the Mother of Christ, it was
not I.”

Rickard was not sure. Her fear made him suspect her. “Who was it, you
think?”

“Felipe,” she gasped.

“But they took him to Ensenada, you said;” Rickard was inclined to
think the murderer was before him.

“No, señor. He got away from the rurales--he came back. He went
home--there was no one there. Some one told him where she had gone.
He came to Maldonado’s. Lucrezia, the eldest, opened the gate. He was
terrible, she said. He rushed past her. And when he came out, his hands
were red. The children heard cries. They were afraid to go in. I got
there last night. I went in. They were not quite cold--I was afraid to
stay. It would look like me, señor. I made the children stay behind.
They could not run so fast.”

“How do you know it was Felipe?” sternly asked Rickard.

“A long scar, señor, from here to here,” she motioned from lip to ear.
“Lucrezia had seen him. Will they take me, señor?” She was a wreck of
terror.

“Not if what you tell me is true. Now, get to bed. I’ll give you
something that will make you sleep.”

“But the children?”

“Nothing can be done to-night. Drink this.” He was not sure yet that
she was telling him the truth. “I’ll send MacLean down in the morning.”
He hustled her out of the tent.

He wondered as he got into bed as to the truth of her story.
Disgusting, such animal terror! Awkward hole, that. Fate seemed
possessed to queer him with those Hardins!




CHAPTER XXXIII

A DISCOVERY


THE murder of Maldonado shook the camp next morning. The wife had run
from Rickard’s tent to Mrs. Dowker, who had put the hysterical creature
to bed. All night, she babbled of her horror. There had been no sleep
at the Dowkers’; the boy woke up shrieking with fright at the strange
sobbing. Dowker spoke of it at the mess-tent at breakfast; an hour
later, Rickard met the story there. He wondered if it had yet reached
Hardin’s sister. He decided to send MacLean down to the house of the
oleander to get at the facts.

He was rushing MacLean through the morning’s dictation, when three
rurales, in brilliant trappings, rode up to his ramada. They looked
like stage-soldiers, small and pompous in their spectacular uniforms
and gold-laced hats. The leader, entering the office, announced that
they were on the track of a criminal, the murderer of a rurale,
Maldonado. The crime had occurred two nights ago, down the river. The
señor knew the place. There was a famous oleander--

“Do you know who it was?” Rickard felt sure of the answer. He himself
thought that the murderer lay sleeping in Mrs. Dowker’s tent.

The spokesman of the party, of fierce mustaches, and glittering
bullion, surprised him. “An Indian, named Felipe.” He repeated the
story Rickard had heard before. Felipe had escaped his guards, the
companions of the speaker. They had followed him, tracked him to
his home; then, conclusively on to the adobe of the oleander where
Maldonado and the woman were found--butchered. It was quite clear. He
had left a stupid trail behind him of noisy threats, revenge--

“Maldonado’s girl herself opened the door for him; she saw him run out.
Oh, he will be shot for this. Maldonado was a good officer.”

Rickard did not feel called upon to question the adjective. The evil
place would be closed; the commandant would see to that. He asked about
the dead man’s children, if they were still at the adobe--

“An Indian woman, their only neighbor, is with them. They will be cared
for. Would the señor give his respected permission for notices to be
posted about the camp? A description of the Indian, a reward for his
capture; the favor would be inestimable.”

Rickard took the placard, written in fairly correct English and
Spanish. The government of Mexico was calling its people to capture
“One Felipe, Indian, belonging to the tribe of Cocopahs. His skin dark
to blackness, with high cheek-bones, and an old fading scar, bluish,
which runs from mouth to ear. Five feet, eight inches tall, with black
hair reaching below his shoulders. One hundred dollars reward for his
arrest, or apprehension. When last seen, he was wearing blue cotton
trousers, a faded cotton shirt. The fugitive speaks Spanish, a little
broken English and several Indian dialects.”

The two solemn rurales stood at attention as the resplendant officer
repeated his convictions.

“He is somewhere in the river-bed, otherwise we would have found him.
The thick undergrowth shelters him, señor. He is skulking somewhere
between Hamlin’s and Maldonado’s. He has had a start of twenty-four
to thirty-six hours, maybe more, but then--our horses, señor! If we
may be allowed to post these notices, we will then push up to Hamlin’s
Crossing. A posse is scouring the country around Maldonado’s. He will
not escape.”

Rickard gave the card back to the pompous little officer whose sword
and spurs clanked as he bowed over it. He thanked the señor eternally
for his attention and courtesy. He saluted again, wheeled, marching out
of the ramada, with his stage-soldiers.

Rickard saw the notice later that day. It was nailed to the back
platform of the _Palmyra_. He was on Marshall’s trail, his chief having
failed to keep an appointment with him. They were to test the gate that
afternoon; Marshall was returning soon to Tucson.

Rickard found Claudia in the darkened car reading a note from her
husband. With a rising inflection that did not escape him, she told her
visitor that her husband had been called to Yuma on business.

“Oh, that’s so,” cooperated Rickard, concealing his amusement at
Marshall’s truancy. “I’d forgotten about that business.” Claudia
Marshall had reason for her anxiety. But not for wifely worry would he
mention that forgotten appointment at the river!

“He may be kept late, he says.” Rickard was conscious that she was
watching his face. “He says not to wait up. _That_ means late hours.
Oh, Tod ought not! Every time, his cough comes back--” He had caught
her off guard. Her fears were a crucifixion.

In Tucson, Rickard had heard a dwarfing version of over-solicitude.
Since he had been with them at the river, the thing smacked to him
of tragedy. He had seen the gentle rogue slip that wistful bridle
before. Her eyes, to him, looked robbed. Why should she not grudge
each unnatural night, insist on life at her terms instead of the
full-blooded recklessness of his?

He left the car musing on marital ironies. Daring adventure to throw
together a team of unmatched natures, gambling on exteriors--as teams
are chosen. Without a driver, he followed his thought whimsically, what
team left so to itself would not smash its harness? Terrible plunge,
that! What can two people, neighbors even, know of congeniality, that
mutual delight which must survive the nagging friction of every-day
life? Harder for a man to know the nature of the woman he picks
out, than for the girl. She has his work as a guide; she can guess
at temperament and taste. What guide has a man in the choice of the
home-bred girl, the only sort he himself could imagine being willing
to pin his faith to? Modern life, the home, shelters the woman; she
has no profession to betray her taste or disposition. In a place like
this, it’s different. Camp life shows up the real man or woman. A good
preliminary course, that, in matrimony, love-sick couples, made to work
out a probation in a rough camp, the woman to cook, the man to hunt
for grub and fire-wood! Fewer marriages, perhaps, but then not so many
divorces.

A group of Indian children were playing under a clump of willows,
directing a mimic stream through a canal of their own making. Even
the children were playing the river game! He stopped to watch their
mimicry. A pool of deserted water lay caught in a depression. The
little brown hands had raised a labored levee, had scooped out the
return canal.

“Hold on,” cried Rickard. An engineering problem had stopped their
game. The stream, returning, threatened to overwhelm their breastworks.
“Do it this way.” The miniature of a stolid bronze buck looked up
uncomprehendingly. Rickard tried Spanish. The children shook their
heads. He got down on his knees, and in a few minutes straightened
out the rebellious river. Many a year since he had played with kids!
The little faces looking up at him, the confidence, stirred quiescent
longings. He was no longer what one would call a young man. He was
living so hurriedly that he was allowing life in its great, sweet
solemn meaning to pass him by. It was always _mañana_ with him, or
_pasada mañana_. And he was getting along!

Stretching the kinks in his legs, he continued his walk. He would
take a look at the levee while he was there. The youngsters’ problem
recurred to him. He had had a new thought back there. He pulled a
note-book from his pocket, scrawling as he went. An idea pulled him
stock-still. Why not, he asked himself with some excitement? Custom
says _borrow-pits on the outside_. What was the origin of that custom?

“Is not our problem different?” he demanded. “A dike is placed usually
to protect immediately usable land. Not so, here. Well, then, why?” The
borrow-pit must be a menace on the stream side, must expose fallible
softness to floods--queer he hadn’t thought of that before. He must
think that well over before he made a change, but it certainly did look
reasonable to him.

He hailed Parrish, down the levee a distance. Parrish was the foreman
of that section of levee, in charge of a big gang of Indians and
hoboes. He came up running.

“Go slowly here,” advised his chief. “I may change the orders. Going to
open up muck-ditches this afternoon?”

Parrish thought that they might, late.

“Wait to see me. Come up to camp this evening. I’ll go over it by
myself first. I’ll talk it over with you.”

Parrish asked hesitatingly would the next night do as well? He had
promised Mrs. Parrish to go to Yuma to fetch some medicines she needed.
She wasn’t well, but if it was pressing--

“Surely, go,” agreed Rickard. “But you will be passing the camp. Lay
off early to-night, and start in time to have a talk with me before
going to Yuma. Here, this is what I’m figuring on.” He wanted to try it
on the practical mind, unbiased by conventions. He drew his idea again,
elaborating the suggestion of inside borrow-pits.

“I don’t see why it isn’t right,” frowned Parrish, whose ideas grew
slowly.

“I believe it _is_ right. But I’ll go over it carefully at the office.
Drop in early. I’ll give you your orders for to-morrow.”

Rickard turned back toward camp, deep in his thought; so intent that a
sharp cry had lost its echo before the import came to him. He stopped,
hearing running steps behind him. Innes Hardin was loping up the bank
like a young deer, with terror in her eyes.

“Mr. Rickard,” she cried, “Mr. Rickard!”

She was trembling. Her fright had flushed her; cheek to brow was
glowing with startled blood. He saw an odd flash of startling beauty,
the veil of tan torn off by her emotion. The wave of her terror caught
him. He put out his hand to steady her. She stood recovering herself,
regaining her spent breath. Rickard remembered that this was the first
time he had seen her since the murder of Maldonado, since the meeting
with the Mexican woman at his tent. “What was it frightened you?”

“The Indian, the murderer. Just as they describe him on those notices,
the high cheek-bones, the scar, a terrible gaunt face. I must have
fallen asleep. I’d been reading. I heard a noise in the brush, and
there was his face staring at me. Foolish how frightened I was.” Her
breath was still uneven. “I screamed and ran. Silly to be so scared.”

He started toward the willows, but she grabbed his sleeve. “Oh, don’t.”
She flushed, thinking to meet the quizzical smile, but his eyes were
grave. He, too, had had his fright. They stood staring at each other.
“I’m afraid--” she completed. How he would despise her cowardice! But
she could not let him know that her fear had been for him!

He was looking at her. Suppose anything had happened to her! He had a
minute of nausea. If that brute had hurt her--and then he knew how it
was with him!

He looked at her gravely. Of course. He had known it a long time. It
was true. She was going to belong to him. If that brute had hurt her!

She shrank under his gravity; this was something she did not
understand. They were silent, walking toward the encampment. Rickard
did not care to talk. It was not the time; and he had been badly
shaken. Innes was tremulously conscious of the palpitating silence. She
fluttered toward giddy speech. Her walk that day, Mr. Rickard! She had
heard that water had started to flow down the old river-bed; she had
wanted to see it, and there was no one to go with her. Her sentence
broke off. The look he had turned on her was so dominant, so tender.
Amused at her giddiness, and yet loving her! Loving her! They were
silent again.

“You won’t go off alone, again.” He had not asked it, at parting. His
inflection demanding it of her, was of ownership. She did not meet his
eyes.

Later, when she was lying on her bed, face downward, routed, she tried
to analyze that possessive challenge of his gaze, but it eluded words.
She summoned her pride, but the meaning called her, sense and mind and
soul of her. It cried to her: “I, Casey Rickard, whom your brother
hates, once the lover of Gerty Holmes, I am the mate for you. And I’m
going to come and take you some day. Some day, when I have time!”

Oh, yes, she was angry with him; she had some pride. “Why didn’t he
tell me then?” she cried in a warm tumult to her pillow. “For I would
have given him his answer. I had time, ample time, to tell him that
it was not true.” For she wanted a different sort of lover, not a
second-hand discard; but one who belonged all to herself; one who
would woo, not take her with that strange sure look of his. “You’ll be
waiting when I come.” Ah, she would not, indeed! She would show him!

And then she lay quite still with her hand over her heart. She _would_
be waiting when he came for her! Because, though life had brought them
together so roughly, so tactlessly had muddled things, yet she knew.
She would be waiting for him!

Before he had left her, Rickard had followed a swift impulse. Those
bronze lamps averted still? Was she remembering--last night? No
mistake like that should rest between them. He must set that straight.
That much he allowed himself. Until his work was done. But she
knew--she had seen--how it was with him!

“I wonder if you would help me, Miss Hardin? Would you do something
for that poor crazed woman? I wanted to ask Mrs. Hardin, but for some
reason I’ve got into her black books. The Mexican needs help,--she ran
away from her children, she thought the suspicion would fall on her--I
suppose we must not blame her for cowardice. Just the little kindness
one woman can give another. A man finds it difficult. And these Mexican
women don’t understand a man’s friendship.”

Her eyes met his squarely. His tantalizing smile had gone. He was
making a demand of her--to believe him, his request his defense. The
glances, of yellow eyes and gray, met with a shock, and the world was
changed for both. Life, with its many glad voices, was calling to
senses and spirit, the girl’s still rebellious, the man’s sure.

It was the serene hour of the day. The work of the day was done, save
Ling’s and the river shifts’. The wonderful slow evening of the desert
was unfolding. Beyond, the distant deep-shadowed mountains, which shut
them out from the world, made a jagged rent across the sky.

Rickard pulled himself free from the solemnity of that moment. They
were to be friends--first! He sought her eyes. Good! They were not to
be enemies any more!

He put out his hand. “Good night!” To both, it carried the sound of “I
love you!” She put her hand in his, then tore her fingers away, furious
with them for clinging. Where was her pride? When he had time!

She fled into her tent, his look from which all laughter had faded,
following her.

Neither of them had seen Gerty Hardin watching them from her tent door.




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE FACE IN THE WILLOWS


THAT evening, in her tent by the river-bed, Mrs. Parrish thought that
she heard a noise outside. She had been lying down, a wet cloth pressed
over her eyes which would twitch in spite of desperate effort. She had
sent Sam to Yuma for ammonia and headache powders, and for valerian;
the last for her nerves.

It was only the wind rustling the river willows, but it startled her
every time. She wished that she had not let him go. The headache, the
twitching, was easier to stand than loneliness. She kept her nerves
on edge listening for noises. That noise again! Some one was surely
prowling about the tent. She raised her head, straining her ears. There
was no sound without. She was unstrung. All that excitement about the
murder of Maldonado had made her scary. There, what was that?

She tore the wet rag from her eyes and jumped up. A face haggard and
wild was staring at her through the screen-wire door. The twilight was
lingering; the long warm dusk of the desert. She could see that it was
an Indian, and her blood froze; for a purple scar twisted his face.

She had seen the rurales nail a notice on the tool house down the
river that very morning. She had braved the fierce noon sun to read
it. The description was burned in red letters on her memory. “High
cheek-bones, long streaming hair. Faded cotton shirt, a scar from mouth
to ear!”

“Bread,” the voice grated on her. “_Dame el pan_, señora. Love of Gord,
bread, señora. _Pi_-why. _La-hum-pah._”

Her flesh chilling, she was backing cautiously toward the table. He
must not guess what she was seeking.

She found it difficult to enunciate. Her tongue was thick. “You
understand camp? Indian Camp?” He shook his head. She was still
backing, retreating toward her revolver. “Camp,” she insisted. “Indians
have bread, mucho. Go there. Get bread, mucho, there.”

“Bread,” he pleaded. “Bread, señora. _Hambreando!_”

Starving! She knew what that meant. Then he was dangerous. To save
herself, she would give him bread, but she was afraid to open the door.
Every Indian tragedy she had ever read shook her then with terror. She
was groping blindly, her hand behind her, over the crowded surface
of the table. She struck against the cold steel butt of the gun. Her
fingers curled around it.

“Go away,” she repeated. “Man come pretty soon.” He would know what
that meant. She lifted her revolver, and the face left the door.

She dared not now have a light. Her heart was bursting. If it would not
pound so! She must quiet it, so she could breathe, so she could shoot.
How could she be calm? She was thinking of the things the Indians do to
people, to people who have not harmed them; of scalping, of tortures.
Sam said these Indians were gentle; but he had said her tent would not
blow down. He would not deceive her. He did not know. This man had
killed two innocent people. Perhaps they had refused to give him bread.

How badly Sam would feel that he had left her; things always happened
when he was away. But she had urged him; she could not stand the pain
another night. The night! It stretched before her, a long torture of
fear.

She caught a sound at the rear of the tent. That light screen door,
held only by a thin hook! Any child could break that down. Why had she
let Sam go? He was scarcely on his way. Two hours to get there, if he
was lucky and his horse not too tired. An hour to rouse the drug clerk,
and get the drugs--two hours back. God! she would go mad!

She strained her ears to listen, the silence of the desert falling like
lead on her ear-drum. There was that stealthy step again, moving around
the tent! She would have to do something. She must give him bread if he
was starving. Hunger makes men desperate. He had been in hiding for two
days, she had heard the rurales tell Sam. Perhaps he had eaten nothing
since that time--she shivered at the picture she conjured of the dead
man and woman. She wondered why he had killed them? Just because he was
starving, because they refused to give him bread? She wondered if he
had tortured them, scalped them? When he came into her vision again,
well in front of the tent, she would hurl a loaf out the back door, and
hook it before he could get back there. Perhaps he would go away, if
she gave him something to eat.

The voice came whining through her door again.

“Bread, señora, bread, señora!”

Her gun in one hand, firmly clenched, she groped in a starch box with
her left for the bread. Then, swift as a shot, she opened the rear door
and threw the soggy loaf of her own making into the gathering shadows.

“There, bread!” she cried. She heard the sound of running steps. Then
fell a silence that pounded at her ears. She stood it as long as she
could. She had to see if he had gone; what was he doing? She peered
through the front screen door. On the ground, close by, sat the Indian,
tearing his loaf, gnawing it like a beast, looking the beast, his eyes
wild and menacing.

She shivered. “Go away,” she said, pointing to the river-growth with
her revolver. “Man come back; soon!”

He grabbed up his loaf to his cotton shirt, and ran toward the
river-bank, a dark clump of willows receiving him. Even then she was
afraid to leave the door. He might come back. She stood there, her eyes
fixed on that clump of willows which had swallowed him, as the desert
stars came pricking through the soft drop-curtain of the sky. Her eyes
had to strain through the uncertain light, pale starshine and vague
twilight. She could barely make out the outlines of the shrubs.

Once she thought he was returning; there was a movement in the willows
as a breeze waved the supple branches. Her finger sought the trigger.
Cold they were, and stiff. Suppose she could not press it? Perhaps she
could not shoot! Her legs, too, were numb from standing. She wanted a
chair, but her eyes must not leave for one second that dark spot of
bank. She remembered a pine box she used for a supplementary table.
If she could but reach that! Her unoccupied hand groped through the
darkness. Then she tried her foot. A sharp broken scream burst from
her. She shook,--with fear, but of course he could not have crept in!
She would have heard him break the door. Foolish, to be so nervous.
That was only the box she had felt, the box with a woolen cloth over
it, the green and yellow portière from Coulter’s, Chicago. Was it
Coulter’s? Where _was Coulter’s_? How her head pounded!

She must not let herself go like that. She must control herself. She
had a long night ahead of her.

For an instant, as she relaxed her stiffened muscles toward the pine
box, her sharp gaze wavered from the dark spot on the river-bank. She
pulled herself together sharply; she must not let him surprise her,
steal on her. She must be on guard. Her finger found the trigger again.
Why had she sent Sam? Oh, why had she ever let him leave her?

The stars were coming out in numbers now. Increasingly, their lamps
fell on the cleared space between the tent and the dark river-line. A
broad band of star-washed sand lay between her and the skulking figure
in the brush, the Indian who had murdered Maldonado. She would see him
the instant he stepped out on that belt of light. If she kept her eyes
fixed--they must not stray. Before he could reach her, she would shoot.
She would have no scruples. He had had none for that man and woman down
yonder. She wondered if they were young, if it was for bread he had
killed them.

Why was she alone? She couldn’t remember. It made her head hurt to
think. She was always alone in this desert. Why had she made Sam bring
her to such a place, when he wanted to stay home with the folks and
the doctor? Why had they come? Oh, yes, she remembered. Their tent had
blown down, their Nebraska tent. Funny to see it come down, the dishes
all smashing. What a noise they made. It made her laugh to think of
it. How it made her laugh! Ssh. She must not laugh. He would hear her
over there. He would come creeping back, to leer at her.

What was that smell? Rice, burning rice and scorched codfish. She
always let rice burn. She could never remember to control that blue
flame, no, it was a yellow flame, long fingers of yellow fire, like the
rays of the sun in the desert. Or was it Nebraska? What a smell that
was! And she could not leave the door, nor take her eyes from the clump
of willows because the company’s automobile would be coming upon her,
and she with her purple waist on.

What was she thinking of? Nothing was burning. That had happened long
ago, before the scorpion frightened her, before the tent blew down back
in Nebraska. She couldn’t think straight, she was getting sleepy. She
must shake it off. Until Sam came back from the levee with the bottles
of rice. She knew what those Indians did to people, hungry Indians.
They cut off your scalp. Her hairpins might save her, wire hairpins.

The Wistaria. What made her think of that? That was where the good
doctor lived who knew what was the matter with her. No--that was
Nebraska. But there were no tents in Nebraska. Her head hurt. She
wished he would come, or Sam.

There, a movement in the brush. She must be all ready to shoot. Suppose
she could not pull the trigger? Her fingers were like bits of steel.
Sam would come home and find her lying there, her scalp gone. How funny
she would look. Ssh, she must not laugh. The Indian did not like it. He
killed anybody who laughed. Sam had told her so. From his hiding-place,
she could see the Indian shake his finger at her. No, it was a willow
branch.--She must be calm!

Sam would be sorry that he had had a headache. It must have been a bad
headache, or he would not have left her. He had to get that codfish for
his head. No, it was rice; burning rice.

Her eyes burned. If the willows moved, could she see them? She wondered
if she should blink to rest those burning balls, would he see it and
rush at her, break down that door, barred with a wire hairpin?

She had been sitting there for years. Sam was never coming back. Her
gun lay on her knees; her finger touched the trigger. Oh, she could not
keep awake any longer. She was slipping, slipping off to--somewhere.
The Wistaria. She would bite her lip. That would pull her back. But she
could not find her lip. It was running away from her.

There was a stealthy creeping sound outside the tent. She could not see
anything. But her eyes pained so. Perhaps he was creeping. A shadow
fell between her and the stars. A cautious hand tried the latch.

She fell to low shaking laughter. Funny, he thought he could get in! He
didn’t know the door was barred--an Indian fooled by a wire hairpin! He
could never get in. He would hear her laughing. It would make him angry.

“Lizzie!”

The laughter stopped. He knew her name. He was trying to trick her, to
make his voice sound like Sam’s.

Her voice was thick with strangled laughter. “Can’t come in. Can’t get
in. Barred, hairpin.”

“Lizzie!”

“Say, ‘señora.’ Go away. Man come back.”

“Lizzie!” There was an impact of determined muscle against wood, the
door-jamb splintering. A stifled scream rose toward the desert stars.
The door fell in. A different sound split the air; another cry in
a deeper key, and a man’s body fell across her knees. Some bottles
crashed to the floor. There was a swift odor of spilled ammonia, of
valerian.

Something was burning again! Rice. Burning on her knees. She couldn’t
shake it off. Why didn’t some one come and take off this dead Indian?
He hadn’t got her scalp. It made her laugh--hush, she must call. She
fell to screaming; low terrible cries, thick and muffled, coming
through her twitching and twisted mouth.

She was sitting there the next morning when they found her, the body of
Sam Parrish shot to the heart, lying at her feet. Her empty gun lay on
her knees; her finger at the trigger. Her eyes stared into the willows.
They thought her dead until they touched her. Then she screamed!

They carried her out of the valley the next day, still screaming.




CHAPTER XXXV

A GLIMPSE OF FREEDOM


THE siding was deserted. The _Palmyra_ had run out to Tucson, carrying
Marshall and Claudia with her tender-hued, baby-smelling wools. Of that
little party, Tony made perhaps the larger gap, Tony with his diamond
blazing on his finger, his “holdouts,” left-overs from the Marshall
table, and his case of smuggled triple X whisky. The young fellows
encouraged his stories of old San Francisco, of Bliss and his yellow
tips, of wonderful dinners, of the Bush Street Theater when McCullough
and Barrett were there. Ah, those the only days! A forefinger would
flank Tony’s wicked eye.

Marshall had gone without apprehension. They did not expect now to have
setbacks, to have to extend the time set for the ultimate diversion.
The days were flowing like oil.

The encampment was filling up with visitors, newspaper men who came to
report the spectacular capture of the river. Gerty was finding some
opportunities for her chafing-dish and lingerie gowns, but the fish
felt small to her net. The attention she received assuaged little of
her pride. “At any rate, Rickard will see it.” On the _Delta_, for
the young engineers were relaxing again toward hospitality, she was a
belle. Every afternoon, she served tea to a small court.

Brandon came down, sent by the _Sun_, his old paper. Rickard had the
newcomer’s tent pitched next his own. He was anticipating snatches of
intimacy with this cosmopolitan, whose sweetness he felt sure was the
ripe result of some deep experience. His few hours in the Imperial tent
had discovered to him a rare brain. He was keen to see more of him.

The day after his arrival, Brandon sent a telegram to his wife. He told
Rickard about it afterward.

“I suppose I should have asked you first,” he admitted. “I may have
taken a liberty!”

“I think you couldn’t do that,” smiled Rickard. “This camp is yours,
señor!”

“Impulse does not often carry me away.” The trim-cut, dog-like face of
the irrigationist frowned. “I should have asked you. But seeing other
women here gave me the idea, I suppose. I telegraphed for Mrs. Brandon
to join me here.”

Deliberately Rickard controlled the muscles of his face. Every one else
knew what he thought about women in camp. He hoped that he would not be
quoted to Brandon.

“It is a little different, I think, from ordinary cases,” Brandon was
working up a justification. “Mrs. Brandon is a writer of fiction, of
some note. You have run across her books, her pen name--George Verne.”

Rickard’s face held back the surprise of it. A smile suffused his
mind. Brandon, the classicist, the _Sun’s_ pet man, a specialist
on irrigation, related by marriage to _The Cowboy’s Bride_! He
acknowledged that he knew her by name, had seen her books. He had been
in remote places, where English matter is scarce, and had often found
George Verne usurping the shelves.

“I should think she would find this an opportunity,” he agreed. He had
caught a hint of returning fires in the calm gray eyes.

The thin lips were pursed musingly. “But it is pretty hard for her to
leave New York. Her publishers keep her pretty busy.”

Rickard’s silence was not inactive. He was thinking of the diverted
lives; of Brandon living out his banishment in a western desert tent;
George Verne weaving her stories hundreds of miles away in a New York
apartment-house.

“The separation is hard on both of us.” The man was revealing his
renunciations in this instant of homesickness; his guards were down.
“When my trouble came, I had hoped that her work might make it
possible for her to come out with me, at least half her time, that
she might gather material. But they crowd her with orders; she works
right through the hot summers; I don’t remember when she has taken a
vacation. I run out once in a while to try to stop her, to make her
play a little. But my cough comes back; she has the habit of grind
by this time. I’m hoping this will appeal to her as a chance; it’s a
tremendous setting, this!”

He chatted about valley happenings for a few minutes before leaving.

“Anything I can do for you?” inquired Rickard.

“Thank you, no. I’m off now to the Crossing to see Marshall’s gate. And
I want to see Matt Hamlin. He was my host once, years ago.”

Rickard’s mail that morning included a letter from his chief at Tucson.
Marshall delivered a peremptory mandate from Faraday. The borrow-pits
and muck-ditches were to be constructed according to precedent. The
stream-side excavating was to be continued. Marshall added that this
order admitted no argument.

Rickard, fuming helplessly, read the letter to MacLean, Jr. “Everybody
sticking his precious fingers in the pie. Tying me up with orders.
What does Faraday know about it, I’d like to know?” MacLean observed a
Hardin inflection.

The mail had brought other exasperations. A classmate he had been
wiring for, an engineer specialist on hydraulics, was ill. There was
another letter from Marshall, with enclosures. More complaints from
Chicago. Rickard declared he could “smell” Washington.

Irish brought the news of the Parrish horror. The opened vein of
tragedy stained the day. The double tragedy, the three sharp deaths
sobered the camp, preparing for its coup.

“War!” summed up Rickard. “Our army marches over dead bodies.”

The day badly begun, piled up with vexations. By evening, Rickard’s
temper, slow to rouse, was on the rampage. His men got out of his way.
The river flotsam was piling up against the gate and making a kink in
the trestle. There was a nasty bend. Rickard spent his afternoon on
the by-pass, jumping from boats to rafts, directing the pile-drivers,
driving the stolid bucks. By sundown, he was wet to the skin, and mad,
he told MacLean, Jr., as a sick Arizona cat.

In this jaundiced juncture, MacLean, Jr., brought down his despatches
to the river.

“Anything important?” cried Casey from the raft. “Read them to me. I
can hear.”

MacLean read of the burning of a trainload of railroad ties in a nasty
wreck on the way to the break; just out of Galveston. To purge his
mood, Rickard swore.

“If that isn’t the darndest.” He had “luck” on his tongue. His mood
had been paralleling, disagreeably to his consciousness, Tom Hardin’s
manner. He withheld the word.

“Anything else pleasant?”

“A letter from the governor--from dad. Nothing important.” MacLean had
that instant decided to leave that letter on the desk where Rickard
might find it by himself.

“Fire away,” cried Rickard, stretching the cramp from his shoulders.

Uncomfortably, MacLean cleared his throat before he read that his
father begged a small favor of Rickard. “Godfrey, the celebrated
English tenor, is on my hands. His doctors have been advising outdoor
occupation. I am sending him to you, asking you to give him any job you
may have. He is willing to do anything. Put him at something to keep
him occupied.”

MacLean saw Rickard’s face turn red. “Suffering cats! A worn-out
opera-singer! What sort of an opera does he think we’re giving down
here? Why doesn’t he send me a fur coat, or a pair of girl twins? Give
the tenor a rôle! Anything else? Pile it all on.”

“That’s all.” MacLean was turning away. Then, as an afterthought, he
threw over his shoulder, “Oh, and one from Godfrey himself. He’s in
Los Angeles. He says he’ll be here to-morrow.” He did not wait for his
chief’s reply.

At the supper-table, Rickard, dry and in restored humor, alluded to the
invasion of high notes. “Pity the parts are all assigned! He might
have done the ‘Toreador,’ or ‘Canio.’ The only vacancy--” he could
safely gibe at his own complications, for the Hardins were dining on
the _Delta_ that evening, “is in the kitchen. I wonder how he would
like to be understudy to Ling!”

The next day when the incident had been forgotten, and while Rickard
was up at the Crossing on the concrete gate, Godfrey blew into camp.
He was like a boy out on a lark. His brown eyes were dancing over the
adventure.

“He’s certainly not sick,” thought MacLean, Jr. “Must be his throat.”
He was a little piqued over Rickard’s sarcasm. What in creation was his
father thinking about, anyway?

Godfrey asked to be turned loose. “I won’t be in any one’s way!” He
explored the Heading, covered the by-pass in a river boat, went a way
down the river, down the old channel through which considerable water
was now flowing, made the trip down the levee work, on horseback, and
came back bubbling.

“It’s the biggest thing I ever saw. But say, Junior, that’s what they
call you, isn’t it? I’m the only idle man here. Can’t you give me
something to do?”

MacLean was not sure but that the suggestion of Rickard’s had been a
jest. He felt abashed to repeat it. “I’ll do anything,” twinkled the
handsome tenor. “I’d like the boss to find me busy when he comes in.”

MacLean softened the offer. Perhaps until Mr. Godfrey learned the
ropes he could be of general use. They were short-handed the present
moment--there was another hesitation--in the kitchen! Ling, the Chinese
cook, was overcrowded--so many visitors--

“Great,” crowed Godfrey, slapping him on the shoulder. “I don’t want
to feel in the way. I want to earn my board. And it’s not bad to keep
on the right side of the cook. No one can beat me beating eggs.”

His spirits were infectious. “Not many eggs in this camp!” grinned
MacLean.

“Lead me to the cook!” declaimed the newcomer. “Chin chin Chinaman!”
he sang at a daring pitch. “Chin chin Chinaman, chop, chop, chop!” His
voice had the world-adored quality, the vibrant stirring thrill which
is never tremolo.

“He’ll do,” thought the youth. He foresaw concerts on the deck of the
_Delta_.

That evening, the dinner was helped on its way by the best paid singer
of England. In an apron, borrowed of Ling, he was “having the time
of his life.” Ling, pretending to scold, had been won immediately.
Rickard, hearing of the jolly advent, forgot his vexation, and
immediately on his return made his way to the mesquit enclosure--to
greet the friend of George MacLean.

It was a comic opera already to Godfrey. He had won over Ling by doing
all of the tedious jobs. Had peeled the potatoes, opened the cans of
tomatoes, washed the rice and scoured the pans. As Rickard, obscured by
the mesquit hedge, reached the enclosure, the newcomer was entering by
the riverside.

“Hi, there, you,” cried Ling. “Where you put my potato skins? Save
potato skins. Me plant skins by liver, laise plenty potatoes--bimeby.”

Godfrey laughed uproariously. He pounced on a red slab of bacon rind
and was making for the outside, Rickard vastly entertained.

“Hi, there,” yelled Ling. “Hi, stop. No thlow bacon away. Save bacon.
Me make hot cakes, grease pan.”

“Not on your life,” Godfrey swept the irate Ling and the entering
stranger in khaki a deep theatric bow. “Ling no get bacon. Me plant
bacon by river. Me raise hogs!”

Thus met Rickard and the tenor, who captured the camp that night
with his singing. After dinner, MacLean carried off his prize to the
_Delta_, where Godfrey earned his welcome. In a dark corner, Brandon
was feeling the edge of his disappointment. George Verne was blocking
out a new book, so she had wired. She was too busy to come. Gerty
Hardin forgot to flirt with the engineers; she had discovered a new
sensation. The wonderful voice twisted her heart-strings; it told her
that the heart that has truly loved never forgets, and she knew that
she could never have really loved, yet, because the youth in her veins
was whispering to her that she could still forget. Godfrey saw a mobile
plaintive face turned up to the gibbous moon; he swept it with thrills
and flushes. She was a wonderful audience; she was also his orchestra,
the woman with the plaintive eyes. He played on her expressions as
though she were a harp.

Later, he was presented to Mrs. Hardin. She told him that the camp
would no longer be dull; that she had tea every afternoon in her
ramada. She convicted him archly of British-hood. “She knew he must
have his tea!”

“You American women are the wonders of the world! Nothing daunts you.
In the desert, and you give afternoon teas. I’ll be there every day!”

He gave her open admiration; she looked young and wistful in her soft
flowing mulls, the moonlight helping her. She fell into a delicious
flurry of nerves and excitement. Later, she wandered with him from a
rude gaping world into a heaven of silvered decks and gleaming waters.
He told her of himself, of his loneliness; his music had dropped him to
self-pity.

Gerty Hardin heard her bars drop behind her. She snatched her first
glimpse of freedom.




CHAPTER XXXVI

THE DRAGON SCORES


THE _Palmyra_ was once again on its siding. Marshall was at the Front
again; having made another of his swift dashes from Tucson. This time
he expected officially to close the gate. Claudia was with him. She
never left the car, unless it were to step out to the platform to see
what she could from there of the river work, immediately returning to
her wool work in the shaded compartment.

Hardin and Rickard had been devoting anxious weeks. A heavy rainfall
and cloudburst in the mountains of northern Arizona had swollen the
feeders of the Gila River which roared down to the Colorado above Yuma.
The eroding streams carried mountains in solution which settled against
the gate, a scour starting above and below it. Relief had to be given
on the jump. A spur-track was rushed across the by-pass above the
gate, as the closing of the ill-fated gate with the flash-boards was
no longer possible. A rock-fill was the only means of closure. In the
distant quarries men were digging out rock to fill the call from the
river.

Marshall came down to see the completed spur. Before he reached the
intake, the first rock train had moved on to the spur-track. The
trestle had settled, the train thrown from the rails and wrecked.

“That’s not the way I planned to dump that rock!” was Rickard’s
comment. “Now, we’ll have to stop and straighten out that trestle.”

“If we’d had those rock-aprons, this’d never have happened,” stormed
Hardin, who was standing on the bank when the trestle gave way.

They were already repairing that disaster when the _Palmyra_ was
cradled on its siding. Marshall from one platform, Tony, white-capped
from the rear, started out for the river. Claudia settled herself for a
quiet morning.

When Innes Hardin came in later, she felt that she was interrupting a
fierce orgy. But Mrs. Marshall would not let her go. “I can knit just
as fast when I talk.”

The shades were all pulled down. To Innes’ protest, her hostess
declared that “she could see with her fingers.” Innes had never asked
the destiny of the little knitted jackets; earlier in the acquaintance
she had surmised a pressing haste for some sister, or niece; a tender
date. She had seen several downy sacques completed; but still those
black needles clicked.

Later, Marshall came in from the damaged trestle, bringing Rickard and
Crothers. The chief was in buoyant spirits, as though the accident had
played to his hand, instead of against it.

“I’ve brought company to lunch, mother,” his mellow voice called
through the car.

Only one caught the look of pain that twisted the severe features of
Claudia Marshall. Instantly, Innes saw it disciplined into a welcoming
smile. And then she herself fell to flushing, and chilling, as a
lithe-muscled figure came directly to her. His eyes--where was the
look she had feared, of possessive tenderness? The quizzical gleam
was gone. On guard! A solemn business, loving, when you know that
it means--Life! On guard, though, to _her_! She pulled her fingers
from his strong lingering clasp, and joined Mrs. Marshall, who was
again busily knitting, until Tony’s crisp whiteness crackled into the
apartment.

Rickard had his soldier look on. She was watching him covertly as he
talked with his host and Crothers, as though she were not there; as
though something were not waiting for him to claim! She told herself
that she would have no character if she did not deny him, when he came
for her. How could he be talking, oblivious of everything else in the
world except that river? Was that--loving? Could she think of anything
else when he was in the same room with her? Was that the difference
between men and women? Woman’s whole existence! He was a soldier of the
modern army. It came to her, a sort of tender divination, that he would
not divide his thoughts, even with her, with Love, until his battle
was won. He owed his mind clear and on duty to the work on hand. Well,
couldn’t she understand that? What her accusation against Gerty? Sex
honor--keep off the track! Wasn’t that her own notion? Oughtn’t she to
be proud of him?

She had brought a nest of waspish thoughts tumbling about her ears.
Gerty! He had loved Gerty. Her resentment was alive again. Perhaps, it
was not true. Perhaps, some day he would tell her that it was not true,
had never been true. He couldn’t love her, if his thoughts had ever
lingered, with that same seriously solemn look on the false little face
of her sister-in-law.

A slur to a chef could one talk of else but food while banqueting!
Tony’s white cap danced around the table after he had seated them,
urging their appetites. Mrs. Marshall tried to suppress him; Marshall
and Rickard wickedly abetting his capering. He forced a commendation of
his bouillon from dreamy Innes; the recipe, he boasted, was his own.
Tod Marshall’s query as to the Spanish peppers evoked a long history.
The lunch was served to a running accompaniment of his reminiscences,
when he had been a restaurateur, and the great Samuel Bliss one of his
patrons. He was working up a crescendo of courses. With the importance
of a premier, he bore in a majestic, seasoned plank carrying a thick
steak. Another trip to the kitchen returned a primrose sauce.

“Tony will be insulted if you do not all mention the Bernaise,”
Marshall had suggested during the chef’s absence.

Rickard declared without straining his veracity that it was the best
Bernaise he had ever tasted. Tony’s face worked with emotion.

“It is because no one knows how to mix a Bernaise--bah, the bad stuff
I’ve eaten! When I go to a big city, I go to the finest hotel. Good
clothes, a diamond ring,” his finger shot up to his nose. “And who
would refuse to give me a table to myself? Who would believe that it
is a cook? I say, ‘Your best wine, and the steak thick, and a sauce
Bernaise!’ Never have I tasted it but once fit to serve to a gentleman
like Mr. Marshall--or Mr. Bliss. They make it with poor vinegar.
You can not make the sauce Bernaise without the best Tarra-r-rragon
vinegar.” His r’s hurtled out like a burst of artillery. “Everywhere
you can not get the real Tar-r-ragon vinegar. Ah!” His face grew
wolfish and eager. “Tony knows. Tony always carries it with him for the
great gentlemen like Mr. Bliss, Mr. Marshall--”

“Some bread, Tony,” clipped in Mrs. Marshall. “You can not teach him
his place,” she complained in the interval, “if you let him talk like
this!”

“Oh, but you don’t want to, mother!”

Innes saw again the look of pain. Did he think her life complete, in
its guarding of his own reckless one! Innes thought pitifully of the
little knitted jackets. Hadn’t he ever sensed--those?

Tony trotted back with the bread. He was eager with speech, but Rickard
was beginning a river anecdote, of his introduction to Godfrey, the
story of the bacon rind. Marshall was at once interested in the tenor.

“We must have him down some night to sing for us, eh, mother?”

“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t call her that!” yearned Innes. A rich salad of
mayonnaise and canned shrimps was rejected, to the chef’s despair.

“Why, you’ll incapacitate us, Tony.” Marshall waved it away. “I want to
get back to Tucson alive. Now, a cup of coffee, not another thing on
your life--or I’ll cut your salary. I want Mr. Rickard to do some work
this afternoon! Now be quick with the coffee.”

Deep gloom covered the retreat of the salad.

The coffee was brought in with ascetic simplicity. But Tony was not
to be crushed. While Marshall was talking to Rickard, he insinuated a
platter of cream puffs toward the ladies.

Marshall caught the sly action. He stopped. “You can have one--but only
one, Rickard,” he commanded. “If Tony does not mind me, you must.”

“If you will excuse me,” Rickard was rising. “Tony, will you _owe_ it
to me? There really is other work to be done to-day. You are setting a
bad example in camp, Mr. Marshall, you and Tony. We are not sybarites
here.” His good-by to Innes was guarded. Why should she drop her eyes,
she asked herself angrily? Nothing there that the whole world might not
see! Marshall went out to the platform with his engineer. Immediately
he came back, smiling, “Look here, girls!”

Claudia and Innes Hardin followed him to the platform. Under the
kitchen window, a group of young engineers were eating indiscriminate
“hand-outs.” MacLean, unabashed, waved a lukewarm stuffed pepper at his
chief. Bodefeldt, caught red-handed, crimsoned under his desert tan
when Innes’ glance isolated him, his mouth full of cream puffs, his
hand greasy from fried bananas.

“He’s a prince,” cried Bangs, of the Reclamation Service.

“He can afford to be on that salary,” cried MacLean, with roguish
intention. “I’d be generous on a hundred and fifty a month.”

“Mex.,” cried Bangs. “That’s only seventy-five.”

“It’s a hundred and fifty,” spluttered the white cap from the window.
“I spend it in Mexico; I get twice as much for a dollar down there.”

“Don’t let them tease you, Tony,” laughed Marshall. “You’ll spend that
hundred and fifty in Mexico next week.”

They were standing in the shade of the _Palmyra_, Claudia on the
platform shading her eyes, Innes on the step below. It was a soft
still afternoon. There was no wind; not a cloud blurred the sky. The
burning heat of summer had passed, giving place to a warmth that was
like a caress. The fierceness of the savage desert had melted to her
days of lure. Beyond, the turbid waters of the Colorado bore a smiling
surface. There was nothing to hint of treachery.

It was a minute of pleasant lassitude, snatched from the turmoil.
Rickard had succumbed to the softness of the day and his mood. He was
enjoying the thought of Innes’ nearness, though she kept her face
turned from him. He knew by the persistence of those averted eyes that
she was as acutely conscious of his presence as he was, restfully, of
hers. Deliberately, he was prolonging the instant.

“Well?” said Marshall. The group moved. Rickard turned toward his
hostess. Just then a strange thing happened. A stir on the river had
caught the alert eye of Tod Marshall. He swore a string of picturesque
Marshallian oaths. Rickard’s eyes jumped toward the by-pass. The placid
waters had suddenly buckled. Majestically, the gate rose and went out.
They watched it variously, the groups by the _Palmyra_; the catastrophe
too big for speech. Months of work swept away! The gate drifted a
hundred feet or more, then stopped as though sentience, or a planned
terminal, were governing its motion. Some unseen obstruction caught it
there, to mock at the labors of man.

Innes, aghast, had turned toward Rickard. His face was expressionless.
There was a babel of excited voices behind them, Bodefeldt, MacLean,
Tony, Crothers, Bangs, all talking at once. Her eyes demanded something
of Rickard. A fierce resentment rose against his calmness. “He knew
it,” she rebelled. “He’s been expecting this to happen. It’s no tragedy
to _him_!” There was a stab as of physical pain; she was visualizing
the blow to Tom.

She heard Marshall’s voice, speaking to Rickard. “Well, you’re ready
for this.” She did not hear the answer, for already Rickard was heading
for the by-pass. Marshall and the young engineers followed him. The
women were left staring. An odd sound came from the rear of the car.

“What is that?” demanded Claudia.

They found Coronel sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up to his
chin. His mud-crusted head was turned riverward. His age-curdled eyes,
fixed on the spot where the gate had been, did not see them. A moaning
issued from his shut lips. His paint-striped shoulders were shaking
with dry sobs. He had been watching, waiting for fifteen years. It was
all over, now, to him. The Great Dragon had conquered.

Innes moved toward him. Coronel cared, Coronel and Tom! The Indian sat,
wrapped in his grief. To the girl the worst, too, had happened. She
had refused to believe in the possibility of failure. Her brother’s
optimism had swept her along. That wreck down yonder was worse than
failure; it was ruin. It involved Tom’s life. It was his life. This
would be the final crushing of his superb courage--her thoughts
released from their paralysis were whipped by sudden fear. She must
find him, be with him. She did not see the look of sympathy on Claudia
Marshall’s face. She felt alone, with Coronel. The next instant, she
was speeding like a young colt toward the encampment.

Estrada met her on the run. “Have you heard?” she cried. Estrada said
he had just been talking to Rickard. He looked sorry, she reflected
after she left him, sorry for her; but not surprised. “No one is
surprised but Coronel, Coronel and I.”

Had Gerty heard? The pity that she must know! She would not be tender
to Tom; her pride would be wounded. She must ask her to be tender,
generous. Her footsteps slackened as she came in sight of the tents.

She heard voices in the ramada, a man’s clear notes mingling with
Gerty’s childish treble. “Godfrey!” Her mind jumped to other
tête-à-têtes. Of course! Abundant opportunity, with herself and Tom at
the break all day! So that was what was going on. And she not seeing!
Just a cheap little woman! If not one man, then another! Conquests,
attention! Horrid little clandestine affairs!

The meeting was awkward. Speedily, Innes got rid of the news. She
caught an odd look glittering in Mrs. Hardin’s eyes. The same
expression Rickard had worn when the gate went out! As though his slate
had been cleared, as though her sister-in-law saw an obstacle drop from
her path.

Mrs. Hardin shrugged. Her shrugs were dainty, not the hunching variety.
She merely moved her shoulders, the action as elusive as a twinkle.

“I believe I’ll go out.” Plaintively, she made the announcement as
though it were just evolved. “Now, the camp will be horrid. Everybody
will be cross, and everybody will be working. Perspiring men are not
inspiring men!”

As she left the tent beyond, Innes could hear the vibrant voice of
Godfrey persuading Mrs. Hardin to stay there a few weeks longer. She
could hear him say, “This will delay the turning of the river at the
most but a few weeks. Rickard told me so a week ago. And think what it
would be here without you!”

“They were all expecting it!” resisted Innes Hardin. She turned back
toward the river. She must find Tom.




CHAPTER XXXVII

A SUNDAY SPECTACLE


TROUBLE with the tribes, innocent and childish in its first aspect,
was well grown before it was recognized. Disaffection was ripe, the
bucks were heady, the white man’s silver acting like wine. Few of the
braves had dreamed of ever possessing sums of money such as they drew
down each Sunday morning. They were paid a white man’s wage, and to
each group of ten went another man’s pay, “_lagniappe_,” to be paid to
a squaw cook for the squad. The extra sum had excited from the first
a gentle insurrection. Had they dared, they would have divided it
among themselves, but the obloquy of “squaw man” confronted them. The
discussion was weekly; over their pipes and their fires that sum was
passed, itching their palms.

It was a solemn processional, smacking of ceremonial, which filed into
Rickard’s ramada every Sunday. Pay time was the climax of their week,
the symbol of the revel which followed. All day, the bucks danced and
glutted.

Rickard began to suspect liquor again. The commandant and Forestier
protested. There was no way of their getting liquor. Still Rickard
shrugged, incredulous. In the Indian camp, Sunday was a day of
feasting, followed by a gorged sleep; the next day, one of languor, of
growing incohesion.

Rickard spoke of it to Coronel who was his “go-between,” as MacLean,
Jr., dubbed him, a valuable interpreter, because he transcribed the
spirit of an interview. Coronel’s patois, mongrel and pantomimic, was
current coin among all the tribes.

“Like small baby,” hunched the old shoulders. “Happy baby. Pretty soon
stop.”

With the next wages went a reprimand, then a warning. Still followed
bad Mondays. It was easy to see that no work was to be expected from
them on that day, their all-night feasting insufficiently slept off.
Rickard then issued a formal warning to all the tribes.

The white men were being held antithetically by their habits of
carousal; Rickard, doling out the weekly wage, had been observing the
pitiable look of determination on the faces of the volatile hobo. “The
look of ‘I can bear no more; I shall move on.’”

“Poor devils!” he exclaimed to MacLean as Number Ten, the hobo without
a name, shuffled out, bearing his money in his hand and a farewell
leer on his face. His number, bound by a circle, his mark and title,
decorated each bridge and pier, so his boast ran, between New Orleans
and San Francisco, and then again, New York. He was on his second
round, and he had never bought a ticket in his life.

“Poor devils,” he repeated as the desert’s perspective claimed the
tramp. “They always think that they are not coming back. It’s a mean
trick we play on them.”

“What’s the trick?” queried MacLean absently, who was thinking of
Innes Hardin. He had seen her on the river with his chief the evening
before; and the flash of betrayal from the eyes of Rickard, the girl’s
shy quenched gleam of surrender, had been a shock to him. Until that
instant, he had thought she lined up with the rest of the Hardins in
hating Rickard. So that was what had been going on under his nose! It
looked settled to him; he would not have believed that no word had been
spoken.

He had wondered since what variety of fool he had been making of
himself. Trying to oust a man like Rickard--a _man_. That was the
particular sting. He was reproaching himself for bloodlessness as he
counted out moneys for his chief that afternoon. Surely, had he any
spirit, his disappointment would have flared into bitter enmity against
the man who had stolen what he was coveting. For Innes Hardin was a
queen! He had never seen any one like her. Queer, he could not make
himself hate Rickard. Something must be wrong with himself, to be able
to sit there in the old familiar way, without bitterness in his heart.

“They think they are free men; free to go and come. And we own them,
body and soul. They might as well be slaves for all they can do.”

MacLean frowned. “I don’t think I understand.” He put aside his problem
for a while. He would settle that later.

“Lord! MacLean, didn’t you see ‘Ten’s’ face?”

Dimly, MacLean summoned a gaunt heat-seared visage; an unshaven,
stubbled face of leering defiance. “He won’t come back again.”

“But he will. He’s got to come back. He can’t get through Yuma. That’s
the trick. We have the screw on them. Yuma’s practised. She won’t let a
man with a week’s wages in his pockets slip through her talons. They
all mean to go. Lord! I see it in each of their faces as they come in
here. As I pay them off, their eyes say: ‘I’ve got enough to be quit
of you with your hell-hole. You can go to the devil for all the work
you’ll get out of me.’ They don’t say it because they’re afraid, not
of me, but of Yuma. They’re afraid of Yuma. And when she’s sucked them
dry, they slink back here for one more week of it.”

MacLean drew in his lip, frowning at the memory of the stubbled face as
it had glared at Rickard.

“You remember Jack, the hobo?”

“Arnica Jack?” In spite of his resolution to be miserable, MacLean
laughed. The hobo’s weak ever-turning ankles made him the butt of the
hobo camp. A bottle of arnica in his coat pocket, the insidious smell
of the stuff which clung to his clothes, had drawn the inevitable
sobriquet.

“He didn’t come in to-day. Poor devil! He’s trying to stick it out, and
not draw his wages. You run a chance of being put off in the heart of
the desert when you ride out on a brake-beam from Yuma. You’ve got to
have a little ‘dough’ in your pocket to wheedle a man with a team, or
a soft-hearted brakeman. Else it’s death. We’ve got it on them, a dead
sure cinch.”

“Why haven’t I seen any of this?” demanded MacLean, sitting up, very
red.

“It’s not on the surface. They go out swaggering Sunday; they come
back cringing Monday. That’s all there is to it. But the situation
with the Indians is more serious. They’re getting liquor in here, some
way, the Lord only knows how. Maybe Coronel is right; he declares they
are simply gorged with food, dead from their stuffed orgies. Anyway,
they’re not fit for burning Monday morning. I’ve just sent them word
by Coronel that it’s got to quit, or they do.”

“Suppose they do?” MacLean was startled. Not an Indian could be spared
at that stage of the game.

“Bluff!” Rickard got up. “It’s caught white men before this. They won’t
take the chance of losing that money. I’m off now to the Crossing.
There’s a hitch at the concrete gate. I’ll be back this afternoon. I’ll
leave you in charge here.”

“I’ll hold down your seat.” He did not remember his lagging enmity
until Rickard’s dancing step had carried him out of sight. MacLean
spent an hour unraveling the puzzle of it. If a man really loves a
woman,--his question hurled a doubt at the integrity of his affection.
Stoutly, he defended that. Yet, he should hate Rickard. His veins must
run ice-water. An Ogilvie sort of man he was!

The next morning, Wooster broke into the ramada where MacLean sat
clicking his typewriter.

“Where’s Casey?”

“Gone to the Crossing. Anything up?”

“Everything’s up.” Wooster flung his hat on the table. He stood,
legs wide apart, his hands thrust into his pockets, looking down
on Rickard’s secretary. “He’s done it now. Sent some all-fired,
independent kindergarten orders to the Indians. Says they have to be in
bed by ten o’clock, or some such hour on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Indians won’t stand that! Any tenderfoot ought to know that. At this
stage of the game, when we can’t afford to lose a man. It’s a strike,
their answer. That’s what his monkeying has brought down on us.”

“They’re not going to quit?”

“They’ve sent word they won’t work on Mondays, and they will go to bed
when they choose Saturday night. Losing one day a week! We can’t stand
for that.”

“That’s not so bad.” MacLean was relieved. “I thought they were all
going. He’ll find a way out.” He remembered then that he was speaking
of his rival. This was an opportunity to put him in the wrong. Instead
he was flaming to partisanship. No backbone! He found himself taking
the side of the man he should be hating. “He’s no man’s goat.” Only
sense of justice, this!

“Luck’s been playing into his hands,” spat Wooster. “But this will show
him up. This’ll show Marshall his pet clerk. Tell Casey there’ll be no
Indians to-morrow.” He sputtered angrily out of the office.

Rickard seemed pleased when MacLean made the announcement a few hours
later. “Good! Now, we have something to work on.”

“You are losing the work of five hundred men for one day a week,” urged
MacLean, observing him as curiously as though he were a stranger.

“We had already lost them. They have not given us a day’s work on
Mondays for weeks past, and we’ve had to give them a full week’s pay.
You can’t deduct for lazy work, not unless you’ve an overseer for each
man.” His secretary was weighing him. “What do you intend to do about
it?”

“Call their bluff,” grinned Casey, showing teeth tobacco had not had a
chance to spoil. “Boycott them.” He was at his table, already, writing.
He had forgotten to remove his duster or his hat. He was unconscious of
his secretary’s new appraisement.

“But you can’t afford to take the chance--” began MacLean, forcing a
tepid hostility.

“Oh, can’t I?” His tone suggested, “You’re playing on the track, kid.”

Reddening, the boy persisted. “But the others--the engineers, _can_ you
afford to? Suppose you lose?”

Rickard threw down his pen. “I’ve got to have workers, not dabbers! If
I’m to lose the Indians, the sooner I know it the better. I don’t want
to know what the others think. I’ve got to go straight ahead. Don’t
think I’ve not seen their faces. Take this note to Wooster. Tell him to
take Coronel and see Forestier.”

On his way, MacLean felt like the match that is to set off a charge of
dynamite. Wooster would go straight up in the air. Those Hardin men
would make an uproar that would be heard at Yuma!

He found Wooster at the river-bank, with Tom Hardin. The two men were
watching a pile-driver set a rebellious pile for the new trestles. Two
new trestles were to supplement the one which had been bent out of
line by the weight of settling drift. The pile-driver had no Sabbath,
now. The piles must be placed before rock could be poured between.
Marshall’s plan was being followed, though jeered at by Reclamation men
and the engineers of the D. R. Company.

“Stop the mattress weaving and dump like hell!” had been his orders.

No one believed that the soft silt bottom of the river which cut out
like salt would hold a pour of rock. Marshall, aided by Rickard,
schemed to fight power with haste. Faster than the current could
wash it down-stream, the crews would rain gravel and rock on to the
treacherous river-bed.

“And there’s always the concrete gate when everything else fails,”
Marshall was fond of repeating when he saw polite incredulity in
opposing faces.

“Boycott the Indians, well, I’m blowed,” the beady eyes sparked at
Hardin. “Now, he’s cut his own throat.”

“By the eternal!” swore Hardin. MacLean left the two engineers matching
oaths. “If he wins out on this!” he was speculating as he made his way
back to his copying, “I’ll back him against anything. Wonder how he
feels, inside, about it? I know just how I’d feel. Scared stiff.”

There was an ominous quiet the next day. Not an Indian offered to
work at the river. A few stolid bucks came to their tasks on Tuesday
morning; they were told by Rickard himself that there was no work for
them. Rickard appeared ignorant of the antagonism of the engineers.

Wooster watched the Yumas carry their stormy faces back to their camp.

“Garl darn it,” he cried. “There’s his chance, and he lost it.”

An unfathered rumor started that Rickard was in with the Reclamation
Service men; that he wanted the work to fail; to be adopted by the
Service. MacLean broke a lance or two against the absurd slander.
He was making the discovery that a man’s friendship for a man may
be deeper than a man’s love for a woman. It was upsetting all his
preconceived notions. He was backing his hot young will for Rickard to
win out. He got to blow-point that evening with Bodefeldt. He avoided
Wooster and Silent and Hardin. It inflamed his boyish loyalty to find
that he was losing his old friendships. He was a Rickard man. He was
made to feel the reproach of it.

Wednesday dawned dully. Not an Indian reported. Squatting in their
camp, they listened to “Fig Tree Jim” and Joe Apache, the insurgent
bucks. Coronel passed from camp to camp, his advice unpopular. “They
would get their pay, and stay out Monday beside. Joe Apache said so.”

Scouts sent out to watch the work on the river reported it was
crippled. The white man would be sending for the Indian soon. The
waiting braves sat on their haunches, grinning and smoking their pipes.

On Thursday, Forestier, who must feed his reservation Indians while
away from the reservation, grew anxious. He tried arguments with the
Indians; then with Rickard. That engineer had just been closeted with
Marshall who was taking a swift run out to Tucson that day. Rickard
would not budge from his position. The Indians must work Monday, or not
at all. He refused to discuss the situation with Forestier, or any one.
He was apparently engrossed with the setting of the piles. That the
brush-cutting was held up, the work on the levee halted, he waived as
unimportant. The look of the Hardin faction was getting on his nerves;
he was learning to swear and smile at the same time.

Marshall carried a worried face from the Heading. He must back his man
in this! And he never forgot the levee. Still, if he should fail-- He
determined to arrange to pull some track crews from Salton and the West
Coast to send to Rickard for emergency.

Saturday night, the camp went gloomily to bed. On the Indian side,
there was no revel, no feasting or dancing. Forestier was closeted with
Rickard.

“I’ll have to take them back to their reservations,” he said. “I can’t
keep them here, we can’t afford to. They’ve got to be fed. You know,
Rickard, the howl that’d be raised if the thing gets out twisted.
Sentimental, the Indian feeling is, you and I know that, but it’d be
uncomfortable. The man who’d kick an Indian out of his back yard would
go to Washington to start up a scandal if any blamed buck says he was
starving.”

“Hold them here a few days, you can,” Rickard was worried, himself.
Forestier could not keep them out of their reservations if they were
not earning money. He knew that. Already, he was needing them badly at
the river. Something, will or reason, he was not sure, would not let
him give in.

“Just two or three days,” he urged Forestier.

“I’ll try.” The face of the Indian agent was not reassuring. Rickard
did not turn in until after midnight, planning alternatives. He was
sleeping hard when MacLean, at dawn, dashed into his tent.

“Quick, what does this mean?”

Rickard was scrambling into his clothes. It was the river, of course.
The trestles had been carried out? He was into his khaki trousers and
slippers. He made a dive into his shirt as he followed MacLean to the
tent door, his head working through the bag of cloth to the light-well
at the top.

“Look over there,” cried MacLean. “What do you think of that?”

It was a splendid spectacle, and staged superbly. For background, the
sharp-edged mountains flushing to pinks and purples against a one-hued
sky; the river-growth of the old channel uniting them, blotting out
miles of desert, into a flat scene. On the opposite bank of the
New River, five hundred strong, lined up formidably, their faces
grotesque and ferocious with paint, were the seven tribes. The sun’s
rays glinted up from their fire-arms, shot-guns, revolvers, into a
motley of defiance! Cocopahs, with streaming hair, blanketed Navajos,
short-haired Pimas, those in front reining in their silent pinto
ponies, and all motionless, silent in that early morning light.

“What does it mean?” whispered MacLean. Rickard did not answer. He had
one nauseous instant, as he looked toward Innes’ tent. Then he noticed
a movement in the throng; he saw it was the pressing of newcomers
toward the front of the brilliant mass. Brown naked chests gleamed with
wet paint. Black shirts, striped with white and yellow and red, made a
strange serpent effect. Ropes of beads weighted down their shoulders;
ribbons streamed from their arms.

The barbaric spectacle stood immovable. The stir came from the near
bank. The camp was rising. From each tent, a face thrust out casually,
stayed to watch, startled. The unsettled condition of the days past
had prepared the stage for some climax; the surprise loomed savage and
threatening.

MacLean was watching Rickard’s face. The manager had drawn back into
the shadow of his tent. He expected to see them wheel and ride out of
camp; this then their ultimatum. He did not fear worse trouble, now
that nauseous half-second was over; they had too much to lose; there
was no one to organize, to mobilize. Still, they were Indians--he was
trying to make out their faces; the whites, surprised--the squads
divided, at the levee, up at the Crossing!

MacLean had turned to watch the Indians; he heard a chuckle. Rickard
broke into laughter.

“See, the white horse, no, in front--”

“By jove,” MacLean slapped his thigh. “Coronel! They had me buffaloed.
What do you think it is?”

Rickard stepped out into the wash of morning air, and waved a solemn
salute across the river. Gravely, it was returned by Coronel.

“What does it mean?” demanded MacLean.

“It means we’ve won,” chuckled his chief, coming back into his tent.

“If you haven’t the best--luck,” substituted MacLean, self-consciously.

“If you say ‘luck’ to me,” grinned Rickard, “I’ll cane you! Get out, I
want my shower. They’ll be coming over here now.”

An hour later, after every one in camp had looked and speculated and
smiled, the first thrill passed, at the massed Indians, Coronel led
in a picked group of the tribes. If the white chief would recall the
boycott, the Monday strike was over. The white man’s silver had won.

Rickard shook hands all around, and commended Coronel privately.
“You’ll get a present for this.” The wrinkled face was majestically
inscrutable.

“They could never do it like white men,” commented Rickard after they
had left the ramada. “They must get up that bit of bravado; they are
like children--” He never finished his sentence. He was thinking of
a little white tent, and an instant of nausea when he had first seen
those waiting Indians.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE WHITE NIGHT


“LORD, I’m tired,” groaned Rickard, stumbling into camp, wet to the
skin. “Don’t you say letters to me, Mac. I’m going to bed. Tell Ling I
don’t want any dinner. He’ll want to fuss up something. I don’t want to
see food.”

As he moved on to his tent, MacLean noted a dragging step and a
feverish face. But his anxiety was dwarfed by Ling’s. The Chinese
immediately invaded Rickard’s tent, leaving the dishing of the dinner
to Godfrey. Ling found Rickard, burning with fever, stripping for a
cold shower.

“Velly bad, velly bad,” he exclaimed. “Hi, there, you stop,” as Rickard
went on stripping. “Hi, there, no cold watel. Me ketchem hot watel.”

“‘_Hot_ watel’! I’m burning up now!”

“Here you, get into bed, hop. I ketchem warm watel. Cold watel no good,
make velly sick. Hop.”

Rickard hopped. He was worn to the point of yielding to any
authoritative voice. The day had been exhausting. His eyes closed
with weariness. He did not watch Ling’s new captaincy. The Chinese,
soft-slippered, pattered around the tent, and out. The sheets felt cool
and comfortable. Rickard had a sensation of dropping, falling into
oblivion.

The day, confused and jumbled, burned across his eyeballs; a turmoil
of bustle and hurry of insurrection. He had made a swift stand against
that. He was to be minded to the last man-jack of them, or any one
would go, his threat including the engineers, Silent, Irish, Wooster,
Hardin himself. This was no time for factions, for leader feeling. They
knew he meant business; perhaps the tussle with the Indians had had
good effect. But he had lost his temper with Hardin and Wooster; he
didn’t feel pleased with himself. It left a sting of self-discontent
which pulled him back from the rest into which he was sinking. A
man can enjoy the mastery over other men if he gets out of it with
self-control. It seemed worse now than when he had been in the clamor
and the contention of the day. Tossing feverishly on his bed, the day’s
perspective gave no order, no progress. His body was hot, his head on
fire.

His grouch focused on Wooster. “The gall of him!” He recalled the
snapping black beads of eyes as they resented Rickard’s criticism of
his handling of the rock.

“Who’s superintendent here?” had growled Wooster.

“It is a pity that I must superintend your superintending,” had been
his answer. “You will obey my orders, or quit.”

“He’s had an ax for me ever since I came; he’s been sore ever since I
won over the Indians. He thought he was going to see me crushed. The
whole camp would have crowed had those Indians marched out. Lord, what
a head I have!”

Ling came in, towing a portable tub of galvanized tin, a bucket of
steaming water in his other hand.

“If you think you’re going to get me into that, you’re mistaken,”
Rickard raised his head to scowl at the bucket. Ling had the tact
not to answer. Quiet as a cat, he placed the tub by the bedside, and
emptied the bucket. Pattering to the door, he took from an unseen
waiting hand, another pail of rising steam, and a large yellow-papered
tin of mustard.

“You needn’t think you’re going to boss me,” Rickard flared with
impotent resistance. “Mustard! I’ve not taken that since I was a small
boy. I’m not going to put my foot in it, do you hear?”

Ling would not hear. He was moving noiselessly around the tent, blind
and deaf to scowls and grumbling. Rickard watched him collect blankets
and towels. His rebellion was deflected. What an amusing race it was,
at cooking, nursing or diplomacy equally facile!

“Who was that outside the door?” The hand suddenly reassured to him.

“Mlister Godfley.” Ling, the laconic, went on with his preparations.
When he had finished, he stopped suddenly in front of the bed. Rickard
was off guard.

“Here you, ketchem bath. Hop.”

“A bath, get in that? Not on your life,” defied Rickard. But he knew he
was as putty in Ling’s hands.

“Hop, velly quick,” commanded Ling.

As Rickard did not hop, he was pulled out of bed by soft Chinese,
work-wrinkled fingers. After a sputtering resistance to the sting of
the hot mustard, he lay back, an unexpected relaxation meeting his
supineness. The first sting over, the pain began to melt from his
bones, from his strained aching muscles. His irritability began to
dissolve. He decided to forgive Ling, who had left the tent.

His eyes closed. He caught an instant’s doze. Ling’s entrance wakened
him.

“This salad water’s all right! I’m going to stay here all night.”

The Chinese had a hot, pungent smelling drink in his hand.

“Oh, say,” groaned the engineer. “I don’t have to drink that!”

“All lite tamale,” replied the calm doctor. “Hi, there, get up. Hop.
Pletty quick. Take heap cold. Velly bad.”

In bed, Ling’s hot drink inside him, the day with its irritations fell
away. He could see now the step ahead that had been taken; the last
trestle was done; the rock-pouring well on; he called that going some!
He felt pleasantly languid, but not yet sleepy. His thought wandered
over the resting camp. The _Delta_ was no longer entertaining; the days
were too strenuous for that. Frank Godfrey must be finding them dull.
And then Innes Hardin came to him.

Not herself, but as a soft little thought which came creeping around
the corner of his dreams. She had been there, of course, all day,
tucked away in his mind, as though in his home waiting for him to
come back to her, weary from the pricks of the day. The way he would
come home to her, please God, some day. Not bearing his burdens to
her, he did not believe in that, but asking her diversions. Perhaps
she would sing to him, or play to him, little tender tunes he could
understand. He had never had time to keep up with the new-fangled music
which sounded to his ear like a distinct endeavor to be unmusical and
bizarre. All the melodies have been used up; Mozart and those old
boys had hogged them. The moderns have had to invent a school of odd
discords and queer rhythms. Innes would tell him about that! Some day!
Contentment spread her soft wings over him. When Ling came stealing
back, his patient was asleep.

The tent was a wash of white light when he woke; the moon was filtering
through the white canvas; a band of pale radiance was streaming through
the screen door. Rickard wakened as to a call. What had startled him?
He had been sleeping heavily, the deep sleep that knows no dreaming.
He listened, raising himself by his elbow. From a distance, a sweet
high voice, unreal in its pitch and thrilling quality, came to him. It
pieced on to his last waking thought. For an instant, he thought it was
Innes.

Awake, the rhythmic beat coming clear and sweet to him, he knew it was
Godfrey; Godfrey, somewhere on the levee, singing by the river.

“What a voice that fellow has!” He wondered what it was he was singing.
“The quality of the angels, and the lure of the sirens besides!”

There was a haunting thrill to the air; something he should remember.
He used to be able to carry tunes; was it too late, he wondered, to
sharpen his musical memory? The soft side of life he had left alone,
music, ease, poetry; they went with women, and his swift marching
life had had no time for them. Women and little children. Was it too
late to begin? Had he worked too long to learn to play? What was that
tune Godfrey was singing now? He knew that; it was about the age of
seventeen. It brought him again to Innes Hardin. He pulled aside his
curtain which hung over the screening of his tent and looked out into
a moon-flooded world. The stars were dimmed, thrust into their real
distances by the world’s white courier. Rickard’s eyes fell on a little
tent over yonder, a white shrine. “White as that fine sweet soul of
hers!”

Wandering into the night, Godfrey passed down the river, singing alone.
His voice, the footlights, the listening great audiences were calling
to him. To him, the moon-flooded levee, the glistening water, made a
star-set scene. He was treading the boards, the rushing waters by the
bank gave the orchestration for his melody--_La Donna è Mobile_. He
began it to Gerty Hardin; she would hear it in her tent; she would take
it as the tender reproach he had teased her with that afternoon in the
ramada.

He forgot her as he sang, the footlights, the great audiences claiming
him. They called him back! “_Bis! bis!_” He gave it again. Still, they
called for him. He must come back! He gave them for encore a ballad
long forgotten; he had pulled it back from the cobwebs of two decades;
he had made it his own; reviving it to a larger popularity; they were
selling records of it now on Broadway. In South America, in Mexico, in
lonely ranches, distant barrancas, the far-spread audiences listened to
his imprisoned voice, by modern magic released to them.

Detached, as an observer he worshiped his wonderful gift; impersonally,
it was guarded; he could speak of it without vanity. Pity, the fellow
who wrote the simple air was dead; it was enriching publishers; those
“canned music people!”

The audience, South American, English, Mexican, was calling. Australia,
now, was clapping her hands. That last verse again.

  “But, my darling, you will be,
  Ever young and fair to me.”

The hush, that wonderful hush which always greets that ballad, falls on
the house again.

It came, the soaring voice, to Tom Hardin, outside Gerty’s tent on
his lonely cot. He knew that song. He had shouted it with the fellows
at college, passing through the Lawrence streets at night. The words
came running back to meet him. “Woman is changeable.” Had he sensed
the words then? “Woman is changeable.” All of them then, not alone
Gerty. For she had loved him once, he had seen her face flushing answer
into his. Changed altogether, the changeable. Disdained by his wife,
a pretty figure a man cuts! If his wife can’t stand him, who can? He
wasn’t good enough for her. He was rough. His life had kept him from
fitting himself to her taste. She needed people who could talk like
Rickard, sing like Godfrey. People, other people, might misconstrue her
preferences. He knew they were not flirtations; she needed her kind.
She would always keep straight; she was straight as a whip. Life was as
hard for her as it was for him; he could feel sorry for her; his pity
was divided between the two of them, the husband, the wife, both lonely
in their own way.

Then his bitterness softened to the new air Godfrey was singing. He
could hear his mother’s voice humming it over her task in her rough
pioneer kitchen. He lay quite still listening, life crowding before his
open eyes. No use coaxing sleep, with the moon making day of the night.
His memory was a harp, and Godfrey was plucking at the strings.

On the other side of the canvas walls, Gerty Hardin lay listening
to the message meant for her. The fickle sex, he had called hers; no
constancy in woman, he had declared, fondling her hair. He had tried to
coax her into pledges, pledges which were also disavowals to the man
outside.

_Silver threads!_ Age shuddered at her threshold. She would not get
old, oh, why would he not sing something else? She hated that song.
Cruel, life had been to her, none of its promises had been kept. To be
happy, why, that was a human’s birthright; grab it, that was her creed!
Before you get old, before the pretty face wrinkles, and men forget to
look at you with the worship beauty brings. She wanted to die before
that happened--she would push age away from her--she could. But before
that awful time which offered no alleviation, she must be happy, she
must taste of success, hear the plaudits of the crowd left behind. When
God made the world, He did not make enough happiness to go around; one
must snatch it as it passed. There was a chance yet; youth had not
gone. He was singing it to her, her escape--

  “Darling, you will be,
  Ever young and fair to me.”

It was not true. The song was a lie. He would not love her when she was
old. Men don’t. They want roses and bright eyes, youth. Cruel, men are.
But she had a few years yet. She would live those years, not spend them
with regrets.

She had a wild thought of running out to him, to cry her joy, her
bitterness in his arms! He was waiting for her, hoping for her down
by the levee; his love was like a schoolboy’s in its eagerness. But
the sulky figure of Tom guarded her door. Tom was like Innes, always
watching her with distrust, suspicion in his eyes. Whatever she would
do, they would have driven her to it. She was going to be happy--to be
happy before she was old!

Godfrey, singing to Gerty Hardin, had awakened the camp. Once roused,
the brilliant night made sleep impossible. Innes, in her tent, too, was
listening. Once, in her childhood, she had wakened to the sound of near
music, sweet, unearthly, in its soaring lightness, now antiphonal, now
in unison. To-night, so Godfrey’s song pierced her dreams, and brought
back that unreal childish night, another white night such as this. She
opened her curtain to the wide spread of silvered desert; the moonlight
streamed in on her bed.

  “Darling, you will be,
  Ever young and fair to me!”

So that is the miracle, that wild rush of certain feeling! Yesterday,
doubting, to-morrow, more doubts--but to-night, the song, the night
isolated them, herself and Rickard, into a world of their own.
To-night, it did not even pain her that he had been the lover of
Gerty Hardin, faithful through years, as Gerty had hinted, to a love
that was not ever to be rewarded; nor that it had passed to her so
lightly. Accidental, propinquitous, seemed his love for her. Not based
on congeniality, or knowledge of sympathies. She was not vocal with
him--what did he love in her? A trick of smile or speech? Better that,
even, than that he had yielded, simply, to the human need of loving!
Even that did not have a sting for her this night. Life with him on
any terms she wanted. To-morrow, the proud rebellions might return;
now, she could see the risk of losing him! She had not the trick of
persuasion; only one way she knew! When he was her own, they might face
their differences, then kiss them away! Daring, then witchery! For she
wanted to charm her husband; that, the proudest conquest of all. The
wonder it was that all women could not see it that way. To win over
again, to conquer against commonplaceness, against satiety--to bewitch
one’s own!

Godfrey was returning to Australia’s clapping hands. The desert, Gerty
Hardin, were forgotten in the ardor of his singing. To pour out song
like that, to make a world listen, be the voice that summons memory!
Such a night as this--“_Tanto amor--!_”

On his army cot, Wooster stirred restlessly between his coarse cotton
sheets. Something was disturbing him. He was heavy with sleep. But
something was the matter with the night. He covered his ears, but the
irritation crept through. He raised his head from the pillow, the small
snapping eyes accusing the unknown disturber of his peace.

“Those Indians!” he muttered, dragging the sheet over his ears. “Drunk
again!”

“_Tanto amor!_” Godfrey was looking down on the river.

Such a night! It poured wine into the veins of one! Such a voice! To
pour it out, thrilling himself over the call of it! Touching something,
what was it he touched? That gleam of moonlight on the river,
footlights of fairies. Ah, holy night! “_Tanto amor!_”

Caught in his own spell, Godfrey passed down the levee. And the camp
slept again. But even the dreams of Wooster were of love.




CHAPTER XXXIX

THE BATTLE IN THE NIGHT


GATHERING on the bank were the camp groups to watch the last stand of
the river against the rock bombardment. The reporters from the outside,
pads and pencils in hand, were there, and Brandon; Molly Silent, with
little Jim in her arms, who had crept down from the Crossing, full
of fears. Out there, somewhere on the trestles, on one of those rock
cars was her Jim. She sat on the bank by Innes and Mrs. Marshall,
who at last had laid aside her knitting. Tony, his white cap askew,
danced from group to group, finding poor audiences. Later, he forced a
heartier reception when he returned, bearing sandwiches and hard-boiled
eggs, his Indian “help” carrying a pot of steaming coffee.

“That’s a capital idea, Tony,” commended Rickard, stopping for a snatch
of lunch. “Tell Ling to do the same; here, MacLean, you tell him. We’ll
keep coffee and bread and beans going all day. A lunch-counter on the
bank.” He was off, his hands full of sandwiches.

A great wave broke into an obliterating eruption of spray. A cry burst
from Molly Silent. “Oh, I thought it was gone. There’s Jim. He’s on the
car that’s pulling in!”

“Give me the boy,” Mrs. Marshall reached out her unpractised arms.
“Run down and speak to your husband.” She shook her head ominously at
Innes as the mother stumbled heavily down the bank. “This excitement is
bad for her. Before Christmas, she tells me.” She held the little body
close to hers. Innes, watching her rapt look, felt her eyes warm up
with tears.

Molly toddled back, radiant.

“I saw him!” she glowed.

“I got him asleep!” whispered Mrs. Marshall. “Don’t take him; you’ll
awaken him. Isn’t he looking a little pale?”

There was a fear in the face which leaned over the sleeping child.
“He’s not right. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. I’d take
him out, but I can’t leave Jim--so soon. It isn’t until Christmas.
I’ll have to go then. Do you think he looks sickly?” Her anxious eyes
questioned the two women.

Heartily, Innes said she thought he was looking stronger.

“Let me take him out,” suggested Mrs. Marshall. “We’ll be going this
week. I’ll take the best of care of him; there’s a splendid children’s
doctor in Tucson.”

“Oh, do!” cried Innes. And what a charity for Mrs. Marshall, her empty
arms aching for what they that moment held!

“Oh!” cried Molly, pain and relief in her tone.

“Think about it,” whispered Mrs. Marshall. “You don’t have to tell me
now.”

Molly lifted her head from a scrutiny of the pallid baby face to see
Mrs. Hardin, floating by in her crisp muslins. A few feet behind
stalked Godfrey, his eyes on the pretty figure by his side. Innes,
watching too, turned from his look, abashed as though she had been
peering through a locked door.

Gaily, with a fluttering of ruffles, Gerty established herself on the
bank, a trifle out of hearing distance. Innes saw her raise an inviting
smile to the Englishman who stood looking uncertainly from her to the
river. He dropped beside her on the sand. As Innes pulled her eyes away
from them, she met those of Molly Silent, who had also been staring at
Tom Hardin’s wife.

A hard little smile played on the lips accented with Parisian rouge.
The blue eyes were following the two men who were directing the
bombardment; the childish expression was gone; her look accused life of
having trifled with her. But they would see--

“Don’t look so unhappy, dearest,” whispered the man at her side. “I’m
going to make you happy, dear!” She flushed a brilliant, finished
smile at him. Yes, she was proud of him. His success buoyed her faith
in her destiny. Everybody knew Godfrey; his voice had subdued whole
continents. He satisfied her sense of romance, or would, later,
when she was away from here, a dull pain pricking at her deliberate
planning. She was tired, tired of scheming, planning; unfair it
seemed to her that some women have all that she had had to struggle
for tossed into their careless laps. She was proud. She could not be
a nobody, crushed by humiliations and adversity. She had not brought
any of his trouble on Tom Hardin. It was he, he and Rickard who had
ruined her life. Not quite ruined! She was stepping out before it was
too late. Godfrey found her young, young and distracting. His life
had been hungry, too; the wife, up there in Canada somewhere, had
never understood him. Godfrey was ambitious, ambitious as she was. She
would be his wife; she would see the cities of the world with him, the
welcomed wife of Godfrey; she would share the plaudits his wonderful
voice won.

His eyes were on her now, she knew, questioning, not quite sure of her.
She had worried him yesterday because she would not pledge herself
to marry him if he sued for his divorce. Her intuition told her that
something was uncertain, his affection for her, or that other woman’s
tie, if he hinged his divorce on her promise. “I’m not sure of you!
Will you give me your word? When I am free, you, too, will be free,
waiting for me?”

She had shivered away from his question. Terrible that life put that
obstacle, that dreadful process in her way. Always life blocked her.
His doubt gave her doubts of him. Would he be faithful, a silver-voiced
Godfrey; absent, other, younger women hanging on his voice? It did not
hurt to keep a man guessing. She had told him to ask her that after the
courts had set him free. She could not have him sure of her. Men tire
when they are sure; Rickard had been too sure of her.

An exclamation from him recalled her. She found that he was no longer
staring at her; his eyes were fixed on the trembling structure over
which a “battle-ship,” laden with rock, was creeping.

“Jove!” he cried. “Those men are heroes.”

Everything irritated her to-day. She felt out of sorts, though she
was going to be happy! She was going to grasp, and keep what was
within reach of her hand. But this river, this dirty sordid work, was
getting on her nerves. Even Godfrey now was staring at the trestles
as though they were circus rings! Rickard crossed her vision, on the
run, his face grotesque with soot and perspiration. She saw him stoop
to speak to the group of women; he stood for a minute by Innes. The
grime shielded his expression, but she had seen the girl’s face! Her
own eyes darkened with anger. But she was going to be happy. Her teeth
clicked over that slogan. No one should stand in the way, Hardin, or
that other. Rickard would see that she had never cared for him--hateful
that it must be long before she could show him. She wanted him to know
it right away, before those two flung their secret in her face, before
Innes secretly triumphed over her.

Rickard, she could see, was turning in her direction. She sent another
brilliant, dazzling smile at Godfrey, who remembered to smile back at
her. She wanted to have Rickard see them together, absorbed in each
other. It would pique his vanity, perhaps, to see how little she cared.
He would see that he had been only one of many to her. She sent a
tender little whisper after the smile.

But Godfrey had been growing restless. It began to irk him, to tease
his superb muscle to be the only man without work--“sitting on the
bank like Cor’nel down yonder!” He answered Gerty, turning away to her
annoyance to hail Rickard.

“Going all right?”

“Bully,” cried Rickard, not stopping.

“Haven’t you something for me to do? Can’t I help?”

“We can use everybody,” Rickard called back over his shoulder.

Uncomfortable to find that that voice still had power to make her
tremble. Even when she loved Godfrey. For she did love him. She
intended to love him. Else what did life mean? Those broken beginnings,
those false starts? It was hate, she told herself, hate that shook
her, when Rickard came near. With all her soul she hated him.

Godfrey was itching to be off, but he would not offend Mrs. Hardin.
After a deliberate interval, she got up, shaking out her ruffles. “One
gets stiff sitting so long. Don’t let me keep you.”

He saw he had hurt her. “I want to stay with you, you know that,
dearest. But it doesn’t feel right to see them all working like niggers
and me loafing here. You don’t mind?”

Oh, no, Gerty did not mind! She was tired, anyway! She was going back
to her tent!

“Won’t you wait for the closure?”

Her laugh was airy and detached. “Oh, they are always closing that
river. They will always be closing it. It’s no novelty. You can tell me
all about it.”

He thrust a yellow paper into her hands. “I sent that off to-day.
Perhaps you will be glad?”

She flung another of her inscrutable smiles at him, and went up the
bank, the paper unread in her hands. Godfrey’s uncertain glance
followed her. He had vexed her, some way. He should follow her, see her
to her tent. She expected those little attentions. He loved to please
her, but his eyes went back, yearning, to the river. Those men working
like tigers--! He was down the bank in a trice.

“Give me something to do!”

The long afternoon wore away. On a giant rock on a flat car, Silent
stretched his muscles, and looked at his watch. Mortally tired he
was. He thought of his bed, and a cup of steaming coffee. An hour
more! They were now dynamiting the largest rocks on the cars before
unloading them. The heavy loads could not be emptied quickly enough.
Not dribbled, the rock, but dumped simultaneously, else the gravel and
rock might be washed down-stream faster than they could be put on. The
job called for an alert eye and hand working together. Many cars must
be unloaded at once; the din on Silent’s train was terrific. His crew
looked like devils, drenched from the spray which rose from the river
each time the rock-pour began; blackened by the smoke from the belching
engine. The river was ugly in its wrath. It was humping itself for its
final stand against the absurdity of human intention; its yellow tail
swished through the bents of the trestle.

“It isn’t what I’d call pretty,” yelled Wooster to Bodefeldt, as they
passed in a flat car. The noise of the rock-pouring began again.

“Not a picnic,” cried Bodefeldt.

But there was a thrill in it. They were working against the most
formidable force in nature, against time, and moreover without
precedent. Not one of them would risk a hazard as to the next move of
the wily Dragon. A swift rise, and swift rises of the Gila were always
to be feared, and their barrier would be flung down the channel as a
useless toy. Haste was their only chance. The breath of the workers
came quick and short. The order came for more speed. Rickard moved from
bank to raft; knee deep in water, screaming orders through the din;
directing the gangs; speeding the rock trains; helping Wooster, who
was driving large gangs of Mexicans and Indians. The river must not be
allowed to creep around the bulwark, to catch them unawares; the work
must not halt for an instant; the force of the thwarted river growing
fiercer with each pour of rock. Haste against strength, or the victory
the river’s! Hardin oscillated between the levee and dams, taking
orders, giving orders. His energy was superb. His heavy run was like a
bulldog’s, full of ferocious purpose. Marshall halted him as he thumped
past, straight from the levees.

“It’s going all right,” he assured the man who had humiliated him. His
sense of wrong was sleeping; the battle developed the real soldier.
“The levee will stand if we can work quick enough.”

“Good!” cried Marshall. “We’ll win yet, old man!”

It had grown dark, but no one yet had thought of the lights, the great
Wells’ burners stretched across the channel. To Marshall’s war-trained
ear, the glut of raining rock sounded like cannonading. It was a queer
scene, the dark pocket of battle-ground, the clouds of smoke, the
dashing mountains of spray; men rushing to and fro like masked dwarfs,
trains thundering on to the trestles. Suddenly, the lights flared out.

Marshall found himself standing by Captain Brandon, who had his
note-book in his hand. The dark had stolen on him; but he kept on
scribbling his report to the _Sun_. He did not hear Marshall’s inquiry.

Behind them, coming closer, broke a rhythmic beat. Molly Silent’s
waiting ear heard it, too--it was the night shift coming on! She
hastened clumsily to the rock filled end of the trestle, and waited for
Silent to leave his train.

As he let himself down from the cab, she could hear him say that it
was about time. “I’m all in.” Just then, the Dragon lashed its mighty
foaming tail; the trestle shook as though it were a mouse in the sharp
teeth of a terrier.

The engineer who was taking Silent’s place, drew back.

“That’s your train,” said Silent, who did not yet see his wife.

There was another lash of the angry tail. The engineer shook his head.
“It don’t look good to me.” A whistle blew. The trestle was still
shuddering as though in the grip of an earthquake.

“I’ve been an engineer for twenty years, but God Almighty Himself’d not
take me out on that bridge to-night. I’d give up my job first.”

“It’s up to me, then,” said Silent. And then two arms were thrown
around his neck.

“Why, lassie,” he cried. “Why, little mother.”

She clung to him. The whistle blew again.

“Why, lassie!” He put her away from him, and she saw him, though
mistily, climb back into the cab, the man-work swallowing him again.

Not one of those who labored or watched would ever forget that night.
The spirit of recklessness entered even into the stolid native. The men
of the Reclamation forgot this was not their enterprise; the Hardin
faction jumped to Rickard’s orders; there was a whip of haste in the
air. Brandon’s old style came back to him as he wrote, standing now
under the great swinging light, his report for the _Sun_. “Bertha
will be reading it to-morrow!” He despatched one bulletin, and began
another. His periods rolled off, sonorously syllabled. Down by the
trestle, humped up like a camel, the mud washed from his hair which
fell like stiff wires from his head, watched Cor’nel. He had not eaten,
had not stirred from his place that day.

The rain of rocks, by midnight, had settled into a steady storm. The
momentum was gigantic. The watchers on the bank sat tense, thrilled out
of recognition of aching muscles, or the midnight creeping chill. No
one would go home. Mrs. Marshall and Molly Silent carried the sleeping
boy into the _Palmyra_, where he was laid in Mrs. Marshall’s bed.

“He’ll lie till morning, once he’s asleep,” whispered his mother, and
they crept down to the bank again. The swinging lights had turned the
darkness into a pale twilight. Each searched through the uncertain
light for a familiar figure, for the soldier she had lent. Wistfully,
Claudia was wondering if Tod’s flannels were wet. Once, he came within
reach of her hand, but she dared not ask him. He was on the run. “Hell!
what’s the matter with that train?”

To Innes, the struggle was vested in two men, Rickard running down
yonder with that light foot of his as swift as though Ling’s mustard
had not been needed a few days before; and Hardin with the fighting
mouth tense. And somewhere, she remembered, working with the rest,
was Estrada. Those three were fighting for the justification of a
vision--an idea was at stake, a hope for the future. There was no
fear, only a wild exultation, when she once saw Rickard jump on to an
outgoing train of “battle-ships,” heavily laden with rock. It was a
battle of giants, to her; drastic and dramatic.

Rickard passed and repassed her, running, or again walking slowly,
talking eagerly to Marshall. And had not seen her! Not during those
hours would he think of her, not until the idea failed, or was
triumphant, would he turn to look for her. Knowing, the thought
unfolded slowly, knowing he would find her there!

The real work of the world is man-work; no matter how she or other
women might yearn, theirs not the endurance. All they can do is
negative; not to get on the track! Neither with pretty ruffles, nor
tender fears!

Knowing he would find her _there_. Suppose she were not there, she were
off building a house when he came home to find her, craving her comfort
or her laurels? Suppose she had promised to deliver a plan, and that
pledge involved her absence, or her attention when the world work,
the man-work released him--his story on his eager lips, her ears deaf
to hear? She saw Brandon under the swinging light, and his loneliness
came knocking at her door. Was it still necessary for that wife to help
with the bread-getting? On some women, that problem is thrust, but her
college study, her later reading, had taught her that all women should
seek it. An economic waste, half of the world spending more than the
other half can earn! To the woman who has been spared the problem,
comes the problem of choice. Has any one, born a woman, the daring to
say--“I will not choose. I will take both! I will be man and woman,
too!” Suppose she were not at home when he stumbled back to her! As
soon leave that corner of the bank!

Her muscles grew stiff. Once in a while, the watching women stirred,
or shifted their positions, but they did not get up. They would stay
where their man, Marshall, or Silent, Rickard, Hardin, could find them.
Only one woman symbolized that thought, and she followed it until it
curved, bringing her back to that twilight of clamor, the fight between
disorder and plan, waste and conservation, herself sitting on the bank
waiting.

Visibly, the drama moved toward its climax. Before many hours
passed, something would happen, the river would be captured, or
the idea forever mocked. Each time a belching engine pulled across
that hazardous track, it flung a credit to the man-side. Each time
the waters, slowly rising, hurled their weight against the creaking
trestles where the rock was thin, a point was gained by the militant
river. Its roar sounded like the last cry of a wounded animal to Innes’
ear; the Dragon was a reality that night as it spent its rage against
the shackles of puny men.

Down in the shadow of a lamp-pole, the light flaring riverward,
crouched Coronel. His eyes were fixed on those approaching walls of
rock. Motionless, he watched the final tussle, a grunt following each
glut of rock. Somewhere, his muscles ached, but his brain did not
receive their message. It was off duty. His mind was sending that car
across the trestle; it was hastening the charge, that quick clattering
downfall of shattered rock.

Molly Silent had seen her husband’s train pull in. She watched for it
to go out again. The whistle blew twice. Something was wrong. She left
her place in time to see Silent, his face shining ghastly pale under
the soot, pull himself up from the “battle-ship” where he had been
leaning. Estrada, sent by Rickard to find out why the train did not
pull out, saw him the same instant as did Molly. Silent swayed, waving
them back unseeingly, like a man who is drunk.

“God, man, you can’t go like that!” cried Estrada.

“Who’s going?” demanded Silent, his tongue thick with thirst and
exhaustion. The whistle blew again.

“_I_ will!” The train moved out on the trestle, as the whistle blew
angrily twice. Only Molly and Silent saw Estrada go. Silent staggered
unseeingly up the bank, toward the camp, Molly heavily following.

Workers and watchers felt a queer light playing on their faces, but no
one stopped to look at the lamps swinging across the channel, or they
would have seen that they were growing dim. The test of strength was
coming; no time to brush the damp hair from their eyes. The river was
humping out yonder; the rolling mass came roaring, flank-on, against
the dam.

“Quick, for God’s sake, quick,” yelled Rickard. His signals sounded
short and sharp. “Dump it on, throw the cars in!” Marshall was dancing,
his mouth full of oaths, on the bank edge. Breathlessly, all watched
the rushing water fling itself over the dam. For several hushed
seconds, the structure could not be seen. When the foam fell, a cheer
went up. The dam was standing. Silent, it was supposed, was bringing in
his train.

Above the distant jagged line of mountains, rose a red ball. A new day
began. The light fell on the facet of the fighting men; Indians and
Caucasians alike black with river mud and soot. The work went on. And
again the Dragon rose; a mountain of water came rolling damward.

“Hump yourselves,” screamed Marshall. The signals sounded like hoarse
cries.

Three trains ran steaming on the rails.

“We’ll get those rocks over before the river kicks,” cried Rickard. “Be
ready, Irish, to run in when they come back. Don’t stop now to blast
the big ones. Pour ’em on!”

There was a long wait before any rock fell. Marshall and Rickard
waited for the pour. The whistles blew again.

“Why in Hades,” began Marshall, and then they saw what was wrong. The
morning light showed a rock weighing several tons which was resisting
the efforts of the pressing crew. Out of the gloom sprang other figures
with crowbars.

“Why don’t they try to use mountains?” swore Marshall, and the rock
tottered, fell. The river tossed it as though it were a tennis ball,
sent it hurtling down the lower face of the dam. The river’s strength
was never more terrible.

“Damn those almighty fools!” screamed Tod Marshall.

“A fluke,” yelled Rickard.

Things began to go wild. The men were growing reckless. They were
sagging toward exhaustion; mistakes were made. Another rock, as heavy
as the last, was worked toward the edge. No one listened to the frantic
signals to dynamite that rock, break it on the car. Men were thick
about it with crowbars. There was another wait, the whistles confusing
the men on the train. They hurried. One concerted effort, drawing back
as the rock toppled over the edge. One man was too slow, or too tired.
He slipped. The watchers on the bank saw a flash of waving arms, heard
a cry; they had a glimpse of a blackened face as the foam caught it.
The waters closed over him.

There was a hush of horror; a halt.

“God Himself couldn’t save that poor devil,” cried Marshall. “Have the
work go on!”

Pour rocks on that wretch down there? Pin him down? Never had it seemed
more like war! “A man down? Ride over him! to victory!” Soberly,
Rickard signaled for the work to go on.

The rock-pour stuttered as if in horror. The women turned sick with
fear. No one knew who it was. Some poor Mexican, probably.

Some one standing near Rickard said that it was Arnica Jack; he said he
had seen his face. He had gone out on that train. Rickard thought of
the saved salary.

“Why doesn’t that train come in? What is the matter with Silent?” His
signals brought in the battle-ships, moving as though they were funeral
carriages.

“Where is Silent?” demanded Rickard, running down to the track. A
blackened figure was letting himself down from the car. The smell of
something pungent struck sharply against Rickard’s nostrils. Arnica!
“Where’s Silent?” he demanded.

“’E didn’t take hout this ’ere train.” The hobo’s eyes looked owlish.

“Then who?” the engineer was beginning, when it came to him. He himself
had sent Estrada to question Silent! He knew what the tramp was going
to tell him!

“The young Mexican, Hestrada. ’E tried to ’elp. ’E wasn’t fit.”

“Who was it?” Marshall had run down to see why the work paused.

Rickard turned shocked eyes on his chief. “Estrada!” The beautiful
mournful eyes of Eduardo were on him, not Marshall’s, horrified.

“But it came again; it kept coming. I had it while you were all
talking, just now!”

If that terrible smell didn’t take itself off! He hated the stupid
wretch standing, open-jawed before him, because it was Estrada’s and
not those owlish eyes that were lying in those waters yonder.

“Rickard!” The engineer did not recognize the quenched voice. “The work
has got to go on.”

It came to Rickard as he gave the orders for the trains to run “and be
quick about it,” that Eduardo was closer to Marshall than to him. “As
near a son as he’ll ever have.”

He turned a minute later to see his chief standing bareheaded. His own
cap came off.

“We’re burying the lad,” said Marshall. A rain of rock struck the
nerves of all of them, though less than six people knew who it was who
had paid the tribute of life to the river. Rickard kept the smell of
arnica in his nostrils. It nauseated him. Never would its sharp breath
blow on him but that scene would shake him in all its horror,--the sad
beautiful face under those malignant waters, the rocks nailing it down.
“It kept coming. I had it while you were all talking--just now!”

The minute of funeral had to be pushed aside. The river would not wait.
Train after train was rushed on to the trestles; wave after wave hit
them. But perceptibly, the dam was steadying. The rapid fire of rock
was telling.

Another ridge of yellow waters rose. Every eye was on that watery
mountain; it appeared to wait, as if summoning its strength for a
final onslaught. The river’s stillness was ominous to the sweating men
who watched as they labored that bulge of yellow water. Car after car
ran on to the track; load after load of clattering rock was dumped.
The roll of water came slowly, dwindling as it came; it broke against
the trestle weakly. For the first time, the trestle never shuddered.
Workers and watchers breathed as a unit the first deep breath that
night. There was a change.

Hardin came rushing down to the track where the rock cars ran on to the
trestles.

“It’s stopped rising!” he bellowed.

“Then work like hell!” bawled Rickard.

There followed some minutes of intensity when the rock-pour was almost
continuous. Was not that another bulge of yellow waters, swelling there
to the east? Every eye was on the river where it touched the rim of the
dam. Suddenly, a chorused cry rose. The river had stopped rising!

“Don’t stop! She may hump yet!” Rickard was splitting his voice against
the cheers. The whistles screamed themselves hoarse.

“We’ve got her!” screamed Hardin. “She’s going down!”

And then a girl, sitting on the bank, saw two men grab each other by
the hand. She was too far away to hear their voices, but the sun,
rising red through the banks of smoke, fell on the blackened faces of
her brother and Rickard. She did not care who saw her crying.

A small sound started down the river. It grew into a swelling cheer,
the pæan of victory. It demoralized into wild yells. Suddenly, the
noise stopped. Simultaneously, Marshall and Rickard had held up their
hands. The whistles had blown.

“What was that for?” demanded Mrs. Marshall.

“I suppose they can’t afford to waste any time.” Innes’ reply was
uncertain. She, too, was wondering.

Rickard, they could hear, again, screaming directions. The battle was
won; but it must be kept won. But no cheering! The men didn’t know who
it was who was buried out yonder.

When things were well under way, Rickard discovered that his head was
hot, his skin chilly. He would lay off for an hour. He would put Hardin
in his place, Hardin or Irish.

He found Hardin, who was having his minute of reaction. This was not
his triumph. Sullenly, he accepted Rickard’s place. Rickard turned
back. “Had you heard? That was Estrada out there.”

Hardin’s expression followed him, the gloom of sullen egotism passing
slowly from the face of unwilling horror. He had not spoken, but his
look said: “Not Estrada! Any one but Estrada!”

“Any one but Estrada! He’s about the only man in this camp without
enmities,” thought Rickard, and then he wondered if any one had told
Innes Hardin. He went in search of her, passing Coronel, whose head
rested on his chest. His snores could be heard above the noise of the
rock bombardment.

Mrs. Marshall, weeping, was being led back to the car by her husband.
Innes, he could see, had heard! Her eyes, fixed on the conquered
waters, were seeing Estrada, buried out there.

Rickard turned away without being seen. The minute he had been waiting
for was not his. It belonged to Estrada.




CHAPTER XL

A DESERTION


WHEN the afternoon waned, and Godfrey did not follow her, Gerty was
roused to uneasiness. Had she angered him by refusing to make the
definite promise? Could it be love, the sort of love she wanted,
if he could stay away like this when they could have the camp to
themselves, every one down at the break, no Hardins running in every
minute? Their first chance, and Godfrey slighting it! Something was
wrong. The Godfrey who had rushed on work like a glad hungry tiger, was
incomprehensible to her. Something must have happened.

She ruffled down to a disordered mess-tent. Wooster and one of the
Reclamation Service men were leaving as she went in. She had the table
to herself. MacLean, Jr., untidy, his clothes wet and dirty, came in
to snatch a bite, as she passed out, gay, indifferent. No Godfrey
in sight! Nor waiting for her in her tent. He would surely come
that evening, knowing that she would be alone! She arranged without
conscious thought the setting for a scene of pretty domesticity in the
ramada. After an hour or more, she tossed down the fluffy sewing and
picked up a novel, her work within reach of her hand. The approach of
her own climax dulled the printed sensations.

The little watch Tom had given her for an almost forgotten birthday
set the pace for her resentment. Nine, ten, eleven! How dared he treat
her so? She blew out the lamps when she found that she was shaking with
anger, and undressed in the dark. She could not see him, if he came
now, her self-control all gone! But she could not go to bed. She stood
in her darkened tent, shaken by her angry passions. Cruel, these men
to her. That black moment stripped her thoughts to nakedness. If she
had any other refuge, she would never forgive him, never. But what else
could she do? Where could she go? Those lonely, straitened widowhoods!
Not for her. She had been poor long enough. Even her little importance,
as the wife of Thomas Hardin, was gone. She dared not lose her hold on
Godfrey. It came to her then, how slight her hold on him was. A rover
with a conquering voice like that! Keep him tied to her wrist like a
tamed falcon?

Suppose that he were only trifling with her? What was that paper he had
thrust in her hand? Where had she laid it? Had she dropped it on the
way from the river? She groped for a match, and lighted a candle. Not
in the dress she had on, for none of her gowns had pockets. Not on the
floor, nor on the piano! There! She had dropped candle grease all over
the green mandarin skirt, but she didn’t care. A fond message, perhaps,
and she had lost it--out there somewhere, food for horrid talk! Her
bureau drawers were ransacked in a frenzy of fear and haste. Suddenly,
she remembered putting it in her handkerchief box.

Candle grease dripped over the yellow paper. It was a copy of a
telegram to Godfrey’s lawyer. “Start divorce proceedings at once. Any
grounds possible. Back soon. Godfrey.”

The frightened blood resumed its normal flow. If he had done this, for
her, then she had not lost him. But she had seen what a desert her
life would be, if she let him slip through her fingers. She couldn’t
endure Tom Hardin. And Rickard--they would expect her to play the glad
grandmother to their young romance! She couldn’t get away quick enough.

It was then the courage came to her. She would not be there to be told
of it. An apparent elopement, why had she never thought of that before?
That would cement their bond. Her scruples could grow on the road. Oh,
she could manage Godfrey! They would startle the world, a continent!
Godfrey was well known. It would seem splendid; they would believe her
happy. She would be happy! When she could get away from them all, she
would forget the look that sobered Rickard’s eyes when they fell on
Innes. That still had power to sting her. Away, she would find that
it was only anger. She did not care for him--she hated them all. If
Godfrey gave her happiness, she would keep him transported. She knew
she could. If only she did not feel so tired! So strangely old!

She blew out the candle, and went to the door of the tent-house. A
low line of smoke clouds shut out the river. Lines of hatred took
possession of her face. No one could have called it childish or pretty
then. There they all were, the people who had wrecked her life, the
Hardins, Rickard, Godfrey even, whom they would take from her if they
got the chance. She would not give them that chance! She would go
with him. She whipped herself into a pale imitation of excitement,
telling herself that Godfrey’s importance would make their affair
internationally conspicuous.

She was going to be happy. Perhaps that would cloud the mockery of
Rickard’s quizzical eyes. She was quite sure that she hated him. And
Tom? She would not let herself think of him! Had he not sacrificed her
youth, taken her into a country which ravages a woman’s beauty, keeping
her there until her chance to escape, her youth, is almost gone? Her
years smote her. She remembered that she must go to bed if she were to
have any looks in the morning.

When Godfrey came to her the next afternoon, penitent, refreshed after
a long morning’s sleep, he found a charming hostess. Self-controlled,
she listened to the story of the capture, and deflected his apology.
Serpent-wise, she smiled at him and called him a great foolish boy! She
was shy about his telegram. She fled through a forest of phrases and he
found he was running after her.

“You must go!” Enchantingly distant when he tried to reach her hand!
“We can’t keep this up.” How tired she felt!

“I can’t go without you,” he cried. He had discovered her
interpretation of his telegram, and it delighted him; he began to
believe it his own intention. “I can’t leave you. You will elude me. I
shall carry you off with me. I can’t leave you to your scruples, Gerty,
dear. I respect you for them, darling, you know that. But I’ve got to
keep near you to strengthen your will.”

She shut her eyes because she could not force fervor into them; his
were demanding it. How easy it had been! He was as plastic clay in her
hands. He thought that she was suffering. Life had been hard on her.
Poor little girl!

“I know. You shrink from it all. Don’t you think I know, dear? You
dread the steps that will free you--for he has been your husband--you
remember that; you will forget how he has treated you. You need me
beside you to help you. Let’s cut the knot. That makes it all easy.
To-night!”

“Not to-night. Maybe, to-morrow,” whispered Gerty, and then she managed
a few tears, and he was allowed to kiss her. It was all arranged before
he left the ramada. They were to leave together the next day.

She had let him sketch their trip to New York. She did not tell him
that she was going to stay in Los Angeles until the divorces were
obtained, unless she had to go to Reno. Plenty of time for scruples to
send forth long branches of regret between Yuma and Los Angeles; her
object would be accomplished by their leaving together. He would feel
that he owed her his name.

Of course, Gerty must do it the conventional way! She would have used
rope ladders had they been needed. The conventional note was pinned to
her bureau scarf.

Innes was with Tom when he found it. They came in together from the
river. Neither had noticed the odd looks from the men as they passed
through the encampment. A dozen men had seen Hardin’s wife leave for
the North with Godfrey.

Gerty’s letter told Tom that it was all over. She had tried to stand
it, to be true even through his cruelty, but a feeling stronger than
she was made her true to herself, and so true at last to him! Falsely
dramatic, every word of it, romantically cruel.

Innes’ revulsion lacked speech. The fulfilment of her intuitions left
a smudge; indelible, she knew when she looked at Tom’s face. She
stretched out her hand mutely for the letter. The common blatter
sickened her. She could offer no comfort. His eyes told her it was
worse than death.

He struck off her hand when it touched his shoulder. Gerty’s hand had
coerced him that way. He was done with softness.

His silence oppressed her. This was a man she did not know;
inarticulate, smitten. She told herself that even a sister was an
intruder--but she was afraid to leave him alone. She went out,
pitifully, questioning those tense face-muscles. She took a station by
her own tent door. She would not go down to dinner. Tom, in that mood,
frightened her. For hours, she watched his tent. When it grew dark, she
could no longer endure it. He did not answer her knock. She found him
where she had left him. But it was a different Hardin. The backward
look now for him. He had buried, in those hours, his optimism. His life
was lived. Gerty’s blow had made of him an old man.

She forced herself toward the volcano’s edge; and the swift eruption
scorched her. It was the pitiable wreck of dignity, of pride. His words
were incoherent; his wrath involved his sister, crouching in tears.
When he was done, he began hurling clothes and brushes indiscriminately
into his Gladstone.

“You are not going after them?” She had not gathered his plan.

“Yes, I’m going after them,” he shouted. “I’m not wanted, you mean. An
uninvited guest. I’ll give them a chance for reciprocity.”

She caught his arm. “Tom,” she pleaded, “you can’t go like this. Wait
until you are calm. Until you can see this clearly.” She thought then
that he meant to kill Godfrey.

His plan, when at last she pieced together his distorted idea, was so
sullen, so determined, that her slight weapons could not cope with
it. He had promised to protect Gerty, he kept repeating. Well, he
would keep his vows, if she didn’t. He drew, she could see, a grim
satisfaction from that antithesis. He would keep _his_ vows. He would
make that scoundrel promise on oath to divorce the other woman and
marry the woman whom he had dishonored. Unless he got that promise,
Hardin swore to kill him. Pacing up and down the canvased cage of a
tent, he delivered himself of his fury.

Innes shrank from him, the man she did not know. The coarse streak was
uncovered in all its repulsiveness. Old Jasper Gingg’s face leered
through the features of his descendant. Dementia and atavism glared
through his eyes. His hate was disfiguring. “I’ll protect my wife. I’ll
keep my vows.”

He turned on Innes suddenly. She was crying, a huddled heap on the
couch. “I’ve had enough crying--between you and Gerty. Will you get
out? I’ve got to have some sleep.”

Through her sobs, he could make out that she was afraid to leave him.
He stood staring at her, frowning at her fright, her intrusion.

“Well, then, I’ll go. I’m used to having to leave my own tent. A dog’s
life.” He flung out into the night.

She cried to him to come back, that she would go. “Don’t, Tom! Tom!”
Her voice rang through the encampment. The echo warned her. She saw
questioning slits of light from tents across the trapezium. She shut
the door.

She stood in the room he had left; the desecrated home of Tom Hardin.
It was the wreck she had foreseen. She would sit up for him. She could
not sit there watching that hateful, leering mandarin skirt, daubed
with candle-drippings; those sketches; everything recalled Gerty
Hardin’s wistful baby smile. She could not bring herself to lie on that
couch. She thrust her arms into Tom’s overcoat, buttoning it around
her, and went out to wait for him. His own cot was there.

A light shone from Rickard’s window. The peace of the stars, the light
from the window, smoothed out her terrors. She could picture Tom
walking out his trouble, crying out his hurt to those same distant
stars.

How fierce the resentment against pain! The atom beating his head in
revolt against the universe! That particular sting, Tom’s; another kind
of sorrow the next man’s heritage! But the stars know it, those worlds
of burned-out griefs; to them how tenderly humorous, she thought, must
be each individual resistance. A short span, a little joy, perhaps; a
little sorrow; rebellion;--and then the stars again.

To-night, it was all sorrow. Down there, under the rocks, lay Estrada.
Tripped to his end by the prophecy of the general, the son the
corner-stone of his undertaking! In the river of his plan the best of
them lay sleeping!

Who can measure the influence upon youth the legends of its country,
the effect of its brave early history? Would any of those coming later
fail to find the thrill in the story of the man who had visioned the
idea, the son whose eager service to a comrade had consecrated it?

A short span:--and a little joy, perhaps! Her eyes sought the light
from Rickard’s window. A little joy,--and then the stars--again!

Slowly, the universe cradled her. She was in her first deep sleep when
a step passed her. A hand fumbled uncertainly over the surface of the
door; knocked gently. A heavy bundle dropped to the threshold. Again
the figure passed the occupied cot, and paused, going on again, more
softly.

No quickened pulse told MacLean, Jr., that it was Innes Hardin sleeping
in her brother’s cot.




CHAPTER XLI

INCOMPLETENESS


STUMBLING and blind, Hardin pushed without volition toward the river
which was sending its peaceful waters once again to the gulf. When he
awoke to himself and the night, he was on the levee.

His bitterness was coloring both strands of his life. Strange, that
a man’s attainment can bring him neither pride nor joy, his own
achievement winning him dishonor in a double sense! The triumph of that
mound of earth, of those turned waters, was not his. Gerty had felt it;
else she had not flouted him. In everything he had failed. Life held
only jeers for him.

Nothing in Hardin’s experience, or in his specialized reading had
helped him to a philosophy of life; the books men live by were not his;
and his crude egotism, as raw to-day as when he was twenty-five, in
the moment of his trial tripped him to his fall. In all his jaundiced
world, there was no rosy finger of light. His wounded shadow obscured
the universe. His suffering, he felt, was unparalleled, because it was
undeserved. What had betrayed him? His bitterness was crying to the
stars. Where was the fault?

He kept telling himself that it was not true. He would wake up and find
himself in his tent, under those same mocking stars; he would discover
it to be a hideous dream. Why for him this bite of hate, cried his
bleeding ego? It was as though life, which he had been pursuing, had
turned suddenly on him, savage and virulent, had bitten him to the
bone. It wasn’t true, cried his resistance, because it wouldn’t be
right! This crash violated all his plans, warped his world, accused his
judgments. This the Hardin who had followed a deliberate trail ever
since that morning of resolution in this yet unawakened desert? In what
had that man failed, where had he missed? Misfortune, trouble, he had
thought of vaguely as a punishment for sin, or negligence, as do most
eager spirits, before it comes! Himself! Tom Hardin,--why, life had
scarcely begun! Why, since that moment, his path had known no turning;
one woman, one ambition; selflessness. Something was wrong; the umpire
caught napping!

His training betrayed him into a thicket of amaze, of protest. His
mental processes kept him in a circle of tangled underbrush. What was
physical pain, he cried, to the torture of his mind? What the agony of
death?

Stumbling along the levee of his buried hopes, by the peaceful chained
river of his dedication, it came to him, the Ultimate, the end of it
all. Until then death had been kept in its decent background. The one
incontrovertible fact of the universe stared him now in the face.
Heretofore, his struggle had been set to the tune of life; now, the
rest of the way, he was facing death. For what is death but the failure
to live? That was where he, Hardin, had failed. He touched at a thought
of brotherhood, the realization dim. Death had come to Eduardo swiftly;
but others it follows, cloaking its face, slowly stalking its victim
down! Now he knew what would be _his_ companion the rest of the way!

Brandon, walking out a philosophic, bloodless vigil, came upon the
distorted, reeling fugitive. The starlight showed the face tortured. No
safety for that staggering derelict without a pilot! He grabbed Hardin
by the arm, and with gentle force, directed his steps. He talked of
himself, his voice tuned to the stillness of the night.

“I like to walk before I turn in. I go to sleep quicker. I have no
dreams then. ‘No dreams, dear God, no dreams.’ That is the mile-post
of age, I think. We cling to our dreams in our youth. When we begin to
grow old, we pray for sleep, which is the beginning of the prayer for
death. It is our preparation for the long sleep.” He would not see the
scowl that disfigured Hardin’s features.

“I often think of that blessing of ours. Wondering if men could endure
what they like to call their supreme blessing, life, if we were not
able to sleep away half of it. We die half of our life, eagerly, that
we may live the other half. Strange, that!”

Hardin thought that he was too full of pain, of intolerance to listen,
but the calm voice reached his fleeing thoughts. The final sleep,
release? Sharply, he looked at Brandon’s straight clean profile,
ascetic in its intellectual purity, sweet as a woman’s. What had _his_
life been? Brandon kept on with his quiet reflection, but Hardin was
wandering afield. His thoughts were growing centrifugal, sympathetic.
Brandon, too, had failed!

He found that his companion had been talking about the river’s capture.
He caught a phrase now and again, but his thoughts hovered over his own
hurt as vultures over a dying body.

“That was a great battle,” Brandon was saying. “And this the sort of
field on which our future battles will be fought. It’s modern warfare.
In a few years the names of those generals will be forgotten. We call
ourselves civilized, yet we put up statues to a man who bombards and
burns a town of savages. We’ll learn to do things differently. We’ll
learn our real values. When the world begins to crowd up, we’ll find
the value of these waste places. And we’ll give titles to men like the
older Estrada.” Hardin was thrown against another wrong. He forgot that
Brandon was droning. Suddenly, a personal note was sounded. He woke to
hear Brandon’s conclusion:

“You think you will, but you won’t. You won’t do anything to him. You
won’t want to.”

Hardin stood still. He stared at Brandon. What was he talking about? It
sounded like necromancy. He had said nothing of Godfrey.

“You won’t harm him.” Brandon linked his arm through the withdrawn one
of Hardin and pressed him into step.

“You saw them?” Of course, everybody knew by this time that Gerty had
left him! They had taken no pains to spare him, throwing publicly their
scorn of him in his face!

“I was at the station. I think I know how you feel. How any man
would feel. Plan it, kill him with your hands. Hate him; get it out
of you. Kill him before you go to sleep.” Hardin was staring like a
sleep-walker. “Get it out of your system; it’s poison. When you leave
me”--but Brandon did not intend that to be soon--“go home and write to
them both. Then you can sleep. To-morrow, it will be done. Then burn
the letter. Satisfy the animal, or it will be at your bedside waiting
in the morning. I always write out my anger, before I sleep. Do you
remember the Lincoln story? I’ve adopted that.”

Hardin shut his ears to the anecdote with rude intention. Stories! What
had he to do with after-dinner stories a night like this? Brandon was
walking a little faster. He intended to tire out Hardin. He finished
his whimsical reminiscence. “Yes, I always burn those letters. But I
write them first. It’s a good way, the Lincoln way.”

Hardin turned on him, his twisted features unpleasant to see. “You
think I mean to hurt him, kill him. We are not living in dueling times.
I wouldn’t touch the--skunk.”

An ulcer had been pricked. His voice was calmer. The plan came out,
the ugly revenge of distorted chivalry and hate and duty. Brandon’s
low murmurs of attention passed for assent. Hardin did not notice that
they were within sight of the encampment, nor that Brandon wheeled
to retrace their steps. He took Brandon back into the beginnings
of things, his cramped youth, his ambition, his awakening in that
very desert, his final dedication to one woman, one idea. It was
a passionate self-eulogy, the relief of the wounded self-esteem.
Everything had mocked him. What use were such sacrifices, if this be
the end? He demanded an answer of the eternal. As well be a beast--the
punishment no worse!

His fury had shouted itself hoarse, stridulous. She was still his
wife--he still had a duty to perform, he maintained, the duty of
protection. It was grotesque, a Frankenstein of rage, but there was no
smile in Brandon’s heart. He waited for the storm to exhaust itself.
Even when Hardin had finished, he hesitated; his words must be water,
not fuel to those scorching fires.

“It’s good as far as you see it,” he was beginning.

“Of course, it’s right,” thundered Hardin. “She’s not to be thrown
aside, my wife--”

“No, but Godfrey’s wife is.” Brandon added no comment.

“Well, what of that? That’s his lookout, isn’t it? He should have
thought about that before. I’ll stand by Gerty, God Almighty, until the
end.”

He walked on sulking.

“_Your_ wife. Because she is _your_ wife. It’s the pronoun, not the
sex, or the relation. She’s yours, that is, she was. Oh, we recognize
the marriage ceremony, we men to-day, but we go farther, we acknowledge
the unwritten sacrament, inclination. If she no longer wants to be your
wife, she’s not your wife, Hardin. You don’t want her. Let her alone.
You have no more right to her, or to her life, after yesterday, than
though she were a dollar on another man’s desk. You’re not a savage.
And she’s not a child. She knows the world. She can protect herself,
oh, better than you can.”

Hardin flung out a protest to this startling twist of facts. Brandon
let him get tangled in his angry rush.

“The river,” began Brandon, as though they had been discussing it. “You
have done this thing, but yours is not the credit, the published honor.
It’s Marshall’s and Rickard’s. Yet the thing is done as you wanted it,
approximately. I heard that it was you who went after Faraday. Now the
success stings you. _Yours_ is neither the power nor the glory. The
pronoun again, Mr. Hardin!”

Beside them ran the river, guileless, now, in its captivity. The flat
world stretched away from them until it ran into a blur of rising
shadow, of dim mountain ranges. The world was sleeping; only the stars
watched. In spite of his resistance, the quiet came creeping into
Hardin’s soul. His muscles were relaxing; he was slipping toward sleep.

“I’ve wondered, too,” Brandon took a slower tempo, “if we could not see
men better by searching for their apex. Perhaps you’ve never looked at
life that way?”

The ugly lip flared. Hardin couldn’t see what Brandon was driving at.
He’d never had time to sit still and look at life! He’d just lived!
Just worked along!

“What are we doing? Climbing up a mountain. Whatever we call this
journey of ours, ambition, labor; life. We climb up; we creep down. We
are taught to climb up, plenty of teachers for that, all the way along.
No one shows us when to begin to crawl down. When we reach the apex,
that’s the trial. Why? We don’t know it’s the apex. We’ve achieved all
we can. Achieved or failed. We fail, anyway, there, because we find
we can’t climb any more. We’re in the habit of climbing; we’ve a lust
for it. No slippers and easy chair yet for us. We tell ourselves it’s
slothful not to climb. We keep on, and we fall. We must learn to creep;
we are leaving our apex. That’s when we need help, a voice out of a
book, or a friend’s to help us and say, ‘You’ve not failed! You went
as far as you could. You’ve done your part. The young men will do the
rest, the ones who come after. They’ll take the place you leave. Why,
man, you yourself, took another’s. Creep down cheerfully. You’ve lived.
It’s the eternal plan!’”

Hardin did not speak, but his eyes had left the ground.

“Look at this desert. I reckon that there’s no man who knows better
than I do just what you’ve done. You’ve gone ahead when others laughed
at you. You’ve worked when others slept.”

Hardin’s head lost its shamed droop. Some one knew what he had done.
Gerty had known, too, but she was ashamed of him. To her, he had failed.

“Don’t covet all the parts, Hardin. You started it, you and Estrada.
He’s had less fun out of it, even, than you. I know that you sacrificed
your position to get the thing pulled through. It was a grand thing to
do, better than putting the harness on the river. I’m proud to know
you.”

The stormy blood began its normal flow. He could look at the river,
now, not ashamed. A few minutes later, he remembered to ask, “What do
you mean by my part?”

“Your ego, Hardin. Our ego. It tells us in our youth to do everything,
that all the parts are calling for us. But one man can’t fill more than
one part. Then it’s time to get off the stage. Make room for the young
men; they’re waiting for their chance. Why, Hardin, _you_ don’t have to
write your name all over this desert! It’s here! The world may mention
Marshall, or Rickard when they speak of the Colorado, but there’s not
a man in this valley, nor one who comes after, who’ll fail to take off
his hat to Tom Hardin!”

Hardin stopped with a jerk. “Do you think that’s true?”

A steady smile, paternal in its sweetness, answered him. “I know it’s
true. But what difference does that make? _You_ know. You are on good
terms with yourself. That’s all we ought to want. It’s a fact. Creep
down cheerfully.”

The two men struck homeward. The chill that precedes the desert dawn
was in the air.

“I yearned for completeness, too,” mused Brandon. “We’re made that way.
I thought that that was what life was. A complete thing. We begin to
believe in that when we are tugging at our mother’s skirts. When we
grow older, we fight for it. Not until we reach our apex, not until we
begin to think about death, do we discover that there is no such thing
as individual completion. Did you ever hear of a rounded life, or a
complete one? We live too long, Hardin, or die too soon. It’s creeping
paralysis, or an accident in the street. We never finish anything, even
ourselves! We were never intended to, that’s my philosophy. Our ego
blinds us to that. We can only help the scheme along.”

“Go on talking,” said Hardin. Brandon had thrown him back to his own
centrifugal and nebulous thought.

He was trudging now, his step grown weary, in the direction of the
encampment. He could see in the distance his deserted tent. But his
mood had softened. The stream of his shackling connoted his success,
as this man had said. The valley beyond, yielding its harvest of happy
homes, that had he done. Perhaps, after all, he had not altogether
failed. And, at last, he looked up at the stars.

Before they reached the camp Brandon spoke again. “I can remember when
I discovered that that was not the plan. I’d just had my knockout. I
could not see any reason in it. For my wife to have to stay behind me,
to support me until I was strong enough to get started, or could find a
berth out here--it wasn’t the thing I wanted! I wasn’t pleasant to have
around. I moaned a good deal to Bertha about failure. I was a failure,
as a hero! I had to go to Boston to sell a piece of property. If I sold
it, I thought I could take Bertha west with me. I did not sell it. I
went in to a symphony concert after the deal fell through. I was full
of rebellion; the apex had come too soon. I guess it always seems that
way, whether we’re fifty, or twenty-nine. The music itself, the sounds
did not soothe me. I was thinking of my paper, my ambition. Ambition in
a desert? It had a mocking sound. I wanted to support my wife!

“I wasn’t listening to the music. I found I was watching the antics
of the man with the violoncello. He’d sit for a while and never make
a sound. It struck me as queer that a man could be willing to spend
a lifetime learning to play a thing like that, spend an afternoon to
come in, just once in a while! Just a few notes a day! I suppose you’ll
laugh at me, for we get our lessons different ways. I got mine from
that ’cello player. It came to me then, the apex philosophy. I got a
view at the scheme of things. Men’s incompleteness, the brotherhood of
man, our broken segments making up the whole; I remember when I left,
I was trying to whistle a theme from that great _Pathetique_! I never
shall forget that afternoon. I think of that ’cello player, think of my
life that way. We are all playing in the symphony, some of us carry the
tune a little further, some of us, like the ’cello player, content to
fill out the harmonies.”

They had reached the encampment. “I believe I’ll turn in,” gruffed
Hardin.

“Good night.” Brandon struck off to his tent.

Hardin found Innes asleep, huddled in his overcoat. He did not waken
her. On his threshold he stumbled over a clumsy bundle. Paper, torn,
paper wrappings, crackled under his fingers. He carried it into his
tent and shut the door before striking a match, so as not to waken her.
In the dark, he fumbled through the room for a match. Before lighting
a candle, the flickering match in his hand, he pulled down the tent
shades lest the light arouse Innes. He didn’t want any more woman talk!
He was stumbling off to bed when his eyes fell on the fat parcel. The
shape intrigued his curiosity.

It was soiled and racked from traveling. The labels read “Jalisco;
Nogales; Guadalajara; Tepic.” He searched for the original address. At
last he made out a blurred and muddied “Hardin.” Scrawled in by recent
fingers was “The Crossing, Mexico.”

On the table he unwound its dirty wrappings. A covering of cheese-cloth
lined the paper shells. Hardin’s weary eyes questioned the odd-looking
cushion. His fingers ran over the rigid curves. It came to him then,
what it was. Gerty’s form! And he sat it up on its waist-line.

Through Mexico, jostled from town to town; written about, speculated
on, sorely needed every time one of those dainty gowns was made, “those
pretty flimsy gowns of Gert’s!” At last it had come to the Heading!

He stared at it vacantly.

Something was happening within him; a childishness he could not
control. The shuddering storm swept over him as a dry autumn wind that
strips the trees gaunt.

He staggered to the candle and blew out its wavering flame. Picking up
the shape, he stole with it into the next room. He knelt by the bed
that had been Gerty’s. And the grandson of old Jasper Gingg cried out
his hurt, with his arms around that unyielding waist, his head against
that stuffed bosom.




CHAPTER XLII

A CORNER OF HIS HEART


THE second evening after the closure Rickard was dining with the
Marshalls in their car. The _Palmyra_ was preparing to leave the
siding. She was to pull out the next day. Already Marshall was
restless. Tucson was calling him; Oaxaca was calling him! And he was
due in Chicago for a conference with Faraday.

Rickard had been protesting against his new orders. It hurt him to
curtail his force. “Not until the concrete gate is finished, and the
whole length of levee done, will I feel safe.”

“Faraday says to go slow,” repeated Marshall. “He’s got something up
his sleeve. It may be taken off his hands. If that’s the case, we’ve
done our part.”

“I like to leave my work finished, not hanging in mid-air,” grumbled
the engineer. “He’d hate to do this over again. I would! You will
advise him when you see him next week, Mr. Marshall? Don’t let him cut
down on the force we have now. Let us keep,” and then he smiled, “as
many as we can!”

For the hobo ranks were thinning as late snows beneath the sun. Up
North, a city was rebuilding. In Mexico, new mines were being opened
up. The west coast of Mexico was calling to those restless soldiers who
march without a captain.

“They are going out by way of Calexico,” Rickard was still smiling
over some memories of desertion. “They’ve learned that they can hoof
it to Cocopah, and from there sneak in on the work-trains. Work crews
are more vulnerable than regular brakemen; they have more imagination.
To them, these returning hoboes are heroes. It was they who saved the
valley, not you, Mr. Marshall! That’s their opinion.”

“I preferred my ‘snap’ myself!” returned Marshall. “Have you cut down
on the Indians?”

Rickard nodded, remembering how Hardin had opposed himself yesterday to
the number of men retained; as being twice too many! The same Hardin!
An awkward relationship swung toward the two men. Hardin, it was easy
to see, was striving to remember his gratitude to the man who had
stopped the river. He himself had different reasons for wishing to be
fair to Tom Hardin! His name was brought up by Tod Marshall. “She was
light potatoes,” he dismissed the woman. “But she’s broken the man’s
spirit.”

Rickard, it was discovered, had nothing to say on the subject of the
elopement.

“I’m sorry his sister is not here to-night,” began Marshall
mischievously.

“I did ask her, Tod,” Claudia hastened to interrupt her lord. “But she
would not leave her brother her last evening.”

“Her _last_ evening?” exclaimed Rickard. “Is she going away?”

Marshall subdued his twinkle. “We are carrying her off. She is to visit
Mrs. Marshall while I am on the road.”

“Just a few days,” put in his wife. “She feels that her brother wants
to be by himself. I think she is right.”

And the _Palmyra_ made early runs! He must see her that night. He would
leave as soon as he decently could. Tony’s dinner was endless to him.

Mrs. Marshall found opportunity in her guest’s abstraction to explain
to her husband that at last Mrs. Silent had consented to let her take
the boy, Jimmie, “out” with her.

“She’s not well herself. Another!” She arched her eyebrows meaningly.

Rickard gulped down his coffee, boiling. Tony was looking with tragic
concern at the untasted dessert on the engineer’s plate. “Mrs.
Marshall, will you let me run away early?” Why should he give any
excuse? They knew what he was running away for!

He made his way to the little white tent on the far side of the
trapezium. The door was open, the lamplight flaring through. He could
see Coronel struggling with the straps of a brass-bound trunk. Innes,
by the door, was bidding good-by to Señora Maldonado.

He could hear her voice as he drew near. “You’ll let me hear from you?
How you are getting on? And the children?”

He forgot to greet the Mexican. She stood waiting; her eyes full of
him. Surely, the kind señor had something to say to her? He had taken
the white girl’s hand. He was staring into the white girl’s eyes.
Something came to her, a memory like forgotten music. Silently, she
slipped away into the night.

Rickard would not release Innes’ hand; her eyes could not meet the look
in his.

“Wasn’t she good to come? She rode, horseback, all the way up here just
to say good-by to me. She is going to Nogales to live, taking the
children. She thinks she has a good chance there. She asked me to tell
you.” Her chatter, too, dropped before his silence. He kept her hand in
his.

“Come out and have a walk with me! It’s not too late?”

Her foolish, chattering speech all mute!

“The levee?” asked Rickard. Still holding her hand, he drew it through
the loop of his arm.

“You were not going to tell me you were going?”

No answer to that either! How could she tell him she was going when she
knew what she knew!

“You were running away from me?” He leaned down to her face.

If she dared, she would be pert with him; she would not have to _run_
away from him!

“You know that I love you! I have been waiting for this minute, this
woman, all these lonely years.”

Her head she kept turned from him. He could not see the little maternal
smile that ran around the curves of her mouth. Those years, filled to
the brim with stern work, had not been lonely. Lonely moments he had
had, that was all. She could understand how a man like Rickard would
find those moments lonely. There, he and Tom stood together. He was
asking her to fill those minutes; those only. But he did not know that.
He would not know what she meant if she told him that he was asking her
to fill a corner of his heart!

“Nothing for me?” He stopped, and made her face him, by taking both of
her hands in his.

She would not look at him yet, would not meet the look which always
compelled her will, stultified her speech. She had something to say
first.

“We don’t know each other; that is, you don’t know me!” She was not
going to let them make that mistake, let him make that mistake!

“Is that all?” There was relief in his voice. For a bad moment he had
wondered if it was possible, if Estrada--“I don’t know you? Haven’t
I seen you day by day? Haven’t I seen your self-control tried,
proved--haven’t I seen your justice, when you could not understand--
Look at me!”

She shook her head, her eyes on the sand under her feet. He could
scarcely catch her words. They did not know each other. He did not know
her!

“Dear! I don’t know whether you love red or blue, that’s a fact; Ibsen
or Rostand; heat or cold. Does that matter? I know you!”

An upward glance had caught him smiling. Her speech was routed.
“I’m--the--only girl here!”

“Do you think that’s why I love you?”

“Ah, but you loved Gerty!” That slipped from her. She had not meant to
say that!

“Does that hurt?” Abashed by her own daring, yet she was glad she had
dared. She wanted him to deny it. For he would deny it? She wondered if
he were angry, but she could not look at him.

The minutes, dragging like weighted hours, told her that he was not
going to answer her. It came to her then that she would never know
whether Gerty’s story were wholly false, or partly true. She knew,
then, that no wheedling, wife’s or sweetheart’s, would tease that story
from him. It did not belong to him.

His silence frightened her into articulateness. He must not think
that she was foolish! It was not that, in itself, she meant. The
words jostled one another in their soft swift rush. He--he had made
a mistake once before. He had liked the sort of woman he had thought
Gerty was. She herself was not like the real Gerty any more than she
was like the other, the woman that did not exist. He would find that
they did not think alike, believe alike, that there were differences--

“Aren’t you making something out of nothing, Innes?”

That voice could always chide her into silence! Her speech lay
cluttered in ruins, her words like useless broken bricks falling from
the wall she was building.

He took her hand and led her to a pile of rock the river had not eaten.
He pulled her down beside him.

“Isn’t it true, with us?”

“It is, with me,” breathed Innes. Their voices were low as though they
were in church.

“And you think it isn’t, with me!” Rickard stood before her. “Is it
because I trust you, I wonder? That I, loving you, love to have the
others love you, too? Don’t you suppose I know how it is with the rest,
MacLean; how it was with Estrada? Should I be jealous? Why, I’m not.
I’m proud! Isn’t that because I _know_ you, know the fine steady heart
of you? You hated me at first--and I am proud of that. I don’t love you
enough?” He knelt at her feet, not listening to her pleading. He bent
down and kissed one foot; then the other. “I love them!” The face he
raised to her Innes had never seen before. He pressed a kiss against
her knee. “That, too! It’s mine. I’ve not said my prayers since I was a
boy. I shall say them again, here, you teaching me.” His kisses ran up
her arm, from the tips of her limp fingers. His mouth, close to hers,
stopped there. He whispered:

“You--kiss me, my girl!”

Slowly, unseeingly, as though drawn by an external will, her face
raised to his; slowly, their lips met. His arms were around her; the
world was blotted out.

Innes, minutes later, put her mouth against his ear. It was the Innes
he did not know, that he had seen with others, mischievous, whimsical,
romping as a young boy with MacLean on the _Delta_.

“I love--red,” she whispered. “And heat and sunshine. But I love
blue, on you; and cold, if it were with you,--and the rest of the
differences--”

He caught her to him. “There are not going to be any differences!”


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.





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