Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1919 — Page 2

The River

GERTY HARDIN’S DINNER PROVES AN ORDEAL FOR ALL WHO ARE PRESENT.

Synopsis^—K. C. Rickard, an engineer of the Overland Pacific, is caUedto the office of President Marshall in Tucson. While waiting Rick•rd reads a report on the ravages of the Colorado river, which occurred despite the efforts of Thomas Hardin, head of the Desert Reclamation company. Hardin had been a student under Rickard in an eastern college and had married Gerty Holmes, with whom Rickard had fancied be was in love. Marshall tells Rickard the Overland Pacific must step in to save the Imperial valley and wishes to send Rickard to take charge. Rickard declines because he foresees embarrassment in supplanting Hardin, but is won over. Rickard goes to Calexico and, on the way, learns much about Hardin and his work. Rickard meets Mr. and Mrs. Hardin and Innes Hardin, the former’s half sister. At the company offices he finds the engineers loyal to Hardin and hostile to him. Rickard attends a meeting of the directors and asserts bls authority. Hardin rages. Estrada, a Mexican, son of the “Father of the Imperial Valley," tells Rickard the general situation and expresses forebodings that the work will fail. Innes Hardin is bitter against Rickard for supplanting her brother, out she tries to cheer up the latter. Hardin discovers that Rieka rd is planning a levee to protect Calexico and puts him down as Incompetent Gerty thinks her husband is jealous.

CHAPTER X—Continued. 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 tonight, 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 1” A headache I 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 1" What was it to her, the pettiness of • woman whom an accident of life had •wept 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 1 business it is in life to please one man, to 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 I" Soberly she covered her plain brassiere with a white waist of cotton docking. A red leather belt and crimson tie she added self-consciously. “Where is my bloodstone pin?” tHadn’t she spent an hour at least matching that particular leather belt? But he was a man, in battle. The headgate held up; it was too bad. Silent, Bodefeldt, Wooster, Grant, all of them fighting mad because of the deadlock at the Heading. AH 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 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 fonnd 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 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 bluel”

“You’re elegant enough for the two of us. Isn’t that something newt” 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 bad only made the most of his opportunities. What a gamble, life to a woman ! She made a trip into her bedroom Sand took a reassuring survey in her jnlrror. The lingerie frock would look pimple to a man who 'would never suspect It of hand-made 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 Glngg, whose smithy had been the rendezvous for the wildest roughs, the fiercest cattlemen in Missouri. “Td let him see you knew what’s what, even if we do live like gipsies." The answer to that was another growl. Innes could hear him dragging put 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 I 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 tn 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 anyone 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 I She made an unintelligible excuse and darted behind theportlere. _ Tom's face was apoplectic. He was f wrestllng 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 =tet 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 otthelr 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 1 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 bnly allusion to deficiencies, but“ff 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 old 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 cov-

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

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ertly 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 I” 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. •' F ' ■ ■ ■ = ... 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 Inf 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 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 I 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 role sounded casual; nd 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. 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. 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 Hardlns. 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. “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.” 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 oh 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 birdlike. “Good-by I 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. §he could never forgive, a hurt that was done to her own. She was a Hardin.

When the Colorado Burst Its Banks and Flooded the Imperial Valley California

By EDNAH AIKEN

“Innes! Mr. Rickard said good night 1” 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 XL _ - ■ ’ The Fighting Chance. "Casey’s back, ‘spying I” 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 leftthe 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 No. 0 district, trying to push the shattered WistaritTthrough 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 headgate. “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 midstream. What he

Her Eyes Did Not Meet His.

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 te 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 1 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 hard already started the line projected by Hardin to Marshall the year before, a' spur across the desert, dipping into Mexico between the Jean, restless sandhills, 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 keping his men on the jump to fill tbit contract, to make his nation pay the price. The completion of the road meant help to the valley; supplies, men, eould be rushed through to the break. In spite of his haunting sense of

ultimate failure the growing belief lb the omnipotence of the Great Yellow Dragon as the Oocopahs visualized it, Estrada’s work was as Intense as though he ware hastening a sure victory. The dguntless 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. “Rickard’s gone hog-wild," Hardin told his family the next morning. “Building a levee between the towns! The man’s off his head." “There 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 gato held up 1 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 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 1” Thlß_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 1” 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 b® guerrilla warfafe. , Not a fight in the open, he knew how to meet that, but that 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 welldrilled 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 Mac Lean. 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 be' 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 anyone 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 sternn 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, ha might fall. “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, dlan, made the year a significant, eventful one. Matt Hamlin, too, whose shrewd eyes had grown nver-wlse, 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; ho 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 halfbreed, Maldonado, as he Inspected the new stretch of levee between the lowns. 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 for 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 1” Though he suspected Maldonado would lie on principle, though it mightbe 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 out 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. 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 headgate at the Crossing. Hamlin had given him a new viewpoint There was a fighting chance. And he wanted to be fair. Next to being successful he wanted to be fair. “It’s time to be hearing from Marshall,” Rickard was thinking, as be 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 Rover mountains —the lakes swollen with ice, the Gila restless, the summer floods yet to be met; perhaps, he now thought, he had been overfalr in emphasizing the arguments for the headgate. 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, ne 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 1 But dollars to doughnuts, as Junior says, we don’t do it!"

Was It Hardin’s luck? Rickard scouted -the Idea and charged It to pure Inefficiency. Whatever the cause, fate and Hardin’s failure to carry out Instructions seemed to have combined to wreck Rickard’s plans. Don’t miss the next installment.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

Creatures That Weep.

Among the creatures that weep most easily are the ruminants. All hunters know that the stag weeps, and it is smarted that the bear sheds tears when severely wounded. The giraffe is ndt less sensitive and regards with tearful eyes the hunter who hMi wounded IL