As the muscles of a tiger work and twitch when the beast makes ready for its spring, a movement agitated the mob, and a low growling murmur came from the mass of men. Texas spoke sharply. "Ready, you fellows in there! If they start let them have it."
The murmur swelled in volume into an angry, inarticulate roar. The movement increased. An instant more and it would launch the mob in a mad rush.
Suddenly, as a beast checked in its spring, they were still and motionless.
By the side of the old frontiersman on the platform under the light stood Barbara.
"Let me speak to them, Tex."
Without pausing for the astonished man to reply she spoke to the mob inSpanish, her voice rising clearly and sweetly.
"Do you know me, friends?"
From different points in the crowd came the answers.
"Si, Senorita." "It is the daughter of Senor Worth." "Among the poor inRubio City La Senorita was an angel of mercy."
"I remember many of you," Barbara continued. "Over there I see Jose Gallegos, whose wife and baby were ill. How is the little family now, Jose? Manuel Cortes, do you remember when you were hurt by a wicked horse and I would come to see the wife and children? And Pablo Sanchez, do you know how long you were without work until with father's help I found a place for you? Francisco Gonzales, I helped you bury your mother and gave money to the priest that masses might be said for her soul. And you, Juan Arguello, and Francisco Montez—I remember you all, and I am glad to see you. But I am sorry that you come to destroy my father's buildings. Why do you wish to do that?"
The Mexicans whom she called by name stirred uneasily but did not answer. Those who had known Barbara in Rubio City were few among the whole number of laborers, and to these others she was only the daughter of the man who was robbing them of their pay.
The one who had so far acted as spokesman answered angrily. "Must we say again what we want? If you are, as they say, an angel of mercy, give us our money and we will go away."
Cries of "Si, si!", "Bueno!", "Muy pronto!", "El Dinero," and "Give us our money!" arose on all sides.
"You shall have your money to-morrow—every penny. Cannot you wait until to-morrow morning?"
The impatient cries were louder now. "La Senorita also say 'manana.'All the rich say all time to the poor 'manana,' and manana never come.Give us our money now." The cries were increasing in volume as manafter man joined in the chorus of threatening protest.
White and trembling, Barbara realized that she could do nothing more. Texas said, in a low voice: "For God's sake, honey; get inside before they break loose! Go now! NOW!" His voice rose into a sharp command, and his steady hands again brought the deadly revolvers into position.
The young woman reluctantly drew a step backward in obedience, then suddenly, with wide eyes staring over the crowd into the darkness beyond and extended hand pointing, she sprang forward to the very edge of the platform.
"Texas! Texas! Look, he is coming! Abe is here!"
Overcome with emotion she swayed and would have fallen, but Texas caught and steadied her. Every man in the crowd turned quickly toward the rear. A horseman, shadowy and indistinct beyond the circle of light, was riding toward them. As the newcomer pushed his horse nearer and they saw that it was Willard Holmes, Barbara uttered a cry and turned away, but the quick eye of Texas Joe had seen that the engineer's horse was staggering with exhaustion and that the man could scarcely keep his seat in the saddle.
"Wait, honey," he said, delaying the young woman. "This may pan out yet."
Barbara paused but did not turn toward the approaching engineer. Slowly Holmes forced his horse, reeking with sweat and dust, into the crowd that opened for him to pass and closed in behind him with excited exclamations as the men saw that the rider reeled in his saddle—his face haggard and drawn with pain and his useless left arm tied to his side.
But Barbara still turned away her face.
Coming so close that his leg almost touched the edge of the platform, the engineer—as though he saw no one but her—held out the black leather bill-book.
"Miss Worth! Barbara!"
With a cry she turned as the rider sank and would have fallen had not Texas, reaching out, lifted him bodily from the saddle to the platform where Holmes sank unconscious.
Barbara, with wonder and horror in her face, stood as if turned to stone, while Pat and Pablo quickly carried the still form of the engineer into the building. Unable to move, the girl followed them with her eyes until Texas, who had caught up the leather bill-book, exclaimed with an oath: "Look, it's the money!"
She looked at him as though she did not comprehend and he held the bundle of bills toward her. "It's the money, the money! You tell them!"
Mechanically Barbara took the money and turned to the crowd that stood silently wondering what it all meant—waiting to learn whether the incident had anything to do with their pay.
Under the powerful light she held up her two hands filled with bills. "Look!" she cried. "Look! Here is the money for your pay. My father sent it. Now will you believe?"
Shouts and cheers of understanding burst from the crowd.
"It is for you that it is here," continued the young woman. "Will you go away now and come back in the morning—each man for what is his?"
"Si, si, Senorita! Gracias, Senorita!" Laughing, talking and gesticulating the crowd dissolved and moved away.
Before the dispersing laborers had passed beyond the circle of lightBarbara was kneeling beside Willard Holmes.
And when they would have taken the engineer to the hotel Barbara said"No"; he must be taken to her home.
Texas had just finished dressing with rude surgery the wound in the engineer's shoulder, and Barbara—standing by the bedside—was looking down into the still face when Holmes slowly came back to consciousness. His opening eyes looked up full into the brown eyes that regarded him so kindly. For a moment neither spoke, but a slow flush of color crept into the girl's face.
By some strange freak of his half awakened intellectual faculties, Holmes was living over again the incident of his meeting Barbara on the desert the morning after her first arrival in Kingston. "Is it really you, or is it some new trick of this confounded desert?" he muttered. "I never saw a mirage like this before. I don't think the heat has affected my brain!"
To Barbara the words had the effect of suddenly blotting out all that had come between them and of putting them both back again to the day when they had "started square." So she answered as she had answered then: "I assure you that I am very substantial"—and added softly, "and I am here to stay, too."
"And you would never forgive one who was false to the work," muttered the engineer, and with the words his mind caught at the suggestion of the power that had enabled him to keep his seat in the saddle through the seemingly endless hours of torture, and he remembered everything up to the moment when he had handed the money to Barbara.
With an exclamation he tried to raise himself.
"Don't do that. You must lie still, Mr. Holmes," said the young woman.
Texas and Pat in an adjoining room heard and came quickly to Barbara's side.
"I must get up, men!" cried Holmes appealingly, making another effort to raise himself. "We must go for Abe Lee. He's hurt—alone—out there in the desert. Why don't you move? Miss Worth, please—"
Texas Joe quietly forced him back on his pillow. "You've got to take it easy for a little while, Mr. Holmes. Get a grip on yourself and tell us plain what happened. We'll move fast enough when we know which way to go."
When Holmes had told them briefly the story of the fight in Devil's Canyon and how he had left Abe at Wolf Wells, Texas said: "Now Mr. Holmes, you just keep quiet right here. Barbara'll take care of you and we'll have Abe home before noon to-morrow. Also, we'll arrange for a little seance with them greasers what put you and Abe in this fix."
An hour later a light spring wagon with four horses, accompanied by a party of five mounted men, moved swiftly out of Republic toward the south.
Alone on the desert, Abe Lee waited through the long, long hours of the night for the morning and relief.
At times the wounded surveyor sank into half unconsciousness when he would again be riding—riding—riding, toward San Felipe that seemed almost so far away that he could never hope to reach the end of his journey. Again he would be at the hotel surrounded by a crowd of people, who stared at him curiously as the clerk explained that Jefferson Worth had never been there—that there was no money—no money—no money. At other times he would be fighting desperately with James Greenfield for the possession of a black leather bill-book secured with rubber bands, or—with the Company engineer—would face a crowd of Mexicans in Devil's Canyon in such numbers that he could not count them, but could only fight, and fight, and fight. Often Barbara came to plead with him to save her from some terrible danger, and when he would struggle to go a great weight held him down and he could not—and the brown eyes looked at him full of pleading reproach. Then he would curse and cry aloud as Willard Holmes came to take her away and he would watch the two riding into the distance through the green fields and orchards of a beautiful land, in their happiness forgetting him alone in the desert.
At other times, fully conscious, he lay with aching body and that sharp pain in his leg, looking up at the stars, calculating the time and the distance Holmes had ridden since he left him—how long it would be until the engineer would reach Republic—wondering if Tex and Pat could hold the strikers or if already it was too late.
Then again, when his mind would be losing its grip and slipping away into the land of half-dreams, the sounds made by some animal at the water hole or the fancied approach of the Mexicans would cause him to start into keen readiness, to listen and watch with straining sense and ready weapon. At last all knowledge of time left him. His exhausted nerves and muscles no longer responded to suggestions of danger, his brain refused to act. A soft, thick cloud of darkness that was not the darkness of the night settled down upon him, enveloped him, wrapped him as in a sable blanket of many folds—thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker. Feebly he struggled against it for a little, then with a sigh yielded and lay still.
He did not see the stars pale and the thin streak of light above the eastern rim of the Basin widen into the morning. He did not see the hills, all rose and purple, develop magically against the sky. He did not see the sun burst into view from the world below the line of the dun plain and roll its flood of light over the wide desert. He knew nothing more until someone was forcing something between his lips and a grateful, stimulating warmth crept through his veins. A familiar voice drawled: "He ain't a-goin' out this time, boys. Hit takes more than one greaser bullet and a little ride to San Felipe an' back to send his kind over the line."
And a rich Irish brogue responded: "Ut's thim black hathen that'll be goin' over the line in a bunch av I can git widin rache av thim wid me two hands."
Abe opened his eyes with a smile. "Mornin' boys! Did Holmes make it in time?"
An articulate yell of delight from Pat greeted his speech. The grizzled plainsman, with a smile of understanding, answered his question.
"Sure he made it. Everything's as peaceful as the parson's blessin' after his discourse on the eternal fires of torment. Barbara's waitin' breakfast for you, son. Wake up, an' come along."
The surveyor did not need to ask why Texas Joe had brought so large a party of mounted and armed friends. He gave Texas and his companions all the information he could that would help them in their search for the Mexicans.
When they had made him as comfortable as possible on a cot in the spring wagon, with Pat beside him and Pablo on the driver's seat, the horsemen mounted and Texas riding alongside the wagon drawled: "There ain't no tellin' when we'll get back, Abe; but I don't reckon we'll be long an' there ain't no use me tellin' you to take things easy. So adios!"
"Adios," came the answer, "and good luck!"
Pablo spoke to his team and they moved ahead. For a moment the horsemen watched, then Tex spoke.
"All set, boys?"
"All set," came the answer.
Wheeling about, the five men rode rapidly in the opposite direction towards Devil's Canyon.
Willard Holmes, after a few hours of refreshing sleep and a good breakfast prepared and served by his hostess with her own hands, announced himself as well as ever.
"But you need some fixing just the same," declared Barbara as the Indian woman entered the room carrying warm water, towels and bandages. While the young woman bent over the engineer and with firm, deft fingers removed the wrappings from his shoulder, carefully cleansed the wound and applied fresh dressing and clean bandages, he watched her face, so near his own, and wondered that he had ever thought her plain. Her skin, warmly browned by desert sun and air, was fresh and glowing with the abundance of the rich red life in her veins; her brown hair, soft and wavy, tempted him to reach up his free hand and put back a rebellious lock. He moved slightly and the brown eyes, full of womanly pity, met his.
"Does it hurt?"
He smiled and shook his head. "Not at all. In fact I think I rather enjoy it."
Her cheeks turned a deeper red and he felt her fingers tremble as she went on with her task.
"If you laugh at me I shall turn you over to Ynez," she threatened, at which he promised so pitifully to be good that she smiled and he stirred again impatiently.
"Iamhurting you!" she cried. "I'm so sorry, but I'm almost through—There now." She finished with a last touch and, straightening, put back herself that rebellious lock of hair.
As she stood before him beautifully strong and pure and fresh and clean in mind and heart and body, her sweet personality, the spirit of her complete womanhood swept to him—appealing, calling, exhilarating, invigorating, strengthening, as he had often felt the early air of the sun-filled morning sweeping over mountain and mesa and desert plain.
The man drew a long deep breath.
"Tired?" she asked softly, looking down upon him with almost a mother's look in her eyes.
"Heavens, no!" he exclaimed, his voice ringing out strongly. "I feel as though I had been made over, re-created."
She laughed gladly.
"Do you know," he asked earnestly, "how wonderful you are?"
"Nonsense!" she retorted. "You are growing delirious. You must be quiet. I'm going to leave you alone for a little while now and you must sleep."
She followed the Indian woman from the room and he heard her voice speaking in soft musical Spanish as they went.
An hour later Barbara, moving quietly toward his room to see if he was asleep or wanted anything, found him fully dressed in a big easy chair in the living room.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, in joyful surprise. "What are you doing out here?I thought I told you to sleep."
"Your orders were inconsistent," he returned lazily. "You can't cure a patient and still continue treating him as if he were an invalid. I don't need sleep. I need—Bring your chair and sit over here and let me tell you what I need," he finished.
She did not answer, but going to his room returned with a pillow, which she arranged deftly behind his head; then, kneeling, adjusted the foot rest of the reclining chair. "There; isn't that better?"
"Bring your chair," he insisted.
Again she left the room, returning this time with a bit of old soft muslin. Drawing her easy chair to a position facing him she seated herself and began converting the material in her hands into bandages. "The men will be here with Abe any time now," she explained. "I have everything ready except these."
For a little while he watched her in silence as she tore the white cloth into long strips and rolled them neatly.
"Don't you care to know what it is that I need?" he asked at last.
She bent her head over her work and answered softly: "Whenever you are ready to tell me."
"Before I can tell you I must know something."
Carefully she rolled another white strip, her eyes on her task. "What must you know?"
"That you have forgiven me."
The color rushed into her cheeks as she answered: "Don't you know that?"
"But I must hear you say it so that we can start square again; don't you see?"
"I suppose that we will be always starting over again, won't we?" Then as she saw his face she added quickly: "I mean—I—I was thinking of the Company—and—father's work."
"But you forgive me this time?" he insisted.
"Yes; I forgive you, and I am glad—so glad that I can."
"And we are square again?"
"Yes; we are square again—until next time." She added the words sadly.
"But there will be no next time."
She shook her head with a doubtful smile. "The Company will make a 'next time.'"
He laughed aloud with a sudden sense of freedom that was new to him. "But you do not know," he said, "and I would not tell you until we were square again. I am not with the Company now."
She dropped her roll of bandages and looked at him. "Not with theCompany? When did you resign?"
"I didn't resign. They discharged me."
"Discharged you?"
"Yes; disgraceful, isn't it? I felt pretty bad at first; then I came to take it as a compliment; and now—now I am glad!"
Then he told her why Greenfield had sent for him; how he had met the Seer; and how he had advised Cartwright to supply the money her father needed.
"And you—you did—that, knowing it would cost you your position?" she exclaimed. "Oh, Iamglad! That was fine; that was big—worthy your ancestors!" In her interest she was leaning towards him with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and her voice was triumphant as if in some subtle way she was vindicated through his victory. The engineer felt her attitude and knew that she was right. Itwasher victory.
"Barbara," he said, holding out his hand; "Barbara, may I tell you now what it is that I need?"
Before she could answer they heard a team and wagon coming into the yard beside the house. Barbara sprang to her feet. "It is the men with Abe!" she exclaimed, and ran out of the room on to the porch.
From where he lay in his chair, the engineer saw through the open door Pablo and Pat coming up the steps of the porch carrying the surveyor on the canvas cot, and Barbara with mute, frightened face watching. The two men with their burden entered the room, followed by the young woman, and carefully lowered the cot to the floor. The long form of the surveyor lay motionless, his eyes closed.
With a low cry Barbara threw herself on her knees beside the cot. With one arm across the still form of the only brother she knew, and the other pushing back the rough hair from his forehead, she bent over, looking appealingly into the thin rugged face—her own face alight with loving anxiety.
"Abe! Abe! Abe!" she called softly; then again: "Abe! See dear; it'sBarbara."
As if only that voice had power to call him back, the man's eyes opened, a slow smile spread over his unshaven, dust-stained features, and his voice expressed glad surprise. "Why, hello, Barbara!"
Willard Holmes, who had half risen from his chair and was leaning forward watching them with burning interest, sank back with a groan and covered his face with his hands. But they did not see.
Still kneeling Barbara took a glass from Ynez and turned again to the injured surveyor. "Here, Abe; drink this."
The Irishman lifted him in his huge arms and he obeyed. Then as he lay looking up into Barbara's face, again that slow smile came and he said: "Well, little girl; Holmes made it, didn't he? That buckskin horse of Tex's is all right, and Holmes—Holmes is a man! He sure made good! How is he?"
Holmes rose dizzily and came forward. "I'm all right, old man, and so will you be when Miss Worth has had a chance at you."
Quickly the surveyor glanced from the engineer's face to that of the young woman, whose brown eyes still regarded him with loving solicitude. "I reckon you're right," he said slowly.
Then Barbara directed them to carry him into the room she had prepared, while Willard Holmes returned to his chair to lie with closed eyes, suffering a deeper pain than the pain in his shoulder.
When his wound had been dressed and he had eaten the tempting meal Barbara brought, Abe fell asleep. But the young woman would not leave him for long, so that Holmes saw very little of her all the rest of the day. Occasionally she would run into the room where the engineer lay to ask if he needed anything, but only for a moment. Sometimes, seeing him so still, she thought that he was asleep and withdrew softly without speaking; but he always knew.
The next morning Holmes was just established in the big reclining chair in the living room when a peremptory knock called Barbara to the front door. It was James Greenfield.
The president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company was greatly agitated and he scarcely noticed the young woman as he greeted the engineer with affectionate regard that was genuine; explaining how he had returned to Kingston the night before and, learning of Holmes's injury that morning, had hurried to him at once. "But I can't understand," he exclaimed half angrily, "howyouever came to be mixed up in this affair. When I missed you from the hotel I supposed of course that you had taken the train back to Kingston and came on expecting to find you there. What on earth possessed you to go off on this wild ride over the mountains with that man Lee? You might have been killed, and I—I—" He could not put into words the horrid thought that was in his mind—how, had the Mexican's bullet gone true, he himself would have been responsible for the death of the man he loved as his own son.
Holmes—understanding the man's thought—was touched by the capitalist's unusual agitation, and for the moment did not attempt to reply. Then with an attempt at lightness he said: "Oh, well; it's all coming out right, Uncle Jim, Thanks to Miss Worth's care I am nearly well now. The wound really didn't amount to much."
As he spoke he looked at Barbara, and the older man also turned quickly toward the young woman who, at the engineer's words, was blushing rosy red.
"Father and I owe Mr. Holmes a debt we can never pay," she said quietly. Then, excusing herself on the plea that her other patient needed her, she left the room.
When the two men had watched her go, Greenfield said gently: "This is a bad business, Willard; a damned bad business; I'll admit that I was angry when you turned against us in that Cartwright deal, but confound it, boy! I admire you for it just the same. Your father would have done just as you did. It was that finer kind of honesty that made him a failure in the business where the rest of us made fortunes, but we all loved him for it, and your mother—" he looked away through the window toward the distant mountains. "You understand, don't you Willard, that I was forced to let you go when you turned the Company down? My directors would never stand for anything else, you know. You don't feel hard toward me, lad, because I had to let you out?"
"Certainly not, Uncle Jim. I was hurt just at first, but when I had taken time to think it over I did not blame you."
"You are sure, Willard?"
"Sure, Uncle Jim."
The older man was studying the engineer's face intently. "I don't know what it is, Willard, but something has changed you since you came into this country. You know, my boy, that I have no one in the world but you. All that I have will be yours. I have dreamed and planned for you as for my own flesh and blood. I am telling you this now because I have felt that something was taking you away from me. Something that I cannot understand has come between us. I felt it the moment I met you in Kingston and it has been growing ever since. It was that that made me so angry over the Cartwright business. You know how I hate the West; you know what it cost me years ago. I feel now that in some way I am losing you too. What is it, Willard, that has come between us? Let's clean it up and get back in our relations to where we were before we left home."
As James Greenfield made his appeal the engineer's eyes turned involuntarily toward the door through which Barbara had left the room. And when he did not answer immediately the older man was sure that he understood what it was that had come between himself and the son of the woman he loved, and why Holmes had used his influence in behalf of Jefferson Worth.
"Is it that girl, Willard?"
The younger man faced him squarely and his answer meant much more to the engineer himself than he could have explained to Greenfield. "Yes sir, it is this girl."
"You love her?"
"As my father must have loved my mother."
At the simple words Greenfield controlled himself, but his hatred for Jefferson Worth was very bitter. That he should fail to win in the business warfare with the western man was nothing, but that Worth—through his daughter—should rob him of the son that was more than a son to him was more than he could bear.
"But, my dear boy," he said; "think what this means! Think of your family—of your father and mother—of your friends and your future back home. Who are these people? They are nobodies. This man Worth is an ignorant, illiterate, common boor with no breeding, no education—nothing but a certain native cunning that has enabled him to make a little money. We have nothing in common with his class."
"Mr. Worth is an honest, honorable man who is doing a great work," answered Holmes stoutly; "and his daughter is—Uncle Jim, she is the most wonderful woman I ever knew!"
As Willard Holmes spoke, Barbara, coming from the kitchen into the dining room, could not help hearing the words that came through the partly opened door of the living room where the men were talking. Involuntarily at the sound of the engineer's voice the red blood crept into the young woman's face and her eyes shone with pleasure. The next moment Greenfield's voice held her motionless.
"But don't you know that she is not Worth's daughter?"
"Not his daughter?" exclaimed Holmes.
"No, not his daughter. She is a nameless waif whom he picked up and adopted. No one knows her parentage—not even her name. She may even have Mexican or Indian blood in her veins for all that anyone knows."
It was not strange that Willard Holmes had never heard the story of how Barbara was found in the desert. In the new country, where most of the engineer's life in the West had been spent, comparatively few beyond Worth's most intimate associates knew that she was the banker's daughter only by adoption. Greenfield, who had learned the story while inquiring for business reasons into the history of his competitor, told the young man briefly of the finding of the unknown child.
"Don't you see, my boy," finished the financier, "how impossible it is that you should give your name—one of the oldest and best in the history of the country—to a nameless woman of unknown breeding, whose connection with this man Worth even is merely accidental? It would ruin you, Willard. Think of your friends back home! How would they receive her? Think of me—of my plans for you! I—I should feel that I had been false to your mother, Willard, who gave you to me on her death-bed, if I permitted such a thing as this. It's—it's monstrous!"
Slowly the engineer raised his head and with a smile on his white face that hurt the older man, he said: "I can at least relieve your mind on that score, Uncle Jim. You need not fear that I will marry Miss Worth."
At his words from beyond that partly closed door, Barbara made her way blindly to her own room and, throwing herself face downward on her couch, strove with clenched hands and throbbing veins to keep her self control. She must not—she must not let them know, she whispered to herself—moaning in pain. She must go to them again in a moment—and they must not know.
While the woman whom Willard Holmes loved fought for strength to hide her pain, James Greenfield, in the other room, was leaning eagerly toward the engineer. "She has refused you?"
"I have not asked her. But don't misunderstand me. What you have told me—what my friends at home might think or do—could make no difference. Barbara Worth is worthy any man's love; and I love her and would make her my wife. I would give up even you for her, Uncle Jim. It's not that. It's because I know that she loves someone else too well to listen to me."
When Barbara returned to the living room with some trivial excuse to explain her rather long absence, she found Holmes determined to go with Mr. Greenfield to his rooms in the hotel in Kingston.
When she protested he answered: "Really, Miss Worth, my shoulder troubles me so little that I am ashamed to offer myself as an invalid; and now that Uncle Jim is with me I haven't the shadow of an excuse for burdening you any longer."
"I am sorry if I have made you feel that you were a burden," she returned with a brave smile.
He answered warmly: "You know I did not mean to imply that. I shall never forget your kindness—never."
Greenfield too expressed his appreciation of her kindness but she answered the engineer as if she had not heard the older man. "And I can never thank you for what you have done for us."
As they stood on the porch while Greenfield went on ahead to the buggy,Holmes held out his hand. "And we are square again?"
"Yes, we are square."
"Then adios, Senorita."
"Adios, amigo."
Bravely she stood watching until the carriage disappeared down the street. Then she went slowly into the house to Abe's room.
The surveyor lay propped up in bed with pillows, looking quite cheerful. "Well, sister," was his greeting; "you have lost one patient and you are going to lose the other one before long. I feel like a new man already."
For a little she made no answer and, as she stood before him silent, those eyes that were trained to let nothing escape their notice studied her face and noted her hands clasped in nervous pain. "Why, Barbara! What is it, sister? What has gone wrong?"
At his words the brown eyes filled.
"Barbara!"
She dropped into the chair by the bedside and, throwing herself toward him, buried her face in her arms in the pillow by his side, her form shaking with sobs.
The surveyor's face was white now under its bronze—white and set. Lightly he placed his hand upon the soft brown hair so near his shoulder and his eyes seemed now to be looking far away. When her grief had spent itself a little he said quietly: "Don't you think, sister, that you had better tell me about this?"
When she did not answer he said again gently: "Do you care for him so much, Barbara?"
The brown head nodded her confession and for a moment the man closed his eyes and turned away his face. Then: "Won't you let me help you?"
Slowly, with many pauses, she told him what she had overheard. When she had finished Abe said simply: "But he has not told you of his love, Barbara. Perhaps you are mistaken."
"No, Abe; I'm not mistaken. He has not told me—not in words, but I know; I know!"
"Then," said the surveyor, "he will tell you. Listen, Barbara. The man who went through those Mexicans in Devil's Canyon with me is not the kind of a man who gives up the woman he loves for what others think. Wait a little, dear, and you will see that I am right. You have been too quick. Be patient a little and you shall see."
"But Abe, Mr. Greenfield is right. I am a nameless nobody; and he—he is—"
"He is a man and you are a woman, and this is La Palma de la Mano deDios where nothing else matters," said Abe Lee almost sternly.
A few minutes later, when Barbara was gone, the surveyor slipped lower on the pillows and wearily turned his face to the wall. Several times that day Barbara looked in on him and at last, when he had not moved for so long, called him softly. He answered with a smile, but when she had arranged his pillows for him he closed his eyes again with a word of thanks.
Jefferson Worth arrived that evening and with him came the Seer, who had joined him in the city by the sea. But Barbara's joy at their coming was overshadowed by her anxiety for Abe, who seemed to have fallen into a half-unconscious condition that was alarming. When they entered his room the surveyor, who still lay with his face to the wall, did not look up.
"Daddy is here, Abe," said Barbara; "Daddy and the Seer."
Slowly the man turned toward them and held out his hand with a word of greeting for each. "I'm mighty glad you have come," he added; "Barbara has had rather more than her hands full."
But the old engineer noticed that he did not look at Barbara as he spoke.
While the three were at supper Barbara told the men the whole story, and when they had finished the meal the Seer said: "Now Jeff, I know you have important business needing your immediate attention and our girl here must have a good night's rest—she has been through enough to kill an average woman. I'm going to take care of Abe to-night myself."
When his old chief was alone with the surveyor he drew a chair to the bedside and sat for some time looking at the man on the bed. Then he said: "I think, son, that you and I had better get to the bottom of this. First, I'll have a look at that leg."
When the examination was over the big man eyed the surveyor. "Humph! This is not a scratch beside what that greaser did to you with his knife in Arizona. You didn't even stop work for that. Your ride to San Felipe and back ordinarily would call for about twelve hours sleep and that's all. Come, lad, what's the matter? Out with it." Abe smiled. "I'm down and out, I reckon."
"Down and out, hell!" returned the big man. "That won't do, Abe. You forget that you are talking to me." Then he leaned forward and spoke in a low tone. "I know what it is, my boy. It's Barbara." By the pain in the surveyor's eyes the Seer knew that he was right.
Then the Seer in his own way did for Abe what Abe had done for Barbara.
When the young woman brought in his breakfast the next morning Abe greeted her with his old cheery "Hello!", and declared facetiously that the Seer had talked him into a sleep from which he had awakened as hungry as a bear and ready to go to work.
Two days later Texas Joe, who had ridden in from somewhere late the night before, came to report.
"We were beginning to think that you were not coming back at all, Uncle Tex," said Barbara, who with the others was curious to hear of the old-timer's adventure.
"I 'lowed once mebbe I wouldn't come back no more neither," he drawled. "You see, Mr. Worth, after we-all got Abe at Wolf Wells I figured that—bein' so far on the way—I might as well go on over to Felipe an' get that ol' buckskin hawss o' mine what Abe had left." He paused, and, turning his head to one side, looked meditatively down at the spur on his high-heeled boot. "That there buckskin is sure some hawss, Barbara; he sure is."
"Did you get him?" asked Barbara.
Texas looked up, mildly surprised. "Sure we got him. That's what I'm a-tellin' you."
Then he laughed softly as though mildly amused at some incident suddenly remembered. "Abe, you know that greaser that tumbled into the Dry River Spillway when we-all was puttin' in Number Five Gate?"
"Yes."
"I 'lowed you'd know him. I heard somethin' funny about him when I was in San Felipe after that buckskin."
"What was it, Texas?"
"He's daid."
The recovery of the two wounded men was rapid. For a while Holmes came over from Kingston every day to see Lee, and the two, with the Seer and Barbara, spent many delightful hours on the big front porch.
Jefferson Worth's enterprises pushed steadily toward completion. The power plant in Barba was finished and The King's Basin Central had stretched its steel length from the junction at Republic to within three miles of the terminal.
When Abe was able to go back to his work, Holmes did not go so often to the Worth home; but the presence of the Seer still enabled him to excuse to himself his quite frequent visits. But while the young engineer continually sought the Seer, not only because of their growing friendship but because he was always sure of meeting Barbara, he avoided seeing the girl alone for he felt that he could not trust himself; and the young woman, feeling his attitude toward her, was convinced against her will and Abe's protest that the man who loved her guarded himself against her for the reasons that she had overheard Greenfield urge upon him.
Then Holmes received a letter from the Southwestern and Continental Railroad Company offering him a position that would place him at the head of the engineering department of the district that included The King's Basin. The letter stated that the position was tendered on recommendation of Jefferson Worth and, in view of the fact that the flood season was at hand and that conditions seriously threatening to the Company's property might be expected at any hour, urged him to accept by wire and take charge immediately.
With the letter in his hand a sudden desire to go with it to Barbara mastered him. He knew that the Seer had planned to go that morning with Abe Lee to Barba and that the young woman was alone.
An hour later he dismounted in front of the Worth home. Barbara herself met him at the door. "The Seer is not at home to-day" she said, as they entered the living room. "I thought you knew."
"I did not come to see the Seer to-day. I came to see you," he answered bluntly.
"To see me?"
"Yes; to ask you how I shall answer this." He handed her the letter.
She read it slowly, gaining time for self-control. "But I do not understand why you should come to me."
He studied her face a moment before he answered. How could he explain to her the impulse that had prompted him, as every man is prompted to take the big things of his life to the one woman who—if she be really the one woman for him—is more than all? "I thought—I hoped that you would be interested," he said.
"And I am!" she cried eagerly, feeling that which he could not put into words. "Of course I'm interested. I was only surprised that you should hesitate a moment to accept. Don't you want to continue your work? Don't you want to stay with us?" She added the last words wistfully and the heart of the man longed to tell her that which she longed to hear.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I want to stay, but I—I am afraid." The words slipped out unbidden.
Barbara interpreted his answer in the light of his conversation withGreenfield, which she had overheard, and her woman's pride was aroused.He should be made to understand that he was in no danger from her. Hernext words were a challenge. "Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of you," he burst forth savagely. "Afraid of myself. Because I love you. From the first day when you showed me the desert you have been so closely associated in my mind with this work that I cannot think of it without thinking of you. Everything I have done I have felt was done for you. I would have given it all up a hundred times but my thoughts of you would not let me. When I have been untrue to the work I have felt that I have been untrue to you. If I have accomplished any good here it has been through you. Everywhere I have gone in this country you have seemed to me to be there. Everything I see speaks to me of you. The desert—the mountains—the farms and homes and towns; it is all you—and you—and you. I did not realize it at first, but I felt it, and then as I came to love my work I came to love you. I did not intend to tell you this. I hate myself for telling you—but I love you. I love you! Do you understand now why I came to you with this letter? Do you understand why I am afraid to stay?"
At the man's passionate outburst that came as if dragged from him against his will, Barbara shrank back as if he threatened her. He had not asked if she loved him; he had only spoken brutally—savagely, of his passion for her. She repeated insistently, blindly, to herself: "He must not know! He must not know!"
The man spoke again. "Forgive me, Miss Worth; I did not mean to let go of myself. I know how you love this work—how hard you have tried to hold me true to it. I could not bear that you should think of me as leaving it without reason. But you see—you see how impossible it is now for me to stay."
As he spoke, a running horse stopped suddenly in front of the house and through the open door they saw Pablo leap from the saddle and run swiftly up the walk toward the house.
"Senorita!" the Mexican cried, as Barbara sprang towards him; "the river! the river! It has come. The Company works—it is all gone! Senor Worth send me quick to tell Senor Holmes. I go to Kingston; he not there. They say he ride this way. I come to you, Senorita; I think maybe you know where I find him." He turned to the engineer. "Senor Holmes, the river has come again into La Palma de la Mano de Dios like the Indians say it was long time ago. Senor Worth say you come please pronto!"
Barbara wheeled on the engineer with flushed cheeks and blazing eyes.
"This is your answer!" she cried. "Not for me; not for yourself; but for the work—yourwork—ourwork!"
For an instant he looked into her eyes, then turned and ran towards his horse with Pablo at his heels.
Barbara saw them spring into their saddles and disappear in a cloud of dust, and the engineer, as he rode, remembered what Abe Lee had once told him of Pablo's saying: "In the Company there is no Senorita!"
Some day, perhaps, the history of that River war will be written. It can only be suggested in my story.
It was a war of terrific forces waged for a great cause by men as brave as any who ever fought with weapons that kill.
The attacking force was the Rio Colorado that with power immeasurable had, through the ages past, carved mile-deep canyons on its course and with its mountains of silt had built the great delta dam across the ancient gulf, thus turning back the waters of the sea that sun and wind might lay bare the floor of the Basin and work the desolation of the desert.
Using the Seer's open hand for his map of La Palma de la Mano de Dios, Jose, the Indian, had traced the course of the river along the base of the fingers flowing toward the gulf which lies between the edge of the palm and the thumb—this same inner edge of the hand representing roughly the high ground that shuts out the waters of the sea. The thousands of acres of The King's Basin lands lie from sea level to nearly three hundred feet below. The river at the point where the intake for the system of canals was located is, of course, higher than sea level, for the waters that pass the intake flow on southward to the gulf.
It was the river flowing thus on higher ground that made irrigation and reclamation of the desert possible. It was this also that made possible the disaster that was now upon the hardy pioneers, who had staked everything in their effort to realize the vast potential wealth of the ancient sea-bed. The grade from the river at the intake to the lowest point in the bottom of the Basin is much steeper than the established fall of the river from the intake to the gulf. The water in the canals on this steeper grade was controlled by headings, spillways, gates and drops, while the structure at the intake, with gates to regulate the flow into the main canal, prevented the river from leaving its old channel altogether, pouring its entire volume into the Basin and in time converting it again into an inland sea.
The dangerously cheap and inadequate character of the vital parts, built by the Company upon the usual promoter's estimates, had led Abe Lee to protest against the risk forced upon the settlers and had finally caused him to resign. Later, as the Company system of canals was extended and more and more water was needed to supply the rapidly increasing acreage of cultivated lands, Willard Holmes came to appreciate the desert-bred surveyor's view of the danger and insistently urged his employers to supply him with funds to replace the temporary wooden structures with safe and lasting works of concrete and steel.
But the hunger of Capital for profits forbade. Some day the work would be done, the directors promised. In the meantime, without increasing the original investment by so much as a dollar but with the revenues derived from the sale of water rights, they were extending the system to supply the ever increasing fields of the settlers, thus shrewdly forcing the people, who were ignorant of the terrible risk they were carrying, to supply the funds to build the canals and ditches that belonged to the Company; while for the water carried to the ranches the farmers continued to pay the Company large rentals. The original investment of the Company was very small compared with the thousands invested by the pioneers who had been induced to settle in the new country. And yet from every dollar of the wealth taken from the land the Company would receive a share.
But the Rio Colorado gave no heed to the decree of the New York financiers. The forces that had made La Palma de la Mano de Dios are not ruled by Wall street.
Willard Holmes, who had come to understand that his work was not alone to safeguard the property of his employers but to protect the interests of the pioneers as well, had been discharged because he would not deliver the people wholly into the hands of the Company. A new engineer out of the East, as faithful to the interests of Capital as he was unfamiliar with conditions in the new country, was placed in charge.
It was as if the river, in the absence of the man whose constant readiness had held it in check, saw its opportunity. Swiftly it mustered its forces from mountain and plain. Hundreds of miles away it gathered its strength and hurried to the assault. The sources of information established by Holmes on the tributaries and headwaters wired their reports: a foot rise on the Gila; three feet coming down the Little Colorado; two feet rise in the Salt; five feet on the Grand. The New York office-engineer received the messages with mild interest. The daily reports from the weather bureau covering the countries drained by the Rio Colorado lay on his desk unnoticed.
Mr. Burk warned him, but the thoughtful Manager of the Company was not an engineer. Willard Holmes tried to help him, but Holmes had been discharged by the Company and the words of discharged men have little weight with those who succeed to their positions.
The daily reports from the gauge at Rubio City showed an increase in the river's volume of twenty thousand second feet; then thirty thousand more; and on top of that came another twenty thousand. The assistants of the new chief engineer tried to tell him what it meant, but the assistants were subordinates and friends of Willard Holmes. The man from New York, who was privileged to write several letters after his name, was supposed to know his business.
Then the assembled forces of the river reached the intake, and the trembling wooden structures that stood between the pioneers and ruin, besieged by the rising flood, battered by the swirling currents, bombarded by drift, gave way under the strain and the charging waters plunged through the breach.
Too late the Company's forces were rushed to the scene. Before their very eyes the roaring waters, as if mad with destructive power, wrenched and tore at the Company's property, twisting, ripping, smashing, until not a trestle, plank or stick was left in place and the terrific current, rushing with ever increasing volume and power through the opening, plowed into the soft, alluvial soil of the embankment, undermining and carrying it away until nearly the entire river was admitted.
As quickly as men and material could be assembled, the Company's chief engineer began the battle to regain control of the mighty stream. The warfare thus begun meant life or death to the greatest reclamation project in the world.
Millions already invested by the settlers in farms and towns and homes and business enterprises were at stake. Many more millions that were yet to be realized from the reclaimed lands depended upon the issue of the fight.
Against the efforts of the engineers and the army of laborers the river massed from its tributaries in the regions of heavy rains and melting snows the greatest strength it had assembled in many years.
Five times, with piling and trestles and jetties and embankments, the men who defended The King's Basin were in sight of victory. Five times the river summoned fresh strength—twisted out the piling, wrecked the trestles, undermined the jetties and embankments and swept the nearly completed structures, smashing, grinding, crashing, away—a twisted, tangled ruin.
While the engineers and men of the Company were waging this war with the river, the situation of the pioneers in the Basin grew daily more perilous. Without a well-defined channel large enough to carry the incoming stream, the flood spread over a wide territory in the southern and western portions of the Basin, filling first the old channels and washes left by the waters ages ago, forming next in the areas of nearly level or slightly depressed sections shallow pools, lakes and seas, out of which the higher ground and hummocks rose like new-born islands, growing smaller and smaller as the rising tide submerged more and more of their sandy bases. Meanwhile the whole flood, eddying slowly with winding sluggish currents in the shallow places, moving more swiftly in the deeper washes and channels, swept always onward toward the north where, miles away, lay the deepest bottom of the great Basin.
Many of the settlers in the flooded districts were forced to abandon farms they had won with courage and toil, for the sweeping waters covered alike fields of alfalfa and grain and barren desert waste. The towns of Frontera and Kingston were protected from the inundation by earthen levees, in the building of which men and women toiled in desperate haste, and night and day these embankments were patrolled by watchful guards, who frequently summoned the weary, besieged citizens from their rest to protect or strengthen some threatened point in their fortifications.
The eastern side of the Basin being higher ground, the settlers in the South Central District and east of Republic, with the two towns built by Jefferson Worth, were in no immediate danger, but the old Dry River channel became a roaring torrent, bank-full; and it was only a question of time, if the river were not controlled, when every foot of the new country with its wealth of improvements and its vast possibilities would be buried deep beneath the surface of an inland sea.
The situation was appalling. The remarkable development of the new country, the marvelous richness of the reclaimed lands, with the immense possibilities of the reclamation work as demonstrated by The King's Basin project had attracted the attention of the nation. The pioneers in Barbara's Desert were, in fact, leaders in a far greater work that would add immeasurably to the nation's life—that would, indeed, be world-wide in its influence. Because of this the attention of the nation was fixed with peculiar interest upon the disaster that had fallen upon The King's Basin. Throughout the land civil engineers watched intently the efforts of the Company men to regain control of the river and to force it back into its old channel. Many declared that, because of the alluvial character of the soil, the absence of anything like a rock floor to build upon and the great volume and terrific velocity of the current, the feat was an engineering impossibility. In the eyes of the engineering world The King's Basin project was doomed. The settlers were advised to abandon the work they had accomplished and to move out. But those strong ones who had forced the desert to yield its wealth to their hands did not move. Those whose farms were in the flooded district were forced to go. There was the inevitable sifting of the timid-hearted and the weak, but the great majority stood fast.
Jefferson Worth, in the face of almost certain ruin, went steadily on with his work on the railroad and continued pushing his other enterprises toward completion—making improvements, erecting new buildings, planning further investments and developments with a confidence and conviction that was startling. Not once throughout that trying period was he heard to express the slightest doubt as to the ultimate triumph of the settlers. His business friends and associates outside urged him to stop—to wait at least until the issue was certain. He answered calmly that the issue was already certain and went on with his work.
His confidence and courage were the inspiration that fired the hearts of that threatened people. Had he given ground, had he weakened and drawn back it would have started a panic that nothing could have checked and that would have resulted inevitably in the abandonment of the cause forever. The King's Basin lands with the wealth of effort that had already been expended would have been given over to the river, lost irretrievably to the race.
Hundreds went to him when they felt their courage failing and their spirits weakening under the strain. And always they returned to their farms or to their business with renewed strength to go on. As one, who passed through that ordeal, long afterwards expressed it: "In those times we all just lived on his nerve."
Through all the Company's war with the river and its repeated defeats Willard Holmes was forced to stand a mere observer, an idle looker-on. Foreseeing the catastrophe that was now upon them, he had prepared himself by careful study of every factor in the problem and by thorough knowledge of the situation to meet the crisis when it came. With every means at his command he had planned and worked that he might be ready and so far as possible equipped for the struggle and now, when war was declared and the battle being waged, he could only watch the ruin of the work he loved while a stranger, who ignored his preparatory efforts, took the place that should have been his.
But the great man of the S. & C., with whom the engineer had many a counsel in those days, warned him always to be ready for the time when—as the western man put it—"The Company should throw up its hands."
The waters moving northward reached the lowest point in the Basin and there formed an inland sea that, without an outlet and receiving the full volume of the river, grew ever larger and larger. Flowing towards the sea the flood developed swift currents in the depressions and washes that led in the general direction of its course, seeking thus to make for itself a well-defined channel. The largest of these ancient washes, scarcely noticeable in the desert, led from the south to Kingston, passing through the edge of the town, curved slightly to the west and extended on northward, becoming deeper and more clearly defined with higher ground on either side as it neared the lowest point of the Basin. The general lay of the land drew the flood toward this channel and developed a current that moved with increasing velocity as the waters, nearing the sea, were concentrated more and more by the greater depth of the old channel and the steeper grade of the land on both sides.
Then a new and alarming phase of the river's destructive work developed and everyone saw that the war at the intake must be forced to a speedy finish or the cause would be lost. The immense volume of water, flowing with increased strength and velocity as it defined for itself a more distinct channel down the steeper grade of the Basin, began cutting in the soft soil a vertical fall that from the foot of the grade moved swiftly up-stream; a mighty cataract from fifty to sixty feet in height and a full quarter of a mile wide, moving at the rate of from one to three miles a day and leaving as it went a great gorge through which a new-made river flowed quietly to a new-born and ever-growing sea. The roar of the plunging waters, the crashing and booming of the falling masses of earth that were undermined by the roaring torrent were heard miles away. Acres upon acres of the soft fertile land fell, melted and were swept away down the gorge as banks of snow fall and melt in the spring freshets. Day and night, night and day, the immeasurable power of the canyon-cutting river drove the cataract southward toward the break at the intake through which, by this time, the entire Colorado at its highest flood stage was turned.
The imminent danger that threatened the Basin was not the danger from the ever-rising sea. Long before the waters could fill the old sea-bed, that mighty cataract, moving ever upstream, would pass the intake; and with the floor of the river lowered thus some fifty feet it would be impossible to take the water out for irrigation. The lands reclaimed by the pioneers would go back to desert years before they would be buried once more under the surface of the sea.
The complete destruction of all that the settlers had gained and the utter desolation of the land was now a question of weeks.
The Company town of Kingston was directly in the path of that moving Niagara. While the Company's men were making a last desperate effort to close the break, the great falls were eating their way nearer and nearer the little city. When the roar of the water and the crashing and booming of the falling banks could be heard on the streets and in the offices of the Company, the people left their homes, their stores and their shops; the town realizing that no human power now could avert the disaster.
Heroic efforts were made to direct the course of the new river away from the little city, but the waters with savage, resistless power chose their own way. The pioneers, who built the first town in the heart of The King's Basin Desert, saw that mighty, thundering cataract move upon the work of their hands and felt the earth trembling under their feet as they watched homes, business blocks, the hotel, the opera house, the bank and finally the Company building undermined and tumbled, crashing into the deep canyon.
In a few short hours it was over. The falls moved on and where Kingston had once stood was that great gorge, with a few scattered houses only remaining on each side.
That same day the last attempt of the Company men to close the break failed.
With every hour the awful ruin drew nearer the point which, if reached, would place The King's Basin forever beyond the reclaiming power of men. Frantic appeals for help were made to the government, but before the ponderous machinery of state, with its intricate and complicated wheels within wheels, could unwind a sufficient quantity of red tape the work of the pioneer citizens would be past saving.
It was at this time that a telegram from Jefferson Worth to the great man of the Southwestern and Continental brought a special train of private cars into the Basin. At Deep Well Junction Jefferson Worth, Abe Lee, the Seer and Willard Holmes boarded the train and entered the car of the general manager, where the officials representing the highest authority in the great transcontinental system had gathered to meet them in consultation.
At Republic the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company with his manager and chief engineer joined them, and the train moved on until, at a word from Holmes, the conductor gave the signal to stop. From the windows and platform of the car the party could see the water extending to the south and west mile after mile, and nearer the huge plunging cataracts with leaping columns of spray, while the roar of the falls, the crashing and booming of the caving banks shook the air with heavy vibrations and the earth trembled with the shock of the plunging waters and the falling masses of earth. Just ahead, where Kingston had stood, the track ended on the bank of the deep gorge. From here the party was driven in comfortable spring wagons to the scene of the Company's defeat.
Save for the camps of the laborers, the boats, pile-drivers, implements and materials of their warfare and the debris of their wrecked structures, not a sign of their work remained, while through the breach—widened now to nearly a quarter of a mile—the great river poured its hundred and fifty thousand second feet of muddy water with terrific velocity and solemn, awful power.
When the party had viewed the situation, the railroad men with Mr.Greenfield retired to the tent of the Company's chief engineer.
A little apart from Jefferson Worth and his two companions, Willard Holmes stood alone on the brink of the broken embankment looking down into the swirling muddy waters. He knew that his time had come. He knew that at that moment the railroad officials were concluding a deal with The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company through its president, by which the S. & C. would assume control of the situation and attempt to save the reclamation work. His chief had told him to be ready. He was ready.
In the railroad yards at Rubio City and on every available side-track for several miles east and west were standing train-loads of ties and rails. In the yards at the Coast city were cars loaded with machinery, implements and supplies. In the yards at the harbor were other train-loads of timber and piling. With the readiness of a perfectly equipped and organized army the forces of the S. & C., backed by the resources of that powerful system, waited the word, while every moment the disaster that threatened the pioneers drew nearer. From the roaring river at his feet Willard Holmes turned to look toward the tent. Why were they so slow?
Then his face lighted up and he took an eager step forward as the private secretary of the general manager came out of the tent and hurried toward him.
"They want you, Mr. Holmes," said the young man. The engineer went quickly to answer the call.
When he entered the tent every man in the party turned toward the engineer. "Holmes," said his chief, "we will attempt to close the break. You will take charge at once."
Within an hour the forces of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company already on the ground were set to work under the Seer preparing the grade for a spur-track that would leave the main line near the river fifteen miles north of the break, and Holmes, with Abe Lee, set out on horseback for Rubio.
With the return of the general manager and his party to their train, the movement already planned began. Without hurry but with ready promptness the orders, voiced by the hundreds of clicking telegraph instruments covering the district affected by the operations, were obeyed. Special trains carried Jefferson Worth's force of railroad builders with teams and equipment to the point at which the spur-track would connect with the main line where, under Abe Lee, they began pushing the grade southward to meet the forces that, under the Seer, were working northward from the front.
Throughout the Basin the call for men and teams was issued by Jefferson Worth, and the pioneers, answering as the Minute Men of old, were hurried to the scene where they found trainloads of equipment waiting ready for their use, while every hour brought reinforcements—laborers of many nationalities gathered in the cities of the coast by the agents of the railroad company.
The waiting trains loaded with ties and steel began to move and the construction gangs followed close on the heels of the graders. And when the last spike in the track to the scene of the decisive battle was driven, the track-men with their sledges stepped aside to clear the way for the panting engines that drew the first train loaded with piling and timbers for the trestle.
Hour by hour now, without pause or halt, the men under Willard Holmes working in shifts met the Rio Colorado in a hand-to-hand fight for The King's Basin lands. By day under the white, semi-tropical sun, by night in the light of locomotive headlights that gleamed strangely over the dark swirling floods, the trestles were forced further and further out into the plunging current that wrenched and twisted and tugged with terrific strength in a mad wrestle with those who dared attempt to check its sullen destructive will, while steadily, irresistibly, the canyon-cutting falls drew nearer and nearer. It was not alone the magnitude of the task directed by Willard Holmes that made the work heroic. It was that this seemingly impossible work must be accomplished against time. In his fight with the river the engineer raced against a destructive force which, if it reached the scene of the struggle before the battle was won, would make final defeat certain and place the Colorado, so far as The King's Basin reclamation was concerned, beyond control of men.
As the engineer stood on the trestle above the mad, whirling currents, directing his men in their efforts to drive the piling in thirty feet of water that—as one veteran expressed it—"ran like the mill tails of hell," he fancied he could hear above the roar of the river against the structure, the blows of the heavy driver, the rattle of cable and chain and windlass, the grinding and squeaking of the straining timbers and the shouts of the men—the menacing thunder of that moving cataract a few miles away. While he paced the embankments, studying the set of the currents, observing the form and action of the eddies or receiving the hourly reports from the river gauge at Rubio City, and held consultation with his assistants, he often turned his head involuntarily to look anxiously away in the direction of the racing falls.