The river

THE large round clock was striking nine as “Casey” Rickard’s dancing step carried him into the outer office of Tod Marshall. The ushering clerk, coatless and vestless in expecta...

MARSHALL threw his hat on a chair, the morning paper on his desk. He aimed his burned-out cigar at the nearest cuspidor, but it fell foul, the ashes scattering over Sam’s lately...

WHEN Rickard left the main line at Imperial Junction the next afternoon, his eyes followed the train he was deserting rather than the one that was to carry him to his new labors...

HE left the dusty car with relief when the twin towns were called. The sun, plunging toward the horizon, was sending out long straight shafts of yellow light, staining the railr...

THE uneasy mood of the desert, the wind-blown sand, drove people indoors the next morning. Rickard was served a substantial, indifferently cooked breakfast in the dining-room of...

AT ten o’clock the next morning, Hardin, entering the office, again the general manager’s, found there before him, George MacLean the new director, and Percy Babcock, the treasu...

HIS dwelling leaped into sight as Hardin turned the corner of the street. There was but one street running through the twin towns, flanked by the ditches of running water. The r...

AN hour later Innes, blinking from the sun, stepped into the tent, which had been partitioned with rough redwood boards into a bed-chamber on the right, a combination dining-roo...

Mrs. Parrish’s answer was careful. She _thought_ she was feeling better! She had not had one of those bad nervous headaches for a week. “It was a week come Sunday, no, it was mo...

MRS. Parrish’s chair continued to plunge. It rocked and pitched like a ship in a storm. Her tongue gathered excitement from the motion. Mrs. Busby looked with anxiety at the gra...

FROM the window of the adobe office building of the company, Hardin saw Rickard jump from the rear platform of the train as it slowed into the station. He noticed that the new m...

INNES HARDIN was completing her simple toilet. Not even to please Gerty would she “dress up” for this dinner! It would have been easy for her sister-in-law to postpone it. How c...

“CASEY’S back; spying!” announced Wooster at mess one evening. By that time, the feeling against “Marshall’s man” was actively hostile. There had been a smudge of slumbering fir...

TWO days later, there was a shock of earthquake, so slight that the lapping of the water in Rickard’s bath was his intimation of the earth’s uneasiness. In the dining-room, late...

MRS. Hardin heard from every source but the right one that Rickard had returned. Each time her telephone rang, it was his voice she expected to hear. She began to read a meaning...

IT was the forenoon of the second. Several times during the morning Gerty left her preparations to take forecasts of the weather. It was not so hot as it had been and there was...

Gerty gave one of her light, elusive shrugs. No need to answer Tom when he was in one of his black moods. This was the first word he had spoken since he had entered the tent. Sh...

HARDIN did not go home that night. He was feeling to the quick the irony of his position; his duty now to protect the levee he’d ridiculed; now the only hope of the towns! The i...

THE town woke to a matter-of-fact day. The sensational aspect of the runaway river had passed with the night. The word spread that the flood waters were under control; that the...

THE second night of the flood, the women of the towns dragged brush and filled sacks for the men to carry. It was past midnight when Innes Hardin left the levee. While her feet...

INNES was loping toward the Wistaria, the wind in her face till she turned west by the canal. It occurred to her then, that she did not know how she was going to cross the river...

BABCOCK came rushing down from Los Angeles that morning to see what in thunder it was all about. He asked every one he met why some one didn’t get busy and stop the cutting back...

FOUR men sat at a small table in a corner of the crowded hotel dining-room, in El Centro. Their names made their corner the psychological center of the room. Marshall was always...

INNES traveled, gleefully, in a caboose, from Hamlin Junction to the Heading. She could not stay away a day longer! Never before had Los Angeles been a discipline. Her surprise...

Her brother had told her at breakfast that morning how grandly they had been wasting time! She would not let herself admire the precision of the arrangements, the showers back o...

MRS. Hardin’s descent on the office that afternoon was successful, but not satisfactory. She had found the manager brief to curtness. She was given no excuse to linger. She trac...

FOR a few weeks, Mrs. Hardin found the mess-tent diverting. Before the _Delta_ had expanded the capacity of the camp, her soft nook had been overtaxed, her hospitality strained....

Her work-sharpened fingers moved restlessly under her reboso. She pulled it together as though the day were not scorching. Her eyes questioned his sympathy. A flash of desperate...

THE coming of the Indians gave the impetus the work had lacked. Under Jenks, of the railroad company, a large force was put on the river; these, the weavers of the brush mattres...

FROM her tent, where she was writing a letter that lagged somehow, Innes Hardin had seen Rickard go to her sister’s tent. She did not need to analyze the sickness of sight that...

A BLAZING sun rode the heavens. The river was low; its yellow waters bore the look of oriental duplicity. Men and horses were being driven to take advantage of the continued low...

CLAUDIA MARSHALL sat at the head of her stately table in the _Palmyra_, mute as a statue but for the burning eyes which followed her Tod. To Innes, her guest, she was renewing t...

THE murder of Maldonado shook the camp next morning. The wife had run from Rickard’s tent to Mrs. Dowker, who had put the hysterical creature to bed. All night, she babbled of h...

THAT evening, in her tent by the river-bed, Mrs. Parrish thought that she heard a noise outside. She had been lying down, a wet cloth pressed over her eyes which would twitch in...

THE siding was deserted. The _Palmyra_ had run out to Tucson, carrying Marshall and Claudia with her tender-hued, baby-smelling wools. Of that little party, Tony made perhaps th...

THE _Palmyra_ was once again on its siding. Marshall was at the Front again; having made another of his swift dashes from Tucson. This time he expected officially to close the g...

TROUBLE with the tribes, innocent and childish in its first aspect, was well grown before it was recognized. Disaffection was ripe, the bucks were heady, the white man’s silver...

“LORD, I’m tired,” groaned Rickard, stumbling into camp, wet to the skin. “Don’t you say letters to me, Mac. I’m going to bed. Tell Ling I don’t want any dinner. He’ll want to f...

GATHERING on the bank were the camp groups to watch the last stand of the river against the rock bombardment. The reporters from the outside, pads and pencils in hand, were ther...

WHEN the afternoon waned, and Godfrey did not follow her, Gerty was roused to uneasiness. Had she angered him by refusing to make the definite promise? Could it be love, the sor...

STUMBLING and blind, Hardin pushed without volition toward the river which was sending its peaceful waters once again to the gulf. When he awoke to himself and the night, he was...

THE second evening after the closure Rickard was dining with the Marshalls in their car. The _Palmyra_ was preparing to leave the siding. She was to pull out the next day. Alrea...