Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-12-05
Ih3SS@EEhh!eatre

7
possibilities of transferring the desert
| into bloom by the daming of the Colo
RADIO river and its tributaries, and in
which he is willing to stake his for
tune and the best years of his life.
{ The party is overtaken by sandstone
I in the center of the desert plains and
the men, with their boomer wagon
and mules, are obliged to make camp
! TO the windward of some rocks in a
gully. They have but little water sup
ply and that is needed by the mules
upon which they depend to pull them
( through the wastes. Their sufferings
with thirst is augmented by the col
( lapse of a young engineer who has
! become loco from the privations of the
trip and the sight of the amending
desert. He wanders away from the
shelter Texas Joe has led them to and
that efficient son of the desert trails
him and succeeds in bringing him
back to the night camp. Texas finds
him cIutching an infants cap and
mumbling deliriously of the desert and
a woman out there. Texas Joe and
Pat Mooney, an exile Irishman, incur
risk of death and search the sand
dunes and find the woman, dead. In a
wagon, sunken to its hub in the sands
is her baby, family alive. Texas brings
il to the sheltering arm of Jefferson
Worth and the winning of Barbara
has begun.
Eighteen years later, grown to
young womanhood Barbara is typically
vibrant of the out door life and broad
expanses and her inner vision has
grown apace. Filled with mans ideas
as to what constitutes character, she
lives a carefree existence under the
guidance of her foster father to whom
she is Dads own girl in fact. The
reclamation project. after years of
patient plodding on the part of Worth,
is commencing to take conscious form.
The transforming of the hollow of
Gods hand" is near when Worth is
forced to abandon his share in it be-
cause of the rascality of the greedy
financiers who make of it a sieve for
others money and construct a faulty
piece of work unable to stand the
strains of river freshet rampage.
The rest of the story converges in
the battle of the giants-Worth, the
conservator of right and Greenfield,
the capital of wrong. A Mexican. la
Dor strike is staged and a wild dash |
to bring the pay envelopes across the /
desert makes thrilling climax of one
of the acts.
Leona Slater gives a breezy bright !
ness to the part of Barbara and plays |
well the impassioned advocate of the |
square deal. She makes an effective !
picture in khaki, leather boots. spurs |
and other cowgirl trappings. The |
spirit of the west is in very capable |
hands in the cast of Texas Joe, por-
trayed by Ralph Theodore. He gives |
an exact cameo of the elemental |
of Texas and causes one to
regret that polishing of the desert
would make his kind extinct.
The company is evenly balanced
and gives a beautiful picture of the
God forgot-and remembered
The scenic display is good. 1.-THE Win
ming of Barbara Worth" will be at the
Burtis, Davenport. tonight and at the
Moline tomorrow.
The remarkable characterization
achievement by Richard f. Parks, for
nerly basso cantanta with the Savage
Opera. OF "Mephisto" in Faust"
which IS 20 be given by the New York
Grand Opera company at the Illinois
heatre next Wednesday. has brought
him inquiries from all parts of the
The devil. as he presents
lin. has made an unusual impression,
20 that the common question is where
10 you get your Inspiration"
Mr.. Parks is a serious minded gen.
leman, a student, and obviously pos
essed OF an unusually retiring dispo-
ition. But he has "a vivid curiosity 10
zee all kinds OF human wheels go }