Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1919-04-18

Heading now, he kept telling himself,
but he was convinced that the instant
he turned his back, the work on the
levee would stop; and all the reasons
excellent Some emergency would be
cooked up to warrant the withdrawal
of the hands. Chafe as he might at
the situation, it was to be guerrilla
warfare. Not fight in the open, he
knew how to meet shat, but that baf-
fling resistance, the polite silence Of
the office when he entered--"Well,
they'll be doing my way pretty soon.
or my name isn't Richard. That's
fat
He was fretting to be at work, to
start the wheels of the O. p, it's vast
machinery toward his problem. He
knew that that organization, like we'll.
drilled militia, Was ready for his call.
The cell Jagged, 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! 1t
was not equipped for sudden infla-
ton 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 in
take. "Get ready first; your tools,
your stoves, your beds" That was the
training of the good executive, of men
like Marshall and MacLean. Nothing
to be left to chance; to fOresee emer-
gencies, not to be taken by them I'M
aware. The reason of Hardin's down
i*i' was his slipshOG habits. How cGyil
he be good officer who hat 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 work
Of half the original magnitude. Cut
ting away, moreover, was the island,
christening by the engineers, it's bap'
tismal water the Colorado. The last
floods had played with it as though it
were bar of sugar. There was no
rock at hand no rock on the way, no
rock ordered. Could anyone piece to-
gether such recklessness?
Richard knew where he would get
his rock. Already he had requisitioned
the entire output of the Tacna and
Patagonia quarries. He had ordered
steam shOvels to be installed at the
quarry back of old Hamlin's. That
rock pit would be his first crutch, and
the gravel bed-that was find AS
he paced the levee west of the towns,
he was planning his campaign. Por-
ter was securing Zacatecas for men !;
he himself had offered, as bait, free
transportation the O. 2. he knew
would back him. He was going to
throw out spur-track from the Head
ing, 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. 1t never
occurred to him that, like Hardin, he
might fail.
Though it's no pink tea he told
himself, "it's no picnic" At Tucson
he knew that the situation was a
grave one, but his talk with Brandon,
who knew his river as does good In
dian, made the year significant,
eventful one. Matt Hamlin, too, whose
shrewd eyes had grown river-wise, he,
no ho FOL IN fol of
river. MaldOnado, the half-breed, had
confirmed their pOrtents while they sat
together under his Oleander, famous
throughout that section of the cOun-
try. And powerfully had Cornell, the
Indian who had pilOted Estrada's party
across the desert, whom Richard had
met at the Crossing, deeply had he i'm
pressed him. The river grew into a
malevOlent, hooking personality; he
could see it dragon of yellow waters
dragging Its slow, sluggish length
across the baked desert sands; deceiv-
ing men by it's inertness; Turing the
explorer by mild mood to rise sud-
denly with its wild fellow, the ella,
sending boat and bOatmen to their
swift doom.
Richard was thinking of the half
breed, Maldonado, as he inspected the
new stretch .of levee between the
towns. He had heard from others be-
sides Estrada Of the river knowledge
of this descendant Of trapper and
souaw, and had thought 1t worth while