The Raymer enterprise., 1919-07-24
By EDN All AIKEN

ultimate failure the growing belief In
the omnipotence Of the Great Yellow
Dragon as the Cocopahs visualized It,
Estrada's work was as intense as
though he were Fastening a sure VIC
tory. The dauntless 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.
Richards gone hog-wlld," Hardin
told his family the next morning.
Building levee between the towns |!
The mans OF his head"
There isn't any dangerw Gerty's
anxiety made the deep blue eyes look
black.
lnnes looked up for Toms answer.
His face was ugly with passion.
Danger! It's a blum, a big show
Of activity here because he's buffa-
loed; he doesn't know how to tackle
the job out there"
1t 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 engi-
neers foregathered; among the chair
filters who idled In front Of the Des.
ert hotel. "The man does not know
how to tackle his jobr A levee, and
the gate held up! What protection to
the towns would be that toy levee II
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
short time to blow himself out. A
bookman. theorist.
"As well put sentlnels a few miles
from prison and leave the jail doors
open" This was Wooster's gibe. All
saw the Colorado as a marauder at
large. "And a little heap of sand
stacked up to scare It OF! It's a
scream |"
Mrs. Hardin found 1t difficult to
meet with diplomacy the condolences
which inevitably came her way. As
Hardin's wife she was expected to en-
JOY the universal censure the new man
was acquiring. Gerty's light touches,
too slight for championship, passed as
sweet charity. Her own position
those days was trying. She did not
yet know her diplomatic lesson.
Apparently unaware Of the talk.
Richard spent the greater part of his
time experimenting the levee. He
could trust no one else to do 1t, 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 con.
slant 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. 1t was to be guerrilla
warfare. Not fight in the open, he
knew how to meet that. 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 frettlng to be at work. to
start the wheels Of the o. p, Its vast
machinery toward his problem. He
knew that that organization, like we'll
drilled militia, was ready for his call.
The call 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 inefiiciency 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 un-
aware. The reason Of Hardin's down.
fall was his slipshod habits. How could
be be good officer who had never
drilled as a soldier2 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,
Disaster island; It had received apt
christening by the engineers. its bap-
tismal water the Colorado. The last