The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-01

face, as the Chinese say. I may tell you that it was case of firing. He'd made a terrible f1uke down there."
 'T know" murmured R1ckard It @5yas growing more difficult, more dis tasteful. If Marshall wanted him to supplant Hardlni It had been incred- -ible, that mans follyI Reckless gam bling, nothing else. Make a cut in the banks of wild river, without put ti1g in head gates to control 1t; 8 child would guess betterl It was problem now, all right; the writer of the report he'd just read wasn't the only one who was prophesying failure. Jet the river cut back, and the gov eFnment works at Laguna would be useless; a pickle Hardin had made.
 Still to gain time he suggested that Marshall tell him the situation "pve followed only the engineering side of it. l don't know the relationship of the two companies"
 Where the railroad came in2 The inside of that story? I'm responsible '-I guaranteed to Faraday the closing of that break. There was a big dis trict to save, district that the rail- road tapped-but I'll tell you that flater." He was Ieisurely putting blue, perfectly formed rings into the air, his eyes admiring them
 Perhaps you've heard how Estrada, the general took a party of men into the desert to sell a mine he owned. After the deal was made he decided to let it slip. He'd found something bigger to do, more to his liking than the sale of mine. Estrada was . }D1g man, great man. He had the Idea Powell and others had, of turn ting the river, of saving the desert. He dreamed himself of doing it. If sick ness hadn't come to him the Colorado would be meekly carrying water now Instead of flooding a country. Pity IsSduardo, the son, Is not like him. He's Hike his mother-you never know what tthey are dreaming about. Not at all alike, my wife and Estrada's."
 Then 1t came to Rickard that he ri1ad, heard somewhere that Marshall and General Estrada had married sis irers, famous beauties of Guadaiajara. He began to piece together the per .fsonal background of the story.
 Tt was long time before Estrada could get it started, and it's a long story. As soon as he began he was llznocked down. Other men took hold You'll hear it all in the valley. Har- .dtn took a day to tell it to me! He sees himself as a martyr. Promoters tgot In; the thing swelled into 8 Eswindle, a spectacular sWindle. They Eishowed oranges on Broadway before "a drop of water was brought in. liar din has lots of grievances He'd made the original survey. So when he suet flor his back wages he took the papers of the bankrupt company in settle nent. He's grim sort of ineffectua bulldog. He's clung with his teetI to the Estrada idea. And he's not bi. enough for it. He uses the optimistic method-giyes you only half of a case half of the problem, gets started o1 a false premise. Well, lie got up an other company on that method, tht Desert Reclamation company, tried u whItewaSh the desert project; it wa lin bad odor then, and he managed t bring a few drops of water to tn, desert"
 "It was Hardin who did thatf'
 'But he couldn't deliver enough The cut silted up. He cut again, tn
 same story. He was in q pretty ba
 hole. He'd brought colonists in al ready; he'd used their money, tn money they'd paid for land with WE ter. to make the cuts. No wonder h
 was desperate"
 It recalled the man Rickard ha
 tlisliked, the rough-shod, loud-voice student of his first class in engineer
 ing That was the man who had mad
 he iiamboylnt carpets of the Holme! toarli0g iouse impossible any longe
 10 him. bie had sudden disconcer
 ing vision of large unfinished fac
 peering through the honeysuekles {
 man and girl drawing apart lGopfuslon from their first and la'