Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1919-02-01

/ TOrG VIZ
a Am Going to Send You Down to the
Break"
face, as the Chinese say. I may tell
you that it was case Of firing. He'd
made a terrible fuke down there"
Il KNOW" murmured Rickard. II
was growing more difficult, more dis.
tasteful. If Marshall wanted him to
supplant Hardlnl 1t had been incred-
ible, that mans folly! Reckless gam.
bling, nothing else. Make a cut in the
banks Of a wild river, without put
ting in head gates to control it; q
child would guess better! 1t was a
problem now, all right; the writer of
the report he'd just read wasn't the
only one who was psophcsying failure.
Let the river cut back, and the gov
ernment works at Laguna would be
useless; a pickle Hardin had made.
Still to gain time he suggested that
Marshall tell him the situation. 'Ive
followed only the engineering side of
1t. don't know the relationship of
the two companies"
Where the railroad came in? The
inside of that story? Pm responsible
II guaranteed to Faraday the closing
Eof that break. There was big dis
trict to save, district that the rail-
road tapped-but I'll tell you that
later" He was leisurely putting blue,
perfectly formed rings into the air,
his eyes admiring them.
Perhaps you've heard how Estrada,
the general, tooki,a party Of men into
the desert to sell mine he owned.
After the deal was made he decided
to let 1t slip. He'd found something
bigger to do, more to his liking than
the sale Of mine. Estrada was a
big man, a great man. He had the
idea Powell and others had, of turn
Ing 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
Eduardo, the son, is not like him. He's
Elike his mother-you never know what
they are dreaming about. Not at all
alike, my wife and Estrada's.'
Then 1t came to Rickard that he
had heard somewhere that Marshall
Iand General Estrada had married sis
ters, famous beauties Of Guadalajara.
He began to piece together the per-
sonal background Of the story.
1T was long time before Estrada
could get it started, and it's a long
story. AS soon as he began he was
knocked down. Other men took hold.
You'll hear it all in the valley. Har-
din took a day to tell it to me! He
sees himself as a martyr. Promoters
got in; the thing swe.;ed into
s'yindle, a spectacular swindle. They
showed oranges on Broadway before
drop of water was brought in. Har-
din has lots Of grievances He'd made
the original survey. SO when he sued
for his back wages he took the papers
of the bankrupt company in settle
ment. He's grim sort of Intellectual
bulldog. He's clung with his teeth
to the Estrada idea. And he's not big
enough for 1t. He uses the optimistic
method-gives you only half of case,
half Of the problem, gets started on
n false premise. Well, he got up an
other company on that method, the
Desert Reclamation company, tried to
whitewash the desert project; 1t was
In bad odor then, and he managed to
bring a few drops of water to the
desert"
1T was Hardin who did that?"
But he couldn't deliver enough.
The cut sllted up. He cut again, the
same story. He was in a pretty bad
hole. He'd brought colonists In al
ready; he'd used their money the
money they'd paid for land with wa
ter, to make the cuts. No wonder he
was desperate"
It recalled the man Rickard had
disliked, the rough-shod, loud.voiced
student of his first class in engineer
ing. That was the man who had made
the fiamboyant carpets Of the Holmes
boarding ouse-imposslhle any longer
to him. He had a sudden disconcert-
ing vision of large unfinished face
peering through the honeysuckles at
"a man and a girl drawing apart in
confusion from their first and last
kiss. He wanted TO tell Marshall he
was wasting his time.
Overwhelmed with lawsuits" Mar
shall WAS saying. Hardin had to de-
i yer water to those colonists. 1t was
taen that he ran over into Mexico,
so as to get better gradient for his
canal, and made his cut there. You
know the rest. 1t ran away from him.
1t made the Salton sea-"