The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-02-18

eBa * pay 'H8a17| T
81 Am Going to Send You Down to the
Break"
face, as the Chinese say. may tell
you that it was case Of firing. He'c
made q terrible fluke down there"
81 know" murmured Rickard. I
was growing more difficult, more dis
tasteful. If Marshall wanted him tt
supplant Hardin! 1t had been incred
ible, that mans folly! Reckless gam
bling, nothing else. Make cut in the
banks of a wild river, without put
ting in head gates to control it; E
child would guess better! 1t was G
problem now, all right; the writer OF
the report he'd just read wasn't the
only one who was prophesying 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. 'I'vt
followed only the engineering side O!
it. I don't know the relationship o.
the two companies"
"Where the railroad came in? The
inside Of that story? I'm responsible
Il 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
later" He was leisurely 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'G found something
bigger to do, more to his liking thar
the sale of q mine. Estrada was 6
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. II sick.
ness hadn't come to him the Colorado
would be meekly carrying water nov
instead Of flooding a country. Pity
Eduardo, the son, is not like him. He's
like his mother-you never know what
they are dreaming about. Not at al
alike, my wife and Estrada's."
Then it came to Rickard that he
had heard somewhere that Marshall
and General Estrada had married sis
tiers, famous beauties of Guadalajara
He began to piece together the per
sonal background Of the story.
1T was a long time before Estrads
could get 1t started, and it's a lons
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 swelled into g
swindle, spectacular swindle. They
showed oranges on Broadway before
drop Of water was brought In, Har,
din has lots Of grievancesl He'd nsde
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 BIZ
enough for it. He uses the optimistic
method-gives you only half Of case
half Of the problem, gets started oil
false premise. Well, he got up an.
other company on that method, the
Desert Reclamation company, tried t.
whitewash the desert project; it was
in bad odor then, and he managed tt
bring a few drops Of water to the
desert"
1T was Hardin who did that?'
"But he couldn't deliver enough.
The cut silted 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"
1t 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 house Impossible any longer
10 him. He had sudden disconcert.
ing vision Of a large unfinished face
neering through the honeysuckles at
Il man and girl drawing apart in
confusion from their first and nSt
Hiss. He wanted to tell Marshall he
was wasting his time.
"Overwhelmed with lawsuits" Mar
shall was saying. Hardin had to de.
liver water to those colonsts. 1t was
len that he ran over into Mexico,
- as tn ret better gradient for MS
ana. sd made his cut there. You
KNOW the rest. II ran away from him.
IL,