The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-31
Marshan Sends for Rfokara.
CHAPTER |,

nine as "Casey" Richards dancing step carried him into the outer office of Tod Marshall. The ushering clerk, coat less and vestless in expectation of the third hot spring day, made a critical appraisement of the engineers get-up before he spoke. Then he stated that Mir. Marshall had not yet come.
 For a London tie and a white silk shirt belted into white serge trousers were smart for Tucson. The clerks in the employ of the Overland Pacific and of the Sonora and Yaqui railroads had stared at Rickard as he entered; they followed his progress through the room. He was a newcomer In Tucson. He had not yet acquired the apathetic habits of its citizens. He wore belts, instead of suspenders. His white trousers, duck or serge, carried new ly pressed crease each morning.
 The office had not reached a verdict on the subject of K. c. Rickard. The shirt-sieeved, collarless clerks would have been quick to dub him a dandy vera it not for page of his history  a chair of engineering in some eastern city. He had resigned, the wind-tossed page said, to go on the road as fireman. His rapid promotion had been spectacular; the last move, a few years ago, to fill an office position in Tucson. The summons had found him on the west coast of Mexico, where the Overland Pacific was push ing its tracks.
 You can wait bere," suggested the clerk, looking covertly at the shoes of the man who few years before had been shoveling coal on Wyoming en- zine. "Mr. Marshall said to wait"
 Ribbons, instead of shoe faces i" carped the human machine that must ever write letters which other men sign. And a blue pin to match his tie! I call that going somer'
 It would never have occurred to Rickard, had he thought about it at all that morning as he knotted his tie of dark, brilliant blue silk, that the selection of his IGpis pin was choice ; it was an inevitable result, an instinC- tive discretion of his fingers. IL warped, however, the suspended judg- ment of Marshall's men, who had never seen him shovellng coal, disfg- ured by denim jumper. They did not know that they themselves were sIovens, ruined by the climate that dulls vanity and wits collars.
 Give him year to change some of his fine habits" wagered Smythe. the stoop-shouldered clerk, as the door of the inner office closed
 ITO change his habits less '" amend. ed the office wit. And then they fell to speculating what Marshall was go ing to do with him. What pawn was he in the game that everyone in Tue son followed with eager self-lnterestet concern? Marshall's was the control ling hand in Arizona politics; the maker of governors, the arbiter of biz corporations; president of a half dozen railroads. Not a move of hls on the board that escaped notice. On the other side of the door Rick ard was echoing the office question This play job, where did It lead to He had liked his work, under Stratton There had been some pretty problem! to meet-what did Marshall mean tt do with him?
 The note had set the appointment for nine. RickQrd glanced at hi watch and took out his Engineering Review. It would be ten before tha door opened on Tod Marshalll
 He knew that, on the road, Mar shalPs work began at dawn. "A mal won't break from overwork or rus from underwork if he follows the ex ample of the sum-" Rickard had oftel heard him expound his favorite the ory. @It is only the players, the syba rites, who can afford to pervert tn arrangement nature intended for us. But in Tucson, controlled by the wife Iy solicitude of his Claudia, he wa coerced into a regular pervcrsiOn. Hi office never saw him until the morI ing was half gone.
 A half-hour later RickGrd finishe reading a report on the diversion of great western river. The name c Thomas Hardin had sent him off O q tangent of memory. The Thoma Hardin whose efforts to bring wate to the desert of the Colorado had bee so spectacularly unsuccessful was tn Tom Hardin he had known! The si' ter had told him so, the girl with tn odd bronze eyes; opal matrix the were, with glints of gold, or was green? She herself was as unlike in raw boor of his memory as Q mouI tain lily is like the coarse rUcG Of i. background. Even half-sister [ Hardin, as Marshall, their host at diI ner the week before, had eXplaine it-nO, even that did not explain That any of the Hardin blood shoul be shared by the veins of that gir why it was incredblel The nam Hardin" suggested crudity, lou Inouthed bragging; conceit. He coul understand the failure of the riv' project since the sister had assure him that it was the same Tom Hardi who had gone tO college at Lawrence had married Gerty Holmes. Que business, life, that he should eros even so remotely, their orbits agai Ihat was a chapter he liked to ski
 He walked over to the window bhielded by bright awnings ar Booked down on the city where u bsext few years of his life might ksauarf1f Hornsor+su, fo raaao4 Fho% .