The Pulaskian., 1919-04-18

"From the water-tOwer." MacLean's voice split the wind. 'arhe wires are all down between the Crossing and the towns. Coronel was on the tower-he got the signal from the Heading he's been there each night for weekpi This was a great night-for his chief. Rickard
 Gerty Hardin caught the thrill of his hero-worship. How splendid. how triumphant!
 Innes found herself in her brothers buggy. His horse, under the whip dashed forward. Suddenly he pulled it back on it's launches, narrowly avertlng a jam. Where's Mac LeanT
 The boy rode back. 'Who's call, ing mel"
 "Giye me your horse," demanded Hardin. You take my sister home.'i
 Gerty Hardin's party was torn like a bow of useless finery. Facing the wind now, no one could talk; no one wanted to talk. Each was threshing out his own thoughts; personal ruin stared them in the face. Every man was remembering that reckless ex- posed cut of Hardin's; pinning their hope to that ridiculed levee. The horses broke into reckless gallop. the buggies Iurching wildly as they lodged one another. The axleS creaked and strained. The wind tore away the hats of the women, rent their pretty chiffon wells.
 The dusty road was peopled with dark formless shapes. The signals had spread the alarm; the desert world was f1ocking to the gorge of the New river, to the levee.
 The women were dumped without ceremony on the sidewalk. under the screened bird cage of the Desert hotel. Shivering, her pretty teeth chattering. Gerty Hardin ushered them into the deserted hail. The Chinese cook snored away his vigil in an armchair by the open fire. The men had rushed away to the levee.
 Women must wait" Gerty's laugh was hysterical. "We can do no good down there" She threw herself, con-. scious of heroineship, into the ordeal of her spoilt entertainment.
 It was always an incoherent dream to Innes Hardin, that wild ride home ward, the lurching scraping buggies, of women like scared rabbits around table that had else been gay. The women's teeth shivered over the ices. Their faces looked ghastly by the light shed by Gerty's green shades. She wished she were at the levee. She simply must go to the levee. I'm g0- ing to get wrap" she threw to Gerty as she passed. 'I left it in the hall.
 She stole through the deserted or flee, past the white and silver sodn fountain. and out into the speeding blur of the night. Formless shapes, soft-footed, passed her. As she sped past the French windows of the din- ing room she could get view of the shattered party.
 Innes made dive into the darkness. There was a dim outline of hastening figures in front of her. She could hear some one breathing heavily by her side. They kept apace, stumbling. occasionally, the moving gloom betray- ing their feet. A man came running back toward the town. Its cutting back!" He cried. Nothing but the levee will save the towns r
 The levee!
 The harsh breathing followed her. AS they passed the wretched hut of n Mexican gambler, a sputtering light shone out. Innes looked back. She saw the wrinkled face of Coronel, who had left his water tower. His black coarse hair was streaming in the wind, his mouth, ajar, was expres- sionless, though the fulfilment of the Great Prophecy was at hand. Beneath the cheek-splotches of green and red paint rested curious dignity. The Indian was to come again into his own. { What was his own, she questioned, as her feet stumbled over loOsened boarding, ditch crossing she had not seen. More corn, perhaps more fiery stuff to wash down the corn More white mans money in the brown didu pOShtL-tudly HIS udpDlQf88s Why should he not thank the gods7 His gods were speaking! For when the waters of the great river ran back to the desert, the long ago outraged gods were no longer angry. The towns might go, but the great Indian gods were showing their good will!
 She joined a group at the levee, winding her veil over mouth and fore head. Dark shapes. swayed near her. The wind was making havoc of the mad waters rushing down from the channel. The noise of wind and wa ters was appalling. Strange loud voices came through the din, of In- dians. Mexicans; guttural sounds. Men ran past her, carrying shovels, pulling sacks of sand; lanterns. blown dim. finshed their pale light on her chilled checks.