The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-03-28
those days was trying. She did not
yet know her diplomatic lesson.


could trust no one else to do it, no
one unless it were Estrada, who was
rushing his steel rails through to thu
front and was needed there.
Things were moving under his con-
slant goading. The extra pay was
showing results. He should be at the
Heading now, he kept telling himself,
but he was convinced that the instant
he turned his back, the work on the
levee would stop; and all the reasons
excellent! Some emergency would be
cooked up to warrant the withdrawal
of the hands. ,Chafe as he might at
the situation, it was to be guerrilla
warfare. Not a fight in the open, he
knew how to meet that, but that baf-
fling resistance, the polite silence of
the office when he entered-"Well,
they'll be doing my way pretty soon,
or my name isn't Richard. That's
fat"
He was fretting to be at work, to
start the wheels Of the o. P.,. its vast
machinery toward his problem. He
knew that that organization, like we'll
drilled militia, was ready for his call.
The call Jagged, not that he did not
need men, but there was no place
ready for them. The camp, that was
another rub. There was no camp! 1t
was not equipped for sudden infa-
tion of men. The inefflciency of the
projectors oe this desert scheme had
never seemed so criminal as when he
had surveys tao eScaaxxs xt gse q :
take. Get rv1uy nrsI; your Tools,
your stoves, your BEDS" That was the
training Of the good executive, of 1nen
like liarshall and MacLean. Nothing
to be left to Shance; to foresce emer-
gencies, not to be taken by them un-
aware. The reason Of Hardin's down
fall was his slipshod habits. How could
he be a good officer who had never
drilled as a soldier? There was the
gap at the intake, Hardin's grotesque
folly, widened from one hundred feet
to ten times the original cut; widening
every day, with neither equipment nor
camp adequate to push through work
Ht half the original magnitude. Cut
ing away, moreover, was the island,
H;Saster island; it had received apt
,iristening by the engineers, its bap-
iS:n;ll water the Colorado. The last
;no'ls had played with it as though 1t
WEE bar of sugar. There was no
.'ocL at hand; no rock on the way, no
rock ordered. Could anyone piece to-
gcther such recklessness?
Rickard knew where he would get
- rock. Already he had requisitioned
the entire output of the Tacna and
Patagonia quarries. He had ordered
steam shovels to be installed at the
quarry back Of Old Hamlin's. That
rock pit would be his first crutch, and
the gravel bed-that was a find! AS
he paced the levee west Of the towns,
he was planning his campaign. Por-
ter was securing Zacatecas for men;
he himself had offered, as bait, free
transportation; the o. P. he knew
would back him. He was going to
throw out spur-track from the Head
ing, touching at the quarry and gravel
pit, on to- the main road at Yuma.
Double track most Of the way; sidings
every. three miles. Rock must be
rushed; the trains must be pushed
through. He itched to begin. 1t never
occurred 10 his eAet, Hke Hardin he
might fail.
Though it's no pink tea," he told
himself, its no picnic" At Tucson
he knew that the situation was
grave one, but his talk with Brandon,
who knew his river as does a good In
dian, made the year significant,
eventful one. Matt Hamlin, too, whose
shrewd eyes had grown riyer-wise, he,
too. had had tales to tell Of the tricky
river. Maldonadn.. tbe half-hread. had
confirmed their portents while they sat
together under his oleander, famous
throughout that section Of the coun-
try. And powerfully had Cor'nel, the
Indian who had piloted Estrada's party
across the desert, whom Rickard had
met at the Crossing, deeply had he i'm
pressed him. The river grew into a
malevolent, mocking personality; he
could see it dragon of yellow waters,
dragging its slow, sluggish length
across the baked desert sands; deceiv-
ing men by its inertness; Turing the
explorer by mild mood to rise sud-
denly with its wild fellow, the Gila,
sending boat and boatmen to their
swift doom.
Richard was thinking of the half
breed, Maldonado, as he inspected the
new stretch of levee between the
towns. He had heard from others be-
sides Estrada of the river knowledge
Of this descendant of trapper and
squaw, and had thought it worth while
to ride the twenty miles from down
the river to talk with him. The mans
suavity, his narrow slits of eyes, the
lips thin and facile, deep lines Of cru.
o1fu fo1lino FROM, fhop, bol