The Pulaskian., 1919-03-28

towns and the Crossing; a director of the Desert Reclamation company, and the head of small subsidiary com pany which had been created to pro- tect rights and keep harmonious rela- tion with the sister country. Rickard found him full of meat, and heard, for the first time consecutively, the story of the rakish river. Particularly in teresting to him was the relation of Hardin to the company.
 "He has the bad luck, that mani" exclaimed Estrada's soft, musical voice. "Everything is in his hands, capital is promised, and he goes to New York to have the papers drawn up. The day he gets there the Maine is destroyed. Of course capital is shy. He's had the devils own luck with men: Clifford, honest but mulish 1; Sather. mulish and not honest-oh, there's string of them. Once he went to Hermosillo to get an option on my fathers lands. They were already covered by an option held by some men in Scotland. Another man would have waited for the three months to pass. Not Hardin. He went to Scot land, thought he'd interest those men with his maps and papers. He owned all the data then. He'd made the sur vey."
 Estrada repeated the story Brandon and Marshall had told, with little dis crepancy. A friendly refrain followed the narrative. "He has the bad luck, that man!"
 And the Scotched option?" remind ed Rickard, smiling at his own poor joke.
 Tt was just that. A case of Hardin luck again. He stopped off in London to interest some capital there; follow ing up lead developed on the steam CT. He was never a man to neglect a chance. Nothing came of it, though, and when he reached Glasgow he found his man had died two days be- f0re-or been killed, I've forgotten which. Three times Hardin's crossed the ocean trying to corner the oppor- tunity he thought he had found It isn't laziness. is his trouble It's just internal luck"
 "Or over-astuteness, or procrastina- ti0n," criticized his listener to himself. He knew now what it was that had so changed Hardin. A man cannot travel, even though he be bounding down quick scent, without meeting strong influences. He had been thrown with hard men, strong men. It was an inevitable chiseling, not a miracle.
 "I want to near more of this some day. But this map, I don't under stand what you told me of this by pass, MT. Estrada.
 Their heads were still bending over Estrada's rough work bench when the Japanese cook announced that dinner was waiting in the adjoining car. MacLean and Bodefeldt and several young engineers joined them.
 It had been outwardly wasted day. Rickard had lounged, socially and physically. But before he turned in that night he had learned the names and dispositions of his force, and some of their prejudices. Nothing, he summed up, could be guessed from the gentleness of the Mexican's manner Wooster's antagonism was open and snappish. Silent was to be watched, i and Hardin had already shown his hand.
 The river, as he thought of it, ap- peared the least formidable of his op- ponents. He was imaging it as high spirited horse, maddened by the fum- bling of it's would-be captors. His task it was to lasso the proud stallion, lead it in bridled to the sterile land No wonder Hardin was sore his moose had slipped on one time too many Hardin'S luck