and crept closer. Hesitating, afraid, he reached out and touched her fingers,
still closed around something which she had been holding in her hand. Her
fingers were cool, pliable,--alive, he could have sworn. So his heart, that
had seemed to stop altogether, gave a great jump.
Very gently he released the thing she was holding and drew it toward him. His
old, weather-scarred, briar pipe! He looked down at it dumbly, looked at
Nevada and very carefully laid the pipe back, against her fingers. His eyes
were very blue and bright; his face was very pale. He steadied himself. He
would get her out; he _must_ free her and bring her alive to the safe outside,
where--
A fear stabbed him. They were going to shoot in the other dam! He hadn’t much
time, then. Another shock,--Peter had told him to look out for a blast. It was
perhaps a matter of minutes.
He raised himself, looked at the beams. They seemed to be solidly braced, for
the present, though another concussion would be likely to throw them down. He
looked down.
Nevada was sitting on a reed stool, with two cushions upon it to give her
height. He crept closer, raised himself and set a shoulder against the beam
that lay along her bowed shoulders. He steadied it so while he took firm hold
of a cushion and pulled it from beneath her.
Nevada’s body sagged a bit. Rawley could see daylight now between her
shoulders and the beam. He waited a breath, felt no settling of the beam, and
pulled out the remaining cushion. Still the beam held fast. Nevada, then, was
not being crushed; she had been pinned down without bearing the weight of the
beam.
Rawley went back, crouching under the caved roof. His arms were round Nevada
when he stopped and picked up the pipe, slipping it into the pocket of her
blouse. Then, pulling her gently to him, he drew her out from under the beam
and into the granite-walled storehouse. As he lifted her in his arms Nevada
groaned.
Anita’s arms were uplifted to receive her when Rawley came up head and
shoulders through the gaping hole in the dugout roof. But he shook his head,
stepped out with her in his arms and dug heels in the soft bank, working his
way down to the level.
He still held the girl in his arms, looking for a place where he might lay her
comfortably, when the earth shook beneath his feet. The terrific boom of the
explosion deafened him. The jumble of rock shook and fell, tighter packed.
The auxiliary dam was in.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE EAGLE’S WING
Nevada was lying on the bed in Anita’s shack, trying to convince Rawley that
the doctor knew what he was talking about. The doctor had declared that
Nevada’s injuries were mostly superficial bruises and the nervous shock of
sitting cramped in one position for hours, expecting every moment to be
crushed to death. Nevada had seemed rather crestfallen when Rawley told her
how simple a matter it had been to free her from the beam.
“The whole thing caught me unawares just when I had stopped a minute to rest,”
she explained defensively. “I think I was half asleep when it happened, and of
course my lamp was smashed too flat even to think of exploding. It was black
dark, and I suppose it was natural to imagine that I was being crushed when I
was merely held fast. I did not try to move. I was afraid the whole thing
would come down on me. Of course, I should have thought of the cushions,--”
“You’d be a wonder if you had; even more of a wonder than you are.” Rawley
took her hand in both of his and patted it, in a sublime disregard of the
circumstances of his last visit to the basin. “I believe in omens, Nevada.
Fate gave me a splendid one when I found you.” Rawley smiled at her
mysteriously, his eyes twinkling.
“In the general wreck, my old pipe had landed from some cranny right on the
desk beside you. You can’t make me believe that Fate didn’t mean something by
that! The way I interpret it--”
“A freak accident,” interrupted Nevada, her cheeks showing alarming symptoms
of a sudden attack of fever. “That old pipe! You didn’t take it, and I must
have tucked it up somewhere until you came again. I suppose it rattled down.”
Rawley’s eyes had never been so blue. They were like looking down upon a
sunlit sea. He dipped his fingers into the pocket of Nevada’s blouse and
produced the pipe, turning it tenderly in his hands.
“God bless the day I learned to smoke!” he murmured, his eyes still dancing.
“It may have rattled down--but I know it’s a good omen. It means--”
“Yes?” Nevada’s big eyes were upon his face. A faint tremor was in her lips,
as if laughter and tears were fighting for the mastery.
“The omen says that you and I are going to get married within a week. Well
within a week.” He was studying the pipe as a mystic studies the crystal. “It
tells me that the hatchet is forever buried. This is the pipe of peace, and it
passed from me to you. That means that you and I go through life together. Our
trails never separate. It means--”
“Oh, hush!” Nevada cried sharply and struck at the pipe in his hand. “Our
trails can’t lie together. We can’t marry, ever--ever! You know that as well
as I do. We’re cousins.” She turned her face to the wall.
Rawley did not speak. He looked up from the pipe, straight into the eyes of
Anita, sitting in a corner like a bronze Buddha disguised as a squaw.
Anita met his look with stolid obstinacy, never blinking, never a quiver in
her face.
Rawley’s jaw squared a little as he continued to look at her. His body swayed
forward, his eyes boring into her very soul. So had King, of the Mounted,
looked when he demanded that Anita should choose between himself and Jess
Cramer. Rawley did not know why he stared at her so. He only knew that the
truth was there, hidden behind those unreadable eyes. He knew that the truth
would give him Nevada the moment that truth was spoken. No lips but Anita’s
might speak that truth; other lips were sworn to silence.
The old squaw whimpered under her breath. Her eyes flickered and could no
longer look defiance into those terrible, commanding blue eyes,--the eyes of
King, of the Mounted. Her hand went up to shield her face from the stare of
them. She stirred uneasily in her chair. She spread her fingers, peering
fearfully between them. The terrible blue eyes looked at her still. Slowly,
painfully, scarce knowing that she did so, Anita pulled herself up from the
chair and went forward as one goes to the bar of justice.
As a flame shoots up suddenly from dying embers, so did a flame dart out from
the ashes of her youth. The stooped, gross old body straightened. Anita’s head
went back. Her eyes glowed with a little of their old fire. Her voice rang
clear, proud with the pride of ancestry unknown.
“Nevada,” she cried imperiously and spoke rapidly in Indian. “It is not true
that you are his cousin. He is the grandson of a man I loved in my youth. He
is the grandson of Sergeant George King, who was the father of Peter. I have
been ashamed that you should know the truth. Now I am not ashamed, for I know
that stolen love is more noble than a lie. The father of Peter, him I loved.
He was a soldier and he went away. He promised to return in one month. In
three months he had not come, nor sent me word. I was angry and I let the man
he hated think that I loved him and not my soldier man. Then I went away, for
my heart was sad. I would not follow my soldier man. I was proud. After a long
time--after more than a year had passed I returned to El Dorado and I brought
my child, who was Peter. I sought for news of my soldier, but there was none.
He had not come, he had not sent me word. So I went to the man I hated. I told
him that Peter was his son, which was a lie. I was very proud. I thought that
some day my soldier would return and would see how I laughed at him and loved
another. But I did not love. And Peter was not the son of the man my soldier
hated. Now the young man comes and loves, and I am old. Soon I go to my
soldier man. It is not right that others should have sorrow because of my lie.
“So now I speak what is true. I say that this young man is not of your blood.
He is the grandson of the father of Peter, and Peter is his uncle. You are not
his cousin. Now you will be his wife, and you will hate Anita for the sin of
her youth.”
Nevada lay listening, gazing fixedly at her grandmother. She caught the
gnarled old hand of Anita in both her own. She fondled it, kissed it, laughed
softly with tears in her laughter.
“You will not hate Anita?” Tears spilled over the fat lids and trickled down
the cheeks of the old squaw.
Whatever Nevada said, she spoke in Indian, stealing a shy glance now and then
at Rawley. But her voice crooned caresses. Now and then she kissed the old
hand she held in both her own.
Anita tucked in her bangs, drew two fingers across her cheeks to dry her tears
and smiled. She turned heavily toward Rawley.
“My girl say, loves you more--I love your grandfadder. My girl make you good
wife.”
“Hush, Grandmother! He doesn’t want a fighting squaw--”
“Don’t, eh?” Rawley got up and made for her.
At that moment Peter walked in upon them, unconscious of the fact that he was
interrupting a very interesting conversation. Peter’s face was grave.
“Nevada, do you and mother know anything about Young Jess? Gladys is all upset
over him. She thought he was down in the river with his father. She heard them
talking about getting gold, and then the dam went, and she hasn’t seen him
since. If he’s hiding,” he added sternly, “he may as well come out and show
himself. I think it can be fixed up. The Governor wants to ask him some
questions.”
“How could I know? I was penned in when the cabin fell to pieces,” Nevada
countered. “They certainly said nothing to me, either one of them. I didn’t
see them all afternoon or evening.”
Anita slowly lifted her hand to her face and gropingly tucked in her bangs.
Her eyes were fixed dumbly on Peter’s face.
“Young Jess--by river,” she said reluctantly. “I walk in moonlight, no can
sleep. Comes big shootin’. I fall down. Bimeby I hear Nevada--she call me come
quick. I no see Jess no more. I come.” She recapitulated slowly. “Jess by
river, look on river. Comes shoot. No see Jess no more. Nevada call loud. Jess
no come.”
The eyes of the two men met significantly. Peter turned and went out, and
Rawley followed him.
“Concussion,” Rawley said succinctly. “If he were on the edge of the bank, it
would throw him off, very likely. It’s high, out here, and pretty steep. He
went into the river, in that case.”
“Yes--some folks upriver came near getting it when we shot in the second dam,”
Peter said tonelessly. “I sent a man up on a hill to wave back any stragglers,
but the doctor had to do some patching on the crowd, nevertheless. Well, I’ll
go and look along the river. He may be hurt, under the bank.”
Rawley did not think so, but he went with Peter and searched the bank
thoroughly. Halfway down, caught behind a bowlder, he found Young Jess’s hat.
He managed to retrieve it and bring it to Peter. Peter turned it over in his
hand, looked at Rawley and nodded.
“It’s his,” he said shortly. “It’s all we’ll ever find.”
He turned away toward the shack, swung back suddenly and faced the tremendous
heap of broken rock visible from midstream to the farther shore. He lifted
both hands high above his head, his face twisted, his eyes black with sublime
fury.
“Damn you!” he cried. “Curse the thought, born in greed, fostered in rapacity,
that put you there! Curse the bitter years that brought you to pass! For the
greed of the gold they would have filched, for the vulture’s eye that watched
and waited all these years, to swoop down and snatch and grab, with never a
thought for the rights of other men, I curse the thing I helped to make!
“Born in selfishness, you have defiled a mighty river that God meant should
flow through the land and one day be a blessing to mankind. You have made of
the river a monster. It is _you_ that is driving women and little children
from their homes! _You_, God damn you! You have been a traitor to the mind
that brought you forth. You have destroyed the two who worked and waited, that
you might pander to their greed. You have tried to destroy the dearest thing I
have on earth, because I saw in you something big and beautiful--because I was
fool enough to think that an idea spawned in devil-greed could live in noble
achievement.
“Look at the slimy thing the vultures have made of the river! The leprous
thing over which the vultures croaked--for a little while--croaked and went
down and died! The Eagle would never stop the river, leave it a naked,
stinking thing under the sky. For the good of mankind, the Eagle would have
tamed the river, without destroying it. The Eagle would have had it run
peacefully within its banks, helping without hurting. Now the river lies
shamed in its bed--that magnificent stream!--and men flee from it in terror.
The two who thought to feast in the slime--yes, and I, too, could stoop so low
as to root for gold like a hog in the mire!--you have swept them to
destruction, have cheated them at the last of their prey.
“But you have done your worst! I, who helped to make you what you are, who
created you thought by thought, I will tear you down. For the thing you are, a
monument to greed and self, I shall tear you down stone by stone until the
river is once more sweeping majestically down to the sea. As God is my
witness, this thing the vultures have created shall be forgotten. The Eagle’s
wing shall shadow the Colorado, a river undefiled.”
His voice ceased. He stood, hands clenched beside him, jaw squared, staring at
the dam that had been his dream. A dream fulfilled,--and hated in the
fulfillment. His lips moved, muttering the prophecy of Johnny Buffalo:
“‘You will succeed, and fail in the succeeding. And from the failure,--’”
A gloved hand was laid in friendly fashion on Peter’s shoulder. He turned and
looked into the eyes of his Governor.
“It takes a big man, a man of broad vision, to look upon his life’s work and
dare to say what you have said,” the Governor told him kindly, the look of
understanding in his eyes. “Don’t be down-hearted because your success has
proved a failure. The Cramer Dam would hold, I believe, if we wanted it to
hold. But you are right. It is not for the vulture, but for the Eagle to say
what shall be done with the river. The country needs more men like you, Peter.
You shall help to build another dam--and build it under the Eagle’s wing.”
Peter lifted his right hand and laid it upon the shoulder of his Governor. His
eyes were very blue and very deep. So they stood for a space and looked into
each other’s eyes.
“‘--And from the failure rise to greater things,’” Rawley repeated under his
breath, his eyes shining.
THE END
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOVELS BY B. M. BOWER
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
A Flying U story in which the Happy Family get mixed up in a robbery faked for
film purposes.
“Altogether a rattling story, that is better in conception and expression than
the conventional thriller on account of its touches of real humanity in
characterization.”--_The Philadelphia Public Ledger._
STARR, OF THE DESERT
A story of mystery, love and adventure, which has a Mexican revolt as its main
theme.
“The tale is well written.... A book worth the reading which it is sure to get
from every one who begins it.”--_The New York Tribune._
CABIN FEVER
How Bud Moore and his wife, Marie, fared through their attack of “cabin fever”
is the theme of this B. M. Bower story.
“It is breezy and wholesome, with a quiet humor.... Plenty of action is
evident, while the sentimental side of the story is thoroughly human and
altogether delightful.”--_The Boston Transcript._
SKYRIDER
A cowboy who becomes an aviator is the hero of this new story of Western ranch
life.
“An engrossing ranch story with a new note of interest woven into its breezy
texture.”--_The Philadelphia Public Ledger._
RIM O’ THE WORLD
An engrossing tale of a ranch-feud between “gun-fighters” in
Idaho.
“The author has filled the story with abundant happenings, and the reader of
this class of story will find many a thrill in its pages.”--_The Philadelphia
Public Ledger._
THE QUIRT
A story of ranch life in Idaho, with an abundance of action, adventure and
romance.
“Like all the Bower novels, ‘The Quirt’ rings true. Lovers of Western Stories
have long voted Bower a place in the front rank of those who tell of
ranch-life, bad men, range wars and rough riding.”--_The Boston Herald._
COW-COUNTRY
This story of Bud Birnie will appeal to all lovers of tales of the real West.
“A live, well-told Western romance which bears above all else the impress of
truth in its descriptions of both persons and country.”--_The New York Times._
CASEY RYAN
Lovers of stories of the real West will enjoy this humorous tale.
“This is one of the cleverest and most amusing of all the many books that have
come from B. M. Bower’s pen.... It is a rollicking story, full of mirth and
laughter from beginning to end.”--_The New York Times._
THE TRAIL OF THE WHITE MULE
Another Casey Ryan story in which Casey is funnier than ever.
“The author produces in Casey Ryan a fictional creation, a unique character
that is a worth while addition to our gallery of Western portraits in
fiction.”--_The New York Times._
THE VOICE AT JOHNNYWATER
“It is a crackerjack of a story, in B. M. Bower’s best style, the sort of
story that you have to read in one evening, so absorbing is it.”--_The St.
Louis Globe-Democrat._
LONESOME LAND
A vigorous tale of ranch life in Montana.
“Montana, described as it really is, is the ‘lonesome land’ of this delightful
Bower story. A prairie fire and the death of the worthless husband are
especially well handled.”--_A. L. A. Booklist._
THE RANCH AT THE WOLVERINE
A tale of Idaho ranch life, with a bewitching heroine.
“A ringing tale full of exhilarating cowboy atmosphere, abundantly and
absorbingly illustrating the outstanding features of that alluring ranch life
that is fast vanishing.”--_The Chicago Tribune._
THE FLYING U’S LAST STAND
What happened when a company of school teachers and farmers encamped on the
grounds of the Flying U Ranch.
“How the ranchmen saved their grazing grounds is told by the novelist with
breezy humor and an overflow of fanciful incident.”--_The Philadelphia North
American._
THE PAROWAN BONANZA
“The reader can always take up a story of B. M. Bower with the assurance that
it will seethe with action, humor, Western color and romance.... ‘The Parowan
Bonanza’ is a smooth-running, well-told tale that leaves the reader with a
comfortable sense of having seen the desert country at close range, of having
known its mysterious, starlit nights and burning days, and of having
participated for a time in all the surge and rush of a mining town in its
making and its débâcle.”--_The New York Times._
THE EAGLE’S WING
A project to dam the Colorado River furnishes the theme of this
characteristically picturesque and exciting Bower story.
Boston--LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY--Publishers