ON THE LEVEE
HARDIN did not go home that night. He was feeling to the quick
the irony of his position; his duty now to protect the levee he’d
ridiculed; now the only hope of the towns! The integrity of the man
never faltered, though his thoughts ran wild. Like the relentless
hounds of Actæon, they pursued him, barking at his vanity.
He started the anxious ranchers at sacking sand. Bodefeldt ran up
to tell him that there was a hill of filled sacks over in Mexicali.
“Rickard had a bunch of Indians working for a week.”
The confusion of the shy fellow did not escape Hardin. Oh, he knew
what Bodefeldt was thinking, what every one was saying! They were all
laughing at him. The coincidence of this extraordinary flood had upheld
Rickard’s wild guess, haloed his judgment. It was all a piece of his
infernal luck. Sickening, that’s what it was! His orders scattered. He
ran up and down the levee, giving orders; recalling them when he found
he was repeating Rickard’s.
This new humiliation, coming on the heels of the dredge fiasco, put
him in execrable temper. He shouted his orders over the noises of the
night. He rated the men, bullied them. No one did anything right!
Lord, what he had to put up with! The other men, the ranchers and
engineers, saw in his excitement certainty of the valley’s doom.
The wind and the darkness contributed to the confusion. Eager shovels
were tossing up earth before any one could tell where the danger point
would be. The water was not yet high enough to determine the place of
battle. Sacked sand was being brought over from Mexicali. Fifty pair
of hands made short work of Rickard’s “Hill.” Lanterns were flashing
through the darkness like restless fireflies. The wind and rushing
water deadened the sound of the voices. It was a battle of giants
against pygmies. In the darkness, the giants threatened to conquer.
At three in the morning, a horseman rode in from Fassett’s, one of the
big ranches to the north, cut by the New River.
“The river is cutting back,” he called through the din, “cutting back
toward the towns.”
A turn in the gorge, a careless dump-pit had pulled the river like a
mad horse back on its haunches. It was kicking back.
“They are short-handed up there. They need help.”
“Dynamite,” cried Silent and Hardin antiphonally. They happened to be
standing near.
“We must have dynamite,” bawled Hardin. “Are the wires down between
here and Brawley? We must get a wire somehow to Los Angeles, to rush it
down here this morning.”
“It’s here. There is a carload on the siding,” yelled Silent.
Hardin did not need to ask by whose orders it was there. An angry scowl
spoiled his face.
“Put some on the machine.” He was turning away.
Silent called after him. Did Mr. Hardin think it was safe? There was no
road between the towns and Fassett’s. The night, the explosive,--should
they not wait till morning? The question threw his late chief into a
rage.
“Did I ask you to take it?” It was the opening for his fury. “Safe!
Will the towns be safe if the river cuts back here? The channel has got
to be widened, and you talk of your own precious skin! Wait till I ask
you to take it. Get out the machine. I’ll take it to Fassett’s myself.”
Silent left the levee, smarting. As he fumbled for the lanterns hanging
in the shed where the machine was stalled, he lived over those last
few years; with Hardin in the desert. When had he ever hesitated over
a risk of life? When had he thought of his own safety? But this was
a foolhardy thing, no matter who took the machine. Daylight would be
here in a few hours. The way to Fassett’s, through the ravaged country,
was scarred by other floods. There was a half-mile of levee to be
covered; a ticklish thing by day to carry a machine over the narrow
mound, scraping bottom all the time. By night--with dynamite in the
bumping tonneau it was a gamble--and the wind blowing like this. But
he wouldn’t let Hardin take it, he would show Hardin what he meant by
“safe”!
By the pale flicker of the single lantern he got out the long gray car,
nosed like a hound, filled the tank with oil, the canteens with water
from a filter in the adjoining shop. He backed the machine out of the
shed and sped through the darkness toward Mexicali, where the car of
explosives was isolated.
He went over his grievance while he handled the dangerous stuff. The
boss was taking chances; that was what he meant. He was not afraid of
danger. Afraid!
Hardin, buttoned up to the ears, his soft hat pulled tight over his
forehead, was waiting impatiently. Here was something to be done; he
coveted the activity.
“I thought you were never coming,” he grumbled.
“Let me take it!” pleaded the engineer.
“Nonsense, there is no danger.” Hardin saw personal affection in the
plea. He put his hand affectionately on the man’s shoulder.
“But you are needed here.”
“The trouble is not here; it won’t be either, if we blow out the
channel. Here, jump out.”
“I want to go.” Silent kept a stubborn hold on the steering gear. He
felt Hardin’s place was at the levee.
“You go home and catch a nap; this is my job.” He was standing on the
step. “Crank her.”
There was nothing for Silent to do but to get out. Hardin pointed the
long nose of the car into the darkness. She was off like the greyhound
she suggested, missing a telegraph pole by half an inch.
“Just like him,” mused Silent. “The slimmest margins, the biggest
chances, that’s Tom Hardin.” The touch on the shoulder had dispelled
his grouch.
“Just like Hardin to insist on carrying the dynamite to Fassett’s.”
Spectacular, maybe, like all of his impulses, but splendid and fearless
as the man himself. “He never knows when he is beaten,” glowed the
engineer. “If this valley ever comes into its own, it will be because
of Tom Hardin.”
“Who is in charge here?” a woman’s voice was piercing the racket of
wind and wave.
The dawn was breaking. Down the New River he could see the wind
whipping the water into white-capped fury. “Vicious,” he muttered.
“Those heavy waves play the Old Harry with the levee.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Miss Hardin!” cried Silent.
“Where is he?” demanded Innes. Her hair streamed away from her face.
Her cheeks were blanched. Her yellow eyes, peering into the dusk,
looked owlish. Her wind-spanked skirts clung to her limbs. To Silent
she looked boyish, as though clipped and trousered. “Where is my
brother?” she repeated.
Silent told her without reservations where he had gone and why. There
was no feminine foolishness about that sister of Hardin’s. A chip of
the old block. Funny, the men all thought of her as Hardin’s daughter
on account of the difference of age. As to a comrade, proudly, he
bragged of the taking of the dynamite over that roadless waste.
“Whom did he leave in his place?” She did not see him shake his head.
“I want George Whitaker to be sent home. He is coughing his head off
down the levee, he is wet to the skin; he was being doctored for
pneumonia a week ago.”
Silent knew, only, that he himself was not in charge! Hardin had
ordered him to bed.
“Maybe Mr. Estrada?” she hazarded.
“He is not here, he went down the road to look after the track. Hardin
went off in such a hurry, I guess he told nobody,” chuckled the
engineer, still glowing.
“Then I’m it!” cried Innes Hardin. “Will you take my orders, Silent?”
“Sure,” he chuckled again.
“Send George Whitaker home. And not to report till to-morrow morning.
Say Hardin said so. You needn’t say which Hardin.”
She pinned up her blown hair, the wind fighting her. Her thoughts
would accuse Tom! Perhaps the apparent confusion was all well ordered;
perhaps this was the way men worked when the need was desperate, when
homes were at stake! Yet, there was Tom racing across the country when
a lieutenant would have done as well. Was he losing his grip? The
earthquake episode had frightened her. She knew he lacked discipline,
of school, and gentle home-training. The struggle with the wilderness
had absorbed his parents. She knew he was oversanguine, careless of
details, careless of the means to his ends. Perhaps it was because she
was a woman, and fearful, and saw things in a womanish way. Perhaps
all strong men, men who achieved great results, attacked them as Tom
did. The daring chance, for Tom always. A corner to be turned, he must
always take the sharpest curve. If he were as reckless with other
people’s lives as he was with his own--
The voice of Silent was in her ear. “He is gone. I’ve sent him home.”
The yellow eyes gleamed prankishly in the half light. “Will you take
more orders from me, Silent?”
“You’re the captain!”
“I saw Mr. Dowker down there. His wife is sick. Send him home, say
Hardin said so.”
She called after him; “Parrish, too, if you can find him!”
She watched the white-capped waves break into harmless spray against
the levee. A little higher, and those waves would not be harmless. If
the wind kept up, if those waters rose--ah, these men would be needing
their strength to-night!
The dawn was creeping in like a laggard culprit. The whitecaps caught
the light, scattering it as foam. The flashing lanterns grew pale;
Innes could discern some of the faces. She saw Coronel wrapped in a
gray blanket, squatting on the newly-raised bank. His unbound hair
slapped his old weathered mask. “The map of the desert furrowed on his
face,” Captain Brandon had once said. She wrapped her coat around her
head.
Silent came back. “Dowker’s gone, I couldn’t find Parrish.” He cut his
words off with a click, for through the rush of the wind and water came
the whistle of a locomotive.
“A special!” cried Silent. Hardin’s sister and his friend looked at
each other, the same thought in mind: Rickard, in from the Heading!
On her face Silent saw the same spectacular impulse which had flashed
over Hardin’s features a short time before.
She put her hand on his arm. “Silent, you’re his friend. Straighten
this out. We can’t have him come back--spying--and find this.” She
waved her hand toward the disorganized groups.
“I’d take more orders,” suggested the engineer.
“Then send a third of them home, tell them to come back to-night at
six. Send away the other third, tell them to come back at noon. Keep
the other shift. Say you’ll have coffee sent from the hotel, tell them
Hardin says to stop wasting stuff. Tell them, oh, tell them anything
you can think of, Silent, before he comes.” Her breakdown was girlish.
She could hear the signal of the locomotive; coming closer. Then she
could hear the pant of the engine as it worked up the grade. It was a
steady gentle climb all the way from the Junction, two hundred feet
below sea-level, to the towns resting at the level of the sea. It
quickened her thought of the power of the river. Nothing between it and
the tracks at Salton. Nothing to stop its flow into that spectacular
new sea whose basin did not need a drop of the precious misguided flow.
She could hear the bells; now the train was coming into the station;
she would not wait for Silent. She did not want to meet Rickard.
No one saw her as she left the levee. She passed Silent, who was
issuing orders. She heard him say, “The boss says so.”
She took the road by the railroad sheds, to avoid the dismissed shifts,
moving townward. At full speed, she collided with a man, rounding the
sheds’ corner. It was Rickard. Her veil had slipped to her shoulders
and he saw her face.
“Miss Hardin!” he exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“I was looking for my brother.”
“You ought not to be out at night alone here.”
“It’s morning!”
“With every Indian in the country coming in. I’ll send Parrish with
you.”
She recognized Parrish behind him. She tried to tell him that she knew
every Indian in Mexicali, every Mexican in the twin towns, but he would
not listen to her. “I’m not going to let you go home alone.”
She blinked rebellion at the supplanter of her brother. But she found
herself following Parrish. She took a deep pride in her independence,
her fearlessness. Tom let her go where she liked. She had an impulse
to dismiss Parrish; every man was needed, but he would obey Rickard’s
orders. MacLean had told her that! “They don’t like him, but they mind
him!”
Rickard made his way down to the levee. “Where is Hardin?” he asked of
every one he met. The answer came pointing in the direction where Innes
had stood.
He made a swift inspection. It was not so bad as he had feared. Orders
had scattered in the night; but it might have been worse.
Silent came up to explain that Hardin had gone up to Fassett’s just a
few minutes ago to carry dynamite. The river was cutting back there.
“Good,” cried Rickard, “that’s bully!”
“He left me in charge,” glibly lied the friend of Hardin. “Any orders,
sir?”
“Things are going all right?” began the manager. He stopped. From above
came a dull roar.
“Dynamite!” cried Rickard.
The friend of Hardin had nothing to say. “I thought you said he went
only a few minutes ago?” demanded his chief.
There was another detonation. Down the river came the booming of the
second charge.
“That’s dynamite for sure,” evaded Silent.
“Not a minute too soon!” declared Rickard, going back to his
inspection.