THE WHITE REFUGE
THE town woke to a matter-of-fact day. The sensational aspect of the
runaway river had passed with the night. The word spread that the flood
waters were under control; that the men had gone home to sleep, so the
women got breakfast as usual, and tidied their homes. The Colorado was
always breaking out, like a naughty child from school. Never would
the cry of “The river!” fail to drag the blood from their cheeks. But
relief always came; the threatened danger was always averted, and these
pioneer women had acquired the habit of swift reaction.
That afternoon, Mrs. Youngberg was to entertain at the A B C ranch the
ladies of the Improvement Club. It was a self-glorification meeting, to
celebrate the planting of trees in the streets of Calexico, and to plan
the campaign of their planting. Mrs. Blinn drove into town to get Gerty
Hardin. Neither woman had seen her husband since the interrupted drive
the night before.
“I don’t know whether I should go,” Mrs. Hardin hesitated, her face
turned toward the A B C ranch. “Perhaps there is something we could do.”
“I have just come from the levee.” Mrs. Blinn’s jolly face had lost its
apprehension. “The water has not risen an inch since breakfast. Most of
the men have been sent home. When Howard didn’t come home to lunch, I
grew anxious. But Mr. Rickard says he sent him to Fassett’s with more
dynamite.”
“Dynamite!” shuddered Gerty. “Aren’t you terribly afraid?” So Rickard
was in town! Her breath fluttered. Strange, how her spirits rose!
Mrs. Blinn wondered if the wife was the only person in the town who
had not heard of Hardin’s melodramatic ride that morning. She decided
that the story had been purposely withheld. She would not be the one to
inform her.
“Would you mind--” Gerty laid a well-kept hand on her friend’s knee.
“Would you mind turning back? I’d be more _comfortable_ if I could see
Tom or Mr. Rickard; hear what they think about it.”
“But Mr. Rickard told me,” began Mrs. Blinn.
“I’m worried about Tom,” cried Gerty, flushing. Danger to Tom was a new
thought. With Rickard in town the levee beckoned irresistibly. Were it
Mrs. Youngberg, with her sharp eyes, or Innes, she would not dare, but
Mrs. Blinn was dull; she would never suspect anything!
Mrs. Blinn’s devotion to her husband, who was the butt of her fond
ridicule, and the center of her universe, made her believe all women
like herself. Gerty’s high color, she thought, meant anxiety.
“Of course we’ll turn back.”
“There he is,” thrilled Gerty.
Mrs. Blinn’s eye swept the street. “Where? Your husband?”
“No, Mr. Rickard. Passing the bank. There, he’s stopped. I wonder if he
is going in? You call him, Mrs. Blinn.”
Obediently her friend hailed Rickard. He turned back to the windy
street. He felt boyish: the crisis was giving him mercurial feet. He
loved the modern battle. Elements to pit one’s brains against, wits
against force!
Gerty Hardin’s face was flushing and paling. “The river,” she faltered.
“Should we be alarmed, Mr. Rickard?”
Smiling, he assured her she should not be alarmed; the levees would
protect the towns.
She found it hard to meet his eyes; they had always made her conscious
in the old Lawrence days. They suggested controlled amusement, a
critical detachment. She used to hunt for the cause. Now she was
experienced, yet his smile still gave her that old hampered sense of
embarrassment.
“She is anxious about her husband,” Mrs. Blinn had to explain. Gerty
bit her lip. What a parrot Mrs. Blinn was!
“Mr. Hardin is up at Fassett’s ranch, he will be coming back to-day.
I told your husband, Mrs. Blinn, to catch a nap and then relieve Mr.
Hardin.”
Gerty found a significance in his words, he had said “Mr. Hardin,” and
“your husband, Mrs. Blinn.” It was enough to weave dreams around.
“A nap,” exclaimed Mrs. Blinn, “why, he didn’t come home.”
“I think I saw him go into the men’s quarters.” Distinctly Rickard had
heard Blinn’s jolly voice as he had left the levee: “If I’m to catch a
nap, I’ll not go home. No sleeping there!”
“We can’t do anything, Mr. Rickard, to help?” urged Gerty Hardin, her
voice tremulous.
“I hope we won’t have to call on you at all.”
There was no excuse to linger. Gerty threw a wistful little smile at
parting.
The brown mare’s head was turned toward the country. Rickard turned
back to the bank.
He looked again at the plate-glass windows. Two words were finished,
The Desert, brilliant in gold-leaf. The rest of the sign still stood
in its dim skeleton! Boyish mischievous blood raced in his veins that
morning. He went in.
“Mr. Petrie in?” he asked the cashier. Young Oliver said he was not.
“He is tying vines to-day.”
“When are you going to finish that window?”
“Why, after this flood, I guess, Mr. Rickard.” The question was
unexpected. Every one knew Casey now by sight. The cashier glanced at
his tie. Casey had forgotten his pin that morning.
“That’s the way it looked to me. There is too much desert in this town,
_Desert_ Hotel, _Desert_ Reclamation Company, and now this--The Desert!
If you would only put ‘_bank_’ on it! It looks as though you thought
you were going to be washed out, as if you were saving your gold-leaf.
A bank has got to keep up a bold front, if it’s only plate-glass, Mr.
Cashier.”
“Hold on!” called young Oliver. “Wait a minute, Mr. Rickard. I guess
you did not understand what I meant. There is no one to finish this
lettering! The man who was doing it owns a ranch over in Wistaria. He
is the only man who can do it. He is down at the river, fighting to
save his crop.”
“Then I’d finish it myself,” said Rickard, “or get some one down from
Los Angeles who could,” and left the bank.
A sign hanging from a neighboring door, “For Sail,” caught his eye.
The owner of the store peered out at the group of giggling Indians.
“Fried Eggs,” as the irreverent young engineers had dubbed him,
waved them away from an empty crate. It was not a bad simile,
thought Rickard, smiling at the orange-colored mop which crowned the
albumen-like whiteness of the house-bleached face of Fred Eggers. He
stopped to watch the man’s queer antics. From shelf to counter he
bounced, an anxious eye on his open crate on the platform where the
group of covetous squaws and bucks encroached. Rickard was vastly
amused. Eggers waddled out of the door, obscured by his bales of
brilliant calico. He waved back the Indians. He threw his bundle into
the crate, and sidled into the store for another load, his eyes still
challenging the Indians. His distress was comical. They were his best
customers; he must not drive them away, but he could not trust them.
He snatched up a bolt of blue and white gingham, and was back on the
platform. “Stand back, stand back,” he urged. “Don’t you see that you
are in my way?”
They giggled maddeningly.
The man’s distress was maudlin. He jumped sidewise into his store,
picking up his scattered stock by finger sense only, his eyes riveted
on the squaws. Haste, concern, were written all over the corpulent
unwieldy body, in the unlined pasty face of “Fried Eggs.”
“Moving away, Mr. Eggers?” Rickard called out to him.
It had been a long time since he had been dignified by that name. He
turned to answer, and in that instant a swarthy Amazon snatched a small
roll of turkey red calico, and hid it under her amply ruffled skirt.
He did not see his loss.
“I’m getting ready to move if I have to. The river don’t look good
to me, that’s sure.” He shot a quick glance of suspicion at the
blank-faced Indians, snickering by the door. The bucks had brilliant
bandannas wound around their mud-crusted heads. The black stiff hair of
the women streamed in the wind which puffed their skirts into balloons.
“It cost me three thousand, the lot, the shop and the stock. I’d take a
thousand.”
“I’d give you that,” Rickard began roguishly.
“Done!” cried Fred Eggers.
“_But_,” objected the newcomer, “it would be taking a mean advantage of
you. You’re playing sure to lose.”
Eggers sat on the edge of his crate and looked at the man who had said
he would give him a thousand for his goods.
“If you stay and the river ruins your stock you will probably save your
store; you’ll surely keep your lot.” Eggers shook his head. “You’ll
probably lose nothing, the water is not coming up here. If you sell to
me, for a thousand, or to any one else you’re fixed to lose two. Oh,
stay and bluff it, Eggers.”
So it was only a joke, then. “You won’t buy it,” the house-whitened
face was crestfallen.
“You won’t sell, if you take time to think it over,” called Rickard,
moving on.
Eggers felt something moving behind him. A squaw drew back from the
crate. One hand was lost under her flowing cloak of gaudy colored
handkerchiefs.
“Stop that,” he yelled. “Here you Indians, vamose. D’ye hear me?
Vamose.”
The group of Indians drew back but only a few steps, giggling. The
sidling motion began again. Rickard, laughing, looked over his shoulder
at Eggers’ absurd dilemma.
On the morning-glory-covered veranda of the adobe offices of the Desert
Reclamation Company, Ogilvie was waiting.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mr. Rickard.” His tone was
sepulchral and foreboding.
“It’s a big place, the towns. Hard to find any one, unless it’s an
accident.” He made for his office, followed by Ogilvie. Rickard, who
had had two hours of sleep, felt refreshed and rollicking. This was
some fun! These dismal fearful citizens! He and Marshall would show
them what a railroad force could do!
He threw himself into his swivel chair and looked up at the expert
accountant whose blue-veined hands were describing circles with his
straw hat.
“I think,” plunged Ogilvie, “that this is no place for the papers of
the company.”
“No?”
“They ought to be in Los Angeles,” stammered the accountant, forgetting
his speech.
“If I’m not mistaken, you persuaded them contrarily a few months ago!”
Ogilvie squirmed. “Oh, but the flood,”--his pallid skin showed a
flexibility that almost suggested animation. “That alters everything.”
“The flood? Why, I think we can fix that.”
“I may go?”
“No, I did not say you might go. I agree with you that the papers
belong here, where we may have easy access to them instead of having
to go to Los Angeles every time we want to have a question of history
or authority answered.”
The man whose woozling had come to nothing cleared his throat. “This
office is not safe--”
“I said I’d fix that.”
“I’d like to write to Los Angeles, telling them about the flood. The
wires are down--”
“You don’t need authority from Los Angeles. I’ll fix you up. You know
that rise, east of the town? Back of the school? I’ll have a tent
rigged up there--”
“The wind,” objected the accountant.
“The wind won’t hurt the papers. I’ll send up a safe and a bed.”
“A safe suggests money, valuables--the Indians!” murmured Ogilvie.
“I’ll give you a gun.” Rickard was enjoying himself. The fellow was a
driveling coward. MacLean’s word fitted him like a glove: woozling!
That afternoon Rickard was not too busy to order a tent stretched on
the rise back of the schoolhouse. It was not all mischief! The office
building might go! A safe was lugged across town. Ogilvie dismally
bossed the proceedings. The platform must be tight; he mentioned
snakes. He wanted a spider, but there was neither lumber nor men to
spare; he spoke of wind-storms. He wanted double doors, one of screen
wire; he had a good deal to say about flies.
Toward evening an iron bed was hauled to the tent which the younger
engineers, fresh from their day’s rest, had spied and already
christened the White Refuge. Ogilvie showed the two impassive Mexicans
why it should be placed so that his feet pointed north; he explained
thoroughly about magnetic currents. There, they left him, with his
papers.
The disappointed tenant of the White Refuge sat down on the foot of
his bed, and dismally reviewed the situation. The hurried platform of
the tent was creaking ominously. The canvas walls sagged and strained
against the wind. He rehearsed the situation.
The burning of San Francisco had flooded the southern part of the state
with clerks and accountants; to Los Angeles they had come in droves. He
could not leave the towns, defying Rickard, and expect to find another
place with the Overland Pacific Company. He wished, in deep gloom, that
he had not bought those hundred shares in the smaller organization. It
had appeared to him as a crowning bit of diplomacy, and put him, he
thought, on the same basis as the directors, Hardin, Gifford and the
others. But it had left him strapped. He had had to borrow to make up
the hundred shares. He had only just paid that debt. The Desert Bank
held less than fifty dollars to his credit. That sum between him and
poverty! He decided to brave it out, though physical discomfort hurt
him like pain.
He listened to the rising of the wind. The worst storm, old-timers had
told him, in fifteen years.
“What was that?” He bounced up from his bed. Hardin’s cannonading shook
his frail tent. He sat down again. He remembered a performance given by
Edwin Booth in Boston. _Lear_, it was. He had insisted that the storm
scene was grotesquely exaggerated. He could not hear the actors’ voices
over the storm! Now, he revised his criticism. The man who had staged
that play had been in the desert; that desert. It was a fearful night.
He decided that it was not safe to undress, so he threw himself across
his painted bed. Every few minutes the deep detonations of Hardin’s
charges up at Fassett’s ranch jarred the platform.
Down at the levee, the night-shifts were piling brush, dragging it to
threatened points where the lapping waves broke over the levee; sacking
sand, piling it in heaps. On the other side of the gorge, Rickard
was blowing out the west channel to let the increasing flood waters
through. Up the gorge, but below Fassett’s ranch now, following the
retreating platoons of the river, Hardin was toiling, directing his
men. He had refused to listen to Blinn. Sleep, with the river cutting
back like that, hazarding the valley? Rest? He couldn’t rest with that
noise in his ears. Why, man, this spells ruin!
The wind rose to a gale. Ogilvie’s tent bellied and swelled. The waves
were blowing over the levee. At midnight, the alarm was sounded. The
sleeping shifts scrambled out of their beds, full dressed, and rode or
ran down to the river. The bells of the two churches kept ringing. Pale
women and children followed the men down to the embankment. There was
work for every one that night. Men were hustling like mad to raise the
levee an inch above the rising fury of the river. The women rushed back
to their homes, bringing baskets, old tins, coal-oil cans, anything
to scoop or carry earth. They dragged down worn-out clothes, bags of
scraps, fire-wood; they were fighting now for their future.
Men stood a few feet apart measuring each white-foamed wave to be ready
when it should strike the bank. Wired with hog-fencing on the river
side, the long timbers chained in place to take the blows of the waves,
the levee threatened to melt before each rush of the river. Shovels
stood at attention to throw earth on each new break; to raise the
levee an inch above the lapping waters. Earth could not now be wasted.
The women were cautioned to conserve their ammunition. Teams from the
ranches brought in hay; wagon-loads of brush for the dikes.
Down the stream rushed masses of débris; logs, sections of fence,
railroad ties. Every eye on the bank followed their course. Where would
that floating wreckage lodge? Long poles jumped to shove off into the
stream the drift which must not be allowed to lodge, to impede that
stream for an instant. Swift eyes, swift hands, needed that night!
And all night long into the gray of the morning, over the roar of the
rushing water, and the whistling of the demons of the wind, boomed the
dynamite at Fassett’s. In the White Refuge, Ogilvie miserably slept.