AT THE DIKE
Marion caught her closely to her heart. "I knew you would go if I got
you angry, dear. But you are so slow to anger. Mr. McCloud is just the
same way. Mr. Smith says when he does get angry he can do anything. He
is very like you in so many ways."
Dicksie was wiping her eyes. "Is he, Marion? Well, what shall I
wear?"
"Just your riding-clothes, dear, and a smile. He won't know what you
have on. It is you he will want to see. But I've been thinking of
something else. What will your Cousin Lance say? Suppose he should
object?"
"Object! I should like to see _him_ object after losing the fight
himself." Marion laughed. "Well, do you think you can find the way
down there for us?"
"I can find any way anywhere within a hundred miles of here."
On the 20th of June McCloud did have something of an army of men in
the Crawling Stone Valley. Of these, two hundred and fifty were in
the vicinity of the bridge, the abutments and piers of which were
being put in just below the Dunning ranch. Near at hand Bill Dancing,
with a big gang, had been for some time watching the ice and
dynamiting the jams. McCloud brought in more men as the river
continued to rise. The danger line on the gauges was at length
submerged, and for three days the main-line construction camps had
been robbed of men to guard the soft grades above and below the
bridge. The new track up and down the valley had become a highway of
escape from the flood, and the track patrols were met at every curve
by cattle, horses, deer, wolves, and coyotes fleeing from the waste of
waters that spread over the bottoms.
Through the Dunning ranch the Crawling Stone River makes a far bend
across the valley to the north and east. The extraordinary volume of
water now pouring through the Box Canyon exposed ten thousand acres of
the ranch to the caprice of the river, and if at the point of its
tremendous sweep to the north it should cut back into its old channel
the change would wipe the entire body of ranch alfalfa lands off the
face of the valley. With the heat of the lengthening June days a vast
steam rose from the chill waters of the river, marking in ominous
windings the channel of the main stream through a yellow sea which,
ignoring the usual landmarks of trees and dunes, flanked the current
broadly on either side. Late in the afternoon of the day that Dicksie
with Marion sought McCloud, a storm drifted down the Topah Topah
Hills, and heavy showers broke across the valley.
At nightfall the rain had passed and the mist lifted from the river.
Above the bluffs rolling patches of cloud obscured the face of the
moon, but the distant thunder had ceased, and at midnight the valley
near the bridge lay in a stillness broken only by the hoarse calls of
the patrols and far-off megaphones. From the bridge camp, which lay on
high ground near the grade, the distant lamps of the track-walkers
could be seen moving dimly.
Before the camp-fire in front of McCloud's tent a group of men,
smoking and talking, sat or lay sprawled on tarpaulins, drying
themselves after the long day. Among them were the weather-beaten
remnants of the old guard of the mountain-river workers, men who had
ridden in the caboose the night that Hailey went to his death, and had
fought the Spider Water with Glover. Bill Dancing, huge, lumbering,
awkward as a bear and as shifty, was talking, because with no apparent
effort he could talk all night, and was a valuable man at keeping the
camp awake. Bill Dancing talked and, after Sinclair's name had been
dropped from the roll, ate and drank more than any two men on the
division. A little apart, McCloud lay on a leather caboose cushion
trying to get a nap.
"It was the day George McCloud came," continued Dancing, spinning a
continuous story. "Nobody was drinking--Murray Sinclair started that
yarn. I was getting fixed up a little for to meet George McCloud, so
I asked the barber for some tonic, and he understood me for to say
dye for my whiskers, and he gets out the dye and begins to dye my
whiskers. My cigar went out whilst he was shampooing me, and my
whiskers was wet up with the dye. He turned around to put down th'
bottle, and I started for to light my cigar with a parlor-match, and,
by gum! away went my whiskers on fire--burnt jus' like a tumbleweed.
There was the barbers all running around at once trying for to choke
me with towels, and running for water, and me sitting there
blazing like a tar-barrel. That's all there was to that story. I went
over to Doc Torpy's and got bandaged up, and he wanted me for to go to
the hospit'l--but I was going for to meet George McCloud." Bill
raised his voice a little and threw his tones carelessly over toward
the caboose cushion: "And I was the on'y man on the platform when
his train pulled in. His car was on the hind end. I walked back and
waited for some one to come out. It was about seven o'clock in the
evening and they was eating dinner inside, so I set up on the fence
for a minute, and who do you think got out of the car? That boy
laying right over there. 'Where's your dad?' says I; that's exactly
what I said. 'Dead,' says he. 'Dead!' says I, surprised-like. 'Dead,'
says he, 'for many years.' 'Where's the new superintendent?' says
I. 'I'm the new superintendent,' says he. Well, sir, you could have
blowed me over with a air-hose. 'Go 'way,' I says. 'What's the
matter with your face, Bill?' he says, while I was looking at him;
now that's straight. That was George McCloud, right over there,
the first time I ever set eyes on him or him on me. The assertion
was met with silence such as might be termed marked.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCTION OF "WHISPERING
SMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]
"Bucks told him," continued Bill Dancing, in corroborative detail,
"that when he got to Medicine Bend one man would be waiting for to
meet him. 'He met me,' says Bucks; 'he's met every superintendent
since my time; he'll meet you. Go right up and speak to him,' Bucks
says; 'it'll be all right.'"
"Oh, hell, Bill!" protested an indignant chorus.
"Well, what's er matter with you fellows? Didn't you ask me to tell
the story?" demanded Dancing angrily. "If you know it better than I
do, tell it! Give me some tobacco, Chris," said Bill, honoring with
the request the only man in the circle who had shown no scepticism,
because he spoke English with difficulty. "And say, Chris, go down and
read the bridge gauge, will you? It's close on twelve o'clock, and
he's to be called when it reaches twenty-eight feet. I said the boy
could never run the division without help from every man on it, and
that's what I'm giving him, and I don't care who knows it," said Bill
Dancing, raising his voice not too much. "Bucks says that any man that
c'n run this division c'n run any railroad on earth. Shoo! now who's
this coming here on horseback? Clouding up again, too, by gum!"
The man sent to the bridge had turned back, and behind his lantern
Dancing heard the tread of horses. He stood at one side of the
camp-fire while two visitors rode up; they were women. Dancing stood
dumb as they advanced into the firelight. The one ahead spoke: "Mr.
Dancing, don't you know me?" As she stopped her horse the light of the
fire struck her face. "Why, Mis' Sinclair!"
"Yes, and Miss Dunning is with me," returned Marion. Bill staggered.
"This is an awful place to get to; we have been nearly drowned, and
we want to see Mr. McCloud."
McCloud, roused by Marion's voice, came forward. "You were asleep,"
said she as he greeted her. "I am so sorry we have disturbed you!" She
looked careworn and a little forlorn, yet but a little considering the
struggle she and Dicksie had made to reach the camp.
Light blazed from the camp-fire, where Dicksie stood talking with
Dancing about horses.
"They are in desperate straits up at the ranch," Marion went on, when
McCloud had assured her of her welcome. "I don't see how they can save
it. The river is starting to flow into the old channel and there's a
big pond right in the alfalfa fields."
"It will play the deuce with things if it gets through there," mused
McCloud. "I wonder how the river is? I've been asleep. O Bill!" he
called to Dancing, "what water have you got?"
"Twenty-eight six just now, sir. She's a-raising very, very slow, Mr.
McCloud."
"So I am responsible for this invasion," continued Marion calmly.
"I've been up with Dicksie at the ranch; she sent for me. Just think
of it--no woman but old Puss within ten miles of the poor child! And
they have been trying everywhere to get bags, and you have all the
bags, and the men have been buzzing around over there for a week like
bumblebees and doing just about as much good. She and I talked it all
over this afternoon, and I told her I was coming over here to see you,
and we started out together--and merciful goodness, such a time as we
have had!"
"But you started out together; where did you leave her?"
"There she stands the other side of the fire. O Dicksie!"
"Why did you not tell me she was here!" exclaimed McCloud.
Dicksie came into the light as he hastened over. If she was uncertain
in manner, he was not. He met her, laughing just enough to relieve the
tension of which both for an instant were conscious. She gave him her
hand when he put his out, though he felt that it trembled a little.
"Such a ride as you have had! Why did you not send me word? I would
have come to you!" he exclaimed, throwing reproach into the words.
Dicksie raised her eyes. "I wanted to ask you whether you would sell
us some grain-sacks, Mr. McCloud, to use at the river, if you could
spare them?"
"Sacks? Why, of course, all you want! But how did you _ever_ get here?
In all this water, and two lone women! You have been in danger
to-night. Indeed you have--don't tell me! And you are both wet; I
know it. Your feet must be wet. Come to the fire. O Bill!" he called
to Dancing, "what's the matter with your wood? Let us have a fire,
won't you?--one worth while; and build another in front of my tent. I
can't believe you have ridden here all the way from the ranch, two of
you alone!" exclaimed McCloud, hastening boxes up to the fire for
seats.
Marion laughed. "Dicksie can go anywhere! I couldn't have ridden from
the house to the barns alone."
"Then tell me how _you_ could do it?" demanded McCloud, devouring
Dicksie with his eyes.
Dicksie looked at the fire. "I know all the roads pretty well. We did
get lost once," she confessed in a low voice, "but we got out again."
"The roads are all underwater, though."
"What time is it, please?"
McCloud looked at his watch. "Two minutes past twelve."
Dicksie started. "Past twelve? Oh, this is dreadful! We must start
right back, Marion. I had no idea we had been five hours coming five
miles."
McCloud looked at her, as if still unable to comprehend what she had
accomplished in crossing the flooded bottoms. Her eyes fell back to
the fire. "What a blaze!" she murmured as the driftwood snapped and
roared. "It's fine for to-night, isn't it?"
"I know you both must have been in the water," he insisted, leaning
forward in front of Dicksie to feel Marion's skirt.
"I'm not wet!" declared Marion, drawing back.
"Nonsense, you are wet as a rat! Tell me," he asked, looking at
Dicksie, "about your trouble up at the bend. I know something about
it. Are the men there to-night? Given up, have they? Too bad! Do open
your jackets and try to dry yourselves, both of you, and I'll take a
look at the river."
"Suppose--I only say suppose--you first take a look at me." The voice
came from behind the group at the fire, and the three turned
together.
"By Heaven, Gordon Smith!" exclaimed McCloud. "Where did you come
from?"
Whispering Smith stood in the gloom in patience. "Where do I look as
if I had come from? Why don't you ask me whether I'm wet? And won't
you introduce me--but this is Miss Dicksie Dunning, I am sure."
Marion with laughter hastened the introduction.
"And you are wet, of course," said McCloud, feeling Smith's shoulder.
"No, only soaked. I have fallen into the river two or three times,
and the last time a big rhinoceros of yours down the grade, a section
foreman named Klein, was obliging enough to pull me out. Oh, no! I was
not looking for you," he ran on, answering McCloud's question; "not
when he pulled me out. I was just looking for a farm or a ladder or
something. Klein, for a man named Small, is the biggest Dutchman I
ever saw. 'Tell me, Klein,' I asked, after he had quit dragging me
out--he's a Hanoverian--'where did you get your pull? And how about
your height? Did your grandfather serve as a grenadier under old
Frederick William and was he kidnapped?' Bill, don't feed my horse for
a while. And Klein tried to light a cigar I had just taken from my
pocket and given him--fancy! the Germans are a remarkable people--and
sat down to tell me his history, when some friend down the line began
bawling through a megaphone, and all that poor Klein had time to say
was that he had had no supper, nor dinner, nor yet breakfast, and
would be obliged for some by the boat he forwarded me in." And, in
closing, Whispering Smith looked cheerfully around at Marion, at
McCloud, and last and longest of all at Dicksie Dunning.
"Did you come from across the river?" asked Dicksie, adjusting her wet
skirt meekly over her knees.
"You are soaking wet," observed Whispering Smith. "Across the river?"
he echoed. "Well, hardly, my dear Miss Dunning! Every bridge is out
down the valley except the railroad bridge and there are a few things
I don't tackle; one is the Crawling Stone on a tear. No, this was
across a little break in this man McCloud's track. I came, to be
frank, from the Dunning Ranch to look up two women who rode away from
there at seven o'clock to-night, and I want to say that they gave me
the ride of my life," and Whispering Smith looked all around the
circle and back again and smiled.
Dicksie spoke in amazement. "How did you know we rode away? You were
not at the ranch when we left."
"Oh, don't ask him!" cried Marion.
"He knows everything," explained McCloud.
Whispering Smith turned to Dicksie. "I was interested in knowing that
they got safely to their destination--whatever it might be, which was
none of my business. I happened to see a man that had seen them start,
that was all. You don't understand? Well, if you want it in plain
English, I made it my business to see a man who made it _his_ business
to see them. It's all very simple, but these people like to make a
mystery of it. Good women are scarcer than riches, and more to be
prized than fine gold--in my judgment--so I rode after them."
Marion put her hand for a moment on his coat sleeve; he looked at
Dicksie with another laugh and spoke to her because he dared not look
toward Marion. "Going back to-night, do you say? You never are."
Dicksie answered quite in earnest: "Oh, but we are. We must!"
"Why did you come, then? It's taken half the night to get here, and
will take a night and a half at least to get back."
"We came to ask Mr. McCloud for some grain-sacks--you know, they have
nothing to work with at the ranch," said Marion; "and he said we might
have some and we are to send for them in the morning."
"I see. But we may as well talk plainly." Smith looked at Dicksie.
"You are as brave and as game as a girl can be, I know, or you
couldn't have done this. Sacks full of sand, with the boys at the
ranch to handle them, would do no more good to-morrow at the bend than
bladders. The river is flowing into Squaw Lake above there now. A
hundred men that know the game might check things yet if they're there
by daylight. Nobody else, and nothing else on God's earth, can."
There was silence before the fire. McCloud broke it: "I can put the
hundred men there at daylight, Gordon, if Miss Dunning and her cousin
want them," said McCloud.
Marion sprang to her feet. "Oh, will you do that, Mr. McCloud?"
McCloud looked at Dicksie. "If they are wanted."
Dicksie tried to look at the fire. "We have hardly deserved help from
Mr. McCloud at the ranch," she said at last.
He put out his hand. "I must object. The first wreck I ever had on
this division Miss Dunning rode twenty miles to offer help. Isn't that
true? Why, I would walk a hundred miles to return the offer to her.
Perhaps your cousin would object," he suggested, turning to Dicksie;
"but no, I think we can manage that. Now what are we going to do? You
two can't go back to-night, that is certain."
"We must."
"Then you will have to go in boats," said Whispering Smith.
"But the hill road?"
"There is five feet of water across it in half a dozen places. I swam
my horse through, so I ought to know."
"It is all back-water, of course, Miss Dunning," explained McCloud.
"Not dangerous."
"But moist," suggested Whispering Smith, "especially in the dark."
McCloud looked at Marion. "Then let's be sensible," he said. "You and
Miss Dunning can have my tent as soon as we have supper."
"Supper!"
"Supper is served to all on duty at twelve o'clock, and we're on duty,
aren't we? They're about ready to serve now; we eat in the tent," he
added, holding out his hand as he heard the patter of raindrops. "Rain
again! No matter, we shall be dry under canvas."
Dicksie had never seen an engineers' field headquarters. Lanterns
lighted the interior, and the folding-table in the middle was strewn
with papers which McCloud swept off into a camp-chest. Two double cots
with an aisle between them stood at the head of the tent, and, spread
with bright Hudson Bay blankets, looked fresh and undisturbed. A
box-table near the head-pole held an alarm-clock, a telegraph key, and
a telephone, and the wires ran up the pole behind it. Leather jackets
and sweaters lay on boxes under the tent-walls, and heavy boots stood
in disorderly array along the foot of the cots. These McCloud, with
apologies, kicked into the corners.
"Is this where you stay?" asked Dicksie.
"Four of us sleep in the cots, when we can, and an indefinite number
lie on the ground when it rains."
Marion looked around her. "What do you do when it thunders?"
The two men were pulling boxes out for seats; McCloud did not stop to
look up. "I crawl under the bed--the others don't seem to mind it."
"Which is your bed?"
"Whichever I can crawl under quickest. I usually sleep there." He
pointed to the one on the right.
"I thought so. It has the blanket folded back so neatly, just as if
there were sheets under it. I'll bet there aren't any."
"Do you think this is a summer resort? Knisely, my assistant, sleeps
there, but of course we are never both in bed at the same time; he's
down the river to-night. It's a sort of continuous performance, you
know." McCloud looked at Dicksie. "Take off your coat, won't you,
please?"
Whispering Smith was trying to drag a chest from the foot of the cot,
and Marion stood watching. "What are you trying to do?"
"Get this over to the table for a seat."
"Silly man! why don't you move the table?"
Dicksie was taking off her coat. "How inviting it all is!" she
smiled. "And this is where you stay?"
"When it rains," answered McCloud. "Let me have your hat, too."
"My hair is a sight, I know. We rode over rocks and up gullies into
the brush----"
"And through lakes--oh, I know! I can't conceive how you ever got here
at all. Your hair is all right. This is camp, anyway. But if you want
a glass you can have one. Knisely is a great swell; he's just from
school, and has no end of things. I'll rob his bag."
"Don't disturb Mr. Knisely's bag for the world!"
"But you are not taking off your hat. You seem to have something on
your mind."
"Help me to get it off my mind, will you, please?"
"If you will let me."
"Tell me how to thank you for your generosity. I came all the way over
here to-night to ask you for just the help you have offered, and I
could not--it stuck in my throat. But that wasn't what was on my mind.
Tell me what you thought when I acted so dreadfully at Marion's."
"I didn't deserve anything better after placing myself in such a fool
position. Why don't you ask me what I thought the day you acted so
beautifully at Crawling Stone Ranch? I thought that the finest thing
I ever saw."
"You were not to blame at Marion's."
"I seemed to be, which is just as bad. I am going to start the 'phones
going. It's up to me to make good, you know, in about four hours with
a lot of men and material. Aren't you going to take off your hat?--and
your gloves are soaking wet."
McCloud took down the receiver, and Dicksie put her hands slowly to
her head to unpin her hat. It was a broad hat of scarlet felt rolled
high above her forehead, and an eagle's quill caught in the black
rosette swept across the front. As she stood in her clinging
riding-skirt and her severely plain scarlet waist with only a black
ascot falling over it, Whispering Smith looked at her. His eyes did
not rest on the picture too long, but his glance was searching. He
spoke in an aside to Marion. Marion laughed as she turned her head
from where Dicksie was talking again with McCloud. "The best of it
is," murmured Marion, "she hasn't a suspicion of how lovely she really
is."