HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10628, 3 December 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

HIS OWN COUNTRY.

(Bv Arthur Ruhl.)

From ttie hot little corrugated-!rou Wiack that was to serve as his homo until the dam was finished young Hawkins could look over the whole length and breadth of Antelope Valley. Eighty miles of virgin sagebrush, it stretched to the dim. low range on tho horizon, fifteen miles on either side to the blazing hills, the river in its slit of lava rock between—and all you might say, his own. : -. His own to bring the water to, at least, to awaken and give soul. Plugging along with the other cub engineers on tho great .Westchestcr Reservoir may have meant just as much to as many, people, but it didn't mean as much to iiim. ■

"After all," as Hawkins , put -it, "what's a glass of water, more -or less, to Broadway!" " . But out here water meant everything. It meant towns and farms where nothing was, and children saying their lessons, and lovers walking beneath the. stars. Already patches of greenwere coming out of the gray where the homesteaders'had cleared the desert and

trusted to dry farming. I/Lke~ clumsy little caravels nosing into an unknown :sea their covered wagons, ' dusty and travel stained, craw;led up every now and tiien over the ' eastern horizon.

I'liey crawled up and hailed and passed on into the amethyst haze and heat shimmer, somewhere off there to take root and wait for the "water to come. >

"Smooth as silk," said Thompson, tho contractor, as they talked over the pror gress of the work tho day after Hawkins arrived ; "unless for this old geezer Daggett—lie's got a cattle-ranch about t"n miles upstream. He might give yon some trouble." The contractor, bronzed with his two straight years of desert sun—for the job' was well along before, the company sent. Hawkins out as resident engineer—- > reaked back in. his chair and rather disgustedly stretched his big-arms. "You'll always find one of these old shellbacks on a proposition like this. They hiked out of the ark with the other animals an' landed here before rlio water dried off. Run their cattle for thirty years over half a state of free range—take five or six thousand dollars out of every fall and-never put a cent back —live like coyotes and think they <,wn the country!

"We only cut a fdot or two off his river bank, but he's there an' he won't get out. Got an injunction out on us, or tried to, before we started, an' we boat him on that. Now lie's brought

suit for baokin' up the water and damagin' his riparian rights. We'll beat him on that. There's only one thing to do with thein kind of people." "What's that?" asked Hawkins.

"Drown 'cm ont!" bellowed the contractor.

They loft the litter of blueprints, reports and estimates and stepped out on the low porch. There in the blazing

sunshine the stone-cruslier ground heavily, sending up a light, cloud of white (lust "against tlifc sky's tender blue. From the river came the cheerful whine of tho cement buckets travelling hack and forth 011 their suspended tallies, and to the right the white thread of the high-line canal swung outward along the shoulder of the hill and disappeared in the distant sunshot haze.

"What a proposition this is!" breathed the contractor xervently. "Four hundred thousand acres and sagebrush six foot high! Why, .that lnml'li grow anything you can put in the ground. You got the soil, you got the climate, you got the water, too. And five years "from now"—the older man jabbed a stubbv forefinger up and down as if indicating an undiscovered diamond mine—"five years from now they'll he selling corner lots under this here spit for a thousand dollars a front loot!"

Hawkins nodded and smiled grimly, lie was a stocky young man. w}th a stiff mat of brown hair, a lighting chin and wide-apart, earnest eyes. • He knew all about Kipling and red gods. and the "■bite man's destiny, and it had been his tragic fate until now to work almost Within sight of the New York skyscrapers and to know people who chattered aud belong to clubs. He himself said little, and his honest countenance often clouded with the anticipated memory, as it were, of the hard-life he had never lived in the wilderness he had never seen.

'"I'll ride up and take a look at the oid man." he said.

ft was -.an untouched, untarnished ivi rid ii'tcf.which he cantered —brown, I'n-y, open as the sea. Not a chimney, nor a tree, nor a touch of banal green — a man's world, lie thought, for such as ask no favors and get none. The air was light and incredibly clear., He r'l ined to see hundreds of miles, breathe diuvii to his boots. He loved the bronco jogging ahead so wisely with ih.it rakish spark in his backturned, sagacious eye; he loved the dusty jackrabbits gallumping clumsily out of his pith; and suddenly, at the end of a roupi.3 of hottrs, the plateau dropped in front, of him as • though cut with a knife, and there lay the Little Windy and Daggett's ranch a thousand feet below.

Rnnchhouse, corral, alfalfa and water, all in a pocket in the lava rock fnthe sun and the river—it was "!!<■ of those oases which a traveller •:'.uptimes sees as the train pants over a mountain pass and vows he must S'ii'e day return to; which strike the ".vi- and heart with a quick pang, and then. like a face in the crowd, vanish, never to return. Only Daggett had seen and stayed.

Hawkins could imagine the covered w.'iL'ji:] lurching down to the river, old Daggett—young Daggett then —and his wii'o ;md baby under the ragged lanopy, the horses gaunt and tarvel-worn. the dusty hound panting at their heels, the little spiral of 'nioko circling up from the flat that and the smell of frying bacon drifting out 011 the-still air. And then, suddenly, a confused murmur came down the, wind, and above tin- sagebrush, half a mile upstream, a v. ilou- cloud like smoke drifted up into tin.- sunshine. It followed the rim of a coulee toward the river until, trampling forward under their dust-cloud and siiroading out fanwise as they came into iln- open, poured a herd of cattle. The Daggett boys were back from b the loi.'iid-up. Hack and forth through the dust they swung and charged, swooping wide io round in a galloping steer, flinging their sweating ponies at the congested herd. And their yells and the moaning and bellowing" of the tired cattle ro.-i' above the trampling stream in a

v>ailing, savage music. Young Hawkins sent his bronco svramlilliiff down the zigzag trail. lie bad never been West before and lie Im.'jg over the corral gate while the af;"1110011 waned, happy as a boy at 0 li ens. The wild cattle —at a wave of ihe hand they would start and huddle

av.a.v —the dust and trampling, the punscent of the sagebrush lire, the 1 ''. iois grace of the youngest Daggett 1; 'ily swinging his rope as he urged !u< pony into the herd, and thrown M.-r dragged backward to tlu> fire; it ;: nick and £ot tingling something Icriftl deep within him. He watched the red-hot iron sink in -.. the smoking flesh, the quick knife ■-lilies that slit the Daggett mark in <«.-h left ear. Men arid cattle and !:w-cs and the swift, savage little drama ■"vnied a part of that stern, unsoftened «:Menicss, of the lava rock and jSage. !i was indeed a man's country, arid lie v..k part of it as lie was meant to be. He had a boyish desire to find favor the sight of these deft and silent 'in Once a rambunctious yearling, •-lipping out of the rope, lunged toward h;rii. He hurdled the gate, stumbled, me] was kicked flat. Jumping up quite ' •'• nestly. he made a flying tackle of its '"ri'l.egs and brought -it down. A I'-'-ugett threw himself on and braced the liind legs. "Whoa, Bill!" lie grinned : and after that Hawkins work''i with the. rest. - '

They asked no questions. When the | 1 if l man —stoop-slibuldered, with a face '.'nined like leather and wise little beady fvp.s—stumped out. to .look over the > : tf>ck Hawkins explained that he was ii'fsli from the East and hod ridden up from tlie dam to look at the country. The sun went down behind the lava rucks, the lights in the hollow deepened. The smell of sage smoke;alid cattle and, dust became more penetrating in the ">o!iuc air. In the last of the twilight they killed forthemselves—roping and nr.-ipging the great beast out of the T irrd,\ his forelegs and ljead ploughing Iplessly. A : couple., of stunning blows

on the forehead, a knife-tlirust, and his eyes rolled and glazed as a torrent of hot blood gushed out over the dust. The other animals, snuffing deeply, backed away. Hawkins threw his weight against the rope with the four Dagcetts as they hauled the carcass up to be dressed. He forgot the messtent onlv a few hours away, and it seemed that he. too, had lived in the saddle and slept under the open sky, and he felt a stern pleasure in taking this life to keep his own. . Swift and silent they tore oft the warm hide and wiped .their sweating., faces at last, while two shaggy collies fawned and sidled about them, curiously.uneasy find pleased at the:. sin.eH pi.- ' Tlie' rocks turned black and a cooL breeze,- mysterious and sweet, breathed up'the canon. Then even the piuk -li'dit on the blitte across the: river faded t(? ashes and'in the ; violet, sky appeared the thin crescent of- a new moon and tho first stars. .- " ~ • "Tliev washed from-the same tm basin 011 the mnch-liouse porch 'aijd smoothed their heads with -the /same wet conib. . And they crowded'into, little, dm-ing-room, -cheerful Ayitlt the smell of colfee and. its big lamp. Tho old man motioned Hawkins, to a seat at one end. of -the "tablfe; lie sat at : the other, and the four hulking boys, ..waiting shyly until their guest was. seated, took places, on either side. . And then the kitchen door opened and Mary Daggett came in with a big plate of hot biscuits. He saw a lithe,, vigorous shape in a white 'apron : and * dark-blue polka-dot dress without a collar, wide apart blue ! eyes under heavy eyebrows, and a.turn-. I ble of brown hair, and felt himself appraised in a. glance keen, interested,vaguely amused, and about as unexpected'as anything could be. And then lie found himself offering his chair, and the old cattleman mumbling across the table and thrusting forward a protesting hand. "Less than the dust," the girl whispered as if to herself, and then aloud: "No, thanks; I've got to wait on you men. Won't you have a biscuit?" She set down the plate. "And some honey?" "I should say so," said Hawkins.. "Is it your own?" "Of course," smiled the girl; "everything about here's our own." "We got the only bees in the country," observed the youngest boy. Brusquely she returned to the kitchen, and father' and sons attacked the dinner with the,keen voracity of those to whom food is a necessity rather tlian an excuse for talk. Hawkins"asked the boys if they had ever been-Bast. No; but Bill, the oldest, had spent one winter in Boise.

"Mary's been away," volunteered the youngest boy. "She was two years to I the university." They insisted that lie should spend the night. "That's what we're here for," said one of the. boys. "We used to be the only house in forty miles." They pushed "back their chairs and lounged out to the porch. The older boys were scarcely wide enough awake to keep their pipes alight, and the youngest stretched out on the floor and was almost at once asleep. Disappearing for a moment the old man returned with two bottles of warm beer and a box of cigars as dry as autumn leaves. With a satisfied chuckle lie drew his chair close to the young man, as if his revelations, like the refreshments, were too precious to be shared by his sons, and began to talk in a sort of whisper about himself and his cattle and the old days. Mighty few, it seemed, had ever got the better of him.

"Indians ever bother you?" asked Hawkins. ; "Bah!" he cried. "Knock 'em over with a club!"

The three elder boys drifted off to the bunkhouse. Puffing awkwardly on his cigar, the father told how he had built up the ranch —house, alfalfa, orchard —bit by bit, and how now these folks thought -they would put him out of business. His thin voice shook. -"l've lived hero for thirty years," he whispered shrilly. He thrust a finger toward the river where the framework of an old-fashioned current irrigation wheel'fifteen or twenty feet high, stood gaunt ; and-spectral in the moonlight. Hawkins noticed that it hung motionless.

"We built that/' lie said, "my wife an' me. We cut the pine back in the mountains, and hewed it out and hauled her over liere in the winter—thirty miles. AVe made her an' set her up—don't know how, but we did- it. We bad to- An' she raised enough water for all this little bench here —we drove the stock right down here an' wintered 'em till spring. And now they've shut off-my current an' stopped her, and I ain't got no water for my land."

"Well," suggested the engineer, "a lot of farmers down below will get some of it."

The old man thrust his leathery face forward like „ some disgusted bird. "Farmers?" lie demanded. "Woodchucks —diggin' in the. dirt! Let 'em stay where it rains. Look at them boys of mine! They could ride anything that runs, an' rope an' tie a steer inside sixty seconds, any-one of 'em. Do you see men like them slosliin' around in an irrigation ditch? I say we don't want no farmers in here. This is a cowcountry—it's my country." He leaned close to young Hawkins and pointed to a curious pile of stones at the edge of the orchard. "There she lies," he whispered. "Who?" asked Hawkins.

"My wife. Under them stones. She came out across the plains with me. It's a-hard life for a woman, but she stood it. She stood up to it like a soldier, Mr Hawkins. It took fightin to build this place, an' we fought. We made it out of nothing and it's ours. We've growed into it, d'you understand? You can't pry a man out after tliirtv vears —nor drowned him neither." The "old man gave a harsh laugh and puffed at his cigar. "They think—them engineers think they'll drive me out." Suddenly he got to his feet. "Drive?" lie cried in his thin voice. "I'd like to see''em; I come in before them fellers was born!"

"Father!" - The girl stood in the doorway. The old'man turned, muttered, and as the girl turned away he said more quietlv: "They don't know the river. Wait "till that chinook wind comes up with the snow deep in the mountains—an' she comes sometimes! Dams or no, she won't stop for nothing then. I know her. I found her." He shook his finder at the motionless water-wheel. "You'll see that wheel liftin' water again and tlie river running free. I know lier." - ' , , ' He stopped short at the suclcten sound of a piano. His daughter was singing Juanita. In "the cool, wild canon silence the tlnn notes and the worn old song swelled to unimagined .dignity and sweetness. Their harsh "world scorned all at once different. "You .wouldn't think to find that out here, would you ?" he whispered. "It's a great comfort for a woman. We packed it' from the railroad—a Christnias present for my wife the year Mary He sank in his chair, all his feverishncss goiie. And the two men listened. "When —in thv dreaming Moons like these—shall shine again'

The old inan's head dropped, lower and lie seemed to be asleep. Hawkins, sitting at his feet with his back against one of the porch posts, smoked on alone until present! v the music ceased and the girl came out. She "bent over her Father's' chair, spread a blanket over th" hov. and I or "a moment stood looking out*toward'-the black river and the stars. The dining-room lump lit lier straight back and .burnished hair,, but her face was in shadow. "Well," she said suddenly,-"what do vou think of us:-" .... •• Hawkins looked up .at her in rather diffident- surprise. "I like it," lie said. "These cowboy brothers of mine don't mean tri'bo inhospitable v you know. The poor bovs haven't slept for a week.'' "I think they're wonders,;" said Hawkins: "they certainly can ride!" : "Oh. ves. And they talk soft and shake hands like a girl and shoot from •the - hip—that is," they -would if there was anything to shoot at. All - these things. It's queer where they get it." The girl gave a curious, low laugh. "You see we're very old-fashioned." "I don't believe yon're_ very oldfashioned," ventured Hawkins. ' "Well —I've had to take care of tliem. , all. And then they sent me off to school to be improved. DicT }'OU over - hear of Simms University?-'-' 1 "I'm sorry," said the-young man, : "1never heard of Simms.". - ■. I "I'm sorrytoo* Well—it was going j to be the making of a new town. There

were seventeen pupils and a water-tank I and n hotel and a lot of streets marked j oif with stakes. The Silver City paper used to run a little column about it every week —Notes from the Acropolis —but they couldn't make it go. It's kind of a sad story when you know the whole of it." The girl paused for a moment and then looked down at Hawkins with a famt smile. "Still it was a regular university. ..It made just_ as much trouble for you as <1 real oue. You never quite get over it. ' ''Trouble?" repeated Hawkins. She laughed and shrugged her "shoulders; "Oh, well, call it anything, you like!". . Clasping her hands behind her back she suddenly strode to the/other end of tlie-porch and back again, i f'So you don't remember me, then?" j' ".What!" cried Hawkins,: and be. lialf stood up. - . The girl, gave a nervous-little laugh and drew m' her-breath. quickly. "When, tho trains • stopped at-.the watertank,. coming over the divide 3 The observation platforms were just, opposite each other—one going, -east and .-one; going west. And —well, they could] talk across.' 'lt • was only for five minutes, . and you-said you.might becoming this way. again—:and—-well, that's all!". "Why, .110,'".said Hawkins; "I don't remember like that.?'- v "Of course you don't, it never happened. Only wouldn't it 'be It just popped'into - -my head when' I saw. you coining down the trail this afternoon—l mean that'swhat it does for you!" She looked straight down at him and laughed frankly. "I never .would have thought of that if I hadn't gone to Sirmnsi" . . ' 1 She sat down on-the edge of the porch 'opposite Hawkins. "Come," she.i said in a different voice, "you must--think I am crazy. When will they get their dam done—l suppose you're from tlio dam ?" ~

"Yes," said Hawkins, "I'm from the dam. Tm bossing, it, you might say. It's my dam." ■ "Oh ! " said the girl, and her . hands dropped in her lap. "11l about six months —if-we. have luck." ■ ■

"Six months,'.'' she repeated, "and then —" She looked off at the black river the blacker rocks beyond. "I wonder sometimes what will be the end of it. It's always been our country —as if wliat happened in the world didn't make any difference to us. Then they' crept up on us and took our water away. And they're going right, on down there, working and working away, busy and still as ants and—and sometimes —sometimes" I look at the river and it makes me shiver. It seems as if nothing coxild stop them —as if Oh, I don't know what! As if something terrible would happen—as it it would be the-end of us all!"

For a moment neither spoke, and then she. turned and, leaning 011 her arm, peered across the intervening beam of lamplight. . "Do you. ever, think about things," she demanded suddenly: "about civilisation and all that —ragout what it. all means?" "About what wliat all means?" asked Hawkins.

"Oil" —she flung out her hands helplessly and settled back in the shadow — . "sometimes I'm lonesome for peoplg arid sometimes I hate the thought of them! What's it all for—this dam and,everything?" . • "Why," said Hawkins, 1 "to open up the country—develop it. Things have got to go 011." "That's just it," said the girl; "go on to what? Yes —to what?" she demanded. - '

Hawkins leaned toward her. "Why," lie cried, "it's the greatest thing you ever heard of. All that desert going to waste and thousands of people—tired people—waiting»for it back there. Looking for a way out, for.ro'om, for a chance like this. I.don't know,.what it all means, but it must mean something. Your father did his part and we've got to do ours —and. leave it to them, to finish it." . !

"Finish!" slie flung back; "develop —develop! That's what they all say! And. when you've dried up . all" tljo waterfalls and filled this beautiful country with back yards and stupid people, and made all the money and developed all there! is to develop, is it finished them? What comes after that. —what then?" .

"God knows!" said young Hawkins. "I'm not a philosopher; I'm an engineer."

And as he said that something flashed across the space between them, between his eyes. and hers tliat- had come,' forward into the light, arid.everything was suddenly different from what it had been before." And ajt the same instant the bpv moaned and stirred in his sleep and suddenly sat upright, rubbing his eyes. "".I—l'm afraid it's getting late," she said a little breathlessly. "Maybe you'd like to know where you're going to sleep." Hawkins scarcely knew what he. said. The lamplit porch, the. house, the silent night itself seemed suddenly filled with her presence. It surrounded him in the little room to which Mary showed him, just off the dining-room, with its low bed and bureau and white mosquitonetting tacked across the window. Some dresses hung behind a curtain of flowered chintz, and iu a little hanging bookcase were an algebra, a worn copy of the Plain Tales, "an old Christmas number of a woman's'magazine, a Bible, and a pamphlet with a cover qf lithographed violets, entitled How to Be Beautiful. It was hot and close in the little room and for a long time he lay awake, listening to the fretful stirring and lowing of the cattle. Cautiously at last he lifted, the latch and opened the door into the 'dining room. There was a window opposite through which the blazing desert stars shone like moonlight. They lighted an old sofa beneath the window and Mary Daggett's upturned face and parted lips. She was sleeping like a child, still dressed, just as she had huddled herself after giviijg lier own room to the family's guest. The bellowing of the cattle awoke him tardily into the new morning and, in the pleasant excitement that comes with sun-up and hot coffee and hard work to do, the men swung on to their horses and drove the herd into : the ford. Old Man Daggett had already, crossed, and as Hawkins turned back the girl walked ahead of him to open the outer gate. She wore her workingdress, but her strong round forearms showed below her rolled-up sleeves and her walk seemed part of the morning. Beyond her, up the slope, 1 the rocks and chaparral stood out with stereoscopic clearness, and above them the canon rim, blazing with sunshine, cut' sharply across the blue. Hawkins felt himself lifted to unheard-of recklessness:

' ■[''m sorry about' that observation train," he almost shouted. "Maybe" when I: get to the top of the trail you'll give me.another chance!" The girl drew a handkerchief from her waist. "All right," she laughed. "Hurry.up and get there!" ■ ' Naturally he did return, : and then began,.for the resident engineer/of the Little Windy Irrigation and Power Company a new life indeed. He was a perfectly good engineer, as the contractor put it, but he wasn't much of a resident. Afternoons when the work went well, and Sundays, horse an«l rider disappeared over the sagebrush to the north. She met him when she could get away from her own work, and together they would jog northward, bridles loose on the ponies' necks, to •the canon rim. . v

Sometimes they would . turn tlieir broncos loose and ride like mad across Tthe level-desert, stride and stride alike,, so close that the bucket "of his leather puttee caught in'her-riding skirt. Sometimes tliey" would cook their supper on the plateau and watch the rocks across the river blaze and turn to ashes as the '■sim went down. And sometimes in the warm autumn afternoons they would lie 011 the canon rim, with; the-ranch, cozy and peaceful far below them, .up above the even blue, and as far as they could see the crystalline air and: sagegrav" open country, and talk of other lands —new, - untrodden wildernesses - to ivliich, when all this world..' became peopled, they 'half earnestly, declared they would- have to go. • -,,• It was not until lie had- almost forgotten what the East w.as like that he be'gan to see how-much, "her country'', meant to the girl. In spite of her droll italkvof lonesomeness, she was as much at-home as a mountain sheep; And she hud a strength, borrowed as it were - from these wide, impersonal spaces, that stilled or took, the place of. words. • And as cast .away, and: yet as :much to-. I gether as, two open boats on* an empty sea they would bn sy themselves,' silent or talking of external things, yet

"strangely fed and satisfied with their own youth and the strong, beauty of that untarnished world. Then one evening, on his return, he found Thompson waiting for him beside the hot office lamp. The contractor had a telegram in his.hand and there was one for Hawkins too. "Hello," said Haw-kins, "what's up?" "Well." said the contractor, "I guess they're finally gettin' on to what sort, of a proposition this is: goin' to raise-thewhole dam ten feet."

I Hawkins' heart: stopped. "That'll I mean six months; more work," lie said in. a dry voice, .meeting the .contractor's i eyes. , - , - . "It sure will;" 1 ! said Thompson.- He watched.-the crimson- -creeping -through "the younger man's tanned skin. "And it'll put -your old friend Daggett six foot under water, the whole outfit, root an' branch!" '' j, He meant to tell' MaryDaggett the next day, but when she appeared sud■denly over a little rise, with her boyish, understanding smile, and tossed him, done ,: up in' • a bit .of-/ newspaper, - some candy she had; made, the. words •■Tvoiililn't"come.?-< 'After all, the surveys miglit be wrong and the change might never be made. ,Tlien one day she did not mec'b him. He rode'clear to the canon rim - and there she sat, holding her pony's bridle/ and looking , down at the ranch. ; Mary stood up and barred the waypale and defiant,; her father's own daughter now. , /

"So you're going to drown us out, are you she flung ,at him. . "You might have let us know!" "Don't!" said-Hawkins in. ; a . low voice, ? swinging off : bis horse. "You don't understand; I didn't hear until last week and then >1 wasn't sure —it seemed as it there might be u way OUt." V ' ; -v ' ; -V.

' "Wasn't there, enough desert going to ,waste without" —-the girl stopped and bit her iip and looked away, and then, throwing: up her head, . cried brokenly: "What did we ever do to you ? What —why did you ever come into our "country?" "Mary!" begged the young man, and he would have seized her arm, but she drew back.

"You'd better turn round," slie said in fa low voice; /'this is our land, back of me, and we're a little old-fasliioned." ' Young Hawkins met her eyes steadily. "It's not your land," lie'said, "if people . need it. I'd give anything I have to make " things different. But you can't make 'em different any more than you can turn "that river back, or the people." r • The girl turned and flung out her arms' impatiently. "You came in here to take it away from' us and make money. Well, go back and make your money. I don't know anything about your people—l'll- stay with my own people. Arid build your old dam a thousand feet deep—l'll stay by my father!" .. ■■

So Mary Daggett rode down to her father's ranch and young Hawkins back to his dam. And" that was the end of,* the rides together and the supper fires. Once Hawkins tried to see her, but only once. The Daggetts stuck,to their sunken rancli, like a deserted garrison in a forgotten fort, and the work went on.

And he did work now —at the dam, along the two hundred miles of canals and . laterals, as an unofficial, claimlocater, soil-expert, and court of justice to the incoming liome-seekers. They progressed amazingly. In spite of the heavy snows in the mountains scarcely a day was lost at the dam site —it was a remarkable winter along the Little Windy. Young Hawkins was. everywhere; he fairly burrowed into his work. His grave face grew graver, he said little, and over the desert tan settled a sort of grayness that old Thompson delighted to sec. He liked to see a man stand the gaff, he said. The canal was to be opened on a. Thursday afternoon in early August. There was to be a special train —the railroad had just run a forty-mile spur down to tap the Little Windy country—aild speeches and champagne. For the week the resident engineer scarcely slept. There .were scores of loose threads to catch up, and all sorts of unexpected d-etails; from. preparing typewritten copies of the "story" of the project—the L. W. I. P. bonds were still on the market —to scouring the valley for adventurous homesteaders who had managed to charm a' few vegetables from the virgin dust. Even now the valley's products, must make sortie sort of showing. The Little Windy was high that summer, and on Tuesday, with a hot wind blowing ffom the south-west, the dam gates were closed to lift the water to the high-line. The river, tawny and turgid, licked the fresh cement and rock hungrily as it met the barrier and was thrown back. From a homesteader who had crossed at the ford came the usual word that old Daggett still held the fort. Hawkins sent a messenger up the river warning him to pack up and leave. —no one could tell what might happen with that hot'wind working-on. the mountain snows.

All L-day ' Wednesdays the "hot wind blew. Spirals of sand whirled over the sagebrush, and on the Little Windy's headwaters, far northward, hung a black pall of cloud, back and . forth across which played tlic lightning. Occasionally there was the rumble of distant thunder, like artillery fired below the horizon. v Hawkins paced from office'to dam and back again, nervously watching the climbing river. - Late that . afternoon some one saw a moving cloud of dust far upstream—the Daggetts were on the round-up again. The sun went •down in a murk of boiling clouds, and as they ate supper a. few drops of rain—the first in months —sprinkled the slieetiron roof. From the porch afterward Hawkins and the old contractor looked out beyond their own still dusty sagebrush to a "northern-horizon hung with the gray, trailing skirts of showers, and. farther vet-,- in the mountains where the Little Windy gathered its strength, the cloudbank, shot through and. through with crinkling lightning, was black as ink.

The contractor grinned. "She'll sure be comin' down here before morning. Look a' that!" —lie pointed his pipe at a particularly snaky streak of lightning. "Well, I see this river on a rampage once—-"first season we came, in here. If. old Daggett's.got any stock down there he'd better get 'em oiit, and himself out too." • . - . . The contractor went to. liis quarters, but--voting Hawkins sat on the porch' while the light lasted, watching the lightning, and listening, in the hush, to the distant thunder. The camp lamps went ont, but he held striding over from time to time 1 to look at the river It was after midnight when lie suddenly, saddled his pony and started northward. The night was black, but the clpvcr bronco loped steadily the winu•irig trail- Halfway to the ranch —at the little buttoTonnd where lie had so many times'come m sight of Mary Daggett—the rain caught him., He slipped Ins poncho over-his■ head, pulled down his liat and pushed" ahead. From a warm patter, welcome almost after the months , of dryness, it changed to a deluge, tp sheets of water that flung themselves at and wrapped, about horse aijd riuer, while the thunder .split the plain s vast emptiness and the whole landscape blazed into incandescence. Ihe muddy trail flickered in and; out of _ view with the lightDiny; flashes, and scarcely touching his bridle he let the pony prcK All at oncc. more suddenly than it had dropped away the first timclje.saw it, Daggett's valley,' gray-green -ni\the JMitning;" fell away from his. horse s -feet. ' And then," as blackness clapped about him ; agaim he caught j the wild bellowing of cattle ;far below and. the■twinkle of -lights.

They slid and scrambled down-the twisting trail, "in the lightning flashes ■Hawkins 'could sec the tossing liea.ds of ] the cattle,, and behind them the.Dagr i gett bovs yelling and throwing- their: ponies against tlie. closely; packed. ; hercl:> The river, rising as tliey slept, had alreadv readied the corral. As he splashed Up to the ranenhouser door he caught - a - glimpse of the old. man himself-^ - a,. goblin-like figure in. th©. lightning and rain;' -howling againstvfche -general turmoil and jabbing with.: a. pitchfork"'at tlie frightened cattle . He i flung himself off his horse and came face to face with Mary Daggett m the- door. ' , .As she saw him she gave-a quick cry and • :tlien -as suddenly drew back and •faced.; him; palefasustone./ "Yes, you've won!" she cried. 'A lightning flash" blinded both, of them

and the thunder-clap that followed seemed to split the house. "It's the last of us!" But Hawkins seized her by the arm roughlv. "Get everything together," he commanded; "we'll save what we can!"

■ Again he plunged into the storm. Tlie twisted herd shouldered ]»ack and forth in-the smother, while the boys,, splashing on their flanks and rear, hammered them forward. All that he had lieard of the treacherous canon' river had, not prepared linn tor anything like- this, ii'or an instant he. thought :of pelting

back to the dam and throwing open the gates. - But s another lightning flash told-that it was quito too Tate. - u- ■• ■ The Little Windy would settle things for : -herself now. She came ; pouring down into-that pocket in the hills swift ■and hungry as a prairie fire. Thrown •back from the choked outlet, driven ahead by 'the melted snow from innumerable southern-slopes and the rain that had rushed down miles of polished roclt canon" as down a tiled roof,-she boiled down' into the flat and enveloped themwitli incredible quickness. By the'almost continuous flickering i lie hitched the mules to the messwagon and swung-jit round to'the door. The shouts of the boys jamming the herd upstream were outside the gate now, but the solid water was already creeping close to the sides of the ranchhouse. Dripping, dazed, the old lhan staggered under the shelter of t the porch. ■ i i "She can't come no higher!" ho i shouted. "She's over higlwwater mark ■now." i "She's only begun!" yelled Hawkins. "Sho can't get through! Don't you understand —we've got her locked up! The whole river's pouring in here!" "You locked her up ?" shrilled the old man, stumping up and down the edge of the rain. "It'll take a bigger man than you. Where'll your dam be now:?"

Hawkins hurried into tho house. Mary Daggett, pale, catching lier breath like a little child, was putting clothes into a trunk. He wrapped a flour-sack in a blanket, gathered an armful of kitchen things and dumped them into the wagon. Between them they gathered what they could. The girl followed him mechanically. "Here, take this," she would say, aud hurry away. '■

; "Come"!" lie commanded at last; "we've got to save o'urselves now." She only stared at him. And then she began to hurry through the rooms, touching things as if in a dream. From the front room the piano chords suddenly jangled, and lier voice raised hysterically and then trailed away. "We'll take that too," said Hawkins, and together, with the old man's help, they dragged and somehow lifted it into the wagon. The hungry river was licking the v.T.lls of the house now, and a tongue of black water crept across the porch floor. As Hawkins started to turn down the lamp on the dining-room table she caught his arm. "No!" she whispered; "you'll not do that. We'll go down with lights burning!" And so indeed they deserted the ship at last and, with Hawkins on his own 'horse splashing at the mules' heads, fought through the rising water to the coulee and, close on the heels of the driven' herd, slowly upward to. the canon rim.

The storm wore itself out as thoy climbed, and the rain had all but ceased as they creaked over the edge of the plateau. Out of the deep behind came the frightened bellowing of the strayed cattle. The girl jumped down from the wagon and stood at the canon edge. Far below, the dining-room light still twinkled bravely, but .as the weakening lightning suddenly flooded the valley they saw the little log house submerged to the window-sills, a mere dot in that mirror of water.

"Gone!" cried Mary Daggett. The noise of the driven cattle retreated down the plateau, and suddenly they became! conscious that the clouds were thinning and that the east had begun to gray. She looked wildly about her, at the black glimmer of the water far below, and covered her face with her hands. . _

"Gone—gone— 1 gone!" she repeated brokenly. Young Hawkins, standing beside her, a solid figure in the graying dark, caught his breath sharply. "Yes, and it had to go. We can't live forever." He turned upon her. "Mary!" he cried suddenly, and. he caught her in liis arms. At the touch of her drenched body all liis month of loneliness and silence broke into words —crowded words of self-reproach and fondness and appeal. For an instant Mary Daggett thrust him from lier,'and then suddenly f.he leaned forward and cluncc to him with her face pressed against his wet coat. And' so they stood, while the old man. stared down past them as if they were not there; for even the lamp had been snuffed out now and the house had all but disappeared ill the roar of rising water. The gray turned to amethyst and the sun flung out across the level sage as the wagon, with the engineer's horse jogging beside it, crawled southward toward the dam. On the lost slope the muddy path changed to dust again, and before them, gray and parched as it had ever been, stretched Antelope Flats. The camp was already astir, and close to the intake a little band of homesteaders —lanky husbands, wistful mothers with babies, and little children with tow hair bleached almost white "by the desert sun —were waiting for the show. A deep, portentous rumble reverberated. in the still air, and high over the top of the dam the little Windy poured in a. wicked-looking, tawny' flood. Hawkins eyed it sharply. She'll do," he said; "if she can stand that she'll stand till the cows come home. They can make their speeches with the gates up. We'll have a little celebration of our own." .The cranks on the cement intake revolved, a coffee-colored stream shot through beneath, spread out tentatively, and then went sloshing down the canal. ' ■ ' Everybody watched until the water swung round the curving higli-line, and then they crowded over to the ,company's dining room. There was breakfast for all and a great deal of excitement, and nobody noticed the old man climb back into' liis wagon. He was far up'the trail before' even Hawkins nnd-Alary Daggett saw him; and as the Governor's train pulled in the covered wagon, a mere speck, was crawliu" into the dark bank of clouds that still muttered on the northern horizon, toward another frontier and another new country.-