Holmes—understanding the man's thought—was touched by the capitalist's unusual agitation, and for the moment did not attempt to reply. Then with an attempt at lightness he said: "Oh, well; it's all coming out right, Uncle Jim, Thanks to Miss Worth's care I am nearly well now. The wound really didn't amount to much."

As he spoke he looked at Barbara, and the older man also turned quickly toward the young woman who, at the engineer's words, was blushing rosy red.

"Father and I owe Mr. Holmes a debt we can never pay," she said quietly. Then, excusing herself on the plea that her other patient needed her, she left the room.

When the two men had watched her go, Greenfield said gently: "This is a bad business, Willard; a damned bad business; I'll admit that I was angry when you turned against us in that Cartwright deal, but confound it, boy! I admire you for it just the same. Your father would have done just as you did. It was that finer kind of honesty that made him a failure in the business where the rest of us made fortunes, but we all loved him for it, and your mother—" he looked away through the window toward the distant mountains. "You understand, don't you Willard, that I was forced to let you go when you turned the Company down? My directors would never stand for anything else, you know. You don't feel hard toward me, lad, because I had to let you out?"

"Certainly not, Uncle Jim. I was hurt just at first, but when I had taken time to think it over I did not blame you."

"You are sure, Willard?"

"Sure, Uncle Jim."

The older man was studying the engineer's face intently. "I don't know what it is, Willard, but something has changed you since you came into this country. You know, my boy, that I have no one in the world but you. All that I have will be yours. I have dreamed and planned for you as for my own flesh and blood. I am telling you this now because I have felt that something was taking you away from me. Something that I cannot understand has come between us. I felt it the moment I met you in Kingston and it has been growing ever since. It was that that made me so angry over the Cartwright business. You know how I hate the West; you know what it cost me years ago. I feel now that in some way I am losing you too. What is it, Willard, that has come between us? Let's clean it up and get back in our relations to where we were before we left home."

As James Greenfield made his appeal the engineer's eyes turned involuntarily toward the door through which Barbara had left the room. And when he did not answer immediately the older man was sure that he understood what it was that had come between himself and the son of the woman he loved, and why Holmes had used his influence in behalf of Jefferson Worth.

"Is it that girl, Willard?"

The younger man faced him squarely and his answer meant much more to the engineer himself than he could have explained to Greenfield. "Yes sir, it is this girl."

"You love her?"

"As my father must have loved my mother."

At the simple words Greenfield controlled himself, but his hatred for Jefferson Worth was very bitter. That he should fail to win in the business warfare with the western man was nothing, but that Worth—through his daughter—should rob him of the son that was more than a son to him was more than he could bear.

"But, my dear boy," he said; "think what this means! Think of your family—of your father and mother—of your friends and your future back home. Who are these people? They are nobodies. This man Worth is an ignorant, illiterate, common boor with no breeding, no education—nothing but a certain native cunning that has enabled him to make a little money. We have nothing in common with his class."

"Mr. Worth is an honest, honorable man who is doing a great work," answered Holmes stoutly; "and his daughter is—Uncle Jim, she is the most wonderful woman I ever knew!"

As Willard Holmes spoke, Barbara, coming from the kitchen into the dining room, could not help hearing the words that came through the partly opened door of the living room where the men were talking. Involuntarily at the sound of the engineer's voice the red blood crept into the young woman's face and her eyes shone with pleasure. The next moment Greenfield's voice held her motionless.

"But don't you know that she is not Worth's daughter?"

"Not his daughter?" exclaimed Holmes.

"No, not his daughter. She is a nameless waif whom he picked up and adopted. No one knows her parentage—not even her name. She may even have Mexican or Indian blood in her veins for all that anyone knows."

It was not strange that Willard Holmes had never heard the story of how Barbara was found in the desert. In the new country, where most of the engineer's life in the West had been spent, comparatively few beyond Worth's most intimate associates knew that she was the banker's daughter only by adoption. Greenfield, who had learned the story while inquiring for business reasons into the history of his competitor, told the young man briefly of the finding of the unknown child.

"Don't you see, my boy," finished the financier, "how impossible it is that you should give your name—one of the oldest and best in the history of the country—to a nameless woman of unknown breeding, whose connection with this man Worth even is merely accidental? It would ruin you, Willard. Think of your friends back home! How would they receive her? Think of me—of my plans for you! I—I should feel that I had been false to your mother, Willard, who gave you to me on her death-bed, if I permitted such a thing as this. It's—it's monstrous!"

Slowly the engineer raised his head and with a smile on his white face that hurt the older man, he said: "I can at least relieve your mind on that score, Uncle Jim. You need not fear that I will marry Miss Worth."

At his words from beyond that partly closed door, Barbara made her way blindly to her own room and, throwing herself face downward on her couch, strove with clenched hands and throbbing veins to keep her self control. She must not—she must not let them know, she whispered to herself—moaning in pain. She must go to them again in a moment—and they must not know.

While the woman whom Willard Holmes loved fought for strength to hide her pain, James Greenfield, in the other room, was leaning eagerly toward the engineer. "She has refused you?"

"I have not asked her. But don't misunderstand me. What you have told me—what my friends at home might think or do—could make no difference. Barbara Worth is worthy any man's love; and I love her and would make her my wife. I would give up even you for her, Uncle Jim. It's not that. It's because I know that she loves someone else too well to listen to me."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

WILLARD HOLMES RECEIVES HIS ANSWER.

When Barbara returned to the living room with some trivial excuse to explain her rather long absence, she found Holmes determined to go with Mr. Greenfield to his rooms in the hotel in Kingston.

When she protested he answered: "Really, Miss Worth, my shoulder troubles me so little that I am ashamed to offer myself as an invalid; and now that Uncle Jim is with me I haven't the shadow of an excuse for burdening you any longer."

"I am sorry if I have made you feel that you were a burden," she returned with a brave smile.

He answered warmly: "You know I did not mean to imply that. I shall never forget your kindness—never."

Greenfield too expressed his appreciation of her kindness but she answered the engineer as if she had not heard the older man. "And I can never thank you for what you have done for us."

As they stood on the porch while Greenfield went on ahead to the buggy, Holmes held out his hand. "And we are square again?"

"Yes, we are square."

"Then adios, Senorita."

"Adios, amigo."

Bravely she stood watching until the carriage disappeared down the street. Then she went slowly into the house to Abe's room.

The surveyor lay propped up in bed with pillows, looking quite cheerful. "Well, sister," was his greeting; "you have lost one patient and you are going to lose the other one before long. I feel like a new man already."

For a little she made no answer and, as she stood before him silent, those eyes that were trained to let nothing escape their notice studied her face and noted her hands clasped in nervous pain. "Why, Barbara! What is it, sister? What has gone wrong?"

At his words the brown eyes filled.

"Barbara!"

She dropped into the chair by the bedside and, throwing herself toward him, buried her face in her arms in the pillow by his side, her form shaking with sobs.

The surveyor's face was white now under its bronze—white and set. Lightly he placed his hand upon the soft brown hair so near his shoulder and his eyes seemed now to be looking far away. When her grief had spent itself a little he said quietly: "Don't you think, sister, that you had better tell me about this?"

When she did not answer he said again gently: "Do you care for him so much, Barbara?"

The brown head nodded her confession and for a moment the man closed his eyes and turned away his face. Then: "Won't you let me help you?"

Slowly, with many pauses, she told him what she had overheard. When she had finished Abe said simply: "But he has not told you of his love, Barbara. Perhaps you are mistaken."

"No, Abe; I'm not mistaken. He has not told me—not in words, but I know; I know!"

"Then," said the surveyor, "he will tell you. Listen, Barbara. The man who went through those Mexicans in Devil's Canyon with me is not the kind of a man who gives up the woman he loves for what others think. Wait a little, dear, and you will see that I am right. You have been too quick. Be patient a little and you shall see."

"But Abe, Mr. Greenfield is right. I am a nameless nobody; and he— he is—"

"He is a man and you are a woman, and this is La Palma de la Mano de Dios where nothing else matters," said Abe Lee almost sternly.

A few minutes later, when Barbara was gone, the surveyor slipped lower on the pillows and wearily turned his face to the wall. Several times that day Barbara looked in on him and at last, when he had not moved for so long, called him softly. He answered with a smile, but when she had arranged his pillows for him he closed his eyes again with a word of thanks.

Jefferson Worth arrived that evening and with him came the Seer, who had joined him in the city by the sea. But Barbara's joy at their coming was overshadowed by her anxiety for Abe, who seemed to have fallen into a half-unconscious condition that was alarming. When they entered his room the surveyor, who still lay with his face to the wall, did not look up.

"Daddy is here, Abe," said Barbara; "Daddy and the Seer."

Slowly the man turned toward them and held out his hand with a word of greeting for each. "I'm mighty glad you have come," he added; "Barbara has had rather more than her hands full."

But the old engineer noticed that he did not look at Barbara as he spoke.

While the three were at supper Barbara told the men the whole story, and when they had finished the meal the Seer said: "Now Jeff, I know you have important business needing your immediate attention and our girl here must have a good night's rest—she has been through enough to kill an average woman. I'm going to take care of Abe to-night myself."

When his old chief was alone with the surveyor he drew a chair to the bedside and sat for some time looking at the man on the bed. Then he said: "I think, son, that you and I had better get to the bottom of this. First, I'll have a look at that leg."

When the examination was over the big man eyed the surveyor. "Humph! This is not a scratch beside what that greaser did to you with his knife in Arizona. You didn't even stop work for that. Your ride to San Felipe and back ordinarily would call for about twelve hours sleep and that's all. Come, lad, what's the matter? Out with it." Abe smiled. "I'm down and out, I reckon."

"Down and out, hell!" returned the big man. "That won't do, Abe. You forget that you are talking to me." Then he leaned forward and spoke in a low tone. "I know what it is, my boy. It's Barbara." By the pain in the surveyor's eyes the Seer knew that he was right.

Then the Seer in his own way did for Abe what Abe had done for Barbara.

When the young woman brought in his breakfast the next morning Abe greeted her with his old cheery "Hello!", and declared facetiously that the Seer had talked him into a sleep from which he had awakened as hungry as a bear and ready to go to work.

Two days later Texas Joe, who had ridden in from somewhere late the night before, came to report.

"We were beginning to think that you were not coming back at all, Uncle Tex," said Barbara, who with the others was curious to hear of the old-timer's adventure.

"I 'lowed once mebbe I wouldn't come back no more neither," he drawled. "You see, Mr. Worth, after we-all got Abe at Wolf Wells I figured that—bein' so far on the way—I might as well go on over to Felipe an' get that ol' buckskin hawss o' mine what Abe had left." He paused, and, turning his head to one side, looked meditatively down at the spur on his high-heeled boot. "That there buckskin is sure some hawss, Barbara; he sure is."

"Did you get him?" asked Barbara.

Texas looked up, mildly surprised. "Sure we got him. That's what I'm a-tellin' you."

Then he laughed softly as though mildly amused at some incident suddenly remembered. "Abe, you know that greaser that tumbled into the Dry River Spillway when we-all was puttin' in Number Five Gate?"

"Yes."

"I 'lowed you'd know him. I heard somethin' funny about him when I was in San Felipe after that buckskin."

"What was it, Texas?"

"He's daid."

The recovery of the two wounded men was rapid. For a while Holmes came over from Kingston every day to see Lee, and the two, with the Seer and Barbara, spent many delightful hours on the big front porch.

Jefferson Worth's enterprises pushed steadily toward completion. The power plant in Barba was finished and The King's Basin Central had stretched its steel length from the junction at Republic to within three miles of the terminal.

When Abe was able to go back to his work, Holmes did not go so often to the Worth home; but the presence of the Seer still enabled him to excuse to himself his quite frequent visits. But while the young engineer continually sought the Seer, not only because of their growing friendship but because he was always sure of meeting Barbara, he avoided seeing the girl alone for he felt that he could not trust himself; and the young woman, feeling his attitude toward her, was convinced against her will and Abe's protest that the man who loved her guarded himself against her for the reasons that she had overheard Greenfield urge upon him.

Then Holmes received a letter from the Southwestern and Continental Railroad Company offering him a position that would place him at the head of the engineering department of the district that included The King's Basin. The letter stated that the position was tendered on recommendation of Jefferson Worth and, in view of the fact that the flood season was at hand and that conditions seriously threatening to the Company's property might be expected at any hour, urged him to accept by wire and take charge immediately.

With the letter in his hand a sudden desire to go with it to Barbara mastered him. He knew that the Seer had planned to go that morning with Abe Lee to Barba and that the young woman was alone.

An hour later he dismounted in front of the Worth home. Barbara herself met him at the door. "The Seer is not at home to-day" she said, as they entered the living room. "I thought you knew."

"I did not come to see the Seer to-day. I came to see you," he answered bluntly.

"To see me?"

"Yes; to ask you how I shall answer this." He handed her the letter.

She read it slowly, gaining time for self-control. "But I do not understand why you should come to me."

He studied her face a moment before he answered. How could he explain to her the impulse that had prompted him, as every man is prompted to take the big things of his life to the one woman who—if she be really the one woman for him—is more than all? "I thought—I hoped that you would be interested," he said.

"And I am!" she cried eagerly, feeling that which he could not put into words. "Of course I'm interested. I was only surprised that you should hesitate a moment to accept. Don't you want to continue your work? Don't you want to stay with us?" She added the last words wistfully and the heart of the man longed to tell her that which she longed to hear.

"Yes," he said slowly, "I want to stay, but I—I am afraid." The words slipped out unbidden.

Barbara interpreted his answer in the light of his conversation with Greenfield, which she had overheard, and her woman's pride was aroused. He should be made to understand that he was in no danger from her. Her next words were a challenge. "Afraid of what?"

"Afraid of you," he burst forth savagely. "Afraid of myself. Because I love you. From the first day when you showed me the desert you have been so closely associated in my mind with this work that I cannot think of it without thinking of you. Everything I have done I have felt was done for you. I would have given it all up a hundred times but my thoughts of you would not let me. When I have been untrue to the work I have felt that I have been untrue to you. If I have accomplished any good here it has been through you. Everywhere I have gone in this country you have seemed to me to be there. Everything I see speaks to me of you. The desert—the mountains—the farms and homes and towns; it is all you—and you—and you. I did not realize it at first, but I felt it, and then as I came to love my work I came to love you. I did not intend to tell you this. I hate myself for telling you—but I love you. I love you! Do you understand now why I came to you with this letter? Do you understand why I am afraid to stay?"

At the man's passionate outburst that came as if dragged from him against his will, Barbara shrank back as if he threatened her. He had not asked if she loved him; he had only spoken brutally— savagely, of his passion for her. She repeated insistently, blindly, to herself: "He must not know! He must not know!"

The man spoke again. "Forgive me, Miss Worth; I did not mean to let go of myself. I know how you love this work—how hard you have tried to hold me true to it. I could not bear that you should think of me as leaving it without reason. But you see—you see how impossible it is now for me to stay."

As he spoke, a running horse stopped suddenly in front of the house and through the open door they saw Pablo leap from the saddle and run swiftly up the walk toward the house.

"Senorita!" the Mexican cried, as Barbara sprang towards him; "the river! the river! It has come. The Company works—it is all gone! Senor Worth send me quick to tell Senor Holmes. I go to Kingston; he not there. They say he ride this way. I come to you, Senorita; I think maybe you know where I find him." He turned to the engineer. "Senor Holmes, the river has come again into La Palma de la Mano de Dios like the Indians say it was long time ago. Senor Worth say you come please pronto!"

Barbara wheeled on the engineer with flushed cheeks and blazing eyes.

"This is your answer!" she cried. "Not for me; not for yourself; but for the work—your work—our work!"

For an instant he looked into her eyes, then turned and ran towards his horse with Pablo at his heels.

Barbara saw them spring into their saddles and disappear in a cloud of dust, and the engineer, as he rode, remembered what Abe Lee had once told him of Pablo's saying: "In the Company there is no Senorita!"



CHAPTER XXXIV.

BATTLING WITH THE RIVER.

Some day, perhaps, the history of that River war will be written. It can only be suggested in my story.

It was a war of terrific forces waged for a great cause by men as brave as any who ever fought with weapons that kill.

The attacking force was the Rio Colorado that with power immeasurable had, through the ages past, carved mile-deep canyons on its course and with its mountains of silt had built the great delta dam across the ancient gulf, thus turning back the waters of the sea that sun and wind might lay bare the floor of the Basin and work the desolation of the desert.

Using the Seer's open hand for his map of La Palma de la Mano de Dios, Jose, the Indian, had traced the course of the river along the base of the fingers flowing toward the gulf which lies between the edge of the palm and the thumb—this same inner edge of the hand representing roughly the high ground that shuts out the waters of the sea. The thousands of acres of The King's Basin lands lie from sea level to nearly three hundred feet below. The river at the point where the intake for the system of canals was located is, of course, higher than sea level, for the waters that pass the intake flow on southward to the gulf.

It was the river flowing thus on higher ground that made irrigation and reclamation of the desert possible. It was this also that made possible the disaster that was now upon the hardy pioneers, who had staked everything in their effort to realize the vast potential wealth of the ancient sea-bed. The grade from the river at the intake to the lowest point in the bottom of the Basin is much steeper than the established fall of the river from the intake to the gulf. The water in the canals on this steeper grade was controlled by headings, spillways, gates and drops, while the structure at the intake, with gates to regulate the flow into the main canal, prevented the river from leaving its old channel altogether, pouring its entire volume into the Basin and in time converting it again into an inland sea.

The dangerously cheap and inadequate character of the vital parts, built by the Company upon the usual promoter's estimates, had led Abe Lee to protest against the risk forced upon the settlers and had finally caused him to resign. Later, as the Company system of canals was extended and more and more water was needed to supply the rapidly increasing acreage of cultivated lands, Willard Holmes came to appreciate the desert-bred surveyor's view of the danger and insistently urged his employers to supply him with funds to replace the temporary wooden structures with safe and lasting works of concrete and steel.

But the hunger of Capital for profits forbade. Some day the work would be done, the directors promised. In the meantime, without increasing the original investment by so much as a dollar but with the revenues derived from the sale of water rights, they were extending the system to supply the ever increasing fields of the settlers, thus shrewdly forcing the people, who were ignorant of the terrible risk they were carrying, to supply the funds to build the canals and ditches that belonged to the Company; while for the water carried to the ranches the farmers continued to pay the Company large rentals. The original investment of the Company was very small compared with the thousands invested by the pioneers who had been induced to settle in the new country. And yet from every dollar of the wealth taken from the land the Company would receive a share.

But the Rio Colorado gave no heed to the decree of the New York financiers. The forces that had made La Palma de la Mano de Dios are not ruled by Wall street.

Willard Holmes, who had come to understand that his work was not alone to safeguard the property of his employers but to protect the interests of the pioneers as well, had been discharged because he would not deliver the people wholly into the hands of the Company. A new engineer out of the East, as faithful to the interests of Capital as he was unfamiliar with conditions in the new country, was placed in charge.

It was as if the river, in the absence of the man whose constant readiness had held it in check, saw its opportunity. Swiftly it mustered its forces from mountain and plain. Hundreds of miles away it gathered its strength and hurried to the assault. The sources of information established by Holmes on the tributaries and headwaters wired their reports: a foot rise on the Gila; three feet coming down the Little Colorado; two feet rise in the Salt; five feet on the Grand. The New York office-engineer received the messages with mild interest. The daily reports from the weather bureau covering the countries drained by the Rio Colorado lay on his desk unnoticed.

Mr. Burk warned him, but the thoughtful Manager of the Company was not an engineer. Willard Holmes tried to help him, but Holmes had been discharged by the Company and the words of discharged men have little weight with those who succeed to their positions.

The daily reports from the gauge at Rubio City showed an increase in the river's volume of twenty thousand second feet; then thirty thousand more; and on top of that came another twenty thousand. The assistants of the new chief engineer tried to tell him what it meant, but the assistants were subordinates and friends of Willard Holmes. The man from New York, who was privileged to write several letters after his name, was supposed to know his business.

Then the assembled forces of the river reached the intake, and the trembling wooden structures that stood between the pioneers and ruin, besieged by the rising flood, battered by the swirling currents, bombarded by drift, gave way under the strain and the charging waters plunged through the breach.

Too late the Company's forces were rushed to the scene. Before their very eyes the roaring waters, as if mad with destructive power, wrenched and tore at the Company's property, twisting, ripping, smashing, until not a trestle, plank or stick was left in place and the terrific current, rushing with ever increasing volume and power through the opening, plowed into the soft, alluvial soil of the embankment, undermining and carrying it away until nearly the entire river was admitted.

As quickly as men and material could be assembled, the Company's chief engineer began the battle to regain control of the mighty stream. The warfare thus begun meant life or death to the greatest reclamation project in the world.

Millions already invested by the settlers in farms and towns and homes and business enterprises were at stake. Many more millions that were yet to be realized from the reclaimed lands depended upon the issue of the fight.

Against the efforts of the engineers and the army of laborers the river massed from its tributaries in the regions of heavy rains and melting snows the greatest strength it had assembled in many years.

Five times, with piling and trestles and jetties and embankments, the men who defended The King's Basin were in sight of victory. Five times the river summoned fresh strength—twisted out the piling, wrecked the trestles, undermined the jetties and embankments and swept the nearly completed structures, smashing, grinding, crashing, away—a twisted, tangled ruin.

While the engineers and men of the Company were waging this war with the river, the situation of the pioneers in the Basin grew daily more perilous. Without a well-defined channel large enough to carry the incoming stream, the flood spread over a wide territory in the southern and western portions of the Basin, filling first the old channels and washes left by the waters ages ago, forming next in the areas of nearly level or slightly depressed sections shallow pools, lakes and seas, out of which the higher ground and hummocks rose like new-born islands, growing smaller and smaller as the rising tide submerged more and more of their sandy bases. Meanwhile the whole flood, eddying slowly with winding sluggish currents in the shallow places, moving more swiftly in the deeper washes and channels, swept always onward toward the north where, miles away, lay the deepest bottom of the great Basin.

Many of the settlers in the flooded districts were forced to abandon farms they had won with courage and toil, for the sweeping waters covered alike fields of alfalfa and grain and barren desert waste. The towns of Frontera and Kingston were protected from the inundation by earthen levees, in the building of which men and women toiled in desperate haste, and night and day these embankments were patrolled by watchful guards, who frequently summoned the weary, besieged citizens from their rest to protect or strengthen some threatened point in their fortifications.

The eastern side of the Basin being higher ground, the settlers in the South Central District and east of Republic, with the two towns built by Jefferson Worth, were in no immediate danger, but the old Dry River channel became a roaring torrent, bank-full; and it was only a question of time, if the river were not controlled, when every foot of the new country with its wealth of improvements and its vast possibilities would be buried deep beneath the surface of an inland sea.

The situation was appalling. The remarkable development of the new country, the marvelous richness of the reclaimed lands, with the immense possibilities of the reclamation work as demonstrated by The King's Basin project had attracted the attention of the nation. The pioneers in Barbara's Desert were, in fact, leaders in a far greater work that would add immeasurably to the nation's life—that would, indeed, be world-wide in its influence. Because of this the attention of the nation was fixed with peculiar interest upon the disaster that had fallen upon The King's Basin. Throughout the land civil engineers watched intently the efforts of the Company men to regain control of the river and to force it back into its old channel. Many declared that, because of the alluvial character of the soil, the absence of anything like a rock floor to build upon and the great volume and terrific velocity of the current, the feat was an engineering impossibility. In the eyes of the engineering world The King's Basin project was doomed. The settlers were advised to abandon the work they had accomplished and to move out. But those strong ones who had forced the desert to yield its wealth to their hands did not move. Those whose farms were in the flooded district were forced to go. There was the inevitable sifting of the timid- hearted and the weak, but the great majority stood fast.

Jefferson Worth, in the face of almost certain ruin, went steadily on with his work on the railroad and continued pushing his other enterprises toward completion—making improvements, erecting new buildings, planning further investments and developments with a confidence and conviction that was startling. Not once throughout that trying period was he heard to express the slightest doubt as to the ultimate triumph of the settlers. His business friends and associates outside urged him to stop—to wait at least until the issue was certain. He answered calmly that the issue was already certain and went on with his work.

His confidence and courage were the inspiration that fired the hearts of that threatened people. Had he given ground, had he weakened and drawn back it would have started a panic that nothing could have checked and that would have resulted inevitably in the abandonment of the cause forever. The King's Basin lands with the wealth of effort that had already been expended would have been given over to the river, lost irretrievably to the race.

Hundreds went to him when they felt their courage failing and their spirits weakening under the strain. And always they returned to their farms or to their business with renewed strength to go on. As one, who passed through that ordeal, long afterwards expressed it: "In those times we all just lived on his nerve."

Through all the Company's war with the river and its repeated defeats Willard Holmes was forced to stand a mere observer, an idle looker-on. Foreseeing the catastrophe that was now upon them, he had prepared himself by careful study of every factor in the problem and by thorough knowledge of the situation to meet the crisis when it came. With every means at his command he had planned and worked that he might be ready and so far as possible equipped for the struggle and now, when war was declared and the battle being waged, he could only watch the ruin of the work he loved while a stranger, who ignored his preparatory efforts, took the place that should have been his.

But the great man of the S. & C., with whom the engineer had many a counsel in those days, warned him always to be ready for the time when—as the western man put it—"The Company should throw up its hands."

The waters moving northward reached the lowest point in the Basin and there formed an inland sea that, without an outlet and receiving the full volume of the river, grew ever larger and larger. Flowing towards the sea the flood developed swift currents in the depressions and washes that led in the general direction of its course, seeking thus to make for itself a well-defined channel. The largest of these ancient washes, scarcely noticeable in the desert, led from the south to Kingston, passing through the edge of the town, curved slightly to the west and extended on northward, becoming deeper and more clearly defined with higher ground on either side as it neared the lowest point of the Basin. The general lay of the land drew the flood toward this channel and developed a current that moved with increasing velocity as the waters, nearing the sea, were concentrated more and more by the greater depth of the old channel and the steeper grade of the land on both sides.

Then a new and alarming phase of the river's destructive work developed and everyone saw that the war at the intake must be forced to a speedy finish or the cause would be lost. The immense volume of water, flowing with increased strength and velocity as it defined for itself a more distinct channel down the steeper grade of the Basin, began cutting in the soft soil a vertical fall that from the foot of the grade moved swiftly up-stream; a mighty cataract from fifty to sixty feet in height and a full quarter of a mile wide, moving at the rate of from one to three miles a day and leaving as it went a great gorge through which a new-made river flowed quietly to a new-born and ever-growing sea. The roar of the plunging waters, the crashing and booming of the falling masses of earth that were undermined by the roaring torrent were heard miles away. Acres upon acres of the soft fertile land fell, melted and were swept away down the gorge as banks of snow fall and melt in the spring freshets. Day and night, night and day, the immeasurable power of the canyon- cutting river drove the cataract southward toward the break at the intake through which, by this time, the entire Colorado at its highest flood stage was turned.

The imminent danger that threatened the Basin was not the danger from the ever-rising sea. Long before the waters could fill the old sea-bed, that mighty cataract, moving ever upstream, would pass the intake; and with the floor of the river lowered thus some fifty feet it would be impossible to take the water out for irrigation. The lands reclaimed by the pioneers would go back to desert years before they would be buried once more under the surface of the sea.

The complete destruction of all that the settlers had gained and the utter desolation of the land was now a question of weeks.

The Company town of Kingston was directly in the path of that moving Niagara. While the Company's men were making a last desperate effort to close the break, the great falls were eating their way nearer and nearer the little city. When the roar of the water and the crashing and booming of the falling banks could be heard on the streets and in the offices of the Company, the people left their homes, their stores and their shops; the town realizing that no human power now could avert the disaster.

Heroic efforts were made to direct the course of the new river away from the little city, but the waters with savage, resistless power chose their own way. The pioneers, who built the first town in the heart of The King's Basin Desert, saw that mighty, thundering cataract move upon the work of their hands and felt the earth trembling under their feet as they watched homes, business blocks, the hotel, the opera house, the bank and finally the Company building undermined and tumbled, crashing into the deep canyon.

In a few short hours it was over. The falls moved on and where Kingston had once stood was that great gorge, with a few scattered houses only remaining on each side.

That same day the last attempt of the Company men to close the break failed.

With every hour the awful ruin drew nearer the point which, if reached, would place The King's Basin forever beyond the reclaiming power of men. Frantic appeals for help were made to the government, but before the ponderous machinery of state, with its intricate and complicated wheels within wheels, could unwind a sufficient quantity of red tape the work of the pioneer citizens would be past saving.

It was at this time that a telegram from Jefferson Worth to the great man of the Southwestern and Continental brought a special train of private cars into the Basin. At Deep Well Junction Jefferson Worth, Abe Lee, the Seer and Willard Holmes boarded the train and entered the car of the general manager, where the officials representing the highest authority in the great transcontinental system had gathered to meet them in consultation.

At Republic the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company with his manager and chief engineer joined them, and the train moved on until, at a word from Holmes, the conductor gave the signal to stop. From the windows and platform of the car the party could see the water extending to the south and west mile after mile, and nearer the huge plunging cataracts with leaping columns of spray, while the roar of the falls, the crashing and booming of the caving banks shook the air with heavy vibrations and the earth trembled with the shock of the plunging waters and the falling masses of earth. Just ahead, where Kingston had stood, the track ended on the bank of the deep gorge. From here the party was driven in comfortable spring wagons to the scene of the Company's defeat.

Save for the camps of the laborers, the boats, pile-drivers, implements and materials of their warfare and the debris of their wrecked structures, not a sign of their work remained, while through the breach—widened now to nearly a quarter of a mile—the great river poured its hundred and fifty thousand second feet of muddy water with terrific velocity and solemn, awful power.

When the party had viewed the situation, the railroad men with Mr. Greenfield retired to the tent of the Company's chief engineer.

A little apart from Jefferson Worth and his two companions, Willard Holmes stood alone on the brink of the broken embankment looking down into the swirling muddy waters. He knew that his time had come. He knew that at that moment the railroad officials were concluding a deal with The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company through its president, by which the S. & C. would assume control of the situation and attempt to save the reclamation work. His chief had told him to be ready. He was ready.

In the railroad yards at Rubio City and on every available side- track for several miles east and west were standing train-loads of ties and rails. In the yards at the Coast city were cars loaded with machinery, implements and supplies. In the yards at the harbor were other train-loads of timber and piling. With the readiness of a perfectly equipped and organized army the forces of the S. & C., backed by the resources of that powerful system, waited the word, while every moment the disaster that threatened the pioneers drew nearer. From the roaring river at his feet Willard Holmes turned to look toward the tent. Why were they so slow?

Then his face lighted up and he took an eager step forward as the private secretary of the general manager came out of the tent and hurried toward him.

"They want you, Mr. Holmes," said the young man. The engineer went quickly to answer the call.

When he entered the tent every man in the party turned toward the engineer. "Holmes," said his chief, "we will attempt to close the break. You will take charge at once."

Within an hour the forces of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company already on the ground were set to work under the Seer preparing the grade for a spur-track that would leave the main line near the river fifteen miles north of the break, and Holmes, with Abe Lee, set out on horseback for Rubio.

With the return of the general manager and his party to their train, the movement already planned began. Without hurry but with ready promptness the orders, voiced by the hundreds of clicking telegraph instruments covering the district affected by the operations, were obeyed. Special trains carried Jefferson Worth's force of railroad builders with teams and equipment to the point at which the spur- track would connect with the main line where, under Abe Lee, they began pushing the grade southward to meet the forces that, under the Seer, were working northward from the front.

Throughout the Basin the call for men and teams was issued by Jefferson Worth, and the pioneers, answering as the Minute Men of old, were hurried to the scene where they found trainloads of equipment waiting ready for their use, while every hour brought reinforcements—laborers of many nationalities gathered in the cities of the coast by the agents of the railroad company.

The waiting trains loaded with ties and steel began to move and the construction gangs followed close on the heels of the graders. And when the last spike in the track to the scene of the decisive battle was driven, the track-men with their sledges stepped aside to clear the way for the panting engines that drew the first train loaded with piling and timbers for the trestle.

Hour by hour now, without pause or halt, the men under Willard Holmes working in shifts met the Rio Colorado in a hand-to-hand fight for The King's Basin lands. By day under the white, semi- tropical sun, by night in the light of locomotive headlights that gleamed strangely over the dark swirling floods, the trestles were forced further and further out into the plunging current that wrenched and twisted and tugged with terrific strength in a mad wrestle with those who dared attempt to check its sullen destructive will, while steadily, irresistibly, the canyon-cutting falls drew nearer and nearer. It was not alone the magnitude of the task directed by Willard Holmes that made the work heroic. It was that this seemingly impossible work must be accomplished against time. In his fight with the river the engineer raced against a destructive force which, if it reached the scene of the struggle before the battle was won, would make final defeat certain and place the Colorado, so far as The King's Basin reclamation was concerned, beyond control of men.

As the engineer stood on the trestle above the mad, whirling currents, directing his men in their efforts to drive the piling in thirty feet of water that—as one veteran expressed it—"ran like the mill tails of hell," he fancied he could hear above the roar of the river against the structure, the blows of the heavy driver, the rattle of cable and chain and windlass, the grinding and squeaking of the straining timbers and the shouts of the men—the menacing thunder of that moving cataract a few miles away. While he paced the embankments, studying the set of the currents, observing the form and action of the eddies or receiving the hourly reports from the river gauge at Rubio City, and held consultation with his assistants, he often turned his head involuntarily to look anxiously away in the direction of the racing falls.

Only when his exhausted body and wearied brain refused to respond longer to his will would he throw himself fully dressed upon a cot in his tent for an hour's sleep. His face grew haggard and deeply lined with anxious care, his hollow eyes—dark-rimmed—were bloodshot and burning as if with fever, his jaws were set as if by sheer power of his will he would beat the river into submission. And he barked his orders shortly in a hoarse strained voice that told of nerves stretched almost to the breaking point. In critical moments, when it looked as though the river in the next instant would reduce their work to a hopeless wreck, the engineer, standing on the trembling timbers or clinging to the swaying pile-driver itself, seemed to those who did his bidding to become the very incarnation of human courage and power.

The Seer and Abe Lee, remembering the man who had come out from the East to go with them on that preliminary survey, wondered at the transformation. Then Willard Holmes was the servant of Capital that used people for its own gain. He saw his work then only as a means to the end that his Company might make money. Now, though employed still by a corporation, he was a master who used the power at his command in behalf of the people. He had come to look upon his work as a service to the world and through that service only he served his employers. It was as if in this man, born of the best blood of a nation-building people, trained by the best of the cultured East— trained as truly by his life and work in the desert—it was as though, in him, the best spirit of the age and race found expression.

At last the trestles were pushed across the break, the track was laid and the gigantic work of filling the channel was begun. In every rock quarry reached by the S. & C. within two hundred and fifty miles of the battle, men were drilling and blasting and with steam shovels and derricks were loading cars with material for the fill. At the word from Willard Holmes these rock trains steamed swiftly to the front, everything giving them the right of way. Merchants and manufacturers east and west cursed the railroad because their shipments were delayed. Passengers, held for hours on the sidings, complained, scolded, protested and threatened. It was an outrage! declared the tourists in their luxurious Pullmans that they should be forced to give up an hour of their pleasure in order that a train load of rock might make better time. But, unheeding, the great battleships, each with its fifty cubic yards of stone, and the flats and gondolas, each with its tons of material, thundered away to the scene of the struggle. Every five minutes, night and day, from the moment of the completion of the trestles until the fill was above the danger point a car of rock was dumped into the break.

So the task was accomplished; the fight was won. The Rio Colorado was checked in its work of destruction and beaten back into its old channel. The thousands of acres of The King's Basin lands that would have been forever lost to the race through one corporation were saved by another; and the man, who—without protest—had built for his employers' gain the inadequate structures that endangered the work of the pioneers, led the forces that won the victory.

The afternoon of the day on which the break was finally closed three private cars came in with the rock trains. The passengers were the general manager and the general superintendent with their wives, Jefferson Worth and a small party of friends.

Leaving their cars the party walked toward a point below the rock embankment where they could look down into the now empty gorge. With this visible evidence of the river's power before them, the visitors exclaimed with wonder.

When the superintendent had explained the magnitude of the work, the difficulties encountered and how the task had been accomplished, the general manager, who—here and there—had added a word, said: "After all, friends, taking into consideration money, equipment and everything, the whole question of a work like this, or of any great enterprise, resolves itself into a question of men. It's up to the man on the job. We have the system, the machinery without which this work could not have been done. We have the capital to supply material and labor—but that man up there closed the break."

As he spoke he pointed to a figure standing on the upper trestle above the fill—outlined against the sky.

Then the party climbed the grade to the tracks again and walked to the end of the upper trestle. Turning, the engineer saw and came towards them. Silently they stood to receive him. From boots to Stetson his khaki trousers and rough shirt were stained with mud and grime, his eyes were sunken in dark hollows, his worn face was unshaven and his hair, when he removed his hat, was unkempt. He did not look like a hero; he looked more like some ruffian just from a prolonged debauch. But the little party burst into applause.

The engineer smiled as his chief went forward from the group to grasp him by the hand. For a moment they talked of the work. Then the official, placing his hand on the engineer's arm, said: "Come, Holmes, we have some women here who want to meet the man who mastered the Colorado."

The engineer protested. He was "not presentable."

"Presentable! You're the most presentable man I know of this minute. Come along, there's my wife making signs to me to hurry right now."

There was nothing for Holmes to do but to go. A moment later he was face to face with the rest of the party and—with Barbara Worth.



CHAPTER XXXV.

NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE

Two weeks after the victory of Willard Holmes in the River war the engineer arrived in Republic on the evening train from the city by the sea.

At the hotel he was quickly surrounded by the pioneer citizens, who were eager to greet him with expressions of appreciation for his work. But it was Horace P. Blanton who did the talking.

Horace P., in his brave picture-general hat, his impressively swelling front of white vest and his black clerical tie, was the personification of economic, financial and scholastic—not to say ecclesiastic, dignity. His greeting of the engineer was majestic. But, as a royal sovereign might welcome the returning general of his conquering armies with sadness at the thought of the lives his victories had cost, the countenance of Horace P. expressed a noble grief.

"Willard," he said, his voice charged with emotion, "I congratulate you. You are the savior of this imperial King's Basin. When we saw that Greenfield's Company was not able to handle the awful situation, I told my friend the general manager and our other officials of the S. & C. that they must come to the rescue without an instant's delay and that you must be put in charge of the work. I knew that if any man on earth could stop that river, you could. So we decided to let you go ahead. You have justified my confidence nobly, Willard; you certainly have. I'm proud of you, old man; I am indeed."

The engineer tried manfully to appreciate the spirit of the speaker's words. With that white vest and black tie before him, to say nothing of the picture hat that crowned the massive head, it was impossible for Holmes not to wish that he could appreciate Horace P. Blanton's spirit—it hungered so for appreciation.

"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Blanton," said the engineer. "But really I feel that you over-estimate my part in the work. I—"

"Not at all; not at all, my dear boy. I knew my man and I was not disappointed. But the cost—" he shook his kingly head sorrowfully and heaved a majestic sigh. "Confidentially, Willard, I estimate that the financial losses of Greenfield and myself alone are close on to a million. I haven't a thing left. Wiped me out clean."

Holmes looked really sympathetic. He knew that every dollar that Horace P. Blanton ever spent was a dollar belonging to someone else, but even mythical losses of mythical property, when suffered by Horace P., demanded sympathy. The man in the white vest felt them so keenly and strove with such noble courage to bear them bravely.

Encouraged by the engineer's interest and the presence of the little crowd of pioneers, the speaker continued: "When I saw our beautiful town—the town that we had built with our own hands—falling in ruins into that terrible chasm, I cried like a baby, sir." Even as he spoke his eyes filled with manly tears which he made no attempt to hide. Then he lifted his majestic bulk grandly and looked about with kingly countenance. "But I shall stay with it, Willard. I shall stay and help these people to regain their losses. We can't desert them now. If my creditors will give me a little time, and I am sure they will, not a man shall lose a penny, no matter what it costs me."

The sentence was a bit ambiguous but it was a noble resolution, worthy of such a lofty soul.

At this moment a boy with the evening papers approached the group. "Here son, my paper," called Horace P.

The boy gripped his wares with a firm hand. "I got to have my money first. You ain't done nothin' but promise for a month."

"Boy! Give me my paper. You shall have your money to-morrow," he thundered from the depths beneath the white vest.

The boy backed away, "I dassn't do it. I can't live on hot air."

With an imperial air, as if tremendous stakes hung upon the trivial incident, the great man said to Holmes: "Excuse me, Willard; I must see about this," and with a firm and determined step he left the hotel.

A hush fell upon the company of pioneers. Not one of them but would have gladly—had he dared—offered the outraged monarch the price of a paper. The King's Basin settlers were proud of Horace P.

But that night Horace P. Blanton boarded the north-bound train and was never seen in The King's Basin again. His creditors—and they are many, from the newsboy to the hotel manager, the barber, the laundry agent, the liveryman and boot-black—are still "giving him time," as he was confident that they would. The pioneers miss him sorely, but they manage to struggle along without him, living perhaps in the hope that he will some day come back.

In the silence that followed the passing of Horace P., Willard Holmes slipped away from the group of men and approached the Manager of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company, who was sitting alone with his cigar in a far corner of the room.

"Hello, old man," was Burk's greeting as the engineer approached. The thoughtful Manager of the Company had been an interested observer of his friend's reception and of the newspaper incident. As the two men shook hands the Manager's cigar shifted to one corner of his mouth and his head tipped toward the opposite shoulder. "How much did Horace P. touch you for, Willard?"

"I gave him my admiration and sympathy."

The other shook his head wonderingly. "A special providence watches over you, my son. After that, nothing could have saved your pocket- book if that kid had not been sent by your guardian angel to your rescue. When did you leave the river?"

"Last week. The S. & C. called me into the city. I'm on my way back to the work now. What's the news?"

Burk grinned. "The first train over the King's Basin Central went out this morning with a special party of distinguished citizens— Jefferson Worth, the Seer, Abe Lee and Miss Worth. The lady will spend a week or two in the town of Barba and with friends in the South Central District. Texas Joe and Pat left this morning in a rig, leading Miss Worth's saddle horse, El Capitan. It's all in The King's Basin Messenger." He handed the paper to Holmes who mechanically stuffed it into his pocket.

"How's Uncle Jim?"

"He is at the office, I think. You know he is winding up the affairs of the poor old K. B. L. and I."

"So I understand."

The two men were silent for a moment, then Burk said thoughtfully: "It's hard lines for the Company, Willard, but the mules, including your humble servant, don't seem to care much. That's one advantage in being a mule. I will be glad to get back to civilization and so will your Uncle Jim I fancy. Take it altogether I don't think he has enjoyed watching the success of Jefferson Worth's little experiments as much as we have. The same beneficent power that has knocked out the Company seems to have taken good care of friend Jeff."

"You are not going to stay in the West?" asked the engineer.

"I go Monday. I understand there is still a demand for good mules back home."

The president of the wrecked Company received his former chief engineer warmly, and heartily congratulated him on the success of his battle with the river.

"I suppose you know, Willard," he said, "that The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company has virtually passed into the hands of the S. & C.? We owe them a good half million for closing the break, which means that they will have to take over the property. We knew when we went into the deal how it would end, of course. If you had remained with the Company the river never would have had a chance to get in at all."

The younger man did not remind Mr. Greenfield of the many times the Company had been urged to make the improvements that would have prevented the disaster, nor did he suggest that he would have remained with the Company had not the president himself discharged him. "Your engineer did all that any man could do after the break was made," he said warmly. "It was the equipment and organization of the S. & C. that put the river back in its channel, and no other power on earth, under the circumstances, could have done it in time to head off that back-cut."

The older man smiled. "We all know who closed the break, my boy. I suppose you are planning to stay with the railroad?"

"They have offered me the management of the irrigation work here in the Basin. They are going to put in permanent structures and reconstruct the whole system in first-class shape."

"And you accepted?" There was a note of anxiety in the older man's voice.

"Not yet. I asked for a few days to consider."

James Greenfield did not speak for several minutes, then he said— hesitating as if searching for words: "Don't do it, Willard. Don't do it, for my sake. Let's go back home. You know how I hate this cursed country. I ought never to have gone into this deal after what I had already suffered in the West. But it looked as if I could clean up a good thing and get out. Personally, my money losses don't amount to anything. I have enough left for both of us, and you know, Willard my boy, that it's all yours when I go. Come back home with me and leave this damned hole! We don't fit in here; let's go back where we belong. I'm coming along now to the time when I must begin to think of getting out of the game; and I need you, my boy, I need you."

Willard Holmes was strongly moved by the appeal of this man for whom he had a son's affection. "I wish I could say yes, Uncle Jim," he answered. "I owe you more than I can ever repay, and if it was only the work here I would go. But—there's something else—something that I cannot give up if I would—that I have no right to give up."

"You mean that girl? I thought that was all settled."

"So did I," returned the other grimly. "When I talked with you about it I thought there was no possible chance for me, and perhaps I was right. But I can't let it go now without absolute certainty."

"You don't mean, Willard, that you are going to offer yourself to a woman whose love you have every reason to think belongs to another man?"

The engineer rose to his feet and walked up and down the room. When he spoke there was in his voice a suggestion of that which marked his speech in the days of the river fight. "I mean this: that no man on earth shall take this woman from me if I can prevent it. I would deserve to lose her if I gave her up on the mere guess that she cared for another man. I am going to know from her own words. If there is still a chance for me I am going to stay and fight for it. If I have no chance"—he dropped into a chair—"then I'll go back with you, Uncle Jim."

James Greenfield's face flushed hotly at the younger man's words and then, in the silence that followed, grew pale and stern while his fingers gripped his pencil nervously. "Very well, Willard," he said at last. "You are a man and your own master. If your love for me cannot influence you—"

"Uncle Jim!" The engineer's cry was a protest and an appeal, but the other continued as though he had not heard: "I can urge no other consideration. But you must understand this. I will never receive this nameless woman of unknown parentage as your wife. If you prefer her with that illiterate, low, cunning trickster whom she calls father, you need never expect to come back to me. I have been true to your mother in my care for you. I have done all in my power to give you the place in life that you are entitled to fill by your birth and family. You have been my son in everything but blood. But, by God, sir! if you, with your breeding and raising—if you can turn your back upon the memory of your mother and father and upon me and all that we stand for—if you can turn your back upon us, desert us for these—these damned cattle, you can herd with them the rest of your life."

He was on his feet now, pacing the floor angrily. The engineer had also risen and stood waiting for this storm of wrath to spend itself.

"Understand me," the older man continued. "If she refuses you, you can come back. If she accepts you, you need never show your face to me again, and I shall take good care that your friends at home understand the reason. Probably if you let these people know what the result will be if you are accepted it will make a great difference in the woman's answer."

Willard Holmes dared not speak. Nothing but his life-long love for the man whose devotion to the engineer's mother had stood the test of years enabled the younger man to control himself. When he could speak calmly he said: "I am sorry, sir, that you said that; for you must see how you have made it impossible for me now ever to go back with you. If Miss Worth does not care for me, I would have been glad to go home with you, for next to her, Uncle Jim, you are more to me than anyone in the world. When you say that my relation to you shall depend upon her answer you make it impossible for her answer to make any difference so far as you and I are concerned. Won't you—won't you reconsider, Uncle Jim? Won't you take back your words?"

"No, sir; I have said exactly what I mean."

"Good-by, sir."

"Good-by."

When the office door had closed behind the engineer, James Greenfield stood motionless in the center of the room. Once he took a step toward the door but checked himself. Then turning slowly, wearily, he sank into the chair before his desk. For a few moments he fumbled aimlessly over the papers and documents, then from his pocket took a flat leather case and, opening it, held in his hand a portrait of the engineer's mother. As he looked at the face of the woman who had never ceased to hold the first place in his heart, his lips framed words he could not speak aloud.

Slowly his form drooped, his head bowed. Then, with the picture held close, he buried his face in his arms among the business papers on his desk.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

OUT OF THE HOLLOW OF GOD'S HAND.

The first train from Republic to Barba over the new King's Basin Central arrived in the town by the old Dry River Crossing shortly after noon. Later in the day Jefferson Worth with his daughter, his superintendent and the Seer went to the power plant on the bank of Dry River.

When the plant was built it was placed as low in the old wash as the depth of the ancient channel would permit, so that the greatest possible fall from the Company canal above might be secured. As Jefferson Worth and his companions stood now on the bank of the river they saw the waste-way from the turbine wheel that ran the generators nearly thirty feet above the bottom of the channel. The flood that had cut the deep canyons through the heart of the Basin, destroying Kingston on its course, had worked on a smaller scale in the old Dry River wash, cutting a narrow gorge nearly fifty feet deep from its outlet at the new sea past the power plant at Barba and nearly to the spillway of the main canal.

Standing almost on the very spot where they had found the baby girl years before, the Seer asked Barbara's father: "Jeff, does your contract with The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company call for a certain amount of water, or for water to develop a certain amount of power?"

Jefferson Worth answered in his careful, exact voice: "The first contract called for water to develop a certain amount of power. This new one is a contract for three hundred inches of water. There's nothing in it about the amount of power, but it gives me the sole rights to all the power privileges on the Company property. You see, when Greenfield tried to change the line of their canal so as to cut me out, Abe and I had begun to figure that some day the water from the spillway might cut down the channel and give us a little more drop. But we never counted on this, of course. I simply figured that I might just as well make the new contract safe."

The Seer smiled. "You made it safe all right, Jeff. Do you know what this cut means to you?"

"In a way, yes. That's why I wanted you to look at it."

"It means," said the Seer, "that you have rights here worth a million dollars at least. By lowering your turbine to the bottom of this cut you can, with the same amount of water that you are now using, develop power enough to run every electric light system and turn every wheel in all The King's Basin for years to come."

"You mean that the river breaking in and doing this has made daddy's property worth a million dollars?" asked Barbara breathlessly.

The Seer turned toward her. "Yes, Barbara. The same force that destroyed Kingston and wrecked the Company has increased the value of your father's holding to fully that amount. A million is very conservative."

The young woman looked down into the gorge at their feet. Slowly she said: "The Indians must be right. This must be indeed La Palma de la Mano de Dios. Such things could happen nowhere else."

She had just finished speaking when the sound of wheels behind caused them to turn toward the desert and the old San Felipe trail. It was Texas and Pat in the buckboard with El Capitan leading behind.

Catching sight of the group on the river bank, the men turned aside from the road and went to them. "Howdy folks," drawled Tex. "We 'lowed we'd jest about meet up with you-all somewhere about here."

"Sure, 'tis a family reunion we do be havin', wid no empthy chairs at all," declared the Irishman, looking from face to face with twinkling eyes. "Well, well, who'd a thought now that the little kid we found under the bank here, shcared av the coyotes an' more shcared av us rough-necks, wud av growed up like this? An' wid me a shwearin' by all the saints I knew that I wud niver set fut on the disert again. Here we are once more altogether, wid Barbara an' Abe bigger than life. 'Tis the danged owld disert itsilf that's a-lavin' niver to come back at all." He drew the back of his huge hairy hand across his eyes.

Barbara's eyes too were wet, and the others turned away their faces. Pat's words had recalled so vividly the scene at the dry water hole with the changes that the years had brought both to them and to the desert.

It was Texas Joe who broke the silence. "Mr. Worth, Pat and I would like to see you some time this evenin' if you ain't engaged."

"What is it, Tex?" As he spoke Jefferson Worth looked straight into the eyes of the old plainsman. Texas Joe, gazing steadily into the face of his employer, drawled easily: "Jest a little matter we 'lowed maybe you'd like to know about, sir. What time shall we come?"

Something—the memories of the place, perhaps, aroused by the words of Pat a moment before—caused Jefferson Worth to lift those nervous fingers and softly caress his chin. "I guess I can go now. We're all through here." He turned to the others. "I'll go on to the hotel with Tex and Pat and you folks can come along later when you are ready."

He stepped into the buckboard and with the two drove away. At a livery barn where they stopped to leave the horses, Texas took from under the seat of the buckboard something that was wrapped in a sack that had held a feed of grain for the team and El Capitan.

When they had reached the privacy of Mr. Worth's room, the old plainsman and the Irishman stood as if each waited for the other to begin.

"Well, men," said Jefferson Worth. "What is it?"

"Go on, ye owld oysther," growled Pat to Tex. "Why the hell don't ye tell the boss what we've come to tell him. Shpake up."

Texas Joe cleared his throat and began formally: "I don't reckon, Mr. Worth, that you-all has forgot that outfit we left in them sand hills back yonder on the old San Felipe trail the time we found the kid."

At the words Jefferson Worth's face became a gray mask from behind which his mind reached out as though to grasp what Texas would say before the man put it into words. "Well?" The single word came with the colorless sound of dull metal.

"Also I reckon you know how them big drifts are allus on the move, so that when they covers up anything, say an outfit like that one, it stands to reason that some day they'll drift on an' leave it clear again."

Jefferson Worth's hands were gripping the arms of his chair. His gray lips could frame no sound.

"I've allus kind a-kept an eye on that there particular ridge," continued Texas, "an' so to-day me and Pat stopped for a little look around an'"—slowly he unwrapped the grain sack from a long tin box —"an' we found this." He laid the box carefully on the table before Barbara's father. "Hit was a-layin' with what was left of a bigger wooden box or trunk, which same had gone to pieces, and there was a part of that old wagon with that same piece of a halter-strap you remember fastened to a wheel. There ain't no sort of doubt, Mr. Worth, that hit's the same outfit an' hits mighty likely that there's papers in here that'll tell us what we tried so hard to find out at first, but what"—he paused and looked around, then finished in a low tone—"I don't reckon any of us wants to know now."

Jefferson Worth sat motionless in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the tin box.

The heavy voice of the Irishman broke the quiet.

"Av Tex wud a listened to raison, Sorr, I'd a-dumped the danged thing into the river, sayin' nothin' to nobody. Fwhat good can we do rakin' up the past that's dead an' gone? The girl is as much yers as if she was yer own flesh an' blood, an' who can say fwhat divil's own mess may come out av this thing? Lave it alone, I say; an' fwhat nobody don't know can't hurt thim. 'Twas wrong intirely to bring ut to ye afther all ye've been sich a father to the little one. Lave it to me, Sorr. Give me the word an' I'll"—he reached eagerly for the box, but Jefferson Worth held up his slim, nervous hand.

"Wait a moment, Pat. I—I don't think that would be right."

Never before had these men seen Jefferson Worth hesitate. The will of the man, whose cold decision had carried him through so many critical situations and upon which the pioneers had relied in the recent time of peril, seemed to fail him at last. The spectacle told the men more clearly than words could have done what he suffered. "I—I don't know what to do," he finished weakly. "Give me time. Let me think." He bowed his face in his hands.

Pat growled an oath under his breath and Texas turned his eyes from his companions to the box and from the box back to his friends in bewildered uncertainty. At last he said in his soft southern drawl: "Mr. Worth, hit's dead sure that me an' Pat ain't helpin' you none in this. I reckon I was all wrong to bring hit to you at all. But hit seemed like I was plumb balled up an' couldn't rightly say what was best. There ain't really no call to crowd this thing as I can see. Suppose you takes your time to think it over. Me an' Pat'll let you alone, an' if you decides to fergit all about hit, you can bet your last red we'll be damn glad to help. Nobody but us three will ever know. 'T ain't as if it was a-doin' anybody any harm."

Jefferson Worth raised his head. "Thank you boys," he said. "I'll have to figure on this thing a little."

Left alone, Jefferson Worth faced the temptation of his life. Dearer to this lonely-hearted man than all the wealth and power that he would realize from his King's Basin work was the child who had come to him out of the desert. The man knew that it was the influence of Barbara upon his life that had prepared him for that night in the sand hills and enabled him rightly to weigh and measure and value the efforts of his kind. That afternoon at the power house it had all been brought before him with startling vividness. He felt that in all that he had accomplished in Barbara's Desert he had been led by the child, who had come to him out of The Hollow of God's Hand. The desert had given her to him; he had given himself in return to the work she loved. He could not think of his work apart from her. She was his—his—his. His gray lips whispered the words as he stood looking down at the box. No one had the right to take her from him; to come into her life. And yet—and yet. He reached out and laid his hand upon the box, then, turning again, paced the room.

Suddenly he whirled about and approached the table. With cold fury he seized the box and placing it upon the floor, broke the light tin fastening with his boot-heel. Again he paused and looked dully at the thing in his hands. Then with a quick motion lie threw up the cover. The box was filled with documents and letters, with four or five old photographs.

The address on a large unsealed envelope met his eye and he started back with a low cry as though he had looked upon some startling apparition.

When Barbara with the Seer and Abe returned to the hotel that evening the clerk gave her a note from her father who, the note explained, had been called to Republic on business of importance. He would be back to-morrow.

The clerk said that Mr. Worth had left only a few minutes before with the engine and car that had brought them to Barba that morning.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

BACK TO THE OLD SAN FELIPE TRAIL.

In the office of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company, James Greenfield was aroused by a knock at the door. He lifted his head from his arms and looked around as if awakened out of a deep sleep.

Another knock, and he slipped the picture he held in his hand into his pocket and called, "Come in."

The door opened and Jefferson Worth stepped into the room.

For a moment the president of the wrecked Company sat staring at his business rival, then he leaped to his feet, his fists clenched and his face working with passion. "You can't come in here, sir. Get out!" he said with the voice and manner he would have assumed in speaking to a trespassing dog.

Jefferson Worth stood still. "I have business of importance with you, Mr. Greenfield," he said, and his air of quiet dignity contrasted strangely with the rage of the larger man.

"You can have no business with me of any sort whatever. I have nothing to do with your kind. This is my private office. I tell you to get out."

Jefferson Worth turned calmly as though to obey, but instead of leaving the room closed the door and locked it. Then, placing the small grip he carried upon the table, he deliberately went close to the threatening president and said coldly: "This is rank nonsense, Greenfield. I won't leave this office until I'm through with what I came to do. I have business with you that concerns you as much as it does me."

"You're a damned thief, a low sharper! I tell you I have nothing to do with you. Now get out or I'll throw you out!"

Jefferson Worth answered in his exact, precise manner, as though carefully choosing and considering his words: "No, you won't throw me out. You'll listen to what I have come to tell you. The rest of your statement, Greenfield, is false and you know it. It will be just as well for you not to repeat it." The last low-spoken words did not appear to be uttered as a threat but as a calm statement of a carefully considered fact. James Greenfield felt as a man who permits himself to rage against an immovable obstacle—as one who spends his strength cursing a stone wall that bars his way or a rock that lies in his path. With an effort he regained a measure of his self-control.

"Well, out with it. What do you want?"

"Sit down," said Worth, pointing to a chair. Mechanically the other obeyed. "You have no reason for taking this attitude toward me, Mr. Greenfield," began Worth with his air of simply stating a fact.

At his words the wrath of the other again mastered him. "No reason! You—you dare to tell me that? When you and the young woman that you call your daughter have come between me and the boy who is more than a son to me! When you have broken our close relationship of years' standing and robbed me of his companionship! When you have wrecked and ruined all my plans for his future! When you have defeated the object of my life! No reason? But what can you understand of us? You're a nobody, sir, without a place or a name in the world; a common, low-bred, ignorant sharper with no family but a nameless daughter of unknown parentage whom you found on the desert. How can you understand what Willard Holmes is to me?"

"I figured that you would feel this way about it," came the colorless words. "That's what I came here for to-night—to fix it up."

The angry amazement of Greenfield at what he considered the man's presumption could find no expression.

Worth continued: "I know a great deal more about you and your folks than you think. When I saw that my"—he hesitated over the word, then spoke it plainly—"my daughter was becoming interested in Willard Holmes, I took some pains to look up his history. In doing that I naturally found out a good deal about you. Later I learned a good deal more."

"It is immaterial to me what you know," muttered the other in a tone of deep disgust. "What do you want?"

Worth spoke with quiet dignity. "I want you to understand first, Mr. Greenfield, that my girl is just as much to me as young Holmes is to you. You are right; I am a nobody, ignorant and all that, but you must not think Mr. Greenfield that because you belong in New York and I belong in the West that this thing is harder for you than it is for me. You are not going to lose your boy but I"—for the first time he hesitated and his voice expressed emotion—"I am going to lose my girl."

The pathos of this lonely man's words touched even Greenfield. His manner was more gentle as he said gruffly: "It's a bad business, Mr. Worth; a damned bad business for both of us. I wish I had never heard of this country."

"You'll feel different about that. Anyway I figure that this country and this work will be here long after you and I are gone, and so will these young people." Again he hesitated and his slim fingers caressed his chin. Then from behind that gray mask he asked: "How much do you know about our finding Barbara in the desert?"

"I know the story in a general way, that's all. It does not interest me."

"Let me tell you the facts."

In his brief, colorless sentences Jefferson Worth related the incidents of that trip across the desert, and as he did so Greenfield began to realize that some powerful motive had brought this man to him and was forcing him to relate his story with such exact care for the details.

"And you never found the slightest clue even to the child's name?" he asked, when Worth had finished.

Jefferson Worth hesitated, then: "Mr. Greenfield, you had a younger brother who came West?"

The man gazed at the speaker in amazement as he answered mechanically. "Yes. He died out here somewhere—in California, I believe. I was never able to learn the details. He was an adventurous lad and a good deal of a rover. But why—how—" As the full import of the question dawned upon him Greenfield started from his seat. "My God, man! You don't mean—you cannot mean that it was my brother Will who was lost in that sandstorm on the desert? That the woman you found by the water hole was his wife, Gertrude, and that—that—" His voice sank to a whisper. "Will wrote me that there was a child—that she had Gertrude's hair and eyes. I had never seen her." He turned fiercely upon his companion. "And you have kept this from me all these years? You have kept my only brother's child from me? By God, sir! I—But perhaps this is all one of your damnable tricks. What proof have you that this is so, and if it is, why have you kept it a secret?"

Jefferson Worth opened his satchel and laid the tin box on the desk before the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company. "This box was found this afternoon by Texas Joe and Pat, who brought it to me. I opened it. It is all here."

When Greenfield had examined the contents of the box—letters, some of them written by himself to his brother, papers relating to William Greenfield's business affairs and property, and photographs of the little family and of the two brothers and their parents, he looked up to see Jefferson Worth sitting motionless, his form relaxed, his head dropped forward.



Suddenly the words of the man who had been a father to his brother's child came back to Greenfield. "My girl is just as much to me as young Holmes is to you. You are not going to lose your boy, but I am going to lose my girl." In a flash the financier saw it all—saw how Jefferson Worth loved Barbara as his own child, as Greenfield cared for Willard Holmes; saw how Worth might have destroyed the papers so strangely brought to light and kept the secret; saw and realized a little what strength of character it had taken to overcome the temptation, and felt what the man was suffering.

As Greenfield's hand fell on his shoulder, Jefferson Worth slowly lifted his head. Slowly he rose to his feet. In silence the two men faced each other. Without a word—for no word was needed-their hands met in a firm grip.

After a little while Greenfield asked eagerly: "Where is she now, Mr. Worth? Where is the girl? Does she know? I must see her at once. Come! And Willard—I wonder if he is still in town. Come, we must go to them."

But Jefferson Worth answered: "I've been figuring on that, Mr. Greenfield. You had better let me tell Barbara myself. And if I was you, after what you have probably said to Holmes on this subject, I wouldn't be in a hurry to tell him. For the sake of their future we'd better let Barbara handle that matter herself. You can easily figure it out that it will be best for them that way."



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE HERITAGE OF BARBARA WORTH.

Barbara, walking quickly, left the little village and, crossing Dry River on the bridge that now spanned the deep gorge where the old San Felipe trail once led down into the ancient wash, climbed the slight grade to the grave that was marked by the simple headstone with its one word—"Mother."

That morning Jefferson Worth had told her of the tin box found by Texas Joe and Pat. With reverent care she had read the papers and letters and had looked long at the portraits of her parents and people. She could not at first realize that the desert had at last given up the secret that she had so longed to know. It was not real to her, the revelation was so sudden, so startling. She could not think of herself save as the daughter of Jefferson Worth, whom she loved as a father.

As soon as the noon day meal was over she had left her room in the hotel, and once out of doors her steps had instinctively turned toward her mother's grave beside the old trail.

Standing before the headstone she looked at the one word. "Mother," she said softly. "Mother!" Then, still in a whisper, she repeated the unfamiliar names: "Gertrude Greenfield; William Greenfield—my mother; my father! I am Barbara Greenfield—Barbara Greenfield!"

Seating herself on the ground beside the grave, she looked about: at the sand hills in the distance; at the Dry River gorge and the power plant; at the canals shining like silver bands among the green fields of the ranchers to the southeast; and at the little town. An hour passed; then another; and another.

Across the river she saw Pablo riding out of the town and away along the road that follows the canal. Then from the power house came Abe Lee with the Seer. She watched them as they walked along the bank of the old channel. Once she thought she would call to them, but hesitated. If they crossed the bridge and came up the hill they would be sure to see her. So she waited, keeping still. They passed the bridge and continued on down the bank of the stream.