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Show Tfte Water Bearer ' By J. ALLAN DUNN Author o "A MAN TO HIS MATE" "RIMROCK TRAIL" By Dodd. Mead Ic Co. WNU Service tall, thick mantle of wild-grape, flung over the arms of the trees. In front, between house and stream, 1 there was a smoking pit straddled by an Iron grid on which two swarthy men were turning joints of meat from which came the smell that had loosened loos-ened all the spigots of Caleb's gastric economy. One of them looked up. Caleb had no time to disappear. No wish, once the mutual recognition had been made. The cook, el cocinero, was Luis Padiila. The swinging screen of grapevine parted and two people came through, Betty Clinton in her riding togs and an upstanding young man in riding breeches, puttees and a shirt of silken tan, with a tan-colored stock about his neck. A tall, good-looking chap with a clipped yellow mustache and brown eyes, good teeth displayed in a hearty laugh, generally genial and eminently well pleased with things in general. The girl was laughing, too, laughing so heartily in silvery carillons that she stopped from sheer lack of breath and then, regaining somewhat of gravT ity and lung power, called to Luis : "What Is it, Luis?" "Senorita, eet eez el Senor Warner." "Discovered, upstage, center, peering peer-ing through the postern," said Caleb as he came out in response to the girl's ' instant and cordial greeting. "You are just in time. Did you come on foot? How did you know we were here? Mr. Warner' Mr. Thurston." Thurs-ton." The two shook hands while Warner explained the accidental happening of his arrival. Betty Clinton was giving some directions to Padiila and his assistant. "Come on," she said, "and meet the rest. Dad's here. This is mv annual i Bits of the talk, allusions, chaffing remarks, together with little summaries summa-ries supplied him by Betty Clinton, soon put Caleb in possession of surface sur-face information concerning the members mem-bers of the party. Thurston had been a bank clerk, losing los-ing his position in the merger of banking bank-ing interests. But he had possessed sound commercial faculties and, backed to some extent by his uncle, he had started raisin growing In the Fresno valley. Now he owned hundreds hun-dreds of acres and was rated almost a millionaire, soon to pass that mark. Henry Yedder was editor of the Pioneer, Pio-neer, a weekly published In Golden, of recognized literary merit. His wife had a leaning toward modern esthetics, esthet-ics, extending to her gown and her mode of hairdressing. She apparently apparent-ly saw nothing except through the medium of her husband and she hung on his every word in the attitude of one who eagerly waits the opportunity opportu-nity to encore the performance of a favorite dramatist. George Brompton was an artist who specialized in mural work. He was the most diffident of all the company, com-pany, with an especial shyness toward Carmen Wilson, which that vivacious personage did not appear to regard as the kind of tribute to her charms that she preferred. Thurston and Betty Clinton had ridden down Hermanos canyon to the picnic on horseback. The rest had come in a buckboard, by the longer road, a wagon preceding with the materials ma-terials for the barbecue. Luis Padiila had come mounted. The vehicles and the horses were stowed in the old barns. The whole party was returning return-ing to El Nido in the early evening, where Maria was now preparing a fitting dinner for the fiesta of her young senorita's birthday. "You are to come, too," she insisted to Caleb. "And stay over tomorrow. I am not to be denied anything today and I make that an order. You need not feel that you are crowding or were not included in the original Invitation. In-vitation. There is lots of room. "You have made it an order," said Caleb. "That settles it." Here again was a different side to the girl, he thought, as he listened to her lighthearted talk, admiring her quick wit. He caught himself watching watch-ing her closely whenever she laughed. The inside of her mouth was as pink as a kitten's and she laughed without reserve, so that one caught a gleam of even rows of teeth that needed no dentist, backed by the rosy glow of health. Caleb eDjoyed himself thoroughly, the food, the company, the talk and the shady spot beside the stream. After tne meal, Betty Clinton proposed pro-posed an excursion. Vedder claimed to have had an inspiration for a poem and said that he was going to try to put it on paper in the old garden. His wife was no more to be detached from him than a limpet from a rock. Clinton Clin-ton himself made the excuse that he was not feeling especially energetic. "Then Mr. Brompton must stay to keep you company," announced Carmen. Car-men. "Y'ou and Mr. Clinton can discuss dis-cuss that pioneer panel. Mr. Brompton," Bromp-ton," she went on to Caleb, while Brompton smilingly acquiesced in the arrangement, though the smile was as wan and lacking in warmth as a winter sun, "is working on a set of panels for Judge Hemingway's new house. They are to represent California, Cali-fornia, past, present and future. And Mr. Clinton is brim full of pioneer lore, aren't you, Mr. Clinton?" It was obvious that Carmen Wilson Intended to make the trip to the lookout look-out a foursome. Clinton smothered a smile. Brompton seemed to be used to this sort of thing and the four started. They were less than half way when Betty Clinton suddenly missed her camera. "I have been intending to take a photograph of that view for two years," she exclaimed. "The light Is wonderful. Wendell, you'll get it for me, won't you? We'll wait here. It's in the buckboard under the seat." Thurston went swinging off on his errand and the three sat down to be comfortable until his return. The change of scene seemed to have put Betty Clinton in more serious mood. "Have you found your opening yet?" she asked Caleb. It looks as if Carmen Wilson intends to capture Caleb. Does ! Betty care? j (TO BE CONTINUED I few. r . p-- " j THE PICNIC SYNOPSIS Idly fishing- Hermanos Her-manos creek, In California, Caleb Warner, civil engineer and a New Kiifeiander, is witness of the end of a coyotte pulled down by two wolfhounds, urged on by a eirl rider. Admiring the hounds, he Introduces himself, and learns her name Is Clinton. With western west-ern hospitality she invites him to the ranch to meet her father. At the Clinton home Warner learns his new friend's name Is Betty-He Betty-He Is welcomed by her father, Southern Civil war veteran and owner of Hermanos valley. He tells them something of his ambitions am-bitions and his feeling that he is destined to be a "Water-Bearer." In the town of Golden Warner shares an apartment with his old Columbia college chum, Ted Baxter, Bax-ter, carefree and somewhat dissipated dissi-pated youth, only child of his widowed mother, who controls the fair.iiy fortune. At a club luncheon Baxter introduces Caleb to Wilbur Cox, leading business man and president of the water company" which supplies the needs of Golden. He gives Cox an Inkling of his ambitions, and Cox, impressed, invites him to dinner that night. During dinner Cox asks Caleb to call at his office next day. He does so and Cox arranges a meeting between Caleb and Hinckley, the water company's chief engineer. Baxter tells Caleb he is in difficulties with a girl, Mary Morgan, Cox's stenographer, who insists he must marry her. With Hinckley, Caleb looks over the water company's com-pany's source of supply, the Crystal springs, In Hermanos valley. Prospecting in Hermanos valley, Caleb meets a man, Evans, who boasts of his ability, through "divining rods," to locate water without boring. CHAPTER VI Continued "But it ain't no good," he said, suddenly sud-denly disconsolate. , "'Cause why? What's the good of water 'less you can use it? The sile here ain't thick enough to put dirt in yore fingernails. It wouldn't grow a radish. An' the wells wouldn't be artesian. They'd have to have windmills to work 'em. And, as I said, they ain't no sile. Seems like a plumb bit qf foolishness to put water where It ain't no manner o' use, don't it?" "Have another cigar," said Caleb. "Where do you suppose all the water comes from?" The Welshman looked at him pityingly. pity-ingly. "You fish that stream an' you'll see. This is Caliente sink. The stream runs into it like dishwater goes down the drain. Wish you luck, mister. An' thanks for the smokes. Some day, if you come this way, an' I'm feelin' better, I'll give you a demonstration. I'll be glad to see you any time. Kinder lonesome here in this oven, but it's baking me back to health." Caleb went on upstream in a maze. It seemed, though his Yankee mind affected to scoff at the suggestion while It considered it, as if he had come into close touch with mystery. He fingered the emblem on his seal and smiled. Had the sign of the zodiac, zo-diac, Aquarius, really charged him with destiny, leading him along the trail to be the Water-Bearer to the frontier city of the sands? Half a mile up the canyon from where the gravel road branched off, an arroyo entered from the east through a bench that was thick-furred thick-furred with underbrush of desert species. spe-cies. Only a trickle of water was in the almost dry watercourse, barely lasting to mingle with Hermanos creek. The place was wild enough, and silent. si-lent. A grass-grown road chose either . bank at random, fording the creek at frequent Intervals. He found stones to keep his feet dry as he crossed. Up the road he began to come across evidences of an abandoned ran-cherla. ran-cherla. There was little left but the roots and a scattering of tentative tendrils, scantily leaved. He passed a corral, no longer tenable, a lean-to shed without a roof, a leaking flume, a tumbledown wall of stone, and then he became aware that he was walking walk-ing through what had been once a garden, a stately garden, still with a certain dignity. The garden had attracted him unconsciously un-consciously and he had left the half-obliterated half-obliterated road. He did not go back to It but wandered on to the house that rose above the cypress guard. Caleb's footsteps rang hollowly as he passed over the flags and glanced in through where a door had failed as warder, lie was beginning to people the place with such ghosts as he imagined imag-ined should represent the former occupants oc-cupants when he heard the high, clear sound of laughter at the very instant that his nostrils conveyed to his nerves of smell, thence to palate and to stomach so that his mouth watered wa-tered and his appetite proclaimed Itiiolf with no uncertainty the smell of broiling meat. His hope of something from a ranch larder, a glass of milk, a piece of cake or pie. if nothing more substantial, had died with sight of the descried house. The tracks lie had been trailing trail-ing must lead too far for him to follow fol-low uncertainly.. And now be had blundered on to a picnic a California picnic which means a barbecue. Caleb's stomach yearned, rose in revolt re-volt against his manners and so far won that ho ventured to the outer door of the arch ami peered through. The laughter had ended but he could triir the chatter d' young voice, men una women, hidden somewhere down by the stream that had wheeled to flow In front of the old house and pparkled thro igh the interstices of a She Took Possession of Him. picnic and barbecue. Birthday festivity, fes-tivity, you know." She took possession of him. The man named Thurston lagged behind as they broke through the vines and looked down upon a level bank of turf, fringed with ferns, just above the level of the creek. Two girls and an older woman were aiding and directing direct-ing the laying of a table by two men. Clinton himself sat apart, back to the bole of a tree, smoking. He rose as Caleb came into view and the rest looked up. "I'll make the Introduction general," said Betty Clinton. "You can all make it personal later. This is Mr. Caleb Warner. I think I've mentioned him to all of you. And these are Carmen Wilson" she indicated a girl with black eyes, in a white dress, wearing a scarlet beret so vivid that its outline out-line was fuzzy with radiance; "Mrs. Henry Vedder, Henry Vedder and George Brompton. The meat is barbecued. bar-becued. The enchiladas are at the height of their excellence. Be seated. Dad, you at the other end. Mr. Warner, War-ner, next to me, at my right. All right, l'adilla, bring on the carne. I hope you brought an appetite with you, Mr. Warner. Carmen, pass the enchiladas. Frijoles, if you like them better. They are our substitute for Boston beans, you know. And the salsa, Mr. Brompton." The meal was all animation. Good viands, good nature and a general bubbling over of high spirits. |