OCR Text |
Show the Water Bearer ' By J. ALLAN DUNN Author of "A MAN TO HIS MATE" "RIMROCK TRAIL" By Dodd, Mead tc Co. W.VU Service valley and he crossed the bridge and started up Hermanos creek with his shoulders squared and his Jaw set. Nothing was going to prevent him getting get-ting an audience with Clinton. He had certain things to set forth and, stormy though that Interview would probably be in the beginning, he would let himself him-self hold no doubt as to Its favorable conclusion. CHAPTER XII On the Bridge It was a five mile walk to the canyon head, another mile to the ranch. In Caleb's condition the distance, both ways, meant little. He knew the dining din-ing hour at El Nido. It was five when he set out and this should bring him to the junction of valley and canyon In the early evening. A pipe to top off his cold supper and he would arrive at the ranchhouse soon after the Clinton Clin-ton meal was over. So he would stand the hest chance of finding both Betty and her father at home, would be apt to find Clinton In congenial mood. The darkness deepened to premature nightfall as Caleb reached mid-canyon. The trail was dim and water, racing down the canyon sides from the storm, had rendered the track slimy and treacherous, slackening up his pace. He filled his pipe and lit It. Before the bowl was glowing evenly there came a moan from the south, the houghs above him creaked and bent protestingly and the breeze blew chilly down the trail. Leaves and twigs came fluttering down in the dusk. Caleb put on his slicker. Thick though the leafy screen above him was, he felt sure that a heavy downpour down-pour was Imminent. The first drops of It spatted heavily on the green thatch before he had gone a hundred CHAPTER XI Continued 17 Caleb was still bitter enough himself him-self to feel scant sympathy with Barter's Bar-ter's condition, serious as fields considered con-sidered It to be. Baxter hadn't been drunk when he went to Hermanos valley val-ley to talk with Belty and her father. 1 Hinckley was waiting for him at the Ferry building. The engineer had man-n;vd man-n;vd to subtly but completely disguise lil nisei f. In old, baggy tweeds, with a h ibby hat and a battered bag, he lo..lied like an unsuccessful farmer. The keenness of his eyes was dimmed b.v j cllow-lensed spectacles wllh linl-tniicn linl-tniicn tortoise shell rims. He looked irnvlngly at Caleb's rough clothes. 'Mutt's the Idea. No sense In us lo k'ng like tourists or In any way jii 'isnerous or otherwise obtrusive. I'm fairly well known over there, too, and. If It got out I was smelling around the hi; I, the price of real estate would he upt to soar Immediately. There Is always al-ways fhe chance of Oakville learning something and suspecting more. "There's a big lot of watershed we'll have to accumulate to Insure purity. And you've got to be canny. Your role Is that of a foolish young Easterner Willi money on whom land worth comparatively com-paratively little may be unloaded at a f:ilr price. A price they will think big until the project is complete. "It's fair enough all round," he went on. "We'll pay 'em more than market value because at present there Is no actual market for their land, hasn't been for years, not likely to be. The bout's In." Through the waiting room windows they could see the trans-bay passengers passen-gers filing past to the exits. Caleb, re-biased re-biased from attention to Hinckley's talk they had stood apart from the crowd suddenly caught his breath. Less than ten feet from him, in front, were Betty Clinton and her father. They were going back to El Nido That was evident and it suited Cnlen. Before Be-fore he returned to Golden he could carry out his Intention of seeing them. Baxter could wait. So he dallied until Clinton's spare figure found a way through the thinning crowd that tailed onto the Ferry apron and, with Betty following, climbed the stairs to the upper deck. Hinckley went forward to the open end with Caleb. They were among the first off the ferry, first through the gates to their train. Hinckley and Caleb took rooms at the same hotel that Caleb had patronized. patron-ized. Part of their trip was to be made In a car shabby enough to preclude pre-clude any Idea of wealth for its occupants, occu-pants, part In a buggy, on horseback, and afoot. Caleb took the lead and conducted Hinckley up Hermanos canyon, Into the Boca-Blanca valley, to the source of Gabilan and around about the Sink Itself. The third day was given up to fin Inspection of the foothills that bound the Sink and a checking-up of Caleb's demonstrations in proof of the clay that underlay the gravel and lined its sides. "I am entirely satisfied, so far," said Hinckley when they returned to their hotel after this last trip. "This is Saturday. I'd like to call a halt until Monday. I always aim at spending the week-end In the bosom of my family. If I can compass It. We have done famously. I can confirm your findings with enthusiasm, my son." Hinckley nodded at the1 young man with a smile that radiated health and good nature. They had got along wonderfully won-derfully in their common interest in a project that promised full success. "Coin' to leave us?" The landlord of the hotel came out upon the verandah ver-andah where Caleb and Hinckley were chatting. Rain had fallen heavily and held them indoors to check over the notes and maps they had made. Now It was clearing up. "I'm going to Golden on the four-ten," four-ten," said Hinckley. "Be back Monday. Mon-day. Mr. Warner are you coming wdth me, Warner?" "1 think not. I'll do a little fishing. Maybe take a shot at those quail we saw on Gabilan. You'll find me here waiting for you." "Cloudburst up country," said the hotelkeeper. "This here local rain was the tag of It. Crick's risin' fast. Black as sin over Gabilan. She's a weather-breeder. Is that old mountain. Power of current comin' down stream after this little spat of weather." "Let's go out and have a look," suggested sug-gested Hinckley. Coyote creek had risen, was rising, in a volume that testified to the truth of the landlord's assertion that there had been a cloudburst. He accompanied accom-panied them to the bridge, scorning :miv waterproof for the now swif'.lv I light before he crossed the gut and I struck the ridge trail down to El Nido. By the time he had finished eating, a tremulous light above the western ridge proclaimed imminent moonrise and the efforts of the luminary to conquer con-quer the already retreating masses of cloud in their disorderly flight. Caleb stepped onto the bridge cautiously, cau-tiously, either hand on the guide-rope of steel wire, held up by Iron stanchions stan-chions that were bolted through the floor planks. The structure shuddered shud-dered under his tread as he felt his way along. Suddenly the rhythm of its trembling changed and became so Irregular as to force him to a standstill. stand-still. The jolting Increased. Some one else was on the bridge, coming from the valley side. Was It Padilla? t He held his ground. The boards were not wide enough to permit of two passing breast to breast. They would have to sidle about each other. If it was Padilla and the Mexican wanted to dispute the crossing, there would be trouble. Caleb was not going go-ing to turn back, ne hesitated whether wheth-er to call out as the other came on, his tread sounding distinctly. Then the moon suddenly broke through its veil and sent a transient ray into the mouth of the gorge. Out of the dark, as If a spotlight had been projected against a black curtain, staring at Caleb while he stared back, leaped the face of Ted Baxter ; the features incredulous at first, swiftly changing, before the light failed, to a sneering, taunting mask. His voice sounded out of the dark as the light vanished. "What the devil are you doing up here?" The query held a scornful emphasis that aroused in Caleb such a swift, consuming hatred in answer to the challenge, as he had never known himself capable of. This man, within reach, once his friend, had done him treacherous injury. Now was the time to strike a balance. "I've been- looking for you, Baxter," he said. "Though I didn't exactly expect ex-pect to meet you here. I know everything every-thing you've done. It's opened my eyes. I had an idea that you were fairly decent, that you possessed at least some remnants of honor, some rags of friendship. You haven't got any more principles than a yellow cur. You ..." "I haven't, eh?" broke in Baxter. The moon came glimmering through again. "Because I've bested you in a business deal where you thought you were so almighty smart, you get sore ! You went sneaking around yourself, trading on friendship and pretending-to pretending-to make love to a girl, so that you could find out what you wanted about Hermanos valley and then have it condemned for a reservoir. You talking talk-ing about honor! You tried to hoodwink hood-wink Clinton and I found it out and saved him. Rags of friendship? You pretended to be my best friend and, when it came to a shbw7down, you lied to me and said you didn't have any money. Why? Because you lacked the backbone to come out and say so, because you were so d d Yankee, afraid you might lose a penny." A lurch of the bridge, a sudden wrench. A chilly wave slopped over the boards. It flowed about the ankles of both of them. Caleb stood with one hand free, the other on the hand-rope, hand-rope, balancing himself, whipped to fury by each word of Baxter. But he did not interrupt him. He was waiting wait-ing for the light to get stronger. He could see the other but dimly, his face thrust forward, shooting out his words, trying to make them sting deeper. "That was business and I got the best of you. To h 1 with all that! That isn't what you're sore about. It's because I've cut you out with the girl. Why don't you own up to it?" Baxted laughed mockingly. "You don't suppose, you poor boob, that she would ever look twice at a man like you as a lover. You've got diluted maple sirup In your veins. She's got blood, red, hot ! I kissed her less than half an hour ago. I " Fury overmastered Caleb. Baxter had touched the sensitive core of the whole matter Betty Clinton! He leaped for his man and felt the well-almed, well-almed, smashing impact of Baxter's fists to neck and jaw as he himself drove hard to the body. But the straight punch that nearly found the fatal "point" jolted him badly and left him dizzy. He grappled to a clinch as the moon sailed out, wading through a shallow sea of spindrift clouds. (TO BE CONTINUED.) mi 'hiHiS He Filled His Pipe and Lit It. yards. Then, suddenly, effectively, as if the bottom of some aerial cistern had given away, the rain drove down, beating through the trees in vertical lines, plumping into the swollen creek, hissing in continuous spouts that flattened flat-tened thickets and pitted the soft soil, rattling on Caleb's oilskin like a discharge dis-charge of small shot, with force enough to be distinctly felt. There was little actual danger. Caleb could easily scramble through the brush to immunity at any moment. And he pushed on. He could see the path fairly well though this was the twilight, hastened by the still overcast over-cast sky. He trudged on at the best pace he could muster over the slippery slip-pery red soil but, when he came to the final bend, the neck of the bottle, It was so dark that he could only make out the suspension bridge by Its silhouette where It crossed the gut of surging torrent, close to the footboards. foot-boards. Soon it would be over It. Caleb doubted whether the bridge would stand any great resistance to water pressure. He remembered fissures fis-sures in the rocky buttresses where the cables were anchored, fissures ever widened anil deepened by successive suc-cessive winter assaults of storm waters. wa-ters. He was hungry and he decided to eat his supper and wait for moon- f:.!ling rainfall and the three leaned ovrr the rail and watched the sliding torrent of brown water. Caleb marked the waterline on the cement of the bridge abutments, noting it by certain -ti'.i:is in the cement. It was covered within five minutes by as many inches. "Rising fast," he commented. ' She'll rise for an hour or so after t!i::t bust," said the landlord, "She comes a kiyootin' an' a tootin' in the winter when Gabby gets to niakin' rain In earnest." CaU't. saw Hinckley off. Then he ordered a lunch put up. Tin; landlord made little comment as he handed it to 1 j T 1 1 1 . "If you aim to be out late you better bet-ter take H slicker along," Ik? said. ''By the feel of the air an' my rheumatic krieo, old Cabby ain't through yit. Likely to be another cloudbu'st afore rundown. Black as the inside of yore hat over thar." Caleb thanked him and took his ud-,vic. ud-,vic. He wuu bound for llenminos |