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Show i ' .. . . .. ". Ol icj o o g . . . By Peter B. Kync ... g Q W.VD Srv1c. Copyrleht. bj Peter B. Kyn. Q ol CHAPTER XII The board of supervisors granted the petition unanimously unci amidst cheers and rejoicings. Bubson's upcer In rebuttal to Gagau'a, proved to be i he masterpiece of his career, lie read to the meeting the law under which the district proposed to operate read It right out pf t tie Code of Civil I'rocedure, too and pooh-pooed the Meu of a slick metropolitan lawyer trying to frighten honest and Intelll-t'ent Intelll-t'ent men with crazy bugaboos of unconstitutional un-constitutional law that was and for eoine years bail been embodied In the code. "If this law was unconstitutional," unconstitu-tional," be yelled, "it's unconstitutionality unconstitu-tionality would have been discovered before the bill was even submitted to the legislature; and If It hadn't been discovered then the legislature, a majority ma-jority of whom are practicing attorneys, attor-neys, would have discovered it; and even If the legislature bad, unbelievably, unbeliev-ably, failed to discover It, the supreme court, whose duty It Is to pass upon tho constitutionality of our stale laws, would long since have discovered It. J'ooh-pooh and a couple of what-nots for the mighty Mr. Gagan! We are not to be frightened by men of straw." The project moved forward without delay. Sixty days from the date of the approval of the petition by the board of supervisors the Forlorn Valley Val-ley Irrigation district had come Into legal existence, by a very substantial majority of the residents in the area to be Irrigated. Silas ISabson, tired, but happy and triumphant, was Its president, Henry Uookby, who owned ten acres in the district, was the secretary, secre-tary, and the Rank of Valley Center was the depositary of the funds of the district. , Within two weeks after the district Iiad come Into ollicial being, the state water commission obligingly allocated to it the Hood waters of Eden Valley creek. A bond Issue was got out within with-in a week; within two weeks the slate board certification committee had certilled the bonds as legal Investment Invest-ment for trust companies and savings batiks and, by unanimous vote. Silas I'.abson was given the Job of disposing dispos-ing of them to the highest bidder. A iN'ew York bouse wired In a bid of ninety-one, n-nd after devoting a month to the task Babson decided this offer was one point higher than he could se-rure se-rure locally, so the district closed on the otter and, with the receipt of the money, proceeded at once to spend it. Although Babson took measures to apprize himself of the return of Nate Tichenor to Eden Valley, his scouts brought him no news of the latter's arrival, ar-rival, although as a matter of fact Tichenor had returned some four months after his departure. lie came In over the mountains to the south In a four-passenger cabin plane and landed In the meadow just below the Kershaw ranch-house. I.orry was In his arms before he was half way up to the house. "Well, I'm all cleaned up In the East," he told her. "How far have you progressed in the settlement of your father's estate?" "All ready to close as soon as I can find the money to pay the state and federal estate taxes. They aren't nearly so much as I had feared they would be. The cattle, of course, were appraised at the low price existing on Mm "Dear Little Outlaw, I Love You So," He Murmured, and Kissed Her a Dozen Times. the day of father's death and beef Is up to nine and a half in the ranch now and should be twelve cents within a year, I'm told by my cattle brokers. And the federal tax appraiser decided the land has been greatly depressed In value by reason of the diversion of the water to Forlorn Valley." "That's a favor Babson didn't realize he was going to do you. Is everything on the ranch running smoothly? Nothing Noth-ing coming up that Kobe Tenney can't attend to?" She nodded. "As soon as beef goes to ten cents I'll sell five thousand fat slier.;, pay the taxes and close the '-'aie." ' ''t. Hold them over till spring '-n cents maybe. I'll loan you the money to pay the taxes. Mow soon can you marry me?" "In about three minutes, If we had a license anil a preacher handy." He glanced up at the sun. "Justice, long delayed, maketh the heart sick," he orated. "Likewise marriage after you've made up your mind. You skip right Into the house, climb Into your Sunday dress, throw a few things In your old straw suitcase and meet me here In ten minutes. We've Just about got time to get over the mountains moun-tains and Into Iteno before dark. In California we have to announce our Intention to get married and then wait for three days, In case we decide to change our mind. My mind Is made up, so we'll take our trade to Nevada and avoid annoying delays." "You're a man after my own heart," Lorry cried Joyously, and came Into his arms. Ue held her close, his finger fin-ger under her chin, tip-tilting her sweet face toward him, the while he appraised ap-praised her hungrily, comparing her with the girls of her age In the world he had known before the homing Instinct In-stinct had brought him back to Eden Valley. lie thanked God she wasn't soft, that she had high courage, Initiative, Initia-tive, and the power of Instantaneous decision In an emergency; that hers was the old, fierce, unquestioning loyalty loy-alty that was his own heritage. A man could rely on her always (he told himself), him-self), know always exactly where she stood. She was Incapable of fibs, evasions, or the tears that camouflage little feminine deceits. Her code was a masculine one, but of a quality rare enough In this decadent generation the code of a gallant gentleman, plus that of the very finest of her owd sex. Yes, she had character, courage, humor, hu-mor, self-reliance, capabilities of extreme ex-treme self sacrifice, tenderness, helplessness help-lessness an angel with a touch of the devil In her. . . . Well, better a touch of the devil than a trace of the cat. "Dear little outlaw, I love you so," he murmured, and kissed her a dozen times. "Make It snappy. Time and visibility wait for no pilot." Half an hour later, as they roared upward In great spirals to gain altitude alti-tude before crossing the mountains, they looked down on Eden Valley; to that tragic creek winding its silvery way through the green meadows, to the little black dots that were Lorry's cattle and the little white dots that were the home-made headstones, chiseled chis-eled from native granite and marking the graves of all the Hensleys and Kershaws that had gone before. "I wonder what they're thinking of up yonder?" the girl shouted In hi." ear. He pretended he did not understand her. "I've been so busy I couldn't get started on that new house I planned," he shouted back, "but we'll tackle It the minute we get back." So she knew he had, at last, left his dead and his old bitter memories behind be-hind him ; and there, above Eden Valley, Val-ley, as her little hard, calloused, capable capa-ble hand closed over his, she dropped hers also; she shed happy tears in the knowledge that never again would hard work,- penury and loneliness be her portion. The sun was setting on Eden now, but when, for them, It should rise again on Eden, the serpent would be gone. In June of 11)27 the news spread through Forlorn Valley of the return of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Tichenor to Eden Valley. Shortly thereafter huge trucks laden with lumber and building build-ing materials came through Valley Center Cen-ter from Gold Run, bound for the old Circle K ranch. Immediately Crenshaw, Cren-shaw, the manager of the Valley Center Cen-ter lumber yard, motored up to the Circle K to see Nate Tichenor and ask for a share of this new business. He had been received courteously and told that no orders for lumber or building build-ing material could be given him because be-cause Silas Babson was one of his heaviest stockholders. When Crenshaw returned to Valley Center he informed the local chamber MCuKMMflHU of commerce of the projected outlay of a great deal of money in Eden Valley. Val-ley. Nate Tichenor and bis wife had merged their ranches, the old Bar H headquarters were to be razed and the old Circle K log ranch-house was to be given over to Rube Tenney and his family, after the Tichenors had erected on the Circle K a country home that was to cost not less than a hundred thousand dollars. There were stables and kennels to be erected also, grounds to be laid out and flowers planted. The lunatic Tichenor was -even going to build a nine-hole golf course and a huge swimming pool. Crenshaw thought that the payroll for labor necessitated In these operations should go to Valley Center, so the vice president of the chamber of commerce called upon Tichenor to suggest it. "Forlorn Valley In general and Valley Val-ley Center In particular wishes to forget for-get the past and be friendly with you, Mr. Tichenor," he stated. "As proof of that feeling I call your attention to the fact that we gave you the use of the freshet waters of Eden Valley creek this spring when we found we couldn't use them ourselves, owing to the necessity for concreting our diversion di-version canal. We didn't have to do that, but we desired to make a friendly friend-ly gesture." "My dear man, 1 ordered those floodgates flood-gates opened myself and I had men guarding them with rifles so that nobody no-body would close them until our lands had had their annual soaking. That's the sort of frieudly gesture I made to Forlorn Valley. I was on my honeymoon honey-moon at the time and didn't want to bother with the law, so I Just went back to the old Eden Valley custom. It worked. And I'll engage no labor from Valley Center or Forlorn Valley. I do not like anybody in that section sec-tion of the county. And here's another message you can take back with you ; within two years I'll own every acre of Forlorn Valley that is Included in the irrigation district; I'll fence it and run cattle over it. At least the wells will supply drinking water for my cattle. And when the farmers In the district have been dispossessed there will be no further necessity for the thriving town of Valley Center, so It and Its chamber of commerce will disappear; dis-appear; Valley Center will then be a ghost town, Inhabited by ghosts." The vice president of the chamber of commerce was irritated but he was also amused. "Is there no way In which we can escape this horrible fate that awaits us?" he pleaded in mock distress. "Yes, there is," Tichenor replied seriously. "Get rid of that buzzard, Babson, and start doing your own thinking. Show an inclination to be fair and I'll meet you two-thirds of the way toward an amicable adjustment of this water war. Continue to permit Babson and his paid newspaper to print lies about us and ridicule us, and I'll smash you. And after I've smashed you 111 buy up the pieces and own the district. I tell you, when I get through with the state of California Cali-fornia that state will be out of the business of giving away water it does not own and that document Babson got from the state water commission will be perfectly worthless." His visitor gazed upon Tichenor humorously. hu-morously. "What a long tail our cat's got," he murmured. "Oh, I'm only a common little bobcat bob-cat now," Tichenor replied easily. "Wait until I develop into a tiger and then watch my tail swish I" CHAPTER XIII The Forlorn Valley Irrigation district dis-trict proceeded at once to the task of concreting Its huge diversion canal. The job was completed by November first. Almost from the beginning the diversion canal ran half full and Lake Babson commenced to take form. The snowfall was unusually , heavy that year also, but spring came early and I the run-off due to the melting snow 1 commenced about the middle of January. Jan-uary. This was the season of overflow In Eden Valley creek, the season of God's gift of free Irrigation to the Circle K an? the Bar H, and Nate Tichenor, watching the water's rise, knew that In another twenty-four hours the freshet would be on, so he and Rube Tenney and half a dozen armed men opened the floodgates, In defiance of the ditch-tender's protest and the flood roared on down Eden Valley. The ditch-tender Immediately mounted 1:1s horse and rode down to Valley Center to report this act of vandalism to Silas Babson, who mt:red Into Gold Run and, as president of the Forlorn For-lorn Valley Irrigation district, petitioned peti-tioned the judge of the county superior court for an order restraining Nathan Tichenor, et al., from Interfering with the orderly diversion of the flood waters wa-ters of Eden Valley creek to the canal of the Forlorn Valley Irrigation district. dis-trict. To Babsou's vast amazement the Judge declined to Issue the restraining restrain-ing order. "I hold, . Babson," he Informed In-formed the latter, "that the law under which the state water commission has been empowered to allocate to non-rlparlan non-rlparlan owners the flood or waste waters wa-ters of riparian owners, Is unconstitu- "If You Do You'll Go to the Pen," Babson Warned. tlonal and that, hence, Forlorn Valley has no legal right to the flood water of Eden Valley creek." "Why hasn't our Supreme court declared de-clared the law unconstitutional?" "Because nobody has carried a water wa-ter fight up to the Supreme court." A week had gone by since Nate Tichenor and his men had opened the flood-gates up in the Handle and as yet Babson had not been able to secure se-cure legal relief. Upon his return to Gold Run, therefore, he called upon the sheriff of the county and requested that official to take half a dozen of his deputies and guard the employees of the Forlorn Valley Irrigation district against attack by Nathan Tichenor et al. when the former closed the floodgates flood-gates in defiance of Tlchenor's dictum. dic-tum. In the interest of peace the sheriff consented and the following day the gates were closed without Interference In-terference from Nate Tichenor and his men. Indeed, not one of them appeared ap-peared to protest the closing of the gates. The next morning Nate Tichenor dropped in at the Bank of Valley Center Cen-ter and said to Babson : "I merely dropped in to tell you, Babson, Bab-son, that while you were scurrying around a whole week seeking an Injunction In-junction against my wife and me you couldn't get, our lands had a grand soaking from that week's overflow. We would have liked another week of It, but when you brought the sheriff and his deputies around I concluded It was the part of wisdom to be satis-fled satis-fled with the water we had already received. But as summer advances I warn you we'll have to have our legal share of that water and If we do not get it I'm going to put a couple ol hundred pounds of dynamite under that concrete diversion dam of yours and blow It out" "If you do you'll go to the pen," Babson warned. "Only my kind forbearance has kepi you out of it Do not forget Pitt River Charley. You do not know where he is but I do. 1 may bring him back to testify against you." "You couldn't convict me." "Perhaps not, but I can shake public confidence In you. you smug hypocrite. You realize, of course, that when the Forlorn Valley Irrigation district was formed and a deed of trust on all of the lands embraced In the district was given, with a San Francisco trust company com-pany as trustee, to secure the bond issue the district floated, all of the first mortgages and deeds of trust on lauds within the district given to your bank to secure prior loans have now become second liens against those lands. You realize, do you. that it the Forlorn Valley Irrigation distrio should go bust the foreclosure of tlit deed of trust given by the district lf automatically wipe out the secocr liens held by your hank'' TO BE CO.NTINIED. |