Terror seized Dicksie. She telephoned in her distress for Marion, begging her to come up before they should all be swept away; and Marion, turning the shop over to Katie Dancing, got into the ranch-wagon that Dicksie had sent and started for the Crawling Stone. The confusion along the river road as the wagon approached the ranch showed Marion the seriousness of the situation. Settlers driven from their homes in the upper valley formed almost a procession of misery-stricken people, making their way on horseback, on foot, and in wagons toward Medicine Bend. With them they were bringing all they had saved from the flood––the little bunch of cows, the wagonload of hogs, the household effects, the ponies––as if war or pestilence had struck the valley.
At noon Marion arrived. The ranch-house was deserted, and the men were all at the river. Puss stuck her head out of the kitchen window, and Dicksie ran out and threw herself into Marion’s arms. Late news from the front had been the worst: the cutting above Mud Lake had weakened the last barrier that held off the river, and every available man was fighting the current at that point.
Marion heard it all while eating a luncheon. Dicksie, beset with anxiety, could not stay in the house. The man that had driven Marion over, saddled horses in the afternoon and the two women rode up above Mud Lake, now become through rainfall and seepage from the river a long, shallow lagoon. For an hour they watched the shovelling and carrying of sandbags, and rode toward the river to the very edge of the disappearing willows, where the bank was melting away before the undercut of the resistless current. They rode away with a common feeling––a conviction that the fight was a losing one, and that another day would see the ruin complete.
“Dicksie,” exclaimed Marion––they were riding to the house as she spoke––“I’ll tell you what we can do!” She hesitated a moment. “I will tell you what we can do! Are you plucky?”
Dicksie looked at Marion pathetically.
“If you are plucky enough to do it, we can keep the river off yet. I have an idea. I will go, but you must come along.”
“Marion, what do you mean? Don’t you think I would go anywhere to save the ranch? I should like to know where you dare go in this country that I dare not!”
“Then ride with me over to the railroad camp by the new bridge. We will ask Mr. McCloud to bring some of his men over. He can stop the river; he knows how.”
Dicksie caught her breath. “Oh, Marion! that would do no good, even if I could do it. Why, the railroad has been all swept away in the lower valley.”
“How do you know?”
“So every one says.”
“Who is every one?”
“Cousin Lance, Mr. Sinclair––all the men. I heard that a week ago.”
“Dicksie, don’t believe it. You don’t know these railroad men. They understand this kind of thing; cattlemen, you know, don’t. If you will go with me we can get help. I feel just as sure that those men can control the river as I do that I am looking at you––that is, if anybody can. The question is, do you want to make the effort?”
They talked until they left the horses and entered the house. When they sat down, Dicksie put her hands to her face. “Oh, I wish you had said nothing about it! How can I go to him and ask for help now––after Cousin Lance has gone into court about the line and everything? And of course my name is in it all.”
“Dicksie, don’t raise spectres that have nothing to do with the case. If we go to him and ask him for help he will give it to us if he can; if he can’t, what harm is done? He has been up and down the river for three weeks, and he has an army of men camped over by the bridge. I know that, because Mr. Smith rode in from there a few days ago.”
“What, Whispering Smith? Oh, if he is there I would not go for worlds!”
“Pray, why not?”
“Why, he is such an awful man!”
“That is absurd, Dicksie.”
Dicksie looked grave. “Marion, no man in this part of the country has a good word to say for Whispering Smith.”
“Perhaps you have forgotten, Dicksie, that you live in a very rough part of the country,” returned Marion coolly. “No man that he has ever hunted down would have anything pleasant to say about him; nor would the friends of such a man be likely to say a good word of him. There are many on the range, Dicksie, that have no respect for life or law or anything else, and they naturally hate a man like Whispering Smith–––”
“But, Marion, he killed–––”
“I know. He killed a man named Williams a few years ago, while you were at school––one of the worst men that ever infested this country. Williams Cache is named after that man; he made the most beautiful spot in all these mountains a nest of thieves and murderers. But did you know that Williams shot down Gordon Smith’s only brother, a trainmaster, in cold blood in front of the Wickiup at Medicine Bend? No, you never heard that in this part of the country, did you? They had a cow-thief for sheriff then, and no officer in Medicine Bend would go after the murderer. He rode in and out of town as if he owned it, and no one dared say a word, and, mind you, Gordon Smith’s brother had never seen the man in his life until he walked up and shot him dead. Oh, this was a peaceful country a few years ago! Gordon Smith was right-of-way man in the mountains then. He buried his brother, and asked the officers what they were going to do about getting the murderer. They laughed at him. He made no protest, except to ask for a deputy United States marshal’s commission. When he got it he started for Williams Cache after Williams in a buckboard––think of it, Dicksie––and didn’t they laugh at him! He did not even know the trails, and imagine riding two hundred miles in a buckboard to arrest a man in the mountains! He was gone six weeks, and came back with Williams’s body strapped to the buckboard behind him. He never told the story; all he said when he handed in his commission and went back to his work was that the man was killed in a fair fight. Hate him! No wonder they hate him––the Williams Cache gang and all their friends on the range! Your cousin thinks it policy to placate that element, hoping that they won’t steal your cattle if you are friendly with them. I know nothing about that, but I do know something about Whispering Smith. It will be a bad day for Williams Cache when they start him up again. But what has that to do with your trouble? He will not eat you up if you go to the camp, Dicksie. You are just raising bogies.”
They had moved to the front porch and Marion was sitting in the rocking-chair. Dicksie stood with her back against one of the pillars and looked at her. As Marion finished Dicksie turned and, with her hand on her forehead, looked in wretchedness of mind out on the valley. As far, in many directions, as the eye could reach the waters spread yellow in the flood of sunshine across the lowlands. There was a moment of silence. Dicksie turned her back on the alarming sight. “Marion, I can’t do it!”
“Oh, yes, you can if you want to, Dicksie!” Dicksie looked at her with tearless eyes. “It is only a question of being plucky enough,” insisted Marion.
“Pluck has nothing to do with it!” exclaimed Dicksie in fiery tones. “I should like to know why you are always talking about my not having courage! This isn’t a question of courage. How can I go to a man that I talked to as I talked to him in your house and ask for help? How can I go to him after my cousin has threatened to kill him, and gone into court to prevent his coming on our land? Shouldn’t I look beautiful asking help from him?”
Marion rocked with perfect composure. “No, dear, you would not look beautiful asking help, but you would look sensible. It is so easy to be beautiful and so hard to be sensible.”
“You are just as horrid as you can be, Marion Sinclair!”
“I know that, too, dear. All I wanted to say is that you would look very sensible just now in asking help from Mr. McCloud.”
“I don’t care––I won’t do it. I will never do it, not if every foot of the ranch tumbles into the river. I hope it will! Nobody cares anything about me. I have no friends but thieves and outlaws.”
“Dicksie!” Marion rose.
“That is wha
t you said.”
“I did not. I am your friend. How dare you call me names?” demanded Marion, taking the petulant girl in her arms. “Don’t you think I care anything about you? There are people in this country that you have never seen who know you and love you almost as much as I do. Don’t let any silly pride prevent your being sensible, dear.” Dicksie burst into tears. Marion drew her over to the settee, and she had her cry out. When it was over they changed the subject. Dicksie went to her room. It was a long time before she came down again, but Marion rocked in patience: she was resolved to let Dicksie fight it out herself.
When Dicksie came down, Marion stood at the foot of the stairs. The young mistress of Crawling Stone Ranch descended step by step very slowly. “Marion,” she said simply, “I will go with you.”
* * *
CHAPTER XX
AT THE DIKE
Marion caught her closely to her heart. “I knew you would go if I got you angry, dear. But you are so slow to anger. Mr. McCloud is just the same way. Mr. Smith says when he does get angry he can do anything. He is very like you in so many ways.”
Dicksie was wiping her eyes. “Is he, Marion? Well, what shall I wear?”
“Just your riding-clothes, dear, and a smile. He won’t know what you have on. It is you he will want to see. But I’ve been thinking of something else. What will your Cousin Lance say? Suppose he should object?”
“Object! I should like to see him object after losing the fight himself.” Marion laughed. “Well, do you think you can find the way down there for us?”
“I can find any way anywhere within a hundred miles of here.”
On the 20th of June McCloud did have something of an army of men in the Crawling Stone Valley. Of these, two hundred and fifty were in the vicinity of the bridge, the abutments and piers of which were being put in just below the Dunning ranch. Near at hand Bill Dancing, with a big gang, had been for some time watching the ice and dynamiting the jams. McCloud brought in more men as the river continued to rise. The danger line on the gauges was at length submerged, and for three days the main-line construction camps had been robbed of men to guard the soft grades above and below the bridge. The new track up and down the valley had become a highway of escape from the flood, and the track patrols were met at every curve by cattle, horses, deer, wolves, and coyotes fleeing from the waste of waters that spread over the bottoms.
Through the Dunning ranch the Crawling Stone River makes a far bend across the valley to the north and east. The extraordinary volume of water now pouring through the Box Canyon exposed ten thousand acres of the ranch to the caprice of the river, and if at the point of its tremendous sweep to the north it should cut back into its old channel the change would wipe the entire body of ranch alfalfa lands off the face of the valley. With the heat of the lengthening June days a vast steam rose from the chill waters of the river, marking in ominous windings the channel of the main stream through a yellow sea which, ignoring the usual landmarks of trees and dunes, flanked the current broadly on either side. Late in the afternoon of the day that Dicksie with Marion sought McCloud, a storm drifted down the Topah Topah Hills, and heavy showers broke across the valley.
At nightfall the rain had passed and the mist lifted from the river. Above the bluffs rolling patches of cloud obscured the face of the moon, but the distant thunder had ceased, and at midnight the valley near the bridge lay in a stillness broken only by the hoarse calls of the patrols and far-off megaphones. From the bridge camp, which lay on high ground near the grade, the distant lamps of the track-walkers could be seen moving dimly.
Before the camp-fire in front of McCloud’s tent a group of men, smoking and talking, sat or lay sprawled on tarpaulins, drying themselves after the long day. Among them were the weather-beaten remnants of the old guard of the mountain-river workers, men who had ridden in the caboose the night that Hailey went to his death, and had fought the Spider Water with Glover. Bill Dancing, huge, lumbering, awkward as a bear and as shifty, was talking, because with no apparent effort he could talk all night, and was a valuable man at keeping the camp awake. Bill Dancing talked and, after Sinclair’s name had been dropped from the roll, ate and drank more than any two men on the division. A little apart, McCloud lay on a leather caboose cushion trying to get a nap.
“It was the day George McCloud came,” continued Dancing, spinning a continuous story. “Nobody was drinking––Murray Sinclair started that yarn. I was getting fixed up a little for to meet George McCloud, so I asked the barber for some tonic, and he understood me for to say dye for my whiskers, and he gets out the dye and begins to dye my whiskers. My cigar went out whilst he was shampooing me, and my whiskers was wet up with the dye. He turned around to put down th’ bottle, and I started for to light my cigar with a parlor-match, and, by gum! away went my whiskers on fire––burnt jus’ like a tumbleweed. There was the barbers all running around at once trying for to choke me with towels, and running for water, and me sitting there blazing like a tar-barrel. That’s all there was to that story. I went over to Doc Torpy’s and got bandaged up, and he wanted me for to go to the hospit’l––but I was going for to meet George McCloud.” Bill raised his voice a little and threw his tones carelessly over toward the caboose cushion: “And I was the on’y man on the platform when his train pulled in. His car was on the hind end. I walked back and waited for some one to come out. It was about seven o’clock in the evening and they was eating dinner inside, so I set up on the fence for a minute, and who do you think got out of the car? That boy laying right over there. ‘Where’s your dad?’ says I; that’s exactly what I said. ‘Dead,’ says he. ‘Dead!’ says I, surprised-like. ‘Dead,’ says he, ‘for many years.’ ‘Where’s the new superintendent?’ says I. ‘I’m the new superintendent,’ says he. Well, sir, you could have blowed me over with a air-hose. ‘Go ’way,’ I says. ‘What’s the matter with your face, Bill?’ he says, while I was looking at him; now that’s straight. That was George McCloud, right over there, the first time I ever set eyes on him or him on me. The assertion was met with silence such as might be termed marked.
SCENE FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCTION OF “WHISPERING SMITH.” © American Mutual Studio.
“Bucks told him,” continued Bill Dancing, in corroborative detail, “that when he got to Medicine Bend one man would be waiting for to meet him. ‘He met me,’ says Bucks; ‘he’s met every superintendent since my time; he’ll meet you. Go right up and speak to him,’ Bucks says; ‘it’ll be all right.’”
“Oh, hell, Bill!” protested an indignant chorus.
“Well, what’s er matter with you fellows? Didn’t you ask me to tell the story?” demanded Dancing angrily. “If you know it better than I do, tell it! Give me some tobacco, Chris,” said Bill, honoring with the request the only man in the circle who had shown no scepticism, because he spoke English with difficulty. “And say, Chris, go down and read the bridge gauge, will you? It’s close on twelve o’clock, and he’s to be called when it reaches twenty-eight feet. I said the boy could never run the division without help from every man on it, and that’s what I’m giving him, and I don’t care who knows it,” said Bill Dancing, raising his voice not too much. “Bucks says that any man that c’n run this division c’n run any railroad on earth. Shoo! now who’s this coming here on horseback? Clouding up again, too, by gum!”
The man sent to the bridge had turned back, and behind his lantern Dancing heard the tread of horses. He stood at one side of the camp-fire while two visitors rode up; they were women. Dancing stood dumb as they advanced into the firelight. The one ahead spoke: “Mr. Dancing, don’t you know me?” As she stopped her horse the light of the fire struck her face. “Why, Mis’ Sinclair!”
“Yes, and Miss Dunning is with me,” returned Marion. Bill staggered. “This is an awful place to get to; we have been nearly drowned, and we want to see Mr. McCloud.”
McCloud, roused by Marion’s voice, came forward. “You were asleep,” said she as he greeted her. “I am so sorr
y we have disturbed you!” She looked careworn and a little forlorn, yet but a little considering the struggle she and Dicksie had made to reach the camp.
Light blazed from the camp-fire, where Dicksie stood talking with Dancing about horses.
“They are in desperate straits up at the ranch,” Marion went on, when McCloud had assured her of her welcome. “I don’t see how they can save it. The river is starting to flow into the old channel and there’s a big pond right in the alfalfa fields.”
“It will play the deuce with things if it gets through there,” mused McCloud. “I wonder how the river is? I’ve been asleep. O Bill!” he called to Dancing, “what water have you got?”
“Twenty-eight six just now, sir. She’s a-raising very, very slow, Mr. McCloud.”
“So I am responsible for this invasion,” continued Marion calmly. “I’ve been up with Dicksie at the ranch; she sent for me. Just think of it––no woman but old Puss within ten miles of the poor child! And they have been trying everywhere to get bags, and you have all the bags, and the men have been buzzing around over there for a week like bumblebees and doing just about as much good. She and I talked it all over this afternoon, and I told her I was coming over here to see you, and we started out together––and merciful goodness, such a time as we have had!”
“But you started out together; where did you leave her?”
“There she stands the other side of the fire. O Dicksie!”
“Why did you not tell me she was here!” exclaimed McCloud.
Dicksie came into the light as he hastened over. If she was uncertain in manner, he was not. He met her, laughing just enough to relieve the tension of which both for an instant were conscious. She gave him her hand when he put his out, though he felt that it trembled a little. “Such a ride as you have had! Why did you not send me word? I would have come to you!” he exclaimed, throwing reproach into the words.
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