Francis Lynde

“ Starbuck, it's up to you to find Smith, Tarbell, Williams, Colonel Baldwin, and two or three more good men whom you can trust—trust absolutely, mind you. Herd your crowd at the station in the quickest possible time; and you, Maxwell, make it your first business to tell the agent at Angels that there is a special train coming over the road. Don't tell him its destination; just say it will leave Brewster, going east, in a few minutes. Don't slip up on that—it may mean a dozen human lives! ”

“ Sprague grinned. "You were looking out for him, were you? Somebody got waked up at last?"
"Yes; the High Line people are on, all right," was the reply. "Smith called an emergency meeting of his directors early this morning. Two of them are Red Desert cattle barons, and they know the Mesquite situation like a book. What none of them can understand is the 'why'; why the Mesquite outfit should take ninety-nine chances in a hundred of sending a flood down the Timanyoni when there is no money to be made by it." ”

“ Sprague, as you yourself admit. These people are well within their legal rights. As you probably know, there is no statutory provision in this State requiring the builders of a dam to conform to any particular plan of construction; and, as a matter of fact, there are dozens of dams just like this one—mere earth embankments without masonry of any kind."
"Do you mean to say that the safety of the entire Timanyoni Valley can be endangered by a structure like this, and that the property owners who are imperilled have no legal recourse?" demanded the expert. ”

“ Sprague swore out of a full heart, which, since he was the least profane of men, was an accurate measure of his growing disquietude.
"That's on me!" he grated. "I had it all figured out to the tenth decimal place, and I didn't put in the factor of chance! Dick, I want the biggest automobile in this town, and the one man among all your thousands who is least afraid to drive it."
Maxwell was able to answer without hesitation. "The car will be Colonel Baldwin's big 'six,' with Starbuck for your reckless chauffeur. But I doubt if you can get over the range in anything that goes on wheels." ”

“ The attorney shook his head in doubtful incredulity, again unconsciously following Editor Kendall's lead.
"It doesn't seem possible!" he protested. "Think of the tremendous consequences involved—outside of the crippling of the railroad. The Short Line wouldn't be the only sufferer in case of a dam-break in the Mesquite. The entire valley would be flood-swept, and our High Line dam—" he stopped abruptly and half-rose to his feet. "Good Lord, Sprague! the breaking of the High Line dam would mean death and destruction without end!" ”

“ Some hour or so later the evening train came in from the west, and at the outpouring of passengers from it one, a man whose air of prosperous independence was less in the grave, young-old face and the loosely fitting khaki service clothes than in the way in which he carried his shoulders, was met by a boy from the superintendent's office, and the word passed sent him diagonally across the grass-covered plaza to swing himself lightly over the railing of the hotel porch. ”

“ Sprague laughed good-naturedly as he followed Starbuck's lead toward the river. He was well used to being joked about his size, and there were times when he rather encouraged the joke. Big men are popularly supposed to be more or less helpless, physically, and Sprague was enough of a humorist to enjoy the upsetting, now and then, of the popular tradition. ”

“ Our people will want to be doing something while they wait."
"Let them talk," said Sprague quickly. "Tell them to resolve themselves into committees of one to throw the big scare into the Brewster public which depends upon the safety of the High Line dam for its own safety. Then pick out a few good, dependable men like Smith, his old fighting father-in-law the colonel, and Williams the engineer, who will hold themselves in readiness to start at a moment's notice, night or day, for the firing line—any firing line that may happen to show up." ”

“ Sprague saw the index pointer go up to thirty-five, jump to forty, crawl steadily onward until it had passed the forty-five and was mounting to the fifty. After that he saw no more, for the simple reason that he was obliged to close his unprotected eyes against the hurricane speed blast. The big man from Washington had asked for the fastest car in Brewster and for a man who was not afraid to drive it. ”

“ What you say amounts to this: if I find a man training a cannon on my house, I have no right to stop him; I can only try to collect damages after the gun has gone off and ripped a hole through my property. I could make a better law than that myself!"
Stillings was staring thoughtfully through the opposite window at the lights in the railroad building across the plaza.
"There are times, Mr. Sprague, when we all feel that way; crises which seem to call for something in the way of extra-judicial proceedings," he admitted. And then: "Have you told Maxwell about this?" ”

“ I sent him over to Angels to write up a shooting scrape, and he had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with. We've all known, in a general way, that an Eastern company was doing something over there, but I had no idea that they'd got their dam pretty nearly done and were about ready to open up for business."
"It's wild-cat, pure and unadulterated!" cut in the railroad man snappily. "What they are going to do to a lot of woolly investors will be good and plenty. That Mesquite Mesa land is just about as fertile as this street pavement here." ”

“ To let any one of these skilled marksmen gain the rear meant death for somebody, and again Sprague gave the word of command.
"Better kill horses than men, " he said. "We've got to stop that manœuvre," and again the Winchesters spoke, this time to deadlier purpose. At the third volley two of the horses were down, and the scattering line was drawing together again and galloping out of range.
In the lull which succeeded, Williams dropped his weapon and crawled quickly away to the edge of the spillway torrent. ”

“ Sprague said impressively. "That's Jennings, without doubt; and he is waiting for a wire—the right kind of a wire—to come from Brewster. You remember what I told Maxwell, as we were leaving? That was one time when a guess was as good as a prophecy. Go on, Billy, and head straight for the Mesquite. And you gentlemen back there, get your weapons ready. If there happens to be a guard at the dam, we'll have to rush it." ”

“ For forty-eight hours beyond this evening dinner in the Topaz café—two days during which the railroad agent at Angels reported increased activities at the Mesquite dam—the newspaper wrangle over the merits and demerits of the irrigation project in the edge of the Red Desert went on with growing acrimony on both sides. ”

“ It was just as Smith was turning heaven and earth upside down to get the dam completed, and for a little spell they sure was anticipate trouble a-plenty; thought they were going to be plumb paralyzed."
"I want to meet that man Smith," said the expert, going off at a tangent, as his habit was. "Stillings, your friend the lawyer who has his offices next door to my laboratory, says he's a wonder."
"Smith is all right," was Starbuck's verdict. "He's a first-class fighting man, and he doesn't care much who knows it. ”

“ Williams took the job as a dog snaps at a fly, barking out his directions with the curt precision of a man who knew his business. Planks were brought from the dismantled shacks to be thrust down on the inward face of the dam as a protection, and these were weighted in place with a makeshift buttressing built out of the bags of sand which had been used as temporary coffer-dams in the construction work. ”

“ Your case is unsupposable. Nobody pushes the button for the rains or the cloud-burst storms. When you introduce me to the fellow who really has the making of the weather in the Timanyoni head-waters, I'll be very careful what I say to him."
"Just so," said the expert quietly; and then a long-continued blast of the locomotive whistle announced the approach to Brewster.
Sprague took leave of his latest acquaintance at the station entrance, where a trim, high-powered motor-car, driven by an exceedingly pretty young woman in leather cap, gauntlets, and driving-coat, was waiting for Smith. ”

“ Smith asked me to borrow Maxwell's special officer, Arch Tarbell, suggesting that we ought to keep in touch with Jennings. Archer was going over to Angels on the afternoon train, but Jennings has saved him the trouble by coming to town."
"Well, what next?" Sprague inquired.
"That is just what I'd like to ask you," was the lawyer's frank admission. "We're all looking to you to set the pace. You're the one man with the holy gift of initiative, Mr. Sprague. You haven't admitted it in so many words, but I know as well as I know anything that you are the man who started this newspaper talk." ”

“ Maxwell and Starbuck brought this report to Sprague, who was smoking one of his big, black cigars on the porch of the hotel.
"Going to institute contempt proceedings, is he?" said the expert, with interest apparently only half-aroused.
"Wouldn't that jar you?" commented Starbuck. "I was telling Dick just now that Judge Watson has about outlived his usefulness in this little old shack town. This injunction of his is about the rawest thing that ever came over the range."
"Smith is red-hot," Maxwell put in; "hot enough to get out and scrap somebody. And his directors are all with him." ”

“ One minute afterward the big man was standing beside the touring-car which had been drawn up at the town-side platform of the railroad building. Sprague shot the emergency at the five men in the car in bullet-like sentences.
"Gentlemen, we've got to get over to the Mesquite as quick as the Lord'll let us. The railroad is blocked, and it's an auto or nothing. Maxwell says we can't do it. I say we've got to do it. What do you say?"
"I reckon we can do it," drawled Starbuck, speaking for all. Then he turned to Smith, who was in the tonneau. ”

“ That shows you how careful Disbrow is; he is spotting everything—even the common routine things."
"Um; dynamite, eh? What use has Jennings for so much high explosive as that?"
"I don't know; uses it in excavating, I suppose. The more he uses, the bigger his rake-off from the powder company. Where there's a big graft, there are always a lot of little ones."
Sprague ate in silence for five full minutes before he said, quite without preliminary: "How long would it take a light special train to run from Brewster to Angels, with a clear track and regardless orders, Dick?" ”

“ It proves what you have always said, and what I have always wanted to believe: that the good in the mass definitely outweighs the bad, and that it will come to the front if you only know how to appeal to it. ”

“ Maxwell cut in quickly.
"There's nobody left to make the fight. Jennings went east from Angels on the first train that got through. He was badly blinded, so Disbrow says; got a fall from his horse, was the story he told. We'll fix this lay-out so it will stand just as it is until everybody who wants to has seen it!"
"You couldn't stay away, could you?" said the white-haired colonel, grinning up from his seat on the last of the sand-bags. "I told the boys here you'd be turning up as soon as your railroad track was open."
"We've had a mighty anxious night," Stillings put in. ”

“ It is the strong hope of the country that there is justice and fairness and sane common-sense at the American bottom of us, if you can only get at it. I think you can call the booze-fight and demoralization round-up a trouble past and begin to look around you for the signs and symptoms of the next biff you're going to get. ”

“ The construction camp of the Mesquite Land and Irrigation Company at about half-past ten this forenoon. The held-up man is Mr. Engineer Jennings, posed by Billy Starbuck, who was kindly holding a gun on him for me. The people running are Jennings's workmen, coming to help him obliterate us. The water is the irrigation lake; the heap of dirt is the dam. ”

“ Then to Sprague, who had mounted to the seat beside Starbuck. "Don't you want me along?"
"No; you can do a great deal more good right here. Listen, now, and follow my directions to the letter. Go upstairs to the wire and get in touch with your man at Angels. It will be your job to keep him in doubt as to what is on the road between his station and the lower end of the canyon. Lie to him if you have to; tell him a part of the wrecked freight is on its way up the canyon, or something of that sort, and keep him believing it as long as you possibly can. ”

“ But the chief thing just now is to post the Angels man, and to have him keep in touch with you."
After Maxwell had gone the chemistry expert finished his breakfast with epicurean leisure, smoked a reflective cigar in comfortable solitude in the hotel lobby, and, when the court hour arrived, went around to the office of the justice of the peace to answer to the charge of assault. As was to be expected, Jennings was not present; was not even represented by an attorney. Sprague pleaded guilty and paid his nominal fine, which MacFarland took with a quiet smile. ”