The river

THE RIVER
By EDNAH AIKEN
ILLUSTRATED BY SIDNEY H. RIESENBERG
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1914 The Bobbs-Merrill Company PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TO CHARLES SEDGWICK AIKEN
THE RIVER
THE RIVER
THE large round clock was striking nine as “Casey” Rickard’s dancing step carried him into the outer office of Tod Marshall. The ushering clerk, coatless and vestless in expectation of the third, hot spring day, made a critical appraisement of the engineer’s get-up before he spoke. Then he stated that Mr. Marshall had not yet come.
For a London tie and a white silk shirt belted into white serge trousers were smart for Tucson. The clerks in the employ of the Overland Pacific and of the Sonora and Yaqui Railroads had stared at Rickard as he entered; they followed his progress through the room. He was a newcomer in Tucson. He had not yet acquired the apathetic habits of its citizens. He wore belts, instead of suspenders. His white trousers, duck or serge, carried a newly pressed crease each morning.
The office had not reached a verdict on the subject of K. C. Rickard. The shirt-sleeved, collarless clerks would have been quick to dub him a dandy were it not for a page of his history that was puzzling them. He had held a chair of engineering in some eastern city. He had resigned, the wind-tossed page said, to go on the road as a fireman. His rapid promotion had been spectacular; the last move, a few weeks ago, to fill an office position in Tucson. The summons had found him on the west coast of Mexico, where the Overland Pacific was pushing its tracks.
“You can wait here,” suggested the clerk, looking covertly at the shoes of the man who a few years before had been shoveling coal on a Wyoming engine. “Mr. Marshall said to wait.”