“You’re needed. They’re all needed.” The other voices broke in, the men pressing up. This threatened them all. Blinn’s ranch lay in the ravaged sixth district. Nothing would save him. Youngberg belonged to Water Company Number One; their ditches would go. Hollister and Wilson, of the Palo Verde, saw ruin ahead of them. Each man was visualizing the mad onward sweep of that destroying power. Like ghosts, the women huddled in the dust-blown road.
“Where is it now?” demanded Blinn.
“It’s here, right on us. You’re all needed at the levee,” bawled MacLean.
The levee! There was a dash for buggies, a scraping of wheels, the whinnying of frightened horses. Some one recalled the flashes of light they had seen on leaving town. “What were those lights—signals?”
“From the water-tower.” MacLean’s voice split the wind. “The wires are all down between the Crossing and the towns. Coronel was on the tower—he got the signal from the Heading—he’s been there each night for a week!” This was a great night—for his chief, Rickard!
Gerty Hardin caught the thrill of his hero-worship. How splendid, how triumphant!
Innes found herself in her brother’s buggy. His horse, under the whip, dashed forward. Suddenly he pulled it back on its haunches, narrowly averting a jam. “Where’s MacLean?”
The boy rode back. “Who’s calling me?”
“Give me your horse,” demanded Hardin. “You take my sister home.”
Gerty Hardin’s party was torn like a bow of useless finery. Facing the wind now, no one could talk; no one wanted to talk. Each was threshing out his own thoughts; personal ruin stared them in the face. Every man was remembering that reckless exposed cut of Hardin’s; pinning their hope to that ridiculed levee. The horses broke into a reckless gallop, the buggies lurching wildly as they dodged one another. The axles creaked and strained. The wind tore away the hats of the women, rent their pretty chiffon veils.