The morning was gone when Innes turned from the Dowker tent. She was despondently comparing life to a vise, “that is, woman’s life!” How much easier to be a man, to fight the big fight, than the eternal wrestle with dirt and disorder! No, a woman’s life is a river, she changed her comparison whimsically, a shallow stream ending in a—sink! Small wonder that the sad asylums were full of women, women from the farms. Tom’s work would help that, the Hardins, the Estradas; she had heard Captain Brandon tell of the deliverance promised by the gospel of irrigation! The women on the farms of to-morrow would not have isolation or pioneer toil for their portion. But these were the real pioneers, these women! Theirs was the sacrifice.
Gerty called to her from the neighboring tent as she was entering her own.
“Do you mind cleaning up for me to-day? Tom may come home. I left the dishes last night, and I’ve got one of my terrible headaches.”
Soon she had the hot water waiting for the tray of scraped dishes. She had planned to go back to the river. “A shallow stream ending in a sink!” she chirped to a rueful reflection from one of Gerty’s new tins. “Oh, smile, Innes Hardin! You look just like a Gingg!”
CHAPTER XXII
THE PASSING OF THE WATERS
BABCOCK came rushing down from Los Angeles that morning to see what in thunder it was all about. He asked every one he met why some one didn’t get busy and stop the cutting back of that river? There was no one at the offices of the company to report to him! Why, the building was deserted! Ogilvie’s letters had prophesied ruin. It all looked wrong to him. Going on to the levee, he met MacLean, Jr., who was coming away. The boy told him vaguely that he would find Rickard around there, somewhere.
“I’ll hunt him up for you.”
“Why, they are letting it get ahead of them!” Babcock’s manner suggested that he was aggrieved that such carelessness to his revered company should go unpunished. Something, he told MacLean, might have been done before the situation got as bad as this!
His excited stride carried him across the dividing ditch, which now was carrying no water, into Mexicali. MacLean had to lengthen his step to keep pace with him. The havoc done to the Mexican village excited Babcock still more.
Estrada, just in from his submerged tracks, was lounging against an adobe wall. His pensive gaze was turned up-stream. The posture of exhaustion suggested laziness to Babcock, who was on the hunt for responsibility. He was more than ever convinced that the right thing was not being done.