The next day, the nerves of the valley relaxed. The river was not cutting back. The men at the levee dropped their shovels, and went back to the discussion of their lawsuits. Their crops were ruined; too much water, or too little. Whatever way they had been hurt, the company would have to pay for it!
A small shift guarded the river. Rickard, in his room at the Desert Hotel, and Hardin up the river, slept a day and a night without waking. The chair-tilters picked up their argument where they had left it: was the railroad reaping a harvest of damage suits when they should be thanked instead? Faraday, the newspapers reported, was trying to shift his responsibility; he had appealed to the president. Their correspondence was published. The government was in no hurry to take the burden. A telegraphic sermon, preaching duty, distributing blame, was sent from Washington. Perhaps not Faraday himself was more disturbed than the debaters of the Desert Hotel.
“The railroad’s no infant in arms! It wasn’t asleep when it took over the affairs of the D. R.” Here spoke the majority. “A benefaction! It was self-interest! When the river is harnessed, who’ll profit the most from the valley prosperity? It can afford to pay the obligations; that is, it could. It will find a way,” the ravens croaked, “of shaking the Desert Reclamation Company’s debts; of evading the damage suits. Look how Hardin was treated!”
The feeling ran higher. For many of the ranchers were ruined; there was no money to put in the next year’s crop unless the promises of the irrigation company were kept. A few landowners, and others who had not completed their contracts, distrusting the good faith of the company, or its ability to pay, had “quit” in disgust, to begin again somewhere else. Parrish, and Dowker, and others of the “Sixth” scoured district had secured the promise of employment at the Heading. Work, it was expected, would be begun at once now that the danger to Calexico had passed.
MacLean and Estrada met outside the water-tower.
“Have you been up?” Estrada nodded toward the platform that carried the great tank. “Come up with me. They say it’s worth seeing.”
“Can’t.” MacLean was plunging toward the office, his boyish face indicating the enjoyment of his importance. “Too much work. The office work is all piled up. The office, itself, looks like the day after a fire! They’re putting back the windows. Casey and I have a desk between us. We’re requisitioning quarries, and scraping the country with a fine comb for labor. Jinks, but it’s great!”
Estrada climbed alone the steep inner staircase of the water-tower. He was thinking of the young American, vaguely envying him. There was something the other had that he wanted. He himself could work as hard for the river; but shout for it? That was where he stopped. He lacked, he could admit it to himself, the quality of enthusiasm. A son of Guillermo Estrada,—lacking enthusiasm!
From the platform he looked down over the submerged country. To the west, the muddy waters spread out over the land. Eleven miles, he had heard it said, were covered. His sympathy was seeing, not a drowned country, but submerged hopes. The pain of it, the histories beneath it, tugged at his heart. Distantly, he could see the ravaged district of the Wistaria, spoiled for this year surely, perhaps forever made useless. Not until the waters withdrew, would they know the extent of the ruin. From the north, between Fassett’s and the towns, steadily advancing, Hardin’s gang was still serenading; the boom of his drums came clearly through the still air.
Below him lay the valley of his father’s vision. The story of that desert journey had been told him so vividly, so variously that he had made himself one of the party. Coronel was there, the general, and Bliss—dead soon after; Hardin, Silent. Out of a clear morning, following the storm, flashed the mirage which came to Estrada as prophecy,—the city vision which summoned him to fulfil the Fremont-Powell dream. “That barren land, and a rich river flowing over yonder!” His father’s vibrant voice returned to his memory; how often had he heard him cry: “The young men pressing in from the congested cities to get their living out of that unworked soil; a clean living, Eduardo!” And Silent had told him how the general had looked like a prophet of ancient Israel that mystic morning when he turned from the mirage of spires and turrets and tender colored walls, exclaiming, “God! If I were young like you, Silent, I’d build that city! that city that we see!”