Picking their way past a painted side shift of merry England, MacLean and Babcock followed Marshall from the stage.
On the street, Marshall fell back to MacLean. “That was a neat trick the river threw in our hands.” His voice had dropped from oratory; the declaiming fire was gone from the black eyes. “It’s only a break in the levee. Rickard says he can control it; estimates two weeks or so. It may cost the O. P. a few thousand dollars, but it saved them half a million. Now we’ll have that game of poker, MacLean!”
In the balcony, Hardin was staring at Brandon.
“If that wasn’t the devil’s own luck!”
CHAPTER XXIV
A SOFT NOOK
INNES traveled, gleefully, in a caboose, from Hamlin Junction to the Heading. She could not stay away a day longer! Never before had Los Angeles been a discipline. Her surprise was still fresh over the change in her friends, two girls who had been her comrades during her unfinished college course. She had left, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, to look after Tom. They had finished, but their two years of wifehood had made a wider gap than her break. Their plans of individual accomplishment all merged into new curtains for the guest chamber, and surprise dishes for Tom and Harry! Why had it fretted her, made her restless, homesick? Then she had discovered the reason; history was going on down yonder. Going on, without her. She knew that that was what was pulling her; that only!
The exodus of engineers had started riverward in July. Gerty went with Tom, and she had made it distinctly clear that it was not necessary for Innes to follow them. Ridiculous for two women to coddle a Tom Hardin! Unless Innes had a special interest!
Her pride had kept her away. But Tom did not write; Gerty’s letters were social and unsatisfactory; the newspaper reports inflamed her. The day before she had wired Tom that she was coming. She had to be there at the end!
There was no one to meet her. Tom was down on the levee work; the camp was deserted. She found her way to the Hardin tents, helped by the Chinese cook whom she found installed behind a clump of mesquits.
Gerty welcomed her stiffly. Assuming a conscientious hostess-ship, she caught fire at her waning enthusiasms. The arrangement of the tent, of the simple furniture, did not Innes find it sweet? That smaller tent to the west of theirs had been added that morning. A Mexican was even then carrying in a wash-stand and an iron bed. Outside, in a hand-cart, were a couple of chairs, a basin and pitcher of gray enamel.