“Captain Brandon they call him. He’s one of the old settlers. Was with Powell, on the second expedition down the river. Then was one of the big men on the Sun.” He tapped his chest significantly. “Bad; came West, folks thought to die. There’s lots of grit in the old fellow. He’s written a history of the Colorado River that reads like a novel, they say. I’ve never read it. I never read books. I’m lucky if I can get time for a newspaper, and I don’t often get a newspaper.”
Rickard observed that “Captain Brandon” seemed to be well informed on the subject of irrigation.
“That’s his hobby, that and desert soil. He’s writing a book on irrigation, not half done yet, but it’s already sold. He’s published a pamphlet on desert soil. Oh, he knows his subject.”
“College man?”
“Harvard, I think, and then either an English or German university. I’ve heard, but I’ve forgotten by now. He’s lived in the West, everywhere they’ve tried irrigation; in Utah, Colorado, California, and he’s been to Egypt and Syria and all the classic places. Studying, but he came back again, nearly dead. He goes up to Palm Springs every little while to get toned up, taken care of. Poor devil!”
The breeze, which was now entering the car windows, had blown over clover-leafed fields. Its message was sweet and fresh. Rickard could see the canals leading off like silver threads to the homes and farms of the future; “the socialists’ dream come true!” Willows of two or three years’ growth outlined the banks. Here and there a tent, or a ramada, set up a brave defiance against the hard conditions of the land it was invading. Rickard leaned out of the window, and looked back, up the valley which was dominated by the range now wrapping around itself gauzy iridescent draperies.
“The monument to an effete superstition!” he repeated. “That wasn’t a bad idea. I hope he won’t forget to send me his monograph.”
CHAPTER IV
THE DESERT HOTEL
HE left the dusty car with relief when the twin towns were called. The sun, plunging toward the horizon, was sending out long straight shafts of yellow light, staining the railroad buildings a deeper hue and playing queer tricks with faces and features. The yellow calcium isolated two stalwart Indians whose painted faces and streaming black hair, chains of tawdry beads and floating ribbons made the vacuity of their brown masks a grotesque contrast. Their survey of the train and the jostling passengers, was as dispassionate and incurious as though this brisk invasion carried no meaning nor menace to them.
Rickard had expected to see a Mexican town, or at least a Mexican influence, as the towns hugged the border, but it was as vividly American as was Imperial or Brawley. There was the yellow-painted station of the Overland Pacific lines, the water-tank, the eager American crowd. Railroad sheds announced the terminal of the road. Backed toward the station was the inevitable hotel bus of the country town, a painted board hanging over its side advertising the Desert Hotel. Before he reached the step, the vehicle was crowded.