“I’ll ask Mr. MacLean to take a passenger. That will save me several hours; and an uncomfortable trip.”
“You wanted these maps.” Estrada was gathering them together.
Queer, how that name had flashed from Estrada’s mind to his. He hadn’t thought about Brandon—there was something in it, in the vitality, the force of thought. If that were true, then why not the other, that odd sense that Estrada spoke of? Seeing clear!
“Your maps, Mr. Rickard!”
“Thank you. And you can just strangle that foreboding of yours, Mr. Estrada. For I tell you, we’re going to govern that river!”
Estrada’s pensive smile followed the dancing step of the engineer until it carried him out of sight. Perhaps? Because he was the son of his father, he must work as hard as if conviction went with him, as if success waited at the other end of the long road. But it was not going to be. He would never see that river shackled—
CHAPTER VII
A GARDEN IN A DESERT
HIS dwelling leaped into sight as Hardin turned the corner of the street. There was but one street running through the twin towns, flanked by the ditches of running water. The rest were ditches of running water edged by foot-paths. Scowling, he passed under the overhanging bird-cages of the Desert Hotel without a greeting for the loungers, whose chairs were drawn up against the shade of the brick walls. His abstraction aborted the hallo of jovial Ben Petrie, who was leaving his bank for his vineyard, the more congenial half of his two-sided life. Petrie stood for a minute on the narrow board-walk watching the hunched shoulders, the angry blind progress. He shrugged. Hardin was sore. It was pretty tough. Such infernal luck! He got thoughtfully into his English trap.
Fred Eggers left his motley counter, and joined the group of lounging Indians outside his store. He had a morning paper in his hand. His pale blue eyes looked surprised as Hardin’s momentum swept him past. “Mr. Hardin,” he called ineffectually.
The momentum slackened as Hardin neared the place he called his home. An inner tenderness diluted the sneer that disfigured his face. He could see Innes as she moved around in the little fenced-in strip that surrounded her desert tent. She insisted on calling it a garden, in spite of his raillery.