"I'm going to look for her," he said. "Will you come along?"
Castner nodded, and together they put their shoulders to the crowd. The slow progress northward was nearly a battle. The excursion trains returning to Red Butte and Brewster were scheduled to leave early, and the stream of blatant, uproarious humanity was setting strongly toward the temporary railroad station.
Again and again the engineer and his companion had to intervene by word and blow to protect the helpless in the half-drunken, gibe-flinging crush, and in these sallies Castner bore his part like a man, expostulating first and hitting out afterward in a fashion that left no doubt in the mind of his antagonist of the moment.
So, struggling, they came finally to the open square of the plaza. Here the speechmaking was concluded and the crowd was thinning a little. There was a clamorous demonstration of some sort going on around the band-stand, but they left it behind and pushed on into the less noisy but more dangerous region of the lower Avenue.
In one of the saloons, as they passed, a sudden crackling of pistol-shots began, and a mob of terrorized Reclamation-Service workmen poured into the street, sweeping all obstacles before it in a mad rush for safety.
"It was little less than a crime to turn your laborers loose on the town on such an occasion as this," said Castner, dealing out his words as frankly and openly as he did his blows.
Brouillard shrugged.
"If I hadn't given them the day they would have taken it without leave. You'll have to pass the responsibility on to some one higher up."
The militant one accepted the challenge promptly.
"It lies ultimately at the door of those whose insatiate greed has built this new Gomorrah in the shadow of your dam." He wheeled suddenly and flung a long arm toward the half-finished structure filling the gap between the western shoulders of Chigringo and Jack's Mountain. "There stands the proof of God's wisdom in hiding the future from mankind, Mr. Brouillard. Because a little section of humanity here behind that great wall knows the end of its hopes, and the manner and time of that end, it becomes demon-ridden, irreclaimable!"