Part 36 (1/2)

”It does,” Ponk a.s.sured him. ”She's the real stuff--even mother, out yonder, loves her.”

The little man's face was turned momentarily toward the hill-slope cemetery beyond the town. ”And when a girl like that comes to me for my fastest-powered car to go where no car can't go, for the sake of as good a man as ever lived on earth, a man she's been _comrading_ with for three years, and with that look in her fine eyes, they's no mistakin' to any sensible man on G.o.d's earth why she's doin' it.”

”If my room is ready I'll go to it,” Eugene broke in, curtly.

”Yes, Georgette, call George to take the gentleman to number seven, an'

put him to bed.”

Then the little keeper of the Commercial Hotel and Garage turned toward the street again, and his full-moon face went into a total eclipse. But what lay back of that shadow of the earth upon it no man but Junius Brutus Ponk could know.

XIX

RECLAIMED

Down the Sage Brush trail Jerry Swaim's car swept on in spite of ruts and gullies and narrow roadways and obstructing debris, flood-washed across the land. But though the machine leaped and climbed and skidded most perilously, nothing daunted the girl with a grip on the steering-wheel. The storm-center of destruction had been at the big bend of the river, and no hand less skilful, nor will less determined, would have dared to drive a car as Jerry Swaim drove hers into the heart of the Sage Brush flood-lands in the twilight of this June evening.

Where the forks of the trail should have been the girl paused and looked down the road she had followed three years before; once when she had lost her way in her drive toward the Swaim estate; again, when she herself was lost in the overwhelming surprise and disappointment of her ruined acres; and lastly when she had come with Joe Thomson to recover her stolen money from the old grub whose shack was close beside the deep fis.h.i.+ng-hole. The road now was all a part of the mad, overwhelming Sage Brush hurrying its flood waters to the southeast with all its might.

Where was the flimsy little shack now, and where was the old Teddy Bear himself? Did his shabby form lie under the swirling current of that angry river, his heroic old heart stilled forever?

A group of rescuers, muddy and tired, came around a growth of low bushes on the higher ground toward her. All day they had been locating homeless flood victims, rescuing stock, and dragging farm implements above the water-line. The sight of Ponk's best car, mud-smeared and panting, amazed them. This wasn't a place for cars. But the face of the driver amazed them more.

”Why, it's Miss Swaim, that teacher up at New Eden!” one man exclaimed.

At the word, a boy, unrecognizable for the mud caking him over, leaped forward toward Jerry's car.

”What are you doing, Miss Swaim?” he cried. ”You mustn't go any farther!

The river's undermined everything! Please don't go! Please don't!” he pleaded.

”Why, Clare Lenwell!” Jerry exclaimed, in surprise.

”Yes. This isn't my full-dress I wore at Commencement the other night, but I've been saving lives to-day, and feeding the hungry, too,” the boy declared, forgetting his besmeared clothing in the thought of his service.

”Tell me, Clare, where is Joe Thomson--I mean the young man whose ranch is just below here.”

Clare's face couldn't go white under that mud, but Jerry saw his hand tremble as it caught the edge of her wind-s.h.i.+eld.

”He's gone down-stream, I'm afraid. They say his home is clean gone. We have been across the river and came over on that high bridge. I don't know much about this side. They said Thelma Ekblad tried to save him and nearly got lost herself. Her brother, the cripple, you know, couldn't get away. Their house is gone now. He and the Belkap baby were given up for lost when old Fis.h.i.+n' Teddy got to them some way. He knew the high stepping-stones below the deep hole and hit them true every step. They said he went nearly neck deep holding Paul and striking solid rock every time. He'd lived by the river so long he knew the crossing, deep as the flood was over it. Paul made him take the baby first, and he got out with it, all right, and would have been safe, but he was bound to go back for Paul, too; and he got him safe to land, where the baby was; but I guess the effort was too much for the old fellow, and he loosed his hold and fell back into the river before they could catch him. He saved two lives, though, and he wasn't any use to the community, anyhow. A man that lives alone like that never is, so it isn't much loss, after all.

But that big Joe Thomson's another matter. And he was so strong, he could swim like a whale; but the Sage Brush got him--I'm afraid.”

Jerry's engine gave a great thump as she flung on all the power and dashed away on the upper road toward Joe Thomson's ranch.

”At the bend of the river you turn toward the three cottonwoods.” Jerry recalled the directions given her on her first and only journey down this valley three years before.

”Why, why, there is no bend any more!” she cried as she halted her car and gazed in amazement and horror at the river valley where a broad, full stream poured down a new-cut channel straight to the south.

”Joe's home isn't gone at all! Yonder it stands, safe and high above the flood-line. Oh, where did the river take Joe?” She twisted her hands in her old quick, nervous way, and stiffened every muscle as if to keep off a dead weight that was crus.h.i.+ng down upon her.

”He said if I wanted him he would be down beyond the blowout. I'm going to look for him there. I don't know where else to go, and I want him.”