Ironheart

Hollister was wakened by a sound of lapping outside his tent. It was a noise feeble as the meowing of little kittens. At first he thought it must be a memory from his dream. When he had gone to bed the stars had filled the sky above the dry and arid mesa where they were camped. No rain could have fallen in sufficient quantity to make even a rivulet.

But the rippling continued. The source of it puzzled the engineer. He flung back the bedding and rose. A chill shocked through him. His feet were in ice-cold water an inch or two deep.

Rapidly he dressed and then stepped through the flap of the tent. A shallow sheet of water covered the ground except where there were hillocks. Apparently it was flowing toward the south, as though before the pressure of a greater volume not in sight.

Tug walked to the tent of his chief and called him. Merrick answered sleepily, but at the words, “trouble at the dam,” he became instantly alert. Three minutes later he joined his assistant.

One glance satisfied him. “The dam’s gone out,” he said quietly.

Neither by word nor manner did he betray what a blow this was to him. That which he had given two of the best years of his life for, had worked and fought for with all the brains and strength he possessed, was now only a menace to the community instead of a hope. It was a staggering disappointment. He had builded so surely, so safely, yet somewhere must have been a miscalculation that had brought disaster.

“The water’s probably coming through the Quarter Circle ranch,” he suggested.

“Yes. We’d better rouse the men and get right up there. There may be danger if the valley gets flooded.”

Tug did not wait for the others. His words had expressed only palely the alarm he felt. If the break in the dam was a serious one—and it must be to have reached the mesa so quickly—the Quarter Circle must inevitably be flooded. He knew Betty was at her ranch. One of the men had mentioned in his hearing that he had seen her and Ruth going up the afternoon before. He was worried—very greatly worried.

His long strides carried him over the ground fast, but his fears moved faster. Presently he quickened his pace to a run. Dawn was at hand. He was splashing through water five or six inches deep.

Swinging round a bend in the road, he pulled up for a moment in dismay. Through the gap in the hogback, beyond which was the Quarter Circle D E ranch, a solid stream of water was pouring. Its flow was as steady and as constant as that of a river.

Cut off from the road, he splashed through a deepening stream to the foot of the hogback. It was a stiff quarter of an hour’s climb to reach the rock-rim below the ridge. He grudged the two or three minutes’ delay in finding a practicable ascent up the twenty-five-foot rim, for he was in a desperate hurry. Hand over hand he went up the face of the rock, clinging to projecting knobs, to faults in the surface, and to shrubbery rooted in narrow crevices. Over the edge of the sandstone he drew himself to the level surface above.

One glance from the summit showed him a valley submerged. Most of the cattle had evidently escaped to the higher ground, warned by the first of the flood as it poured down. He could see the upper hillside dotted with them. The barn, the bunkhouse, the ranch house itself, were all gone. Fragments of them might be made out on the surface of the lake that had formed—if one could call a pent-up, raging torrent by such a name.

His eyes swept the valley in search of the ranch house. He found one of the eaves sticking out of the current. All the rest of the overturned building was under water.

The strength oozed from his body. He was terribly shaken. If Betty was in the house—and he had no reason to suppose that she was not—she must have gone down in the flood. He could not, he would not believe it. And yet—

Again his glance moved down the valley. His gaze stopped at some rock spires known as the “Steeples.” Some part of a building, much battered by the waves, was caught there. Even as he looked, his heart leaped. For from a window a white flag was streaming. He could see now that some one was leaning out and waving a sheet or a tablecloth.

He hurried down the hogback, every nerve of him quivering with desire to answer that appeal for help. He must get to her—at once—before the smashing current tore down and devoured her precarious and doubtful haven. Even as he went leaping down the hillside to the shore, his mind was considering ways and means.

A swimmer could not make it straight through the tumbling waters to the Steeples. He would be swept down and miss his goal. From what point should he start? He tried to decide this as he ran up the valley close to the edge of the water.

Opposite the point where the pasture-wire fence ran up the hill, a spit of higher land extended into the flooded area. He found a cedar post flung up by the waves.

Tug took off his shoes and his coat. He waded out, pushing the post before him. Presently he was in deep water. The swift current was sweeping him before it. He fought to get farther out in the stream, but he saw that the fencepost was impeding him. It came to him that he would be carried past the Steeples if he could not make more headway across the valley.

He let the fencepost go and struck straight across with a strong, long stroke. The drag of the rushing water was very powerful, and he had continually to watch out for floating planks and timbers racing toward the gap between the hogbacks.

The cold from the melted snow in the uplands chilled him to the marrow. He had not fully rebuilt his blood from the illness he had been through. Before he had been in the stream many minutes, he knew that the force in him was failing. The velocity of the flow was too mighty for him to resist. Tossed here and there by conflicting sets of the current, he drifted as helplessly as a chip in a rough sea. His arms moved feebly. His legs were as though weighted. Soon now, he had no doubt, his head would sink and the waters close above it.

Then, out of a clear sky, a miracle occurred. It took the form of a rope that dropped from heaven, descended in a loop over his head and one arm, tightened, and dragged him from the racing channel into an eddy.

Three men were at the other end of the rope. They were standing on the roof of a one-story building that had stranded on a submerged island. A group of three cottonwoods had caught the floating building and held it against the pressure of the flood.

The exhausted swimmer was dragged to the roof. He lay there, completely done, conscious, but no more than that.

“Where in Mexico you haided for, anyhow?” a voice drawled.

Hollister looked up. The speaker was the cowboy Dusty, who had once dragged him back to the Diamond Bar K ranch at the end of a rope. One of the others he recognized as the lank rider Burt, who also had been present on that occasion.

“Lucky you were here,” the rescued man said. “I was all in.”

“Tha’s twice I done roped you,” Dusty reminded him. “I sure got bawled out proper last time. Say, howcome you in this Arctic Ocean, anyhow?”

“I was trying to reach Betty Reed. She’s in a broken bit of the house at the Steeples. At least some one is.”

“It’s her all right. We drifted down here ’bout an hour ago. She’s been singin’.”

“Singing?”

“Hymns. ‘How Firm a Foundation,’ an’ like that. Her an’ the kid an’ Mandy. Say, fellow, it’s been one heluva night if any one asks you.”

Burt spoke. “Was you tryin’ to swim to where Miss Betty’s at? You’ve got guts. You didn’t hardly have a chanct with all the water in the hills a-b’ilin’ down.”

“She can’t be far from here if you heard her sing.”

“Not fur. Mebbe a hundred yards. Mebbe twice that fur. But I wouldn’t tackle that swim for a million dollars. I never claimed to be no fish,” Dusty explained.

“Downstream from here?”

“Yep. Over thataway. See the Steeples through the trees?” The cowboy asked for information: “How much longer do you reckon the water from yore dam is gonna keep on comin’?”

“Not much longer now.”

“Well, I’ve sure had a plenty. An’ they call this a dry country.”

“Wish you’d rub my arms and legs. I’m cold,” the engineer said.

They massaged him till he glowed.

Tug stepped to the edge of the roof and studied the current. Presently he spoke to the others. “Much obliged for your help, boys. I’ll be going now.”

“Going where?” asked Dusty, mouth open from astonishment.

“To the Steeples.”

“You darned son of a gun! What’s got into you, fellow? You been drowned once to-day—’most. Ain’t that enough?”

“I can make it there now.”

“Never in the world.” The puncher was emphatic. “We come through by the skin of our teeth, with a roof under us. This ain’t no swimmin’-pool. If you know when you’re well off, you’ll stay where you’re at.”

Tug did not wait to argue the matter. His business would not wait. He waved a hand and dived from the roof.

The problem before him was a simple one. Whether it could be solved, he did not know. While being carried down, he must fight his way as far across the valley as possible. He might be swept close to the Steeples and yet not be able to make a landing. If he failed to do this, he was lost.

He did not stop to see what headway he was making. All his energy went into the strokes with which he cleft the water. With every ounce he had he fought to gain distance. Within a minute or two he would know whether he had won.

A log careened down. He stopped swimming, in order not to be struck. The current flung him round. Just below him were the spires of rock for which he was making.

In another moment the current was driving him past. A long pole stuck out into the water from the wreck of the house and rose and fell with the swell. He caught hold of this and flung his body across it. Precariously he clung, several times almost losing his hold. He edged along it, carefully, until he had worked into the shell of the house. One wall was gone entirely. Another had been partially ripped out. Through these openings the river raced.

Tug let go the telephone pole to which he had been clinging and swam to the stairway. Here he found a foothold and sank down, half in the water and half out. Again the strength had gone out of him.

Then, marvelously, as he lay there panting, the icy chill clutching at his heart, there came to him a clear, warm voice raised in a hymn. Betty’s voice! His heart exulted. He listened to the brave words, gallantly sung.

She was singing, “Hold the Fort.”