CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE HERITAGE OF BARBARA WORTHBarbara, walking quickly, left the little village and, crossing Dry River on the bridge that now spanned the deep gorge where the old San Felipe trail once led down into the ancient wash, climbed the slight grade to the grave that was marked by the simple headstone with its one word--"Mother." That morning Jefferson Worth had told her of the tin box found by Texas Joe and Pat. With reverent care she had read the papers and letters and had looked long at the portraits of her parents and people. She could not at first...
Long Stories - Post by : chrisf - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 3161
CHAPTER XXXIV. BATTLING WITH THE RIVERSome day, perhaps, the history of that River war will be written. It can only be suggested in my story. It was a war of terrific forces waged for a great cause by men as brave as any who ever fought with weapons that kill. The attacking force was the Rio Colorado that with power immeasurable had, through the ages past, carved mile-deep canyons on its course and with its mountains of silt had built the great delta dam across the ancient gulf, thus turning back the waters of the sea that sun and wind might...
Long Stories - Post by : chrisf - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 829
CHAPTER XXXIII. WILLARD HOLMES RECEIVES HIS ANSWERWhen Barbara returned to the living room with some trivial excuse to explain her rather long absence, she found Holmes determined to go with Mr. Greenfield to his rooms in the hotel in Kingston. When she protested he answered: "Really, Miss Worth, my shoulder troubles me so little that I am ashamed to offer myself as an invalid; and now that Uncle Jim is with me I haven't the shadow of an excuse for burdening you any longer." "I am sorry if I have made you feel that you were a burden," she returned with...
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CHAPTER XXXII. BARBARA MINISTERS TO THE WOUNDEDWillard Holmes, after a few hours of refreshing sleep and a good breakfast prepared and served by his hostess with her own hands, announced himself as well as ever. "But you need some fixing just the same," declared Barbara as the Indian woman entered the room carrying warm water, towels and bandages. While the young woman bent over the engineer and with firm, deft fingers removed the wrappings from his shoulder, carefully cleansed the wound and applied fresh dressing and clean bandages, he watched her face, so near his own, and wondered that he had...
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CHAPTER XXXI. BARBARA'S WAITIN' BREAKFAST FOR YOUAlone on the desert, Abe Lee waited through the long, long hours of the night for the morning and relief. At times the wounded surveyor sank into half unconsciousness when he would again be riding--riding--riding, toward San Felipe that seemed almost so far away that he could never hope to reach the end of his journey. Again he would be at the hotel surrounded by a crowd of people, who stared at him curiously as the clerk explained that Jefferson Worth had never been there--that there was no money--no money--no money. At other times he...
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CHAPTER XXX. MANANA! MANANA! TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!The night when Abe Lee started on his ride from Republic to San Felipe passed quietly in the little desert town. Texas and Pat with a few faithful white men guarded the Worth property lest, in some way, the news that Worth would be unable to pay as his superintendent had promised should get out and precipitate a crisis. But the strikers continued to enjoy peacefully their holiday, looking forward to the morrow when they would be enriched with nearly two months' pay. When the morrow came the laborers, their dark faces beaming with childish happiness,...
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CHAPTER XXIX. TELL BARBARA I'M ALL RIGHTWhen Abe Lee, after twenty-six hard hours in the saddle, dismounted in front of the San Felipe hotel and entered the lobby his usually perfect nerves were strained almost to the breaking point. For weeks the surveyor had carried the burden of Jefferson Worth's financial condition as if it were his own. With the prospect of seeing the work he loved better than his life wrecked and taken over by the Company, he had for days faced the critical situation of the strike. Then, in the very hour of relief, the situation had become seemingly...
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CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT THE COMPANY MAN TOLD THE MEXICANSWhile Barbara and her three friends at home were rejoicing over the message from Jefferson Worth telling them that he had secured the money needed to go on with the work, Willard Holmes was alone in his room in the San Felipe hotel. Following the engineer's interview with Mr. Cartwright, he had passed through a stormy scene with James Greenfield and the words of the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company were ringing in his ears with painful monotony: "Discharged--discharged-- discharged!" For the first time in his life the engineer...
Long Stories - Post by : business - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 1892
CHAPTER XXIV. JEFFERSON WORTH GOES FOR HELPThe winter following the birth of Republic witnessed the greatest activities that had been seen in the new country. The freighters' wagons that had once seemed so pitifully inadequate, as they crept feebly away into the mysterious silences, were replaced now by long trains, heavily loaded with building material and goods of every kind and drawn by laboring engines that puffed and roared and clanged and screamed their stirring answer to the challenge of the silent, age-old, desolate land. And still the work that had been done was small in comparison with that which was...
Long Stories - Post by : business - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 3048
CHAPTER XXIII. EXACTING ROYAL TRIBUTEIn spite of the optimistic view of the man who said that Jefferson Worth could build a railroad for Barba and the South Central District whenever he wished, there was no little disappointment expressed in Worth's town when it became known that the Company town was to have the road. When the grading camps had returned to their former locations and the construction train drew every day nearer Kingston, with the time approaching when regular trains with passengers and freight would ply to and from the Company town, the feeling of discontent in Barba grew. It even...
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CHAPTER XXII. GATHERING OF OMINOUS FORCESKingston was a boiling, seething, steaming volcano of hot wrath, burning indignation and fiery protest. Kingston cursed, raved, stormed and resoluted, then stormed, raved and resoluted some more. Kingston was tricked, betrayed, cheated, defrauded, insulted and mocked. And the unspeakable villain, the sordid wretch, the miserable gamester who had ruined Kingston was Jefferson Worth. It is unknown to this day who first brought the news that all work on the railroad for a distance of seven miles out from Kingston was stopped and that the camps with their entire outfits had disappeared, leaving the scenes of...
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CHAPTER XXI. PABLO BRINGS NEWS TO BARBARAAll through the long hot months of that second summer Barbara stayed in the desert with her father. Many times Mr. Worth insisted that she should go to the coast or the mountains for a few weeks, while Abe, Texas and Pat added their entreaties. But the young woman's answer was always--to her father: "If you must stay, daddy, then I must stay to take care of you;" to Abe it was: "Why don't you take a vacation? This is just as much my work as it is yours;" to Texas it was a laughing...
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CHAPTER XX. WHAT THE STAKES REVEALEDJames Greenfield, returning to Kingston from his tour of inspection, left at once for his own world--a world of offices with mahogany furniture, of men with white collars and pale faces, of banks and trust companies, and Good Business. The afternoon of the day he left, Willard Holmes rode into the camp at Dry River Crossing. The engineer explained that he was looking over the route of a new main canal that was being surveyed by his men and that, finding himself in the vicinity of Mr. Worth's headquarters, he had taken the opportunity to call....
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CHAPTER XIX. GATHERED AT BARBARA'S COURTBarbara's trip to the South Central District was full of interest. Riding with Texas Joe in a light buckboard drawn by a span of lively broncos with El Capitan leading behind, she was as merry as a school-girl out for a long-talked-of holiday. The dark-faced old plainsman, whose iron will and marvelous endurance had brought his companions and the baby safely out of that land of death years before, turned often to look at her now while his keen eyes, dark still under their grizzly brows, were soft with fond regard, and his voice, gentle and...
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE GAME PROGRESSESThe purchase of the South Central District water rights by Jefferson Worth was immediately announced by The King's Basin Messenger in a lengthy article which began with the modest statement that this was the largest and most important business transaction that had yet occurred in the new country. The article declared that the name of Jefferson Worth was a guarantee that the new district would be made the richest and most prosperous section of the Basin and that-- splendid as the undertaking was--it was only the beginning of far greater things to be wrought by the wizard...
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CHAPTER XIV. MUCH CONFUSION AND HAPPY EXCITEMENTAs the trying months of the semi-tropical summer approached, the great Desert, so awful in its fierce desolation, so pregnant with the life it was still so reluctant to yield, gathered all its dreadful forces to withstand the inflowing streams of human energy. In the fierce winds that rushed through the mountain passes and swept across the hot plains like a torrid furnace blast; in the blinding, stinging, choking, smothering dust that moved in golden clouds from rim to rim of the Basin; in the blazing, scorching strength of the sun; in the hard, hot...
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CHAPTER XIII. BARBARA'S CALL TO HER FRIENDSThat night, long after Kingston was still and the Manager of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company was fast asleep, Jefferson Worth and Abe Lee talked in the little tent that, from the lantern within, glowed in the darkness, seemingly the one spot of light under the desert stars. The next morning the surveyor left town on the stage, but not as he had planned. Abe knew now where he was going and what he was going to do. He was bound for the city by the sea and he carried in his pocket...
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CHAPTER XII. SIGNS OF CONFLICTNot a line of Jefferson Worth's countenance changed as the tall surveyor, pushing his way through the crowd about the new arrivals, greeted him. But Abe Lee felt the man from behind his gray mask reaching out to grasp his innermost thoughts and emotions. "Where is the hotel?" Abe explained that the rough board shelter that bore that name was full to the door. People were even sleeping on the floor. "But there is room in our tent, Mr. Worth," he finished and led the way out of the crowd. To the surveyor's eager questions the banker...
Long Stories - Post by : business - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 1392
CHAPTER XI. ABE LEE RESIGNSIn obedience to its master passion--Good Business--the race now began pouring its life into the barren wastes of The King's Basin Desert. In the city by the sea at the end of the Southwestern and Continental there was a suite of offices with real gold letters on the ground-glass doors richly spelling "The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company." Behind these doors there was real mahogany furniture, solid, substantial and rich; a high safe; many attractive maps; and a gentleman who--never having traveled west of Buffalo before--could answer with authority every conceivable question relating to the reclamation...
Long Stories - Post by : business - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 2795
CHAPTER X. BARBARA'S LOVE FOR THE SEERJefferson Worth had not proceeded far with the work before him after James Greenfield left when he was again interrupted. This time it was the voice of Barbara in the other room. The banker lifted his head quickly. Again he pushed his papers from him, but now the movement seemed to indicate weariness and uncertainty rather than readiness for action. His head dropped forward, his thin fingers nervously tapped the arms of his chair. When the girl's step sounded at the door he looked up the fraction of a second before she appeared. "I don't...
Long Stories - Post by : business - Date : May 2012 - Author : Harold Bell Wright - Read : 1810
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The Winning Of Barbara Worth - Chapter 38. The Heritage Of Barbara Worth
