Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/196

 Dicksie, beset with anxiety, could not stay in the house. The man that had driven Marion over, saddled horses in the afternoon and the two women rode up above Mud Lake, now become through rainfall and seepage from the river a long, shallow lagoon. For an hour they watched the shovelling and carrying of sandbags, and rode toward the river to the very edge of the disappearing willows, where the bank was melting away before the undercut of the resistless current. They rode away with a common feeling—a conviction that the fight was a losing one, and that another day would see the ruin complete.

“Dicksie,” exclaimed Marion—they were riding to the house as she spoke—“I’ll tell you what we can do!” She hesitated a moment. “I will tell you what we can do! Are you plucky?”

Dicksie looked at Marion pathetically.

“If you are plucky enough to do it, we can keep the river off yet. I have an idea. I will go, but you must come along.”

“Marion, what do you mean? Don’t you think I would go anywhere to save the ranch? I should like to know where you dare go in this country that I dare not!”

“Then ride with me over to the railroad camp by the new bridge. We will ask Mr. McCloud to 172