Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/158

 the surprise of his life. But Furlong wasn't there. Nobody was there, nothing except one lone snag standing above the flood, and one lone girl standing on the deck of a shanty boat. The snag wasn't Furlong, and the girl wasn't Furlong. They were of equal indifference to Jessica.

A dingy little sun-blistered shanty boat lay moored against the levee, nearly opposite their big white steamer, and from its deck the native girl stared upward, stared at this sudden apparition of a goddess in white.

Disappointed, Jessica, with every eye on watch for her fiancé, never glanced again at the fisher girl, for Colonel Clancy was saying:

“Sorry, gentlemen. I cannot understand why Mr. Grimshaw isn't here. Come, Miss Faison.” He took Jessica by the arm and led her down the stage plank.

In single file the statesmen followed their host along a narrow path on top of the nearly submerged levee, until Colonel Clancy passed a clump of trees that obscured his view to the left. Abruptly he stopped and pointed, with the startled exclamation:

“Look! Look! Something's happened. Pardon me.” And, brushing past Miss Faison, the officer began to run.

For several moments his guests stood where he left them, gazing at a tugboat towing a barge. Nothing unusual in that. A more distant barge hugged the main line of levee. And there they saw no cause for alarm, but Colonel Clancy was running in that direction. Something must be wrong. Then everybody ran after Clancy, one behind the other, like geese.

Far ahead of the congressional committee; Jessica sped along the levee which barely showed its crest above water, like a strip of carpet lying flat upon the floor. The ridge was less than five feet wide, and she laughed to herself at the dizzy sensation of dancing along a tight rope. Presently this semisubmerged ridge joined a higher embankment—the new line of levee which Furlong had just completed. Jessica scrambled up, whirled to her left, and raced south, with Clancy holding his lead of a hundred yards.

Breathlessly she ran. The yellow river bubbled on her left. On her right she passed a deserted camp, a pretty little camp, but empty. No human creature remained. Beyond the camp she saw a barge lying beside the levee, with men filing on and filing off again, like a string of ants, each carrying a bag upon his shoulder. They seemed to be in a frenzy. Why were these people so hysterical? The levee wasn't breaking. It stood eight feet above the flood, and felt solid as a rock beneath her feet. What could be wrong? And where was Furlong? Jessica sprinted forward and overtook Clancy, just as the colonel caught a laborer by his arm and asked: “What's the trouble?”

“Hell of a sand boil,” the man answered, broke loose from Colonel Clancy and went running down the steep slope with his sack.

“What did he say, colonel? What did he say?” In turn Jessica caught the colonel's arm; in turn he jerked loose, as the laborer had done, and also ran down the declivity.

Jessica stood on the levee's crest, with her back to the river, watching Colonel Clancy. Far below her, at the base of the slope, dozens of frantic men were splashing about in water from what seemed to be a geyser which spouted up a stream about four feet high. That was all. Pshaw! Such trivialities failed to sidetrack the single-minded Jessica. With perfect composure she turned to Senator Rutherford, who had come up, sweating and breathing hard.

“Senator,” she urged him, “you must get hold of Furlong at once. He may need a little time to pack.”

“Yes.” Rutherford mopped off the sweat. “But where can I find him?”

“Ask one of these men.”

There were plenty of men to ask, men rushing in every direction, white men and black men, crowding on to the barge which lay moored against the levee, and hurrying off again, each with his sack of dirt upon his shoulder. None of them had time to answer questions. They were busy. Neither a lady in white nor a presidential possibility could distract their attention from that spout of water below. This water was bubbling up on the land side, at the base of the levee; and there every man rushed to drop his sack.

Nobody answered their questions about Mr. Grimshaw, so Jessica and Senator Rutherford scanned each face in the file of passing sack bearers; they peered over the gunwale of the barge at every white man who was shoveling sand into the bags. Furlong was not there. Together they turned to see if he might be among those amphibious crea-