Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1928 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Damming Hairpin Canon By C. C, WADDELL Author of ‘'‘ Somewhere in Nevada,’’ ‘‘ Adventare’s Price,’’ etc. When the sheriff is crooked and a lady is in distress, what can a man accustomed only to riding bucking flivvers do? WHAT HAS OCCURRED IN PART I OLLY TODD, daughter of a miner who struck it rich, wants to dam Hairpin Cafion and irrigate the mined-out, arid, unproductive region in Los Chicos County, New Mexico, where her father made his pile. Hairpin Cafion, lying wholly in Bridger County except for one bend jutting into Los ‘Chicos, has the only water available. The county commis- sioners, refused their graft, work against her. By pledging herself to take up the entire bond issue required, Molly puts her proposition through, only to find the county surveyor has miscalculated the amount of water available and an auxiliary pumping plant is necessary. The additional cost seems likely to kill the entire project. Meanwhile the Bridgerites oppose an invasion of what they consider their water rights, and the two counties engage in a civil war, put down by State troops, in which the surveyor is killed and much bad blood fomented. Norman Rich, mechanical expert and machinery salesman, works out a plan to solve the pumping problem and makes a bid he is sure will land the contract. Dick Crawford, star salesman for Rich’s former employers, Blair & Co., makes a deal with the commissioners, and, in spite of the aid of Molly Todd, Norman is flimflammed out of the contract. Rich discovers that the dam dimensions and its direction have been changed so that Bridger County alone will profit from the work paid for by Los Chicos. This and other indications of graft decide him to remain and fight the thing through with Molly, in spite of a warning from one of the commissioners to leave. Before he can do anything, however, he receives word from his company that he is fired. CHAPTER VI. which he had been indulging. The swift transition dazed him, Unconsciously he let the message slip ORMAN dropped with a jolt from his fingers and flutter to the floor. from the fool’s paradise into He did not stoop to recover it, but which he had boosted himself. reached instead for the one he had been He was facing cold, gray reality about to send, and crumpling it into his now, instead of those airy dreams in pocket, lurched blindly for the door. This story began in the Argosy-Allstory Weekly for April 7 i80 “Tt WANT you!” COMMICLOOOKS