Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

DAMMING HAIRPIN CANON. 5 rectly benefitted—what are called as- sessment bonds—and that she pledged herself personally to take up the entire issue. With the proposition submitted in Bill had said, men will fight for them as they fight for nothing else. The first step naturally was a resort to the law. Bridger County launched a flock of injunctions, and appealed to that form, she threw herself into a #ithe Legislature to reéstablish the coun- whirlwind campaign covering the whole county; and after three strenu- ous, sleepless weeks of stump-speaking and hand-shaking and brass bands and waving banners, won out on election day by the scant margin of twenty votes. “Well, what have you got to say now, old wet blanket?’ She turned triumphantly to Big Bill on the receipt of the final returns. “Nothin’.” He stroked his chin re- flectively. “ Only don’t think that this puts the water into them irrigation ditches. Not yet. Them connivers is already figgerin’ on some way of horn- in’ in on the layout. They’ll never give up as long as there’s a penny in sight. “‘ Also,” he added ominously, “ it’s about time that Bridger County was beginning to set up and take notice. I shouldn’t be surprised, ma’am, but what you heard something from that quarter in the next few days.” — He proved a true prophet. Bridger County, content to abide in watchful waiting until some definite step had been taken, roused to alarm at the news of the election results. This meant business; and every loyal Brid- gerite vowed through his tangled whis- kers to resist the threatened encroach- ment at any cost. It was a dog-in-the-manger attitude for them to take, of course, since, ex- cept for a narrow bench or plateau i im-~ mediately adjacent to the canon, their territory was unsusceptible of irriga- tion. All the water that had ever run through Hairpin Creek could not have washed into fertility those granite mountain slopes of which it chiefly con- sisted. Nevertheless, in the West, water rights are water rights; and, as Big ty line, on a claim that the obvious in- tention of the map makers had been to follow the course of Hairpin Canon. Los Chicos County responded with a barrage of counterinjunctions and cross petitions. Writs and restraining orders flew from one side of the canon to the other in a raging blizzard. Split into factions over the irriga- tion question up to the time of elec- tion, the Los Chicos people rallied to it now as one man in the face of this attack from without. For the time be- ing, Molly and the county commission- ers with their respective followers stood shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy. The courts ground on with their usual round of motions, delays, de- murrers and appeals. Meanwhile feel- ing on both sides rose higher and high- er. It got to be so intense that for a Bridger County man to speak to one from Los Chicos, or vice versa, was regarded as little short of treachery and almost valid cause for a lynching. Then, as might have been expected, a clash occurred. The county surveyor of Los Chicos was out one day with his corps of assistants running a line down into Hairpin Cafion. His job was in no way connected with the irri- gation proposition, merely to set the boundaries for a piece of private prop- erty. But somebody saw him and spread a rumor that the Los Chicos people, in defiance of the injunctions against them, had started work on the dam. Bridger County never stopped to in- quire as to the basis for the report, but grabbing up the nearest firearm—trifle, shotgun, or revolver—hurried to the scene of the outrage. The arriving vanguard found the surveyor undoubtedly there, down in Gomichbooks (E(0)