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 Chapter 08 DNA Replication, Binary Fission, and Mitosis Answer Key
Multiple Choice Questions
1. The building blocks of nucleic acids are

A. glycerol molecules.
B. amino acids.
C. None of the answer choices is correct.
D. nucleotides.
E. glucose molecules.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

2. The molecule that contains the information for making a cell's proteins and must replicate itself during cell division

A. DNA.
B. ATP synthase.
C. RNA.
D. FAD.
E. NAD.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

True / False Questions

3. The components of DNA that produce an organism's genetic information are the deoxyribose nucleotides.

TRUE

Distinguish the nucleic acid molecule from the nucleotide units, and the components. Read section 8.2 for more information.
Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

Multiple Choice Questions

4. The four nitrogen bases that are found in the different nucleotides of DNA are

A. uracil, cytosine, guanine, and thymine.

B. uracil, adenine, cytosine, and guanine.
C. adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.
D. None of the answer choices is correct.
E. adenine, thymine, cytosine, and uracil.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication
5. Among enzymes required for DNA replication, ligases are needed to form bonds between nucleotides to join DNA segments.

A. covalent
B. ionic
C. hydrogen
D. weak chemical
E. peptide bonds

8-1
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

True / False Questions

6. The complement strands of DNA have the same exact nitrogen base sequence, providing the semiconservative replication needed by cells.

FALSE

Complement strands are not exact replicas, but rather exact correct paired matches. Read section 8.2 for more information.
Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

Multiple Choice Questions

7. Complementary DNA strands are held together by

A. phosphodiester bonds.
B. ionic bonds.
C. covalent bonds.
D. glycosidic bonds.
E. hydrogen bonds.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

8. The genome of an organism is all of its

A. characteristics.
B. All of the answer choices are correct.
C. proteins.
D. RNA.
E. genetic material.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

9. A human heart cell contains chromosomes.

A. 16
B. 4
C. 2
D. 23
E. 46

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.03.01 Describe the events of binary fission in a prokaryotic cell.
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.01
Section: 08.03
Section: 08.04
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Chromosome Structure

10. The process by which DNA is reproduced, with the use of associated enzymes, is

A. DNA translation.

8-2
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
B. catalyzed protein synthesis.
C. DNA transcription.
D. DNA replication.
E. DNA ligation.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.01
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

11. DNA replication is

A. semi-conservative.
B. not carried out by enzymes.
C. a one-step process.
D. not carried out in prokaryotic cells.
E. conservative.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

12. During DNA replication, the enzyme that unwinds and separates the DNA double-helical molecule is

A. DNA polymerase.
B. primase.
C. ATP synthase.
D. ligase.
E. helicase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

13. During DNA replication, the lagging strand is synthesized by forming Okazaki fragments. The enzyme that joins Okazaki fragments together is

A. ligase.
B. primase.
C. DNA polymerase.
D. ATP synthase.
E. helicase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

14. The enzyme that builds a short complementary piece of RNA at the start of each DNA segment to be replicated is

A. ligase.
B. DNA polymerase.
C. ATP synthase.
D. helicase.
E. primase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

15. The enzyme that adds nucleotides to the 3' end of a growing DNA strand is called_

8-3
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
A. ATP synthase.
B. helicase.
C. ligase.
D. DNA polymerase.
E. primase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

16. Mutations are usually rare, because

A. ligases serve to conduct "quality control" checks in order to repair mutations.

B. Okazaki fragments are removed whenever detected by the ligase enzyme.
C. DNA polymerase quickly corrects mismatched nucleotide base pairs.
D. DNA helicase corrects the mismatched nucleotide base pairs.
E. transcription, after replication, will normally detect and fix mutations.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

17. Apoptosis is the process of

A. mitosis.
B. the cell cycle.
C. programmed cell death.
D. programmed cellular reproduction.
E. replication.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.07.01 Define apoptosis and describe its functions.
Section: 08.07
Topic: Apoptosis

18. Before cells divide into two daughter cells, it must first duplicate its

A. entire genome.
B. array of enzymes.
C. cell membrane structure.
D. cytoplasmic contents.
E. All of the answer choices are correct.
Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.03.01 Describe the events of binary fission in a prokaryotic cell.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.03
Section: 08.05
Topic: DNA Replication
Topic: Mitosis

This diagram shows how DNA is packaged and folded with its associated protective and regulatory proteins.

8-4
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
19. A discrete continuous molecule of DNA, wrapped with its associated proteins, defines the term

A. genome.
B. nucleosome.
C. centromere.
D. chromosome.
E. histone.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.09
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure

20. DNA is packaged to protect and manage the genetic information of the cell. What is the correct comparison between the packaging units of DNA?

A. While the nucleus contains chromatin substance in general, the nucleosome is a secondary compartment that forms prior to cell division, as a location where
chromosomes will replicate and divide.
B. The histones are protective proteins in chromatids, but the nucleosomes and centromeres are part of the actively dividing chromosomes.
C. Chromosomes are the distinct folded units containing the DNA molecule, while chromatin in the nucleosome is the location of the associated proteins.
D. While chromatin is the collective term for the substance of DNA and associated proteins, chromosomes are the distinct units that are compact and visible
during cell division.
E. While chromosome is the collective term for the substance of DNA and associated proteins, chromatin is the fluid and other molecules in the nucleus, that
regulate cell division.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Figure: 08.09
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure

21. A part of a chromosome that attaches sister chromatids to each other is the

A. chromatin.

8-5
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
B. histone.
C. nucleosome.
D. centromere.
E. ribosome.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.09
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

22. A nucleosome consists of

A. a stretch of DNA.
B. an RNA molecule.
C. a ribosome and RNA.
D. a stretch of DNA and histones.
E. two or more closely related genes.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.09
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure

23. In a biology lab exercise, you are asked to examine cells of a growing onion root tip that has been sectioned to show many cells. In most of the cells, you easily
see the circular or oval nucleus as a uniformly filled space in a membrane outline. In a small percentage of cells, you see chromosomes as distinct strands just
as cell division begins, and as it progresses, because the chromatin

A. becomes less tightly wound, to facilitate cell division.

B. increases in length, as replication adds DNA sections to the original.
C. becomes more tightly folded, increasing their visible length.
D. becomes less tightly folded, increasing their visible length.
E. becomes more tightly wound, to protect DNA, and to more easily manage cell division.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Figure: 08.08
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

24. After replication, in eukaryotic cells, both the original and its replicated copy chromosome are each called a

A. nucleosome.
B. sister chromatid.
C. centromere.
D. chromatin.
E. chromosome.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

8-6
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

25. Sister chromatids are

A. genetically identical and attached to each other at the centromere.

B. genetically identical.
C. genetically different.
D. genetically different and attached to each other at the centromere.
E. attached to each other at the centromere.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

26. The process by which a sperm cell combines with an egg cell is

A. fertilization.
B. germination.
C. mitosis.
D. replication.
E. recombination.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Meiosis

27. A seedling plant has a section of the stem tip that contains large numbers of cells undergoing mitosis for the purpose of

A. sexual reproduction of gametes, to produce new offspring.

B. fertilization of the gametes in order to produce new offspring.
C. growth in height of the plant.
D. asexual reproduction of gametes, to produce new offspring.
E. replication of the DNA in the stem, where new flowers will go through meiosis.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Mitosis

28. An embryo fish in its egg cannot survive outside the egg because it has underdeveloped tissues and organs needed for survival. The embryo has a large
number of cells undergoing mitosis for the purpose of

A. fertilization of the gametes, so the embryo can continue growing and hatch.
B. asexual reproduction, to produce larger numbers of embryos, so that some will survive.
C. production of new cells that can differentiate and specialize for different functions.
D. replication of new DNA copies, so that meiosis will further grow the embryo.
E. sexual reproduction of gametes, to produce new offspring.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Mitosis

29. A person who has just experienced a painful sunburn has a large number of cells undergoing mitosis for the purpose of

A. developing new stem cells that will give rise to new skin cells.
B. repairing and replacing the damaged cells, in the healing process of the skin.
C. replication of new DNA copies, so that meiosis will further grow new skin cells.
D. modifying new cells that will have different specialties than the original damaged cells.
E. asexual reproduction, to produce new skin buds that will fold over and cover the burn.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

8-7
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Mitosis

30. Meiosis is a process used for

A. growth of an organism.
B. repair of damaged cells.
C. asexual reproduction.
D. production of stem cells.
E. production of gametes.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Meiosis

31. In eukaryotic cells, the cell cycle is divided into two main phases in which the cell spends most of its time and metabolic energy. These two phases are

A. interphase and mitosis.

B. mitosis and meiosis.
C. interphase and cytokinesis.
D. interphase and binary fission.
E. mitosis and cytokinesis.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle

32. While in the biology lab, you observe, in both plant and animal cells, that some single cells are splitting into two daughter cells. You also observe that the
splitting cells are still connected by a contractile ring and the cytoplasm has started to divide. You conclude these cells are undergoing

A. metaphase.
B. mitosis.
C. cytokinesis.
D. anaphase.
E. binary fission.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Mitosis

33. The eukaryotic cell will complete the portion of the cell cycle will lead to

A. synthesis; build the two new daughter cells from the original one cell.
B. cytokinesis; move the centrioles, centrosomes, and mitotic spindle into position to pull chromosomes apart.
C. interphase; build the mitotic spindle and metaphase plate between original and replicate chromosome groups.
D. mitosis; divide the original and replicated chromosomes for the cell to divide into two daughter cells.
E. binary fission; divide the original and replicated chromosomes.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

34. The correct sequence for the phases of the cell cycle, starting with a newly divided cell, is

A. replication - binary fission - cytokinesis.

B. cytokinesis - replication - interphase - mitosis.
C. interphase - mitosis - cytokinesis.
D. interphase - binary fission - cytokinesis.
E. cytokinesis - mitosis - interphase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
8-8
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle

35. The portion of the cytoskeleton that attaches, pulls, and guides the chromosomes during cell division is the

A. kinetochore.
B. Golgi body.
C. mitotic spindle.
D. centrosome.
E. centromere.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis
This diagram shows the steps in mitosis, with labels to reference in the questions below.

36. In which of these mitosis phases is the replication of DNA accomplished?

A. A, which is prophase.
B. E, which is cytokinesis.
C. None of these answer choices is correct.
D. A, which is mitosis.
E. C, which is telophase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: DNA Replication
Topic: Mitosis

37. Referring to the diagram, the correct sequence for the phases of mitosis is

A. prophase - prometaphase - metaphase - anaphase - telophase.

B. prophase - metaphase - prometaphase - anaphase - telophase.
C. interphase - metaphase - anaphase - prophase - telophase.
D. prometaphase - prophase - metaphase - anaphase - telophase.
E. interphase - prophase - metaphase - anaphase - telophase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Mitosis

38. The phase of mitosis in which the centromeres split and sister chromatids are pulled to opposite poles of the cell is

A. E, which is metaphase.
B. A, which is prometaphase.
C. E, which is telophase.
D. B, which is prophase.
E. D, which is anaphase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

8-9
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

39. The phase of mitosis in which the nuclear envelope breaks into small pieces is

A. D, which is anaphase.
B. B, which is prometaphase.
C. B, which is prophase.
D. C, which is metaphase.
E. C, which is telophase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Mitosis

40. The phase of mitosis in which the nuclear envelope re-forms is

A. C, which is anaphase.
B. E, which is telophase.
C. B, which is prophase.
D. D, which is metaphase.
E. A, which is prometaphase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Mitosis

41. The phase of mitosis in which the chromosomes condense and centrosomes move to opposite poles of the cell is

A. C, which is metaphase.
B. B, which is prometaphase.
C. E, which is telophase.
D. D, which is anaphase.
E. A, which is prophase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

42. The phase of mitosis in which the chromosomes are aligned along the equator of the cell is

A. A, which is prometaphase.
B. C, which is metaphase.
C. D, which is anaphase.
D. A, which is prophase.
E. E, which is telophase.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Figure: 08.11
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Mitosis

43. The structure that organizes the protein subunits, involved in moving the chromosomes during mitosis, is

A. microfilaments.
B. cytoskeleton.
8-10
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
C. centromere.
D. centrosome.
E. kinetochore.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis
44. The proteins involved in attaching the chromosomes to the mitotic spindle are

A. kinetochores.
B. chromatids.
C. nucleosomes.
D. centromeres.
E. histones.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.04
Section: 08.05
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

45. In the biology lab, you observe animal cells that show the first sign of cytokinesis, which is the formation of the

A. nucleolus.
B. cell plate.
C. cleavage furrow.
D. cell wall.
E. nuclear envelope.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Figure: 08.12
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

46. You are in biology lab examining plant root cells. You can still see chromosome strands, as they are in compact bundles. You conclude the cells are undergoing
cytokinesis because you also observe the formation of the

A. cleavage furrow.
B. cell plate.
C. nucleolus.
D. nuclear envelope.
E. spindle fiber.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Figure: 08.12
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

47. Understanding the role of telomerase has helped scientists understand the number of times a cell can divided. If scientists could control the telomerase
activity in specific cells, they could potentially stop

A. the formation of cancer.

B. aging of cells.
C. All of the answer choices are correct.
D. meiosis.
E. aerobic respiration.
8-11
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 Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation
Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.06.03 Describe how cancer cells differ from normal cells.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cell Cycle

48. Understanding the role of telomerase has helped scientists decipher the number of times a cell can divided. If scientists could increase the telomerase activity
in specific cells this could prevent

A. aerobic respiration.
B. All of the answer choices are correct.
C. meiosis.
D. cancer cell formation.
E. aging of cells.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.06.03 Describe how cancer cells differ from normal cells.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

49. In an asexual life cycle, cells reproduce by

A. meiosis and fertilization.

B. meiosis.
C. All of the answer choices are correct.
D. mitosis.
E. fertilization.

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Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Mitosis

50. In a sexual life cycle, a zygote grows to an adult by

A. mitosis.
B. All of the answer choices are correct.
C. fertilization.
D. meiosis and fertilization.
E. meiosis.

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Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.01.01 Identify the roles of mitosis, meiosis, and fertilization in the human life cycle.
Section: 08.01
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

51. How does the space between our fingers arise?

A. The cells die by apoptosis.

B. The cells die by necrosis.
C. The cells become part of the fingers.
D. Meiosis of the cells is blocked.
E. Mitosis of the cells is blocked.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.07.01 Define apoptosis and describe its functions.
Section: 08.07
Topic: Apoptosis

52. If one strand of a DNA molecule has the base sequence of 5'-ATGTGCC-3', the complementary strand of DNA will read

A. 3'-CGTGTAA-5'.
B. 3'-ATGTGCC-5'.
C. 3'-UACACGG-5'.
8-12
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
D. 3'-TACACGG-5'.
E. 3'-GGCACAT-5'.

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Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

53. If a mutation causes the "T" base in the base sequence 5'-AGTCCG-3' to be read as a "G" base, the complementary strand of the mutated strand will read

A. 3'-UCCGGC-5'.
B. 3'-TCCGGC-5'.
C. 3'-AGGCCG-5'.
D. 3'-CTTAAT-5'.
E. 3'-AGTCCG-5'.

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Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.02.02 Explain what features of DNA allow semiconservative replication to occur.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

54. Why does a replication fork have a leading and lagging strand?
A. Both answer choices of DNA synthesis proceeding from 5' to 3', and DNA polymerase acting on the 3' end, are correct.
B. DNA synthesis always goes from 3' to 5'.
C. DNA synthesis always goes from 5' to 3'.
D. DNA synthesis can grow off of either the 3' or 5' end.
E. DNA polymerase only attaches nucleotides to the 3' end of strands.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Section: 08.02
Topic: DNA Replication

55. In the biology lab, you observe animal cells under a microscope. In one slide you see the nucleus with two nucleolus areas of compact chromatin. The value
in packaging DNA in tighter forms of chromatin is for

A. regulation and protection of the DNA during transcription.

B. ensuring that sister chromatids will be attached prior to replication.
C. mobility and protection of the DNA molecule during mitosis.
D. prevention of ligase enzyme action during replication.
E. Both DNA mobility and protection and regulation in mitosis and transcription.

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Blooms Level: 5. Evaluate
Learning Outcome: 08.04.01 Describe how replicated DNA folds into a visible chromosome.
Section: 08.04
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: Mitosis

56. The chemotherapy drug taxol inhibits the breakdown of microtubules. A cell treated with taxol would become stuck right after which phase?

A. metaphase
B. anaphase
C. cytokinesis
D. telophase
E. prophase

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Blooms Level: 3. Apply
Learning Outcome: 08.05.02 Diagram and identify the phases in mitosis.
Learning Outcome: 08.06.04 Describe the most common treatments for cancer.
Section: 08.05
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

57. In plant cells, the first sign of cytokinesis is the formation of a cell plate instead of a cleavage furrow. The cell plate is formed because plant cells

8-13
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
A. have a cell wall.
B. don't divide after mitosis, but become one larger cell with multiple nuclei.
C. have a nucleus.
D. don't have a cell membrane.
E. All of the answer choices are correct.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.05.01 Explain what happens in a eukaryotic cell at each stage of the cell cycle.
Section: 08.05
Topic: Cell Cycle
Topic: Mitosis

58. By ignoring a checkpoint in the cell cycle, a cancer cell may

A. align chromosomes on the equator of the cell during metaphase.

B. divide before its DNA is completely replicated.
C. pull chromosomes apart during anaphase.
D. divide after mutations are fixed.
E. condense its chromosomes before mitosis.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.06.01 Explain how cell cycle checkpoints relate to cancer.
Learning Outcome: 08.06.03 Describe how cancer cells differ from normal cells.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer
Topic: Cell Cycle

59. In order for a cell to become cancerous, oncogenes must be , or tumor suppressors are .

A. inactivated; inactivated
B. activated; inactivated
C. activated; activated
D. inactivated; activated
E. suppressed; inactivated

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.06.02 Compare and contrast the roles of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in cancer.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer
Topic: Cell Cycle

60. The role of the enzyme telomerase is to

A. shorten telomeres which enables cells to continuously divide.

B. extend telomeres which enables cells to continuously divide.
C. shorten telomeres which decreases the rate of cell division.
D. shorten telomeres which decreases the rate of cell mutation.
E. extend telomeres which decreases the rate of cell division.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.06.03 Describe how cancer cells differ from normal cells.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer
Topic: Chromosome Structure
Topic: DNA Replication

61. Why would a cancer cell need to induce angiogenesis?

A. It would activate oncogenes.

B. It would inactivate tumor suppressors.
C. Cells could then produce proteins that avoid checkpoints in the cell cycle.
D. It is another name for stage I in metastasis.
E. Cancer cells depend on a large blood supply.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 1. Remember
Learning Outcome: 08.06.03 Describe how cancer cells differ from normal cells.
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer

8-14
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
62. When studying endostatin, why did Boehm et al. induce cancer in mice by injecting cancer cells, instead of just doing the experiment on isolated cancer cells
in culture?

A. Cancer cells cannot be grown outside of the body in culture.

B. Angiogenesis involves multiple tissues in a whole organism.
C. Oncogenes are only active in whole tumors.
D. Tumor suppressors are only active in whole tumors.
E. Cancer cells can go through angiogenesis in culture.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 2. Understand
Learning Outcome: 08.08.01 Apply the concept of natural selection to the development of drug resistance in cancer cells.
Section: 08.08
Topic: Cancer
Type: Investigating Life

63. Cyclophosphamide forms cross links between the two strands of DNA in a chromosome. How would this be effective in chemotherapy?

A. It would block splicing.

B. It would activate oncogenes.
C. It would block DNA replication.
D. It would block metaphase.
E. It would inactivate tumor suppressors.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 5. Evaluate
Learning Outcome: 08.02.01 Describe the steps of replication and the function of enzymes in each step.
Learning Outcome: 08.06.04 Describe the most common treatments for cancer.
Section: 08.02
Section: 08.06
Topic: Cancer

64. What hypothesis did Boehm et al. develop after testing mice (initially) and eventually humans?

A. Because cyclophosphamide works on endothelial cells, natural selection for resistance will not occur in tumor cells.
B. Because cyclophosphamide works on tumor cells, natural selection for resistance will not occur in endothelial cells.
C. Because endostatin works on endothelial cells, natural selection for resistance may arise in tumor cells not initially killed.
D. Because endostatin works on muscle cells, natural selection for resistance may arise in tumor cells not initially killed.
E. Because endostatin works on tumor cells, natural selection for resistance will not occur in endothelial cells.

Accessibility: Keyboard Navigation

Blooms Level: 4. Analyze
Learning Outcome: 08.08.01 Apply the concept of natural selection to the development of drug resistance in cancer cells.
Section: 08.08
Topic: Cancer
Type: Investigating Life

8-15
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Another random document with
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“I guess you’ll go back if he wants you to,” smiled Rickard.
“Oh, but what a rotten trick it would be!” exclaimed the son of the
man of iron. “To throw me out of college—I was daffy to finish with
my class, and to get me here, to get me interested—and then after
I’ve lost my place to pull me back. Why, there are things happening
every day that are a liberal education. They are only just beginning
to understand what they are bucking up against. The Colorado’s an
unknown quantity, even old engineers are right up against it. There
are new problems coming up every day. The Indians call her a
yellow dragon, but she’s a tricky woman, she’s an eel; she’s giving
us sums to break our teeth on.”
The man smiled at the eager mongrel imagery.
“I’ll not go,” said MacLean.
“Fathers seem wise the year after where they seem blind the year
before!”
“I’ll not go!” the boy blustered. Rickard suspected that he was
bolstering up his courage.
“Who has the next room?”
“Used to be the general manager’s. Ogilvie uses it now.”
“And who did you say was Ogilvie?” They turned back into the room.
“You can go in. He’s not here. He is the new auditor, an expert
accountant from Los Angeles. Put in by the O. P. when it assumed
control last year. He used to come down once a month. After Hardin
went out, he came down to stay.”
“Whose say-so?”
“I don’t know. The accounts were rotten, that’s no office secret. The
world knows that. Hardin is blamed for it. It isn’t fair. Look at
Sather’s stone palace in Los Angeles. Look at Hardin’s tent, his
shabby clothes.”
“I’d like to meet Ogilvie,” observed the general manager.
“Oh, he’s not much to meet. A pale white-livered vegetarian, a
theosophist. You’ve seen ’em. Los Angeles is full of ’em. He was here
when Hardin was fired. You could see him see his opportunity. His
chest swelled up. He looked as if he had tasted meat for the first
time. He thought that he could woozle into the empty place! He
went back to Los Angeles, convinced them that the auditor should
be here, protect the company’s interests. It sounded mysterious,
sleuth-like, as if he had discovered something, so they let him bring
the books down here. He is supposed to be ferreting. But he’s
‘woozling.’ He used to be in the outer office. Said the noise made his
head ache, so he moved in here. All the committee meetings are
held here, and occasionally the directors’ meetings. Water
companies’, too. Ogilvie’s taking notes—wants to be the next general
manager, it sticks out all over him.”
“What’s the derivation of woozle?” this with deep gravity.
“Wait till you see Ogilvie!” laughed his entertainer. Then as an
afterthought: “This is all public gossip. He’s fair game.”
The door opened behind them, and Rickard saw the man whose
description had been so deftly knocked off. He recognized the type
seen so frequently in Southern California towns, the pale damaged
exile whose chance of reprieve is conditioned by stern rules of diet
and sobriety. It was the temperament which must perforce translate
a personal necessity into a religious dogma.
“This gentleman’s just,—is just looking around,” stammered
MacLean, blundering, confused.
The vegetarian nodded, taking off his felt sombrero and putting it on
a chair with care.
The stranger observed that he had pleasant quarters.
Ogilvie said that they answered very well.
“Are there other offices than those I have seen?” Rickard demanded
of MacLean.
He shook his head. “Dormitories. We sleep here, a lot of us when we
are not on duty. At least, we don’t sleep inside, unless it blows us in.
We sleep out there.” He nodded in the direction of the lawn. “We
dress and ‘gas’ in there.” His hand waved toward the rooms beyond.
By this time it was apparent that no one, save Hardin, knew of his
coming. He was ahead of Marshall’s letters. He did not like the flavor
of his entrance.
“What provision is being made for a new general manager?”
The question, aimed carelessly, hit the auditor.
“They are not talking of filling the position just yet,” he responded.
“There is no need, at present. The work is going along nicely, better
I might say, adjusted as it now is, than it did before.”
“I heard that they had sent a man from the Tucson office to
represent Mr. Marshall.”
“Did you hear his name?” stammered Ogilvie.
“Rickard.”
The auditor recovered himself. “I would have heard of it, were it
true. I am in close touch with the Los Angeles office.”
“It is true.”
“How do you know?” Ogilvie’s dismay was too sudden; the flabby
facial muscles betrayed him.
“I’m Rickard.” The new general manager took the swivel chair
behind the flat-top desk. “Sit down. I’d like to have a talk with you.”
“If you will excuse me,” Ogilvie’s bluff was as anemic as his crushed
appearance. “I—I am busy this morning. Might I—trouble you—for a
few minutes? My papers are in this desk.”
Rickard now knew his man to the shallow depths of his white-
corpuscled soul. “If I won’t be in your way, I’ll hang around here.
I’ve the day to kill.”
His sarcasm was lost in transit. Ogilvie said that Mr. Rickard would
not be in his way. He would move his papers into the next room to-
morrow.
The engineer moved to the French windows that opened on the
alfalfa lawn. A vigorous growth of willows marked the course of New
River which had cut so perilously near the towns. A letter, “b,” picked
out in quick river vegetation told the story of the flood. The old
channel, there it was; the curved arm of the “b,” one could tell that
by the tall willows, had been too tortuous, too slow for those
sweeping waters. The flow had divided, cutting the stem of the
letter, carrying the flood waters swifter down-grade. The flow had
divided,—hm! divided perhaps the danger, too! An idea in that! He
would see that better from the water-tower he’d spied at entering.
Another flood, and a gamble whether Mexicali or Calexico would get
the worst of it. Unless one was ready. A levee—west of the American
town!
“Excuse me, sir—do you need me?” He turned back into the room.
He could see that MacLean was aching to get out of the room.
Ogilvie had visibly withered. A blight seemed to fall on him as his
white blue-veined fingers made a bluff among his papers.
“Thank you.” Rickard nodded at MacLean, who burst into the outer
office.
“It’s the new general manager from Tucson—Rickard’s his name.” His
whisper ran around the walls of the room where other arrivals were
tilting their chairs. “The new general manager! Ogilvie woozled for
nothing. You should have seen his face!”
“Did any one know that he was coming?” Silent, the tanned giant,
spoke.
“That’s Marshall all over,” said Wooster, bright-eyed and wiry,
removing his pipe. “He likes to move in a mysterious way his
wonders to perform. (Used to sing that when I was a kid!) No
announcement. Simply: ‘Enter Rickard!’”
“More like this,” said Silent. “Exit Hardin. Enter Ogilvie. Enter
Rickard.”
“And exit Ogilvie,” cried MacLean.
“It’s a—damned shame,” burst out Wooster. No one asked him what
he meant. Every man in the room was thinking of Hardin whose
shadow this reclamation work was.
“What’s Rickard doing?” asked the infantile Hercules at the checker-
board. The force called him Pete, which was a short cut to Frederick
Augustus Bodefeldt.
“Taking Ogilvie’s measure,” this from MacLean.
“Then he’s doing something else by this time. That wouldn’t take
him five minutes unless he’s a gull,” snapped Wooster, who hated
Ogilvie as a rat does a snake.
The door opened and Rickard came in. Almost simultaneously the
outer door opened to admit Hardin. Who would introduce the new
general manager to the dismissed one? The thought flashed from
MacLean to Silent, to the telegraph operator. Bodefeldt doubled over
the checker-board, pretending not to see them. Confusion,
embarrassment was on every face. Nobody spoke. Hardin was
coming closer.
“Hello, Hardin.”
“Hello, Rickard.”
It appeared friendly enough to the surprised office. Both men were
glad that it was over.
“Nice offices,” remarked Hardin, his legs outspread, his hands in his
pockets.
“Ogilvie is satisfied with them.” The men rather overdid the laugh.
“Finding the dust pretty tough?” inquired Hardin.
“I spent a month in San Francisco last summer!” was the rejoinder.
“This is a haven, though, from the street. Thought I’d loaf for to-
day.” Was Hardin game to do the right thing, introduce him as the
new chief to his subordinates? Nothing, it developed, was further
from his intention. Hardin, his legs outstretched, kept before his face
the bland impenetrable smile of the oriental. It was clearly not
Rickard’s move. The checker players fidgeted. Rickard’s silence was
interrogative. Hardin still smiled.
The outer door opened.
The newcomer, evidently a favorite, walked into a noisy welcome,
the “boys’” embarrassment overdoing it. He was of middle height,
slender; a Mexican with Castilian ancestry written in his high-bred
features, his grace and his straight dark hair.
“Good morning, Estrada,” said Hardin with the same meaningless
smile.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” The Mexican’s greeting paused at
Rickard.
“Mr. Estrada, Mr. Rickard.”
Every one in the office saw Hardin snub his other opportunity. He
had betrayed to every one his deep hurt, his raw wound. When he
had stepped down, under cover of a resignation, he had saved his
face by telling every one that a rupture with Maitland, one of the
directors of the reorganized company, had made it impossible for
them to serve together, and that Maitland’s wealth and importance
to the company demanded his own sacrifice. Two months before
Rickard’s appearance, Maitland had been discovered dead in his bath
in a Los Angeles hotel. Though no one had been witless enough to
speak of their hope to Hardin, he knew that all his force was daily
expecting his reinstatement. Rickard’s entrance was another stab to
their chief.
“The son of the general?” The new manager held out his hand.
“General Estrada, friend of Mexican liberty, founder of steamship
companies and father of the Imperial Valley?”
“That makes me a brother of the valley,” Estrada’s smile was
sensitive and sweet.
“He did good work in his day,” added Rickard rather stupidly.
Estrada looked at Hardin, hesitated, then passed on to the checker
players, and stood behind MacLean.
“I saw your father in Los Angeles.”
MacLean’s eager face flushed. “Did you speak to him? Did you tell
him how hard it would be for me to go back?”
“I did what I could. But it was a busy time. There were several
meetings of the board. At the last two, he was present.”
“You mean?”
“He was chosen to fill the vacancy made by Maitland’s death.”
MacLean’s eyes wavered toward Hardin, whose nonchalance had not
faltered. Had he not heard, or did he know, already?
“I’d like to have a meeting, a conference, to-morrow morning.”
Rickard was speaking. “Mr. Hardin, will you set the hour at your
convenience?”
Because it was so kindly done, Hardin showed his first resentment.
“It will not be possible for me to be there. I’m going to Los Angeles
in the morning.” He turned and left the office, Estrada following him.
“Oh, Mr. Hardin, you mustn’t take it that way,” he expostulated,
concern in each sensitive feature.
“I’ll take orders from him, but he gave me none,” growled Hardin.
“It’s not what you think. I’m not sore. But I don’t like him. He’s a
fancy dude. He’s not the man for this job.”
“Then you knew him before?” It was a surprise to Estrada.
“At college. He was my—er, instructor. Marshall found him in the
class room. A theory-slinger.”
Estrada’s thoughtful glance rested on the angry face. Was this
genuine, or did not Hardin know of the years Rickard had served on
the road; of the job in the heat-baked barrancas of Mexico where
Marshall had “found” him? But he would not try again to persuade
Hardin to give up his trip to Los Angeles. It might be better, after all,
for the new manager to take charge with his predecessor out of the
way.
“MacLean’s coming down to-night,” he threw out, still watching
Hardin’s face. “With Babcock.”
“I won’t be missed.” Hardin’s mouth was bitter. “Estrada, if I had the
sense of a goat, I’d sell out, sell my stock to MacLean, and quit.
What’s in all this, for me? Does any one doubt my reason for
staying? It would be like leaving a sinking ship, like deserting the
passengers and crew one had brought on board. God! I’d like to go!
But how can I? I’ve got hold of the tail of the bear, and I can’t let
go!”
“No one doubts you—” began Estrada. Hardin turned away, with an
ugly oath. The Mexican stood watching his stumbling anger. “Poor
Hardin!”
In the office, Rickard was speaking to MacLean, whom he had drawn
to one side, out of ear-shot of the checker players.
“I want you to do something for me, not at all agreeable!” His tone
implied that the boy was not given the chance to beg off. “What
time does the train pull out in the morning?”
“Six-fifteen.”
“I’ll have a letter for you, at the hotel at six. Be on time. I want to
catch Hardin before he leaves for Los Angeles. If he’s really going.
I’ll give him to-day to think it over. But he can’t disregard an order
as he did my invitation. I didn’t want to rub it in before the men.”
MacLean stared; then said that he thought he was not likely to!
Rickard left the office in time to see Hardin shutting the outer gate
behind him. His exit released a chorus of indignant voices.
“An outrage!”
“A damned shame!” This from Wooster.
“Hardin’s luck!”
On the other side of the door, Rickard deliberated. The hotel and its
curious loungers, or his new office, where Ogilvie was making a
great show of occupation? He had not seen Estrada. He was making
a sudden dive for his hotel, when the gentle voice of the Mexican
hailed him.
“Will you come to my car? It’s on the siding right here. We can have
a little lunch, and then look over some maps together. I have some
pictures of the river and the gate. They may be new to you.”
Rickard spent the afternoon in the car. The twin towns did not seem
so hostile. He thought he might like the Mexican.
Estrada was earning his father’s mantle. He was the superintendent
of the road which the Overland Pacific was building between the
twin towns and the Crossing; a director of the Desert Reclamation
Company; and the head of a small subsidiary company which had
been created to protect rights and keep harmonious relation with the
sister country. Rickard found him full of meat, and heard, for the first
time consecutively, the story of the rakish river. Particularly
interesting to him was the relation of Hardin to the company.
“He has the bad luck, that man!” exclaimed Estrada’s soft tuneful
voice. “Everything is in his hands, capital is promised, and he goes
to New York to have the papers drawn up. The day he gets there,
the Maine is destroyed. Of course, capital is shy. He’s had the devil’s
own luck with men: Gifford, honest, but mulish; Sather, mulish and
not honest—oh, there’s a string of them. Once, he went to
Hermosillo to get an option on my father’s lands. They were already
covered by an option held by some men in Scotland. Another man
would have waited for the three months to pass. Not Hardin. He
went to Scotland, thought he’d interest those men with his maps
and papers. He owned all the data, then. He’d made the survey.”
Estrada repeated the story Brandon and Marshall had told, with little
discrepancy. A friendly refrain followed the narrative. “He has the
bad luck, that man!”
“And the Scotched option?” reminded Rickard, smiling at his own
poor joke.
“It was just that. A case of Hardin luck again. He stopped off in
London to interest some capital there; following up a lead developed
on the steamer. He was never a man to neglect a chance. Nothing
came of it, though, and when he reached Glasgow, he found his
man had died two days before. Or been killed, I’ve forgotten which.
Three times Hardin’s crossed the ocean trying to corner the
opportunity he thought he had found. It isn’t laziness, is his trouble.
It’s just infernal luck.”
“Or over-astuteness, or procrastination,” criticized his listener to
himself. He knew now what it was that had so changed Hardin. A
man can not travel, even though he be hounding down a quick
scent, without meeting strong influences. He had been thrown with
hard men, strong men. It was an inevitable chiseling; not a miracle.
“I want to hear more of this some day. But this map. I don’t
understand what you told me of this by-pass, Mr. Estrada.”
Their heads were still bending over Estrada’s rough work-bench
when the Japanese cook announced that dinner was waiting in the
adjoining car. MacLean and Bodefeldt and several young engineers
joined them.
It had been, outwardly, a wasted day. Rickard had lounged, socially
and physically. But before he turned in that night, he had learned
the names and dispositions of his force; and some of their
prejudices. Nothing, he summed up, could be guessed from the
gentleness of the Mexican’s manner; Wooster’s antagonism was
open and snappish. Silent was to be watched; and Hardin had
already shown his hand.
The river, as he thought of it, appeared the least formidable of his
opponents. He was imaging it as a high-spirited horse, maddened by
the fumbling of its would-be captors. His task it was to lasso the
proud stallion, lead it in bridled to the sterile land. No wonder Hardin
was sore; his noose had slipped off one time too many! Hardin’s
luck!
 CHAPTER VI
RED TAPE

AT ten o’clock the next morning, Hardin, entering the office, again
the general manager’s, found there before him, George MacLean the
new director, and Percy Babcock, the treasurer, who had been put in
by the Overland Pacific when the old company was reorganized.
They had just come in from Los Angeles, the trip made in MacLean’s
private car.
“Where’s Estrada?” inquired Hardin of Ogilvie, who was making a
great show of industry at the desk in the center of the room.
Before Ogilvie could open his deliberate lips, Hardin’s question was
answered by Babcock, a thin nervous man, strung on live wires. “Not
here yet.”
Hardin stood in his characteristic attitude, legs outstretched, his
hands in his pockets. “Rickard?”
“Coming back, Ogilvie says. He went out a few minutes ago.”
“Just like Marshall, that.” Hardin moved over to the leather lounge
where MacLean was sitting. Neither man answered him. It was
Hardin’s method of acknowledging the situation.
Rickard entered a few minutes later, Estrada behind him. Ogilvie
followed Rickard to his desk.
“Well?” inquired the new manager.
Ogilvie explained lengthily that he had the minutes of the last
meeting.
“Leave them here.” Rickard waved him toward Estrada, who held out
his hand for the papers.
Ogilvie’s grasp did not relax. He stammered: “There is no secretary.
I’ve been taking the minutes—”
“Thank you. Mr. Estrada will read them. We do not need you, Mr.
Ogilvie.”
Ogilvie stood, turning his expressionless eyes from one director to
the other as if expecting that order to be countermanded. Babcock
and MacLean appeared to be looking at something outside through
the vine-framed windows. An ugly smile disfigured Hardin’s mouth.
Rickard spoke again. “Mr. Estrada! We won’t detain you any longer,
Mr. Ogilvie.”
Reluctantly, the accountant relinquished the papers. His retreating
coat tails looked ludicrously whipped, but no one laughed. Hardin’s
scowl deepened.
“Showing his power,” he thought. “He’s going to call for a new pack.”
Estrada pushed the minutes through with but a few unimportant
interruptions. He was sitting at the same desk with Rickard. Hardin,
sensitive and sullen, thought he saw the meeting managed between
them. “It’s all slated,” ran his angry blood. “The meeting’s a farce. It
was all fixed in Los Angeles, or in Marshall’s office.” He whipped
himself into rebellion. He was no baby. He knew about these matters
better than these strangers, this fancy dude! He’d show them!
It took their silent cooperation to hold him down. It became more
apparent to him that they were all pitted against him. He was being
pressed against the wall.
Several times he attempted to bring the tangled affairs of the water
companies before the directors. Rickard would not discuss the water
companies.
“Because he’s not posted! He’s beginning to see what he’s up
against,” ran Hardin’s stormy thoughts. He felt Rickard’s hand in this,
although it was Estrada, apparently, who shelved the mystifications
of the uneasy companies, their rights, their dissatisfactions and their
lawsuits. Babcock seconded the Mexican’s motion to discuss those
issues at the next meeting. “It is a put-up job,” sulked Tom Hardin.
He was on his feet the next minute with a motion to complete the
Hardin head-gate. Violently he declaimed to Babcock and MacLean
his wrongs, the injustice that had been done him. Marshall had let
that fellow Maitland convince him that the gate was not practicable;
had it not been for him, the gate would be in place now; all this time
and money saved. And the Maitland dam, built instead! Where was
it? Where was the money, the time, put in that little toy? Sickening!
His face purpled over the memory. Why was he allowed to begin
again with the gate? “Answer me that. Why was I allowed to begin
again? It’s all child’s play, that’s what it is. And when I am in it again,
up to my neck, he pulls me off.”
This was the real Hardin, the uncouth, overaged Lawrence student!
The new manner was just a veneer. Rickard had been expecting it to
wear thin.
“Why did we begin it, I ask you?” repeated Hardin, his face flushed
and eager. “To make laughing-stocks of ourselves down here? That’s
a costly game for the O. P. to play. What does Marshall know about
conditions, sitting in his office, and looking at maps, and reading
letters and reports from his spies? I’ll give you the answer: he wants
the glory himself. Why did he tell me that he thought my gate would
go, and then start another ten times as costly? He wants all the
credit. He’d like to see my gate a failure. Why does he push the
concrete gate ahead, and hold up mine every few days?”
“I think,” interjected Rickard, “that we all agree with Mr. Marshall, Mr.
Hardin, that a wooden head-gate on silt foundation could never be
more than a makeshift. I understood that the first day he visited the
river with you he had the idea to put the ultimate gate, the gate
which would control the water supply of the valley, up at the
Crossing on rock foundation. Mr. Marshall does not expect to finish
that in time to be of first use. He hopes the wooden gate will solve
the immediate problem. It was a case of any port in a storm. He has
asked me to report my opinion.”
“Why doesn’t he give me a chance to go ahead then?” growled the
deposed manager. “Instead of letting the intake widen until it will be
an impossibility to confine the river there at all?”
“So you do think that it will be an impossibility to complete the gate
as planned?”
Hardin had run too fast. “I didn’t mean that,” he stammered. “I
mean it will be difficult if we are delayed much longer.”
“You are in charge of the construction of that gate?”
Hardin said he was. If it had not been for the floods—
“Have you the force to re-begin work at once?” demanded Rickard.
“I had it,” evaded Hardin. “I had everything ready to go on—men,
material—when we stopped the last time.”
“And you haven’t it now?”
Hardin hated to the soul of him to have to acknowledge that he had
not; he shrank from uncovering a single obstacle that stood between
his gate and completion. He tried to hedge. MacLean, a big man
whose iron wheels moved slowly, was weighing the caliber of the
two opposing men. Babcock, wiry, alert, embarrassed Hardin with his
challenging stare.
“Answer my question, please.”
“I should have to assemble them again,” admitted Hardin sulkily.
Rickard consulted his note-book. “I think we’ve covered everything.
Now, I want to propose the laying of a spur-track from Hamlin’s
Junction to the Heading.” His manner cleared the stage of
supernumeraries; this was the climax. Hardin looked ready to spring.
“And in connection with that, the development of a quarry in the
granite hills back of Hamlin’s,” continued Rickard, not looking at
Hardin.
Instantly Hardin was on his feet. His fist thundered on the table. “I
shall oppose that,” he flared. “It is absolutely unnecessary. We can’t
afford it. Do you know what that will cost, gentlemen?”
“One hundred thousand dollars!” Rickard interrupted him. “I want an
appropriation this morning for that amount. It is, in my opinion,
absolutely necessary if we are to save the valley. We can not afford
not to do it, Mr. Hardin!”
Hardin glared at the other men for support; he found MacLean’s face
a blank wall; Estrada looked uncomfortable. Babcock had pricked up
his ears at the sound of the desired appropriation; his head on one
side, he looked like an inquisitive terrier.
Hardin spread out his hands in helpless desperation. “You’ll ruin us,”
he said. “It’s your money, the O. P.’s, but you’re lending it, not giving
it to us. You are going to swamp the Desert Reclamation Company.
We can’t throw funds away like that.” One hundred thousand dollars!
Why, he could have stopped the river any time if he had had that
sum; once a paltry thousand would have saved them—“I didn’t ask
the O. P. to come in and ruin us, but to stop the river; not to throw
money away in hog-wild fashion.” He was stammering inarticulately.
“There’s no need of a spur-track if you rush my gate through.”
“If,” Rickard nodded. “Granted. If we can rush it through. But
suppose it fails? Marshall said the railroad would stand for no
contingencies. The interests at stake are too vital—”
“Interests!” cried Tom Hardin. “What do you know of the interest at
stake? You or your railroad? Coming in at the eleventh hour, what
can you know? Did you promise safety to thousands of families if
they made their homes in this valley? Are you responsible? Did you
get up this company, induce your friends to put their money in it,
promise to see them through? What do you know of the interests at
stake? You want to put one hundred thousand dollars into a frill.
God, do you know what that means to my company? It means ruin
—” Estrada pulled him down in his seat.
Rickard explained to the directors the necessity in his opinion of the
spur-track and the quarry. Rock in great quantities would be needed;
cars must be rushed in to the break. He urged the importance of
clenching the issue. “If it’s not won this time, it’s a lost cause,” he
maintained. “If it cuts a deeper gorge, the Imperial Valley is a
chimera; so is Laguna Dam.”
The other men were drawn into the argument. Babcock leaned
toward Hardin’s conservatism. MacLean was judicial. Estrada upheld
Rickard. The spur-track, in his opinion, was essential to success.
Hardin could see the meeting managed between the newcomer and
the Mexican, and his anger impotently raged. His temper made him
incoherent. He could see Rickard, cool and impersonal, adding to his
points, and MacLean slowly won to the stronger side. Hardin, on his
feet again, was sputtering helplessly at Babcock, when Rickard
called for a vote. The appropriation was carried. Hardin’s face was
swollen with rage.
Rickard then called for a report on the clam-shell dredge being
rushed at Yuma. Where was the machinery? Was it not to have been
finished in February?
Hardin said that the machinery was ready, waiting in San Francisco.
The hull of the dredge could not be finished for a couple of months
at least.
“Why not get the machinery here? What’s the use of taking
chances?” demanded Rickard.
Hardin felt the personal implication. He was on his feet in a second.
“There are no chances.” He looked at MacLean. “The machinery’s
done. It’s no use getting it here until we’re ready.”
“There are always chances,” interrupted his opponent coolly. “We are
going to take none. I want Mr. Hardin, gentlemen, appointed a
committee of one to see that the machinery is delivered at once, and
the dredge rushed. What’s the date?”
“April eleventh,” clicked the nickel-in-the-slot-machine-Babcock
again. Had any one asked the time, his answer as swift without
consultation would have been as exact. He lived with his watch
under his eye. Every few minutes he assured himself as to his gain
on eternity.
“Get it in before the heavy summer traffic begins,” instructed
Rickard.
The working force was informally discussed. Hardin said they could
depend on hobo labor. His enthusiasm took fire; he saw the work
begun on his gate. “That class of men flock like bees to such work
as this. There’s no trouble getting them; they just drop in. Curious,
isn’t it, how such fellows keep track of the world’s work? You build a
levee, you begin a bridge, and there’s your hobo on the spot. It’s
good labor, too, though it’s fickle.” It was the other Hardin, the
chiseled man of affairs and experience. Rickard agreed that they
would find such help, but it would not do to rely on it. The big sewer
system of New Orleans was about completed; he had planned to
write there, stating the need. And there was a man in Zacatecas,
named Porter—
“Frank Porter?” sneered Hardin, “that—murderer?”
“His brother,” Rickard answered pleasantly. “Jim furnishes the men
for the big mines in Sonora and Sinaloa. He’ll send us all the labor
we want, the best for our purpose. When it gets red-hot, there’s no
one like a peon or an Indian.”
“You’ll be infringing on the international contract law,” suggested
MacLean.
“No. The camp is on the Mexican side,” laughed Casey. “I’d thought
of that. We’ll have them shipped to the nearest Mexican point, and
then brought to the border. Mr. Estrada will help us.”
The meeting had already adjourned. They were standing around the
flat-top desk. Estrada invited them all to lunch with him, in the car
on the siding. MacLean said that he had to get back to Los Angeles.
Mr. Babcock was going to take him out to Grant’s Heading in the
machine. He had never been there. They had breakfasted late. He
looked very much the colonel to Rickard, his full broad chest and
stiff carriage made more military by his trim uniform of khaki-colored
cloth.
“May I speak to you about your boy, Mr. MacLean?”
Hardin caught a slight that was not intended. He pushed past the
group at the door without civility or ceremony.
The steady grave eyes of the big frame looked at Rickard inquiringly.
“He wants to stay out another year. I hope you will let him. It’s not
disinterested. I shall have to take a stenographer to the Heading this
summer. There is a girl here; I couldn’t take her, and then, too, I’m
old-fashioned; I don’t like women in offices. My position promises to
be a peculiar one. I’d like to have your son to rely on for
emergencies a stenographer could not cover.”
MacLean’s grave features relaxed as he looked down on the
engineer, who was no small man himself, and suggested that his son
was not very well up in stenography.
“That’s the least of it.”
“I hope that he will make a good stenographer! Good morning,
gentlemen.”
At table, neither Estrada nor his guest uncovered their active
thought which revolved around Hardin and his hurt. Instead, Rickard
had questions to ask his host on river history. As they talked, it came
to him that something was amiss—Estrada was accurate; he had all
his facts. Was it enthusiasm, sympathy, he lacked? Presently he
challenged him with it.
Estrada’s eyes dreamed out of the window, followed the gorge of the
New River, as though out there, somewhere, the answer hovered.
“Do you mean, do you doubt it?” exclaimed Rickard, watching the
melancholy in the beautiful eyes.
Estrada shook his head, but without decision. “Nothing you’d not
laugh at. I can laugh at it myself, sometimes.”
Rickard waited, not sure that anything more was coming. The
Mexican’s dark eyes were troubled; a puzzle brooded in them. “It’s a
purely negative sense that I’ve had, since I was a child. Something
falls between me and a plan. If I said it was a veil, it would be—
something!” His voice fell to a ghost of tunefulness. “And it’s—
nothing. A blank—I know then it’s not going to happen. It is terribly
final! It’s happened, often. Now, I wait for that—veil. When it falls, I
know what it means.”
“And you have had that—sense about this river business?”
Estrada turned his pensive gaze on the American. “Yes, often. I
thought, after father’s death, that that was what it meant. But it
came again. It kept coming. I had it while you were all talking, just
now. I don’t speak of this. It sounds chicken-hearted. And I’m in this
with all my soul—my father—I couldn’t do it any other way, but—”
“You think we are going to fail?”
“I can’t see it finished,” was Estrada’s mournful answer. He turned
again to stare out of the window.
An odd sense of unreality rested for an instant on Rickard. Swiftly he
rejected it. Outside, the sunshine, the work to be done, the river
running wild—
“You’ve been too much in the valley, Mr. Estrada!” Estrada looked at
him, and then his glance went back to the car window. His silence
said plainly: “Oh, I knew you would not believe me!”
“I mean, this country gets on men’s nerves. It’s so—omnipotent! The
victories are all to the river’s side, as yet. We’re pygmies, fighting
Titans. We fear what we have never conquered.”
“Oh, that!” He could see that Estrada would not argue with him.
“Oh, we all get that. The personal feeling, as if it were really a
dragon, and we trying to shackle it with our wisps of straw!”
“A few lace handkerchiefs and a chiffon veil!” sang Rickard’s
memory.
“We get the sense of being resented, of angry power. We feel like
interlopers in this desert. She tells us all, in her own terrible, silent
way, ‘You don’t belong here!’”
“That has been quoted to me, silently, too!” laughed Rickard. And
they were on solid ground again.
“Who are the river-men in the valley?” demanded the newcomer. “I
want to meet them, to talk to them.”
“Cor’nel, he’s an Indian. He’s worth talking to. He knows its history,
its legends. Perhaps some of it is history.”
“Where’s he to be found?”
“You’ll run across him! Whenever anything’s up, he is on hand. He
senses it. And then there’s Matt Hamlin.”
“I’ll see him, of course. Has he been up the river?”
“No, but I’ll tell you two who have. Maldonado, a half-breed, who
lives some twenty miles down the river from Hamlin’s. He knows the
Gila as though he were pure Indian. The Gila’s tricky! Maldonado’s
grandfather was a trapper, his great-grandfather, they say, a priest.
The women were all Indian. He’s smart. Smart and bad.”
Estrada’s Japanese servant came back into the car to offer tea,
freshly iced.
“That’s what I want, smart river-men, not tea!” laughed Rickard. “I
want river history.”
“There’s another man you ought to meet.” Before he spoke the
name, Rickard had a flash of telepathy; he knew Estrada would say,
“Brandon.”
“He was with the second Powell expedition. He’s written the book on
the river. He knows it, if any man does.”
“That’s so. I’d forgotten about him. I think I’ll run up and have a talk
with him.”
“This instant?” smiled the Mexican, for his guest had risen. “There’s
no train out until to-night.”
“I’ll ask Mr. MacLean to take a passenger. That will save me several
hours; and an uncomfortable trip.”
“You wanted these maps.” Estrada was gathering them together.
Queer, how that name had flashed from Estrada’s mind to his. He
hadn’t thought about Brandon—there was something in it, in the
vitality, the force of thought. If that were true, then why not the
other, that odd sense that Estrada spoke of? Seeing clear!
“Your maps, Mr. Rickard!”
“Thank you. And you can just strangle that foreboding of yours, Mr.
Estrada. For I tell you, we’re going to govern that river!”
Estrada’s pensive smile followed the dancing step of the engineer
until it carried him out of sight. Perhaps? Because he was the son of
his father, he must work as hard as if conviction went with him, as if
success waited at the other end of the long road. But it was not
going to be. He would never see that river shackled—
 CHAPTER VII
A GARDEN IN A DESERT

HIS dwelling leaped into sight as Hardin turned the corner of the
street. There was but one street running through the twin towns,
flanked by the ditches of running water. The rest were ditches of
running water edged by foot-paths. Scowling, he passed under the
overhanging bird-cages of the Desert Hotel without a greeting for
the loungers, whose chairs were drawn up against the shade of the
brick walls. His abstraction aborted the hallo of jovial Ben Petrie,
who was leaving his bank for his vineyard, the more congenial half
of his two-sided life. Petrie stood for a minute on the narrow board-
walk watching the hunched shoulders, the angry blind progress. He
shrugged. Hardin was sore. It was pretty tough. Such infernal luck!
He got thoughtfully into his English trap.
Fred Eggers left his motley counter, and joined the group of lounging
Indians outside his store. He had a morning paper in his hand. His
pale blue eyes looked surprised as Hardin’s momentum swept him
past. “Mr. Hardin,” he called ineffectually.
The momentum slackened as Hardin neared the place he called his
home. An inner tenderness diluted the sneer that disfigured his face.
He could see Innes as she moved around in the little fenced-in strip
that surrounded her desert tent. She insisted on calling it a garden,
in spite of his raillery.
“Gerty’s in bed, I suppose,” thought Tom. He had a sudden vivid
picture of her accusing martyrdom. His mouth hardened again.
Innes, stooping over a rose, passed out of his vision.
It came to Hardin suddenly that a man has made a circle of failure
when he dreads going to his office and shrinks from the reproaches
at home.
“A ‘has-been’ at forty!” he mused. Where were all his ships drifting?
Innes, straightening, waved a gay hand.
“She’s raising a goodly crop of barrels.” His thought mocked and
caressed her. Her garden devotion was a tender joke with him. He
loved the Hardin trait in her, the persistence which will not be
daunted. An occupation with a Hardin was a dedication. He would
not acknowledge the Innes blood in her. Like that fancy mother of
hers? Innes was a Hardin through and through!
“It’s in the blood,” ran his thought. “She can’t help it. All the Hardins
work that way. The Hardins always make fools of themselves!”
Innes, lifting her eyes from a crippled rose, saw that the black devils
were consuming him again.
“Will you look at this wreck!” she cried.
The wind-storm the previous week had made a sickening
devastation of her labors. The morning-glories alone were
scatheless. A pink oleander drooped many broken branches from
which miracles of perfect flowers were unfolding. The prettiest
blossom to Hardin was the gardener herself. She was vivid from
eager toil. Hardin looked at her approbatively. He liked her khaki
suit, simple as a uniform, with its flowing black tie and leather belt.
She looked more like herself to-day. She had bleached out, in
Tucson. She had been letting herself get too tanned, running around
without hats. Sunburn paled the value of those splendid yellow eyes
of hers. He could always tease her by likening them to topazes.
“Cat’s eyes, why don’t you say it?”
She pushed a teasing lock of hair out of her eyes with one of her
mud-splashed garden gloves. It left a ludicrous smudge across her
cheek.
“Each time I leave this garden,” she complained, “I declare I won’t
again. Not even for the Marshalls.” She bent over again to adjust a
bottomless keg around a wind-whipped, moribund plant.
“Quite a keg plant!” he quizzed. “Raising anything else?”
“And the glory of the morning he does not see!” she exclaimed with
theatric intent.
His eyes ran over the pink and purple lines of cord-trained vines
which made floral screens for her tent. Free of the strings overhead,
they rioted over the ramada, the second roof, of living boughs. He
acknowledged their beauty. They gave grace to bare necessity; they
denied the panting, thirsty desert just beyond.
He remembered his own ramada. Gerty had hated it, had
complained of it so bitterly when she came home from New York
that he had had it pulled down and replaced by a V roof of pine
boards, glaring and ugly. Gerty was satisfied, for it was clean; she no
longer felt that she lived in a squaw-house. Let the Indians have
ramadas; there was no earthly reason she should. He had urged that
the desert dwellers had valuable hints to give them. But what was a
ramada to him, or anything else?
He nodded at Innes.
“They are doing so much better than the ones you planted at the
office. I wonder if Sam doesn’t water them enough?” His mood was
faultfinding. “Didn’t he water your roses while you were gone?”
“Oh, he waters enough,” smiled his sister. “But Sam’s not for
progress. He won’t see the difference between watering and
irrigating.”
“It looks like a train wreck, or a whipped prize-fighter, next day,”
observed Hardin.
“It’s really my fault. I staked it.” She was still mourning over her
calamity. “I forgot to barrel it. Stakes won’t do here. The keg’s the
thing.”
“That’s what they think in Mexicali.” Hardin turned to leave.
“The joke’s as stale as their beer,” retorted Innes. She did not want
him to go so soon. She pointed out a new vine to him. She had
brought it from Tucson; “Kudzu,” they called it; a Japanese vine. And
there was another broken rose, quite beyond the help of stripped
handkerchiefs and mesquit splints.
He followed her around the tent, her prattle falling from his grim
mood. He was not thinking of her flowers except as a mocking
parallel. The desert storm had made a havoc of his garden—a sorry
botch of his life. He and Innes had been trying to make a garden out
of a desert; the desert had flouted them. It was not his fault.
Something had happened; something quite beyond his power. Luck
was turning against him.
Innes, why, she was playing as with a toy. It was the natural instinct
of a woman to make things pretty around her. But he had sacrificed
his youth, his chances. His domestic life, too—he should never have
carried a dainty little woman like Gerty into the desert. He had never
reproached her for leaving him, even last time when he thought it
was for good. The word burned his wound. Whose good? His or
Gerty’s? Somehow, though they wrangled, he always knew it would
turn out all right; life would run smoothly when they left the desert.
But things were getting worse; his mouth puckered over some
recollections. Yet he loved Gerty; he couldn’t picture life without her.
He decided that it was because there had never been any one else.
Most fellows had had sweethearts before they married; he had not,
nor a mistress when she left him, though God knows, it would have
been easy enough. His mouth fell into sardonic lines. Those half-
breed women! No one, even when a divorce had hung over him. Oh,
he knew what their friends made of each of Gerty’s lengthened
flights; he knew! But that had been spared him, that vulgar grisly
spectacle of modern life when two people who have been lovers
drag the carcass of their love over the grimy floor of a curious
gaping court. He shuddered. Gerty loved him. Else, why had she
come back to him? Why had she not kept her threat when he
refused to abandon his desert project and turn his abilities into a
more profitable dedication? He could see her face as she stared
flushing up into his that nipping cold day when he had run into her
on Broadway. He remembered her coquetry when she suggested
that there was plenty of room in her apartment! His wife! She spoke
of seeing his pictures in the papers. “He had grown to be a great
man!”
That piquant meeting, the week following had been the brightest of
his life. He was sure then that Gerty loved him. The wrangles were
only their different ways of looking at things. Of course, they loved
each other. But Gerty couldn’t stand pioneer life. She had loved him,
or she would not so easily have been persuaded to try it over again.
She yearned to make him comfortable, she said. So she had gone
back, and pulled down his ramada, and put his clothes in the lowest
bureau drawer!
“It wasn’t either of our faults,” he ruminated. “It was the fault of the
institution. Marriage itself is a failure. Look at the papers, the divorce
courts. A man’s interests are no longer his wife’s. Curious that it
should be so. But it’s a fact. It is the modern discontent. Women
want different careers from their husbands.”
Yet, how could he help throwing his life into his work? He had
committed himself; it was an obligation. Besides, he was a Hardin;
they take things that way. And, too, a man can not live in the desert
the best years, the vivid years of his life without absorbing its grim
indomitable spirit; without learning to love, to require the great
silent mornings, the vast star-brilliance of the nights; without falling
under the spell of the land, the spell of elusiveness and mystery, of
false distances, illusions; of content.
If it were not for that indefinable something, his allegiance to the
cause which mocked at reasons and definitions; oh, he knew!—he
had tilted with Gerty and been worsted!—he would have resigned
from the company, his company which had dishonored him. Why
should he stay to get more stabs, more wounds? MacLean, what in
God’s name had MacLean ever done for the valley? And Rickard? It
was he, Tom Hardin, who had pulled the valley, and therefore the
company, from ruin, and it was that very act which had ruined him.
Yet for his life, were he to go over it again, he knew he could not do
differently. A curious twist of the ropes which had pulled the
company back from the edge of the precipice and mangled him.
Where was the loyalty of his associates? Loyalty, there was no such
thing! They were cowards, all of them. Afraid of the power of the O.
P. Truckling to it! Kotowing to Marshall, shivering every time he
opened those profane lips of his. Bah! It made his stomach turn. Oh,
he saw through their reason for kicking him out. He hadn’t been
born yesterday. This was a big thing, too big not to rouse cupidity,
cupidity of men and corporations. He had been fooled by Marshall’s
indifference; play, every bit of it; theatric. Faraday’s reluctance?
Sickening. It was a plot. Some one had put him up to it, given him
the first suggestion, made him think it was his own. Hot chestnuts,
all right! He was burned all right, all right! And the last scorch, this
pet of Marshall’s! Hardin gave a scantling in his path a vicious kick.
The girl’s prattle had died. She walked with him silently.
At the door of her tent, she stopped, looking at him wistfully. She
wished he could hide his hurt. If he had only some of the Innes’
pride!
“How are things?” She used their fond little formula.
“Oh, rotten!” growled Hardin, flinging away. The gate slammed
behind him.
 CHAPTER VIII
UNDER THE VENEER

AN hour later Innes, blinking from the sun, stepped into the tent,
which had been partitioned with rough redwood boards into a bed-
chamber on the right, a combination dining-room and “parlor” on
the left. Her glance immediately segregated the three stalks of pink
geraniums in the center of the Mexican drawn-work cloth that
covered the table. Gerty, herself, in a fresh pink gingham frock, was
dancing around the table to the tune of forks and spoons. It was just
like Gerty to dress up to her setting, even though it were only a
pitiful water-starved bouquet. She had often tried to analyze her
sister-in-law’s hold on her brother; certainly they were not happy.
Was it because she made him comfortable? Was it the little air of
formality, or mystery, which she drew around her? Her rooms when
Innes was allowed to enter them were always flawless; Gerty took
deep pride in her housekeeping. Why was it, Innes wondered, that
she could never shake off her suspicion of an underlying untidiness?
There was always a closed door on Gerty’s processes.
“May I help?” The sun was still yellowing the room to her.
“Hello!” Hardin looked up from the couch where he was lying. Innes
suspected it of being a frequent retreat. She had found it tumbled
once when she ran over early. It was then that Gerty made it
understood that she liked more formality. Innes was rarely in that
tent except for meals now, or during her alternating week of house-
chores.
“I was afraid I was late,” said the girl.
“Lunch will be ready in a few minutes,” announced Gerty Hardin.
“Won’t you sit down? There’s the new Journal. Sam came to clean
this morning, and I couldn’t get to the lunch until an hour ago.”
Innes, settling herself by the reading table, caught herself observing
that it would not have taken her an hour to get a cold lunch. Still, it
would never look so inviting! If Gerty’s domestic machinery was
complicated and private, the results always were admirable. The
early tomatoes were peeled as well as sliced, and were lying on a
bed of cracked ice. The ripe black olives were resting in a lake of
California olive oil. A bowl of crisp lettuce had been iced and
carefully dried. The bread was cut in precise triangles; the butter
had been shaved into foreign-looking roses. A pitcher of the valley’s
favorite beverage, iced tea, stood by Hardin’s plate. There was a
platter of cold meats.
It came home to Innes for the hundredth time, the surprise of such
a meal in that desert. A few years ago, and what had a meal been?
She threw the credit of the little lunch to sulky Tom Hardin lying on
the portière-covered couch, his ugly lower lip outthrust against an
unsmiling vision. It was Tom, Tom and his brave men, the sturdy
engineers, the dauntless surveyors, the Indians who had dug the
canals, those were the ones who had spread that pretty table, not
the buxom little woman darting about in pink gingham.
“Is it because I don’t like her?” she mused, her eyes on the pictures
in the style-book which had just come in that morning. Certainly
Gerty did have the patience of a saint with Tom’s humors. If she
would only lose that set look of martyrdom! It was not for an
outsider to judge between a husband and wife, even if the man
were her own brother. She could not put her finger on the germ of
their painful scenes; she shrank from the recollection of Tom’s
temper; his coarse streak, the Gingg fiber, her own mother had
called it. Tom was rough, but she loved him. Why was it she was
sure that Gerty did not love her husband? Yet there was the distrust,
as fixed and as unjust perhaps as the suspicion of Gerty’s little
mysteries.
She said aloud: “This is your last day. My week begins to-morrow.”
Mrs. Hardin adjusted a precise napkin before she spoke.