Rawley. And it’s a good claim--group of claims, rather. No one in the country
has ever dreamed that we’ve done more than scratch a living here. Some day,
when your arm is well, I’ll show you. Yes, he has his million.
“For a long time, now--several years--we’ve been getting ready for the dam.
That tunnel you saw is part of the work. When you’re better, I’d like to take
you through our workings and see what we’ve done and what we expect to do.
Maybe you can give us some advice. We’ve had to use our own wits, because we
can’t consult with experts, in the very nature of things. We are not,” he said
cynically, “the only vultures in the world. The country would be black with
them. And when all’s said and done, we have first right. Why, look at El
Dorado! Men sat down there and cursed their luck--and looked straight at the
richest gold mine in the world! This canyon was here, everything was here,
ready for them to go to work and get the gold just as we are going to do. But
nobody thought of it. Sheep--that’s what men are. Not one in a thousand does
any thinking outside the beaten path. Nobody _had_ dammed the river to get the
gold; they had no precedent to follow--no bell wether to show them the way. So
nobody ever thought of the possibility of doing it. Old Jess, I must say, shot
up head and shoulders above the ruck when he conceived the idea. His
avariciousness and dwelling on that one thought all these years have given him
a mental twist. He’d kill any man who seemed to be standing in his way. He’s
gone too far now--he has lived with that air castle too long. But my God,
think what a castle he’s built!” Peter’s voice was vibrant with emotion. Here,
as with Old Jess, was the dream of a lifetime revealed.
“Yes--it’s a tremendous scheme,” Rawley admitted guardedly. “I’m afraid it
won’t work, Uncle Peter. It doesn’t, somehow, seem feasible.”
“Why not?” Peter’s voice challenged him. “Merely because you hadn’t thought of
its feasibility. Nobody thought of it. Why, you’re like all the rest, son. You
can’t think constructively. You must have a precedent to hang onto with one
hand, before you think out into the ocean of unguessed achievements. Fifty
years ago, they would have shut you up in an asylum if you had declared it
possible to telegraph without wires. How was the first telephone hooted? And
history tells us that a large faction of religious people declared that
anesthetics were contrary to the will of God, who meant that men should
suffer.
“When I show you the canyon, back here, and explain to you how we mean to do
it, you’ll have to admit the simplicity of the thing. And that’s it! The very
simplicity of it has prevented men from grasping it.” He laughed scornfully.
“What a to-do about building a dam they make! They must have government
backing, and political wirepulling, and they must fiddle around for years with
hundreds of men building a dam up from bedrock, with cement and stone! Wait
until I show you what _we_ mean to do! Simplest thing in the world--since we
don’t want canals for irrigation and only want to get at the river below. Even
if we did want to divert the water, instead of restraining it only, we could
build our canals just the same, and at our leisure.
“But it’s all desert, above and below. Already I’ve bought any little rancher
out, that might have his land flooded when _we build our dam_.” Peter laughed
again triumphantly. “I’ll arrange to get possession before we’re ready to back
up the water--”
“Will the government allow that?” Rawley’s tone was troubled. So great a hold
had Peter’s argument taken upon him that he found himself _fearing_ that the
government might object.
Peter gave a contemptuous snort. “Give us a chance to rake the gold out of the
river bed below here, and we can pay whatever fine or indemnity the government
may see fit to levy,” he retorted. “But why should it object? We’ll be saving
the folks away down below here a lot of trouble and loss from high water.
They’ve been howling for flood control ever since the Imperial Valley began to
be settled. The dams they’ve got don’t answer the problem. Sooner or later,
the government, or somebody, will have to put a dam in the river, up this way.
They will be mighty grateful, I should say, if we do it at our own expense
while they’re talking about it.
“Then, if they want to, they can pay us for our trouble and go ahead and build
their canals, or power plants, or whatever they want. All we want is the gold
that has been washed down during a few thousand years.” He lifted his arm and
pointed down to where the river could dimly be seen moiling and grumbling over
its rocky bed.
“You see how rocky it is? Figure for yourself what a perfect trap for gold
every bowlder makes! And there is gold! You don’t deny that, do you?”
“Why, no. I can’t deny the very probable presence of gold in considerable
quantity.” This being rather in the nature of a professional question, Rawley
instinctively leaned toward conservatism in his reply.
“Well, that’s our object. We feel it’s going to be worth the expense of
building the dam. Other people may possibly want to make use of our dam, when
they see it. In that case, we should be able to get back at least what money
we are going to put into it. We’ll know, to a dollar. Nevada has got the
education and training the rest of us lack and can tell us at a minute’s
notice just what the work is costing us. That’s her job. And Old Jess has
signed a contract with us three. The idea was his in the first place, and the
claims that produced the gold to do the work with are his--most of them. He
gets half of all the gold we take out. We repay, out of our share, one-half
the expense of building the dam, and the three of us share equally in the
rest. In other words--I suppose I’ve put it clumsily--he takes half the net
proceeds, we divide the other half. And since we inherit, at his death, we are
all satisfied.” He stood up and smiled down at Rawley in the half darkness of
early night.
“So you see, son, why I won’t need any of that gold you and the Injun are
looking for. I expect to be pretty well fixed myself, before so very long.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE LAND OF SPLENDID DREAMS
For days Rawley watched the might of the rushing Colorado and wondered at the
temerity of men who would calmly plan to check its headlong progress to the
sea. A splendid dream, he was compelled to own; a dream worthy a better man
than old Jess Cramer. But every man must have one vision of great things
during his life, else he would lack the spark of immortality. He may distort
the vision to baser depths, but to each life is given one dream, one glimpse
into the realm of beautiful possibilities. So Jess Cramer had dreamed his
dream, had seen his vision, and had held aside the curtain so that others
might see.
It interested Rawley in his days of helplessness to observe the reactions of
that dream upon the diverse natures that dwelt within the basin. Old Jess
Cramer had become a vulture in human form, his whole soul enslaved by the
greed fostered by his individual conception of the vision. Rawley could look
at the river and picture Old Jess down in its slimy bed of mud bars, rocks and
groping streamlets, wildly scrabbling amongst the gravel and stones for the
gold his insatiable soul craved. He pictured Old Jess gloating over his gold,
weighing it in his hands, stupidly goggling without the wit to give it for
what pleasures his spent old life could still enjoy.
Young Jess, too, had pulled the splendid vision down to his dull
understanding. Young Jess, low-browed, sullen, would like to throw the gold
with both hands into the lap of brutish gratifications. Young Jess was a
gambler by nature, Rawley gleaned. He must never be let loose in a town,
because he would have to be hauled out in a drunken torpor, his pockets empty,
his credit strained, his soul fresh blotted by vice. Young Jess had “sprees”;
from Gladys Rawley learned that. So Young Jess was kept on a leash of family
watchfulness.
“When we make our big clean-up,” Gladys confided from the bench on the
screened porch, her baby nursing desultorily in its sleep, “Jess has gotta
give me half of his share fast as he rakes it in. I’m going to have Peter
see’t he does that--or we’ll be broke ag’in in no time. I’m going to put it
where he can’t git his fingers on it to gamble, you bet! And he runs with
women--that sure makes the money fly! But I guess they’ll be two of us, at
that!” she tittered. “I ain’t so old yet I can’t git up some speed--give me
some decent clothes and di’mon’s. I’m going to Salt Lake, an’ I’m going to
have me the biggest car they is on the market. My folks is got a car, down to
Needles--”
Anita,--Rawley was long in learning what was Anita’s bright, particular
vision. One day he asked her outright, since he could not lead her to talk
about her expectations in a general way. And straightway he was humbled and
ashamed.
Anita looked at him stolidly, turned her great bulk and stared down at the
river hurrying by in the midday sunlight. She lifted a hand to her eyes and
stared out from beneath the flat of her brown palm.
“Gol’--if it can buy me back--t’ings I have love’--t’ings I have los’ long
time ago,” she murmured. “Gol’--it don’t buy young body--pretty face--voice to
sing like a bird. Gol’ don’t give back my girl--modder of Nevada. Pah-h!” She
spat at the river contemptuously. “W’at I care for gol’?”
Nevada,--to her the dream was a splendid vision indeed. To her it was
achievement--success--the open door through which she might pass to a
glorified future. Nevada, when pressed, admitted that she loved pretty
things--“And then, the world is so full of people who want to be helped!”
Rawley nodded. “I know. I’ve felt that.”
“And if there is gold to be had, so that they can be helped, I think it’s
wicked not to use every ounce of energy we possess to get it, so that we can
use it,” she declared with more enthusiasm than Rawley had ever seen her show.
“When it’s fought for, just for sake of self-indulgence, it ought to be fought
for in the interests of good. I’d found a home for--well, almost anybody that
needed it. And I want so to travel, Fifth Cousin! I don’t mean to spend more
than two or three millions, just myself. I’m afraid I might grow reckless and
extravagant. So I shall only hold out three million, at the most, for my own
personal needs. The rest I shall give away.” Whereupon she laughed at him.
“You don’t really expect to be a lady billionaire?” Nevada sobered. “It’s such
a big, untamed land,” she dreamed aloud, her young eyes on the river, as
Anita’s had been. “If you don’t dream splendidly, you somehow feel that you’re
too small for the desert. It’s a land of splendid visions, Fifth Cousin. Never
mind if they don’t come true. They’re like the sunsets and the sunrises. They
live, and they die, and they live again, on and on--forever.” She lifted a
tanned, rounded arm and pointed away to the floating, hazy blue of the
horizon.
“That’s what I mean,” she said. “Can you look at that and think small? Why,
every old prospector who follows a burro along the desert trail has his
visions. The dim distances promise him heart’s desire. Why else would he keep
going? He’s a millionaire--in his dreams. The next gulch may change his vision
to reality. Think how the Spaniards came dreaming up this very river, as long
ago as when Washington was praying for boots at Valley Forge! What brought
them, but the splendid dreams--their visions of what lay over the next hill?”
Her gaze dropped to the river. Just as every other adult member of the Cramer
family looked at the hurrying water, so Nevada gazed and saw--not lost youth
and lost love, as did Anita, but the splendid future that would be hers when
the river gave up its hoarded gold. She smiled and forgot to speak. Her vision
held her entranced.
Peter’s dream was very like Nevada’s. Peter, as Rawley knew, exulted over the
achievement itself; the constructive thinking that left the beaten path of
thought and plunged boldly into the realm of unguessed possibilities. The
taming of a river that called itself untamable meant more to Peter than to
Nevada, even. The gold would be his just reward for having dared to achieve
the improbable.
Peter also craved emancipation from the petty round of his isolated life.
Around the world Peter would sail and learn of other lands and other peoples
and the problems which Fate had set them to solve. Peter was willing to divert
a part of his gold to the welfare of his fellow men, but he did not dream of
that as did Nevada. The building of the dam, the actual getting of the gold,
the splendid hazards of the undertaking, these things set Peter’s indigo-blue
eyes alight with the flame of his enthusiasm.
So even the tribe of Cramer dreamed, each according to the quality of his
soul. And Rawley knew why his Uncle Peter stayed and worked
shoulder-to-shoulder with men whose half-relationship humiliated and
embittered him. He knew why Nevada chose to remain here, in an environment
ludicrously unsuitable, inharmonious. Indian and white, they held, in various
forms, the same vision. There was something fine, something splendid in their
even daring to dream.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RAWLEY INVESTIGATES
Came a time when Rawley felt fit enough for work; and this investigation of
the wild, improbable scheme of the Cramers would be work, with every faculty
of the engineer on the alert for his clients. For the others he would not have
attempted the thing he contemplated. He would have told them, more or less
politely but nevertheless firmly, that the whole thing was out of his line and
that he could not assume the responsibility. But for his Uncle Peter and for
Nevada he would do the best that was in him.
Old Jess and Young Jess still looked at him with suspicious eyes, but they
made no comment when he set off one morning with Peter to look over their
work. They followed sullenly along the trail, ready, Rawley thought, to turn
at the slightest indication of treachery and pitch him over the edge of the
cliff--if they could--as Old Jess had naïvely suggested to Peter.
Back to the tunnel Peter led him,--and within it. It was smaller than the
usual mine tunnel, and fifty feet back from the portal two crosscuts ran
parallel with the face of the cliff for a distance of fifty feet in either
direction. In the hard rock, working with hand drills, the excavations had
been made at the expense of infinite labor, Rawley could see. No car or track
was there for removing the muck, which had been taken out in a wheelbarrow. At
the face of the tunnel, a winze had been sunk fifty feet, and from this two
other crosscuts extended, apparently directly beneath the upper ones.
Rawley saw it all, riding down the winze in the bucket, since he had but one
arm of any use. With Uncle Peter at the windlass he felt perfectly
secure--though he would have refused the descent with one of the others, so
great was his distrust of the Cramers, father and son.
When he returned, Peter conducted him down the stairway hewn into the cliff,
and into the big launch.
“This is something we don’t let the world know about,” he remarked. “From
Nelson we pack in supplies that any ordinary miner’s family would need--if
they were just scratching a living out of their claims. You saw how we do
it--with burros. Fifteen years ago we began to work on that stairway and
landing. It was a long, hard job. But I knew that we were going to need some
private way of getting supplies and material in for the dam. Now, we can slip
down to Needles and get a boat-load and get back without these people around
here knowing it. Early morning, just at peep of day, is the time I choose for
running in here. On the far side of the river, none of the El Dorado
prospectors would be apt to notice; and if they did, they would think I was on
my way farther north. Now, I’m going to take you across the canyon.”
Once out and fighting the current, Rawley saw at once why it was that the
Colorado was not considered a navigable river. There were no rapids in the
canyon, properly speaking. But the pent volume of water rushed through like a
dignified mill race, and it was only Peter’s skill and the power of the motor
that landed them across the canyon.
Here, a small eddy, with a break in the bold, granite wall, made a fair
landing. Peter tied the launch securely and led the way up a steep trail from
the water’s edge to a natural shelf, where another tunnel with crosscuts was
being run. As far as the contour of the cliffs would permit, the workings here
were identical with those on the home shore, except that they were not
finished. They had just completed the winze.
“We can’t work over here except when the weather and the river are favorable,”
Peter explained. “And Old Jess kept us at the gold diggings until we balked.
He’d got that one idea so firmly fixed in his mind that he wouldn’t let up
when he had his million. He seemed to think a few months’ work would put the
dam in, and it was next to impossible to pry him away from the gold grubbing.
When we finally struck and refused to put in another shift in the mine, he
yielded the point. Now he’s in a fever to get this done. He’ll sit and watch
the river by the hour, just as you saw him that night he came down on us.
Gloats and grudges by turns, I suppose. He doesn’t realize what a job it
is--blowing enough rock into the canyon to dam the river.”
“I wonder if you do, yourself!” Rawley remarked laconically and led the way
out. “I want to study these cliffs a bit from the outside. I’ve seen enough of
your underground work.”
He spent two hours sitting on first one jutting rock pinnacle and then
another, studying the cliffs and making sketchy diagrams and notes. A splendid
dream, surely; but a dream wellnigh impossible, as he saw it.
That evening after supper, he sent word to Peter that he was ready to talk to
him and would prefer to have the Cramers present. Wherefore Peter brought them
over to the cabin; Old Jess vulture-like and grim, and fairly bristling with
suspicion, Young Jess surly, but wanting to know what was going on between
Peter and this stranger. Rawley dragged chairs out to the porch and laid a
diagram sketch on the small table beside him.
“I want to say first, to all of you,” he began gravely, “that I don’t approve
of the scheme from any point of view. Peter says that is because I think by
rule; because the thing has never been done, and I therefore have nothing to
work from. However that may be, I warn you at the start that I don’t like it.
I don’t believe you can dam the river in the way you are going at it. It’s a
cinch you will have to alter your plans in certain ways, if you are to have
any hope whatever of accomplishing the feat.
“I want to warn you that the government will probably have something to say
about your performance. If the river had not been declared unnavigable, you
would be in trouble for obstructing the channel, if for nothing else. What
Washington will say about it in the circumstances, I can’t predict. I don’t
know. But if you persist in carrying out your scheme, be prepared for trouble
with the authorities. Red tape may wind you up tighter than you anticipate.
“With the understanding, then, that I absolutely disapprove of the idea, I am
going to give you my opinion of the most feasible method of making it a
success. Of course, I needn’t point out to you the very obvious fact that, if
you don’t make a success of it, you will lose every dollar you put into it,
and probably get into trouble just the same. If you spend a fortune throwing
rock into the river and fail to dam the flow so that you can carry on whatever
operations you have in mind on the river bed below, you will be worse off than
if you had not started. Therefore, I’m going to tell you how I think you
should do it.”
“In other words, ‘Don’t do it--but if you _do_ do it, do it this way,’” Nevada
murmured mischievously.
“Something like that,” Rawley grinned. “In the first place, your work is far
from finished. You will have to put in relievers, to break the rock between
your crosscuts and the face. That can be done by raising, or you can sink
incline shafts from the surface. My diagram here shows approximately what I
mean. Later, when my arm is well, I will, if you like, run your lines for you.
I have a small instrument for my own use.
“These relievers must be shot with dynamite, of course. I suppose, having had
long experience in mining, you know that you should use some dynamite for
breaking the rock, and black powder to lift and heave it over into the river.
Since dynamite gives a quick concussion, the whole can be fired
simultaneously; the black powder will follow the dynamite.
“What you should have, of course, is the advice of expert engineers who
specialize in this sort of thing. It’s out of my line, and I am merely giving
you my opinion for whatever it is worth--in soundness,” he added, catching a
miserly chill in Old Jess’s eyes. “I couldn’t sell advice on a matter outside
my profession, and in any case I am glad to do whatever I can to help you
avoid mistakes. I am trying to see it as a mining problem--the opening of a
glory hole, we’ll say.
“Your idea of crosscutting at different levels is a good one, but you should
by all means break your rock to the surface, and so give your main explosives
a chance to lift it over. You see what I mean?” He lifted the diagram and held
it up for them to see. “Here are your tunnel, winze and crosscuts. Then here
are your relievers. An incline to the surface--or close to the surface--as
high as you wish the cliff to break. I shall have to survey that for you, to
give you the proper pitch. Then these ‘coyote holes’ between the apex and your
adit--these will be filled with dynamite. I wonder if you have formed any
definite idea of how much powder and dynamite you are going to need!”
“Nevada and I have been working on that for five years,” Peter said, and
smiled. “We intend to use plenty.”
“I should hope so,” Rawley exclaimed. “Better a few tons too much, than to
have all your work and money go for nothing. Make a dead-sure job of it,
or--drop the scheme right here.”
This brought an ominous growl from the old man and Young Jess. Peter was
studying the diagram. He passed it along to Young Jess, who scowled down at it
intently, his slower mind studying each detail laboriously. Old Jess reached
out a grimy claw and bent over it like a vulture over a half-picked bone.
“I’m afraid you’ll have trouble getting your explosives,” Rawley observed.
“The war is taking enormous quantities to Europe. And I’m afraid we’re going
to be dragged into the scrap ourselves. In which case, the government will
probably shut off private buyers entirely.”
Young Jess laughed a coarse guffaw. “We should worry!” He leered at Rawley.
“We got a glory hole a’ready, back at the diggin’s. We been five years gittin’
powder in here. Gosh! We c’d blow up Yerrup if we wanted to, ourselves!
Y’ain’t showed him our powder cache, have yuh, Pete?”
“I didn’t know anything about that. It isn’t necessary that I should,” Rawley
broke in impatiently. “My concern is merely the engineering problem you’ve got
on your hands. As to the details and the means of putting the idea into
execution, I’m not sure that I want to know. I might be hauled up as a
witness, sometime--and what I don’t know I won’t have to lie about.”
“That’s right. That’s the way to talk,” Young Jess approved. The diagram had
evidently impressed him considerably. He stared at Rawley from under his
heavy, lowering brows. Though he spoke as any illiterate white man of the West
would speak, he looked like a full-blooded Indian. Rawley wondered which side
of him did the thinking,--if any. The worst of both sides, he guessed
shrewdly.
“We ain’t tellin’ more’n we’re obleeged to tell,” Old Jess grumbled, lifting
his greedy old eyes from the sketch. “We ain’t sharin’, neither! You’re eatin’
my grub--two of ye--”
“Grandfather!” Nevada sprang up and faced the old man furiously. “How can you
dare! Have you forgotten that Mr. Rawlins and his partner saved my life and
Grandmother’s? Oh, what a groveling lot of brute beasts we have become!”
“Mr. Rawlins is my affair,” Peter said sternly, catching Nevada’s hand as she
would have passed him and pulling her down to his knee. “I brought him here.
He is doing this work for me. You two will profit by it, though it will not
cost you so much as a crust of bread. Nevada is right, except that you strike
me as being more like vultures. All you think of is what lies at the bottom of
the river.