until now, when I am telling you, that twenty-five miles from here, in the
cliffs beside the river, there is at this moment peacefully reposing a giant
ready to rise up and fling rocks into the river, and lie back again when all
is done, to watch the Colorado halt in its headlong rush to the sea! I will be
more explicit, gentlemen.
“In the cliffs, _ready to shoot_--bear that always in mind--I have five
hundred thousand pounds of blasting powder, and fifty thousand pounds of forty
per cent. dynamite, so disposed that, fired simultaneously on both sides of
the river, the volume of rock will meet midway and drop into the channel. Some
distance up the river, I have an auxiliary dam built, ready to blow at a
moment’s notice if the main dam seems in danger of not holding against the
terrific pressure of the Colorado’s flow.
“Incidentally--I had nearly forgotten to tell you--I have perhaps the oldest,
most complete private record of the flow, rise and fall of the Colorado River
in existence. The record goes back thirty-nine years, gentlemen. I still use a
gauge which I invented when I was about fifteen, and I find that it is
practical, though crude.
“I have planned the auxiliary dam, as I call it, to check and help hold the
pressure against the main dam, if necessary. In flood time the force is
terrific; I have provided against that. The auxiliary dam, if thrown in, will
give me time to strengthen the main dam. I have not expected that one big
blast will end the matter. Once that is in, and further secrecy impossible, I
shall be prepared to rush one hundred men, whose names and addresses I have on
file, to work with compressors (two on each side of the river, each one
portable and capable of running three drills each--with jack hammers and
expert men behind them). These will rush another system of undermining, so
that a second installment of Black Canyon can be heaved in upon the first.
“You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that we are first in the field by a good
many laborious years. I grant you that the idea was born in greed. The eye of
the vultures have dwelt upon the gold in the river, these fifty years. But
even the vulture must give way to the Eagle. I have seen the wing of the Eagle
spread, and its shadow has touched our dam in Black Canyon. Gentlemen, the
vulture has come to make terms with the Eagle.”
That, for reasons best known to the Commission, was applauded. A great man
asked a question.
“How much, approximately, have you spent in this undertaking?”
Peter glanced down at a slip of paper in his hand.
“It is something I have waited to tell you. I divided our capital into
budgets, as follows:
“A dredger, now waiting at Needles to be towed up the river, four hundred
thousand dollars. (That, of course, is our personal property and need not be
considered in our negotiations, if any are carried on.) Fund for payment of
damages to property caused by blasting, one hundred thousand dollars. (That, I
thought, should pay for all the windows and crockery we may break, and that
remains in bank until such time as we need it.) Property bought along the
river above the dam site, which may be inundated, fifty thousand. Incidental
expenses covering a period of years, fifty thousand. Explosives, wiring,
battery and cement--with hush money paid out--one hundred thousand dollars.
“The explosives, gentlemen, I should expect the government to buy, if you take
over our dam; which I hope that you will do. I have no desire now to infringe
upon the rights of the government, even if I could. The project has been my
life’s work. The achievement in itself has been the big dream of my life. If
it will be of any service to you, if your engineers find my idea a practical
one, I shall feel that my life so far has been well-spent. I had an idea that
our dredger might still be used in the river bed to extract the gold. We have
claims on both sides of the river. I have hoped that we might still be able to
operate our dredger, paying a royalty to the government on whatever gold we
may take out. If that is impossible, then we shall be obliged to unload our
dredger for whatever we can get for it.
“Finally, gentlemen, I must urge you to extend your stay in Las Vegas, so that
you may see our dam, and understand more fully what I have been trying to make
plain to you: That _we have a dam_, ready to shoot within an hour’s
notice--yes, in fifteen minutes from the time you say the word. I believe that
it will hold. You may find that, by reënforcing it, by building spillways and
preparing for your canals, our dam will be of real, practical benefit to
you--put you that much farther along the trail. Give you something concrete to
work to, something besides politics, talk, theories, factions. It’s there.
It’s ready to speak its little piece to-morrow, if you like--though I am not
so ignorant as to speak seriously of that. I merely wish to point my
information, make it definite. You, or you, or you, could go down to our
place, and if I told you just where I have hidden the battery, you could hook
it up to our wires and dam the Colorado--like that.” He snapped the fingers he
had pointed and stood waiting. And while he waited, no man in that car did
more than breathe, and look at Peter, and think rapidly, with some
consternation, of the significance of his information.
“Gentlemen, I have finished. I should like to show you the Cramer Dam,
to-morrow. It may upset your schedule, just as I am making you late for the
banquet, which is probably waiting and cooling at this moment. But, gentlemen,
it will pay you to upset your schedule. It will pay you to take the time and
walk the two or three miles between the nearest road and the dam. Until you do
see the Cramer Dam, which I now publicly announce as being completed, you are
not fully qualified to make your report, if report you must make, to the
Secretary of the Interior, or whoever receives and passes upon your findings
in the matter. Gentlemen, I thank you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
FATE HAS DECREED
“I should like to say just here, if I may, that many of the astonishing facts
as Mr. Cramer has placed them before you I can vouch for from my own personal
knowledge.” Rawley was on his feet, turned toward Peter’s audience. “Just
before the war, I was permitted to look over the work on the Cramer
Dam”--privately, Rawley liked the way Uncle Peter had dignified the dam by
giving it a name which would hereafter identify it to the public--“which at
that time was uncompleted. I did not approve of their project, but I will say
that I was personally in sympathy with it.
“In considering the facts which Mr. Cramer has presented to you, I am taking
the liberty of asking you to bear in mind that I am willing to vouch for their
authenticity. And in explanation of my silence on the subject, I will say that
I went to the Cramers and urged them to abandon their project, since it would
interfere with the reclamation plans of the government. I did not know, until
he stated their position in the matter just now, what stand they meant to
take.”
He sat down, and his chief nodded approvingly. It was perfectly apparent to
Peter that his cause would be none the worse for Rawley’s championship. He
glowed to see how friendly they all were with Rawley. Also, it surprised his
unsophisticated soul to observe the ease and familiarity with which these men
comported themselves. Headliners in the newspapers, every one of them save the
reporters themselves, he had half expected them to retain their platform
manners in private. They were just men, after all, he decided, and turned to
answer the questions of a great man as easily as he would have answered
Rawley.
The committee of entertainment waited a bit for their guests of honor, that
night. From the manner in which the talk slid into other and more accustomed
channels the moment others entered the car, Peter gathered that Las Vegas
would continue for a time in ignorance of what had been going on under its
nose for so long. It tickled him to picture the amazement and incredulity when
the Commission should make its announcement. Or perhaps Las Vegas would read
it in the city papers first. They would be slow to believe that the obscure
family of Cramers could put over a thing like that and keep it under cover all
these years.
At the banquet in the town hall, Peter listened to Rawley’s dazed enthusiasm
calmly while he watched the crowd. This was the first banquet which Peter had
ever attended--a man confessing to fifty-four years and quoting Socrates!--and
he was interested. But Rawley would not let him enjoy himself as he would
like; instead, he must tell why and why and why; a tiresome job for Peter.
“Oh, I didn’t lack confidence, boy. I wanted your opinion without any
influence from me. If I’d told you all I knew, that wouldn’t have helped _me_
any. I wanted to know what _you_ knew about it. Then I compared your ideas
with mine.
“No, Jess and the old man don’t know what I’m up to. I talked to them, some,
after you left. But they can’t see beyond the gold in the river. They’ll be
mad, I expect. But we couldn’t go on the way we planned. You can’t fight the
government, boy. The old Eagle is a real scrapper.
“Yes, Nevada knows I intended to fly a white flag. She’s willing. She sees, as
I do, that you were right--”
Peter’s neighbor on the other side claimed him then; an engineer who wanted
further details of just how Peter had planned to move a mountain and cast it
into the river. Two men across the table left off eating and their talk to
lean forward and listen, and the man next Rawley was frankly stretching his
hearing across and catching as much of Peter’s elucidation as he could. So
Rawley was obliged to content himself with his pride in Uncle Peter, who was
plainly making an extremely favorable impression on certain governors and high
officials. And it amused him secretly to observe Peter’s complete unconcern
over his growing popularity and his childlike interest in the commonplace
incidents of the banquet.
An ambitious reporter slipped up behind Rawley and asked him for the love of
Mike to arrange an interview with Cramer. His tone was imploring.
“New dope--and oh, boy, it’s a hummer!” he confided in Rawley’s ear. “You know
we pencil pushers are just about goofy, trying to get a fresh punch into this
thing. This man, Cramer, is worth a million dollars to the project, just for
the publicity there is in him. A dam under our noses--oh, _boy_!”
“He won’t talk,” Rawley discouraged him. “Taciturn is the word that describes
him.”
“Taciturn? With that talk he put over this evening? I’ve got every word of
it--it’s priceless. Arabian Nights ain’t in it. And believe me, King, it’s
going on the wires complete, the minute we get the word to release it.”
“Let’s see,” Rawley mused. “You’re an A. P. man, aren’t you? Well, I’ll try
and run Peter into a corner for you--but I won’t promise he’ll give you
anything.”
“You, then! King, you’re wise--I can see it in your left eyebrow. You’ve got
some ripping dope on this, and I know it. Say, if you’ll--”
The toastmaster had risen and was rapping a spoon against his plate. The
ambitious scribe and the human beehive subsided, but Rawley observed that the
reporter had pulled up a chair and was preparing to camp at his elbow and
Peter’s. Well, why not? he thought headily. A man like Peter could go far in
the world, give him a chance. And this might be the chance. A desert man who
spoke calmly of budgeting a million dollars, the savings of a lifetime for
three men, to spend in secret upon a project over which the whole nation was
arguing, and who could make a talk like that the first time he ever faced
great men was, to say the least, unusual.
He glanced sidelong at Peter, who had straightened and folded his arms,
gravely prepared to give his full attention to the speakers. There would be no
word out of him now, Rawley knew. As well expect a devout old lady to divulge
her recipe for piccalilli in church. He turned his head and whispered behind
his hand to the reporter:
“Stick around. I’ll do what I can.”
The reporter patted his shoulder gratefully, and Rawley came to attention,
stifling a yawn. It was so like every other banquet, and the speeches were so
like all the other speeches on the same subject! He listened with the same
bored loyalty with which the workers in the Liberty Loan drives and all the
other drives toiled through their patriotic programme night after night, day
after day. It did not lessen their patriotism that the workers sometimes
wearied of the same old arguments, the stereotyped appeals to the patriotism
of the public. He wished that Peter might rise and say what he had said to the
Commission, a couple of hours ago. That would open their eyes!
However, the speeches which were so old to the visiting great ones were not
old to Las Vegas, and they were not old to Peter. There was the usual appeal
for sympathy with the project under the direct supervision of the government,
to which Peter listened closely, his head turned a bit sidewise so that he
would not miss a word of it. The reporter was quietly sketching his profile on
a small pad, but Peter never guessed that.
A tall, lean man from California was speaking. He was the fourth or fifth on
the programme, and the audience was restive under his voice, wanting to hear
from the greatest of the great men there. The greatest of the great men was
listening courteously with half his mind, while the other half was divided
between an aching desire to crawl into his berth and forget the whole darned
thing for a few hours, and recasting a certain story which might be used with
effect at the beginning of his talk,--unless Las Vegas was too familiar with
it. His colleagues knew the thing backward; but then, when one has traveled
much with a certain group, speaking valiantly at every stop in behalf of one’s
cause, one’s colleagues are going to be bored anyway when one starts speaking,
so that their desires are never considered. The same old stuff is always
new,--provided one has always a new audience before one.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the speaker was crying enthusiastically, “you can’t
get away from the fact that progress is ever marching onward. The hand of
Opportunity is lifted, knocking at your door! Whether you open or not--upon
that rests your future. You can’t get away from it. One day (and that day is
not far distant, ladies and gentlemen), you will awake to find yourselves in
the midst of great, growing industries. The mighty river at your very door,
ladies and gentlemen, will be at work for the Nation! The full measure of her
might, ladies and gentlemen, will be _at your service_! Can such a stupendous
thing as that, ladies and gentlemen, be placed in the hands of private
interests? I say, _no_!” (The tall, lean man did not say it, he thundered the
words.) “I say, no man, no group of individuals, can do a thing like that! No
man--”
A queer, sickening lurch of the building, forward and back, a shattering of
windows drowned his voice completely. You know how it is when an earthquake
intrudes upon your little thoughts, your infinitesimal activities. You
suddenly know that you are nothing at all. Your very soul sickens before a
mightier than thou. So it was at the banquet.
The tall, lean man’s plate leaped at him, and a custardy dessert which he had
not touched,--on account of dyspepsia--was deposited on his clothing in
splotches. He started for the door, enraged because every one else was also
starting for the door.
Came a terrific, booming roar like the rolling up of the heavens into a
scroll,--done carelessly and in haste. Women shrieked. Men shouted
unintelligibly under the impression that they were doing something to quell
the panic.
Peter, stunned for a minute, jumped upon the table, one heel crunching a dish
of salted almonds devastatingly. His great voice boomed above the tumult and
stilled it, while each person looked to see what and why he was speaking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s all. There won’t be any more. Folks, like it or
not, you’ve got a dam in the Colorado River! She’s dammed, right this minute.
It’s an accident, a slip-up in the plans, but--_she’s there_. You just heard a
chunk of Black Canyon go into the river. The man that made the last speech
said it couldn’t be done. It _is_ done. Now, the government will have to do
whatever else is to be done. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard the
Cramer Dam go in!”
That stopped the panic automatically. Men and women waited to hear more. They
were accustomed to blasting, if that were all. They accepted Peter’s statement
that this was all of it, though the women were still white, still inclined to
clutch their husbands and sweethearts and wonder if they were going to faint.
Las Vegas was dazed. The Colorado Commission was collectively looking at Peter
through narrowed lids.
Peter glanced down into the measuring, weighing eyes of the greatest man
present. He flushed at what he read there, and he answered the look.
“It’s my fault,” he said simply. “I ought to have tied ’em up, or brought ’em
with me. I should have placed a guard over that dam. I did hide the
battery--but they must have found it.”
At a sudden thought he threw out both hands in the gesture with which a strong
man meets the inevitable.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, and his voice was a challenge. “Fate has decreed that
the thing should go through! I had no knowledge of this, but--” his eyes
darkened and twinkled, the endearing King smile softened his face suddenly
“--gentlemen, if you will stop over a day, I should like to show you the
Cramer Dam, _completed_!”
He looked at the great engineer who had questioned him during dinner.
“_You_ said it couldn’t be done! I’m not a gambling man, Mr. Brown, but I’ll
bet you fifty thousand dollars against fifty cents, that _she’s there_!”
The man he challenged looked up at him. Slowly, as his thought crystallized,
the blood drained out of the engineer’s face, leaving it dead white. He turned
to his chief, but his voice went to the farthest corner of the hall.
“My God! What if she holds a while! Warn Needles, Yuma--send out a general
warning below! Tell the people to hunt the highest points they can reach!
Gentlemen, if that damned Cramer Dam holds for forty-eight hours, there’ll be
the greatest disaster in the history of the West!”
The A. P. man leaped chairs, bowled over men on his way to the door. After him
came the banqueters in a senseless rush.
CHAPTER THIRTY
DAWN AND THE RIVER
On the street men were guessing wild. An explosion had taken place,--every one
knew that. The majority guessed that the powder magazine at Searchlight had
blown up; though as a matter of fact they were not certain that Searchlight
had a powder magazine.
The more impulsive were already tearing down the road in automobiles, without
any very definite notion of where they were headed for. As is customary in
such cases, every man who had a tongue had also an opinion which he was eager
to impart to somebody, and was unable to find any one who would listen to him.
Into this confusion the A. P. man burst like a rocket shot off accidentally.
He was on his way to the telegraph office on the second floor of the depot,
and he meant to arrive there ahead of the others so that he could be sure of a
clear wire to cover the story. Besides, he had been impressed with the need of
haste in warning people below. Yet he found time to shout the news to a group
of men as he passed them.
“Colorado’s dammed!” he cried, and did not wait to explain how it should be
spelled. Wherefore Las Vegas guessed harder than ever until men less hurried
arrived from the banquet hall and told just what had happened. Immediately
thereafter, every man who owned a car cranked up and got going in the
direction of Black Canyon. The Governor of the State stayed a while to give
certain orders and to make sure that they would be promptly obeyed.
Peter laid a detaining hand upon the arm of a shrewd young lawyer whom he knew
slightly, and who had studied him intently while Peter explained to the
banqueters the commotion. The young lawyer instinctively drew aside from the
throng, to a clear space where confidences might be indulged in. But Peter was
brief.
“Here’s a check. It’s good for ten thousand. You advertise that people with
smashed windows and so on can have the damage made good. Get a contractor,
have him investigate all complaints, and then fix things up. I’ll see you in a
day or so. I’m going to the river to see what’s happened. You attend to the
damages here.”
He did not wait until the lawyer consented to accept the job, but left him
standing there, the check in his hands, an unlighted cigar in his mouth. Peter
was just climbing into the big car that drew up to the curb for him, when the
A. P. man--his name was Jerry Newton, by the way--sprinted a half-block and
landed on the running board.
“Sent out a general alarm,” he puffed, “and got the news to headquarters.
Cramer’s speech--wrote it during the feed. Had a hunch I might have to make it
snappy. Needles and Yuma will get word to the ranchers--if the big splash
holds off a couple of hours they think they can reach everybody, practically.
Anybody got a cigar? Never had time to eat a bite.”
“You’re out of luck, then,” Peter informed him. “No chance till breakfast,
now.”
Rawley swung round upon them from the front seat, where he was to pilot the
driver. His voice was strained and unnatural.
“The--folks would know enough to get out of danger, wouldn’t they, Uncle
Peter?”
“They would,” Peter said grimly, “if they had any warning.”
“You don’t think it was an accident, surely!” As Rawley spoke, others leaned
to listen for Peter’s reply.
“I know I found a doctor,--he’s going to follow at our tail light. I hid the
battery where Jess and the old man couldn’t find it. The rest we’ll know when
we get there.” Peter’s exultation had left him completely. He sat back in a
corner of the wide seat and said no more. And by that, Rawley knew that Peter
was worried.
The reporter was saying that Needles had reported every window in town broken
by the concussion.
“Of course they counted, in the five minutes they must have had before you
wired,” Rawley exclaimed irritably. If Peter was worried over the folks in the
basin, then Rawley knew that there was cause. He told the driver to “hit ’er
up, the road’s good”, and thereby gained some minutes and gave some great men
a jolting.
They left the road to Black Canyon and went on to Nelson. They could drive to
the river that way, and one glance would tell them whether the dam was
holding. That was important. The Governor of the State having called for help,
it was necessary to see first of all what the river was doing below the
dam,--if dam there were.
Several cars fell in behind them, no doubt cognizant of the fact that the
Governor, Peter and the great engineer were in the first automobile, and that
they knew where they were going. So it was a swift procession that swung up
over the summit and down into El Dorado Canyon.
The September moon was lingering upon a mountain top, loath to withdraw its
gaze from the crippled river he had watched over all these ages long. Peter
was first out of the car, which, for reasons readily apprehended, he had
stopped well up the wash. If the dam was holding so long, there would be a
great, engulfing wave when it broke, and the longer the dam held, the greater
the flood.
“The river’s high for this time of year, on account of the storms in the
mountains,” the chief engineer of the party informed them superfluously, since
the occurrence was sufficiently unusual to have excited comment before now.
“She’s running close to fifty thousand second feet,--or was, when we left
Needles yesterday.” He turned to Peter with courteous criticism; not for him
was it to censure or judge, but he ventured a remark nevertheless which
betrayed his own personal belief.
“You should have waited until the edge of winter before you let that charge
loose. This is an unusual year, I grant; but with your knowledge of the river,
you must know the danger of attempting to dam it while there is so great a
discharge.”
The group hurried its pace to listen, but Peter, in the lead, seemed wholly
unconscious of criticism and listeners alike. He was absorbed by his own
thoughts, his own fears.