crevice, almost a small cave, in the spur of the mesa which overhung
the east end of the dam the explosives were stored. The dynamite was
kept in oilskin bags, the detonating caps in waterproof boxes. There
were sixteen sticks or cartridges in each bag. Each stick was an
inch and a half in diameter and eight inches long. One bagful should
be ample. Indeed if that did not do the work the attempt would fail.
The men waited while Meade selected a bag of dynamite, a box of
detonators, and a package of fuses. It was a cardinal rule that
dynamite cartridges and detonating caps should never be carried by
the same person, because the combination so greatly increased the
risk of premature explosion. The fulminate of mercury in the
detonators was very volatile, highly explosive and immensely
destructive considering its size. One such cap could blow off a
man's hand or even his head and in its explosion might detonate the
dynamite. Hence the separation when being carried.
Meade decided to take that risk. He knew how perilous was the
undertaking, how liable he was in his hurry to fall against the
rocks, slippery and half submerged in that pouring rain. He knew
what the consequences of such a fall would be. He would center all
risks in himself. He thrust the box of detonators in his pocket, the
package of fuses inside his flannel shirt, and carried the dynamite
bag in his hand. He would need his free hand to protect himself, so
all the tools were carried by the other men.
The little Italian shook his head as he noted these preparations. He
happened to be one of the explosive force, those whose duty it was to
do the blasting. In his practical way he knew a great deal about the
properties and possibilities of usefulness of the dynamite. Meade's
purpose was obvious even to Murphy, who was only a laborer, though
where he proposed to work neither man had any idea at all.
"Dynamita no work in zis weather," said Funaro impressively.
"Probably not," answered Meade, hurrying his preparations, "but it's
our only chance."
"Give me ze caps," urged the Italian gallantly.
"No, I'll take both."
"It ees danger."
"Yes, but come on."
Meade, wasting no more words, sprang at what was left of the trail
and the two men gallantly followed him. The hog-back at which he was
aiming was perhaps a little more than two miles from the dam. On the
ordinary trail and prepared for the run he could have managed it in
fifteen minutes; as it was they made it in thirty. The extreme
possibility of the life of the dam seemed to Meade not much greater.
He went in the lead and by his direction the others kept some
distance behind him.
"If I fall and explode this dynamite there's no need of all three of
us being blown up," he had said, and it was no reflection on their
courage that they complied with his direction.
Indeed a stern command was necessary to keep the two men back. They
had caught something of the gallant spirit of the engineer and the
big Irishman and the little Italian were as eager as he. Helped by a
few hasty words as they ran, they had both of them learned what he
would be at. They both realized that they were the forlorn hope,
that if they could not save the dam nobody and nothing could. And
there was a trace of the age-long rivalry between the Celt and the
Roman. The scion of the legionary and the son of the barbarian who
had fought together in the dawn of history vied with each other then.
Again and again Meade had to order them back. He was keenly sensible
of his danger. He knew that if he fell, if the dynamite struck the
ground violently, it might explode. He knew that the unstable
fulminate of mercury in the detonators might go off at any
time--perhaps that was the greater danger--but he never checked his
pace or hesitated in a leap or sought an easy way for a second. His
soul was rising and his heart was beating as they had never risen or
beaten in his life. And the hearts of his men beat with his own.
He knew, of course, if the dam went out the railroad, the bridge, the
town, the citizens, the women and children, and everything and
everybody would go. If he could save them his act might be set off
against the loss of the International. But whether that were true or
not, whatever the consequences to him, he was bound to save them.
The weight of every man, the weight of every woman, the weight of
every child in the valley, the weight of all the business enterprises
of the town, the weight of the great viaduct of steel, the weight of
the huge dam itself, was on his shoulders as he ran. He carried the
burden lightly, as Atlas might have upborne the world with laughter.
For despite his determination and haste he had in his heart the great
joy that comes when men attempt grandly and dare greatly for their
fellow-men. If he could only by and by see his hopes justified by
success his happiness would be complete.
And there were thoughts personal as well as general. If he died,
whether successful or not, men would tell about his endeavor. She
would hear. It came to him afterward, when he learned how she had
looked down upon him as he ran, that he had somehow felt her
presence, not a presence impelling him to look up, but a presence
driving him on. He lost his hat, he tore off his long coat and threw
it aside as he plunged on with his precious bag in his hand. He did
not dare to look at his watch, he did not stop for anything, but it
seemed that he must have spent hours in that mad scramble over the
water-covered rocks. He heaved a deep breath of relief when he
rounded the mesa and struck the trail. Bad as was the going, it was
nothing to what they had passed over.
Presently he broke out into the open slope and there before him was
the rounded curve of the hog-back, to gain which he had risked so
much. Were they in time? Yes, the water in the lake was not
flowing, it was only rising. Evidently the dam still held. He ran
along it till he reached the narrowest part of it, twenty feet wide
between water-covered valley and sharply descending ravine. The
shortest separation between Picket Wire and the Kicking Horse! The
water in the lake was within three feet of the crest. The rain was
coming down steadily. He could realize by the water level where he
stood that it must be lapping the top of the dam now, or a little
above it. He had five minutes, ten at most. He was still in time.
The thoughts came to him as he ran. And as he saw the place again he
made his instant plan.
He laid the dynamite down just as Murphy and Funaro reached him and
stood panting, their heavy breathing, the sweat mingling with the
rain in their wet faces, evidencing their exhaustion. From Murphy,
who had been the faster, Meade took the two tripod legs, stout oak
staves about an inch and a half thick with sharp metal points. He
jammed them down into the ground about five feet from the edge of the
Kicking Horse ravine and about fifteen feet apart.
"Holes, there," he shouted, "deep enough for five cartridges."
Funaro nodded. He knew exactly what to do. Murphy had often seen
the explosive gang at work. He was quick-witted and he had only to
follow the Italian's actions. The work was simple. Seizing their
spades the two men cut into the sod, using the pick to dislodge small
bowlders and break up the earth. The soil was light and porous and
it had been well soaked by the rain. After they had made an
excavation about two feet deep they laid aside their shovels and with
the iron range pole as a starter and the bigger tripod stakes to
follow they made two deep holes in the ground, forcing the pole and
then the stake into the earth, which the continuing rain tended to
soften more and more. They made these holes about four feet deep
below the excavation, driving in and twisting and churning the stakes
by main strength.
They could by no means have accomplished this save for the softening
assistance of the rain and the furious energy they applied. They had
been working since four in the morning at the dam, they had made that
difficult run at headlong speed, yet they labored like men possessed.
They even wasted breath to call challengingly and provokingly and to
set forth their progress each to the other. In almost less time than
it takes to tell it they had completed the holes and so informed the
engineer triumphantly.
Meade, as usual, had reserved to himself the more dangerous, if less
arduous task. Covering himself with big Murphy's discarded slicker,
which fell over him like a shelter tent as he knelt down, he opened
the box of detonators, selected one and attached the fuse in position
carefully. Then he unfolded the paper about one of the cartridges
and placed the detonator, wrapping the paper around it thereafter.
He prepared two cartridges this way with the greatest care.
The holes now being ready, the men rapidly but carefully cut slits in
the covering of the cartridges and lowered four cartridges down each
hole, forcing them gently into place with the butt ends of the tripod
stakes and compressing them so that they filled the holes completely.
Then Meade placed his two prepared sticks with the detonators on top
of the other four. He cut the fuse to the proper length in each case
and, keeping it carefully covered with the raincoat, he held it while
the others filled in the holes and the excavations and carefully
tamped down the earth. All that remained was the lighting of the
fuse. And then? Would the dynamite go off? With fuses it was
uncertain in its action at best, and although these fuses were
supposed to be so prepared as to be independent of weather
conditions, more often than not rain spoiled a blast. If this blast
failed it was good-by dam--good-by everything.
Meade drew out from the pocket of his flannel shirt a box of matches.
He had to light the farther cartridge fuse, then run fifteen feet and
light the nearer one, and then make his escape. He had made the
nearer fuse a little shorter so as to secure a simultaneous explosion
if possible.
Tony Funaro now interposed gallantly.
"Giva me da light," he demanded, extending his hand.
"G'wan wid ye," shouted the big Irishman eagerly; "lemme do it, sor."
"Stand back, both of you," cried Meade, succeeding after some trouble
in striking a match.
He had cut off a short length fuse for a torch, the better to carry
the fire from one blast to another. As it sputtered into flame he
touched the first fuse, then the second and turned and ran for his
life after Murphy and Funaro. They had just got a safe distance away
when with a muffled roar the two blasts went off nearly together.
When they ran back they saw that two-thirds of the hillock on that
side of the ravine had gone. A wall of earth through which water was
already trickling rose between the great gap they had blown out and
the lake, the upper level of which was much higher than the bottom of
the great crater they had opened.
"Hurrah," yelled Meade, the others joining in his triumphant shout.
"Now, men, another hole right there," he pointed to the foot of the
bank. "Drive it in slanting and it will do the job."
"Will the dam be after holdin' yit, sor?" asked Mike Murphy, seizing
his pick.
"I hope so, but for God's sake, hurry."
With two men working the last hole was completed before Meade was
ready. Funaro, indeed, came to his assistance in preparing the
cartridge. Presently all was completed. Rejecting the pleas of both
men, Meade struck the match and this time, since there was but one
blast to be fired, he touched it directly to the fuse and waited a
second to see that it had caught and ran as before.
At a safe distance they drew back and waited. Nothing happened. A
few seconds dragged on. They saw no sign of life in the fuse, no
light. In spite of the care they had taken it had got wet. It would
not work. The precious moments were flying. They stared agonizingly
at the fuse through the rain.
"I'll have to take a look at it," said Meade desperately.
Funaro and Murphy caught him by the arms. They all knew the
tremendous risk in a nearer approach. The fuse might be alight
still. At any second the flame might flash to the detonator and
then---- Yet Meade had to go. That charge had to be exploded if he
detonated it by hand, he thought desperately, and he had not come so
far and worked so hard to fail now.
"Don't go," cried Murphy.
"It ees danger," shouted Funaro.
But Meade shook them off and bade them keep back. What was his
danger compared to the issue involved? That last charge had to be
exploded. He stepped quickly toward it and as he did so he threw his
eyes up toward the gray, rain-filled heaven in one last appeal.
Did he hear the blind roar, did he see the upbursting masses of
sodden earth, was he conscious of the fact that the whole side of the
hillock had been blown away, that the last explosion had completed
the shattering work of the first, that they had succeeded? Did he
mark the whirling water, driven backward at first by the violence of
the explosion, returning and rolling in vast mass through the great
opening, did he see it plunging down the slope, through the trees and
bushes, and pour thunderously into the bed of the ravine? Did he see
the tremendous rush of the water from the great lake that man had
created tear earth from earth and ever widen and deepen the opening
as it crashed in a foaming, terrible, red cataract through the
outlet, striking down great trees, roaring, boiling wildly to the
bottom of the gorge far below?
No, he saw nothing. Broken, beaten down by a huge bowlder that had
been thrown upward by the explosion and had struck him on the breast,
and lying battered under a rain of smaller stones and earth, he was
as one dead.
"By God," cried Winters in great excitement on the crest of the hill,
"he's done it. He's saved the dam; that's a man."
"Don't you know him?" screamed Miss Illingworth in his ear.
"No."
"Meade!"
Winters caught her by the arm.
"He's dead," she cried high and shrill, "but he saved the dam and the
bridge and the town. He's made atonement."
"Yes, yes, don't faint," cried Winters.
"Faint! I'm going to him."
"How?"
"The nearest way," screamed the woman, letting herself down over the
cliff wall to the broken rocks, by which only the hardy could reach
the lower level.
* * * *
What of the dam below in the valley?
"Hold it, men, hold it; for God's sake, hold it," shouted
Vandeventer, rising from his crouching position against the palisade
to resume it instantly he had spoken. "Keep it up. If it goes down
let's go down with it. Damn it to hell, hang on--hang on! We'll
hold it. We aren't beat yet."
Broken words, oaths, protestations, curses, cheers, expletives in
strange languages from the polyglot mob of men burst forth. Even
cowards had been turned into heroes because they had fought by the
side of men. Here and there a man not weaker physically perhaps, but
less resolute, less spiritually consecrated, less divinely obsessed,
dropped out of the rank that pitted itself in furious, futile, but
sublime fury against the wavering wall. Some of them fell backward
and lay still. Some had fainted and some of them were half dead. A
few here and there sank down on the trampled, muddy embankment and
buried their heads in their hands, sobbing hysterically. But most
still blind, mad, sublime, held on. And the palisade did not fall.
It did not bend back any further.
The throb that told of the tremendous pressure of the waves, the
quiver that experience could feel the prelude to failure, began to
die away, to stop. What did it mean? The thunder grew still, the
rain diminished, it ceased, the clouds broke. Some great hand, as of
God, swiftly tore the black vault of the heavens apart. Faint light
began to glow over the sodden land. Through the rift they saw dimly
one great peak of mighty range. What had happened?
"Here," said Vandeventer.
How white he looked, how haggard, streaks of gray in his black hair
that had not been there before, but his eyes were blazing. He was
still the indomitable chief of the Spartan band. The nearest men
gave him a hand. He clambered up to his former vantage point on top
of the highest log of the stockade and stared down. The rise of the
water had stopped! He could not believe it, yet it was true. The
rain had ceased again, but by every natural law the drainage from the
hills would continue for some time in full volume. Yes, by all
rights the dam was doomed. The water still trickled through the
palisades in many small streams. That had been a gallant effort they
had made, even if a vain one.
For ten minutes he stood silent, exhausted. Then he saw. The water
was not rising. No, it was falling; only a trifle, but enough.
Presently it had stopped filtering through the revetment. He looked
back. Not a drop ran on the other side of the palisade. Vandeventer
knew that the water must be discharging somewhere. The lake must
have broken through somewhere. He only needed that hint to recall
the hog-back and then Meade. He saw it all now.
"We've won, the dam's saved," he cried greatly to the men who stood
back of the palisade staring at him. "Roberts has blown up the
hog-back. The water's falling. See for yourselves."
Every man sprang up the palisade. Some one laughed and then some one
raised a cheer and those mud-covered, sodden, wornout men, who had
been about to die, saluted in heroic acclaim him who had led them to
victory and by implication him who had made that triumph possible.
XXX
THE TESTIMONY OF THE DEAD
Just as Helen Illingworth and Winters reached the lower level at the
foot of the mesa they were joined by Rodney.
"What has happened?" cried the engineer.
Winters answered as the three hurried along without stopping:
"Meade blew up the hog-back."
"Was that he?"
"Yes."
"I thought there was something familiar about him, but I did not
dare----"
"I recognized him instantly," said Helen Illingworth.
"That atones for the International," continued Rodney.
"What does?" asked his friend.
"The dam is safe; the water has stopped rising. I believe it's
beginning to fall a little. I saw someone jump up on the palisade
and wave his hand and then I saw them all gather around, evidently
cheering."
"I should think the water would be lowered," said Winters; "it's
pouring out of a hole in the hog-back as big as a church."
"It was a fine thing in Meade. Let's hurry and tell him so,"
answered Rodney.
"I'm afraid it's too late," said Winters.
"Oh, don't say that," cried the girl.
"Why, what's happened?"
"The second blast was slow in going off," said Winters; "he went back
to look at it and got knocked over. It looked pretty bad from the
top of the mesa."
Rodney would not have been human if he had not felt a leap in his
breast at the possibility, but he was too loyal a friend and too
genuinely fond of Meade for more than a passing emotion, for which he
was more than a little ashamed.
"Let us press on," he urged.
In a few moments they stopped by the three men. Meade was still
unconscious. The big Irishman sat on the grass with the engineer's
head on his knee. The deft-fingered little Italian was trying to
wash the blood away from the unconscious man's forehead with a
sodden, ragged piece of cloth. Meade was unconscious, he was
breathing heavily. There was a catch in his respiration. His breath
came at irregular intervals and was labored as if painful.
A huge rock had struck him in the breast. The two men had torn open
his shirt and undershirt. The engineer's chest was bruised and
bloody. Evidently bones had been broken and probably serious
internal injuries had resulted. Every breath was an apparent agony
and that the exquisite pain did not arouse him to consciousness was
evidence of the terrible nature of the injury. A smaller, sharper
rock had cut him across the forehead and cheek, just missing his
right eye, and they found out afterward that he had been struck by
several other pieces dislodged by the explosion, and that his body
was covered with bruises.
But there was nothing, not even in the cut on the forehead, to cause
any great alarm had it not been for the crushed chest. Winters and
Rodney were both men of action, accustomed to quick thinking and
prompt decision in emergencies; while Helen Illingworth could only
stand with clenched hands staring in mental anguish that paralleled
the physical suffering of the man she loved, the engineer and the
rancher immediately made preparations to get the wounded man to the
car.
Murphy wore in his belt a short woodman's axe. With it they cut down
two young saplings, trimmed them and thrusting them through the
sleeves of their raincoats they made a fairly practicable litter.
Using the utmost care, they laid the unconscious man upon it and
Winters and Murphy, the two biggest men, took the handles at either
end. Helen Illingworth, praying as she had never prayed before,
sought to support the unconscious man's head. The Italian gathered
up the tools and went ahead to open up the path. Rodney followed
after.
Their progress was slow of necessity. They had to handle Meade with
great care. Winters and Rodney, after the brief inspection they had
made, could not see a chance on earth for him. Neither could Helen
Illingworth. They went along without conversation, naturally, except
for an outburst of admiration from Winters.
"I tell you," he said, "it was a magnificent thing for him to do. He
risked his life a hundred times in that mad rush with the dynamite in
his hands and the detonators in his pocket. Yet if he had only
stayed back he would have been safe."
"It was his anxiety for the dam and the people that brought him
down," said Helen Illingworth. "He can't die," she murmured. "God
surely will not let him die. I love him so. And yet if he does and
I have lost him, innocent or guilty, he has redeemed his fame."
"He saved others," quoted Rodney under his breath, "himself he could
not save."
It was a work of great difficulty to get the wounded engineer into
the car, but they finally managed it. By the woman's direction they
laid him on her bed in her own private stateroom.
"One of us must go for a doctor at once," said Rodney, "and that will
be my job."
"It's twenty miles to the town," said the conductor, who had helped
to receive them. "If one of you could telegraph we could tap a wire."
None of them could.
"It's all down-grade and there's a good roadbed and I was some
sprinter in my college days," said Rodney.
"And there was never greater need for haste than now," said Winters.
"I wish I had a horse here."
"Don't give up, Miss Illingworth," continued Rodney, as he started
toward the door. "He's alive yet."
Just then, opportunely enough, rounding the last curve before the
arch bridge, they saw the end of the other car rapidly approaching
them. Had they not been so excited they could have heard the furious
puffing of the engine as it drove the car at great speed up the heavy
grade.
"Wait," said the conductor, "we can send the engine down for the
doctor. That'll be the Colonel's car."
In a few minutes the car stopped on the siding. Out of it came
Colonel Illingworth, Dr. Severence, Curtiss, and some of the
officials of the Bridge Company in town. They were all greatly
excited. The Colonel did not stop to put on his hat. He ran to the
other car and climbed aboard.
"The dam's going," he shouted. "The bridge and the town will be
flooded. We got word an hour ago by a messenger galloping down. The
telephone wires are down. I ran the car up here as the quickest way
to get over to the reservoir and the dam. Some of you who know the
way come with me."
By this time the observation room of the car was filled with men.
"You need not worry about the dam," said Rodney.
"What do you mean?"
"A man blew up the hog-back, made a spill-way, the water rushed out
through it into this ravine, you can see it below there, relieving
the pressure on the dam at once. Since it has held up till now it
will hold for good."
"Thank God!" cried the Colonel, sinking down into a chair and wiping
the sweat off his brow. "The bridge will be safe then. By George,"
he gasped, "the Martlet Company could hardly have stood another loss
like that. Who's the man who blew it up?"
"His name is Meade," said Rodney quietly.
"Not----?"
"Yes."
There was a long pause. Every man there knew of the failure of the
International and in what estimation the old Colonel held the name of
Meade because of that.
"Well, it was a fine thing," said the Colonel; "it makes up for his
blundering work on the bridge."
"Beg pardon, sir," said Shurtliff, who had stood wide-eyed and white
and suffering in silence ever since the engineer had been brought to
the car, "it was not his blunder."
"Why, you said so yourself," cried the Colonel.
"I lied," admitted the secretary.
Quick as a flash Rodney had his notebook out. Here was the proof at
last.
"Why?"
"To save the reputation of the man I loved."
"And how do I know you are not lying for this man now?" asked the
Colonel harshly.