The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado

by B. M. Bower

“Fifty-four years ago, I was born within sight and sound of the Colorado River and within sight of the cliffs of Black Canyon. The river has been a part of my life. The wilderness hedged me in, mile upon mile. When I was ten, so long ago as that, I was taught the use of a rifle that I might help defend lives and property from hostile Indians and renegade white men. My mother is the granddaughter of a chief, and the daughter of a Spanish nobleman who voyaged up from Mexico before white men had seen this country. I am therefore one-fourth Indian,—a son of the desert. My father was a white man of good blood.

“When I was a boy and helped in my father’s mine at Black Canyon, I was urged to greater labor by the great plan my father had conceived in his long labor at the placer claims. He would save his gold until he had enough and more than enough. Then, when he had gold enough, he would dam the flow of the Colorado River and get the gold that lies in the river bed, washed down through the ages.

“That plan became the splendid dream of my life, Gentlemen of the Commission. The stupendousness of the idea took root in my very soul. I would stand and watch the river hurrying past, and I would think how best it might be done, and I would picture the river held back, halted in its headlong course to the sea.

“When I was fifteen I was studying, in a small, groping way, the engineering feat of damming the river at Black Canyon. I knew that I had a tremendous problem before me. I knew that the problem was doubled by the need of secrecy, which had been impressed upon me from the time I was a child. No one had thought of getting the gold from the river bed. The river was too swift, its currents too treacherous. I used to watch the steamboats warp up against the sweep of that current, to make the landing at El Dorado. That gave me an idea of the giant strength we should have to combat, to conquer. No one ever suspected the purpose that grew within the minds of the ‘squaw man’ Cramer and his breed boys, mining at Black Canyon. Deliberately we fostered the belief in our commonplace lives, our lack of ambition, our ignorance. That belief, gentlemen, was a necessary factor in our ultimate success.

“Studying alone—for my younger brother avoids thinking when possible, and my father gave himself up wholly to the thought of getting the gold—I felt the need of help from our great engineers. I could not take the time for college, for studying in the schools that turn out engineers. I am a man of the desert, as you see me. What I know I have learned by reading when others slept. I could not give my working hours to study, for they were sold to the need of getting gold to build the dam in order to get more gold! I alone realized the magnitude of the undertaking; to me they looked for the wit to accomplish their desire. And I remembered, gentlemen, the engineering problem solved by half-savage peoples; their power is gone, but their engineering feats remain to testify for them. I remembered the pyramids, some of the wonderful old cathedrals of Europe, the marvelous ruined cities of the Incas, the Aztecs,—I counted myself a savage who must think for himself, and I went at the problem of making the splendid dream a reality.

“Gentlemen, when I was yet a boy I was experimenting with explosives. I was studying the resistance of granite, the lifting power of black powder; I was preparing to build the dam. Before I had books on the subject, I had measured so many cubic feet of granite and had heaved it a certain distance with so many pounds of black powder. Over and over again I did it, in spare time when I was not working in the underground placer claims by the river.

“I will be brief, gentlemen, but I want to be understood by each one of you before I stop talking. I told my father, when I was in my teens, that we must have a million dollars before we could hope to carry out his idea. I told him that we must have enough, or lose what we had. I showed him where failure to dam the river would mean a total loss of time, money, labor. I convinced him that I knew what I was talking about. I hope that I can convince you.

“Gentlemen, in order to dam the Colorado River and mine the gold in its bed, for a distance of, say, a mile or two, you must make sure first of all of the means, second of the secrecy of your plan, and third of the practicability of the project. We had placer ground of unsuspected riches; an underground watercourse with gravel bed, carrying placer gold. This gave us the means. We simulated poverty and ignorance and a paucity of ambition, which gave us immunity from suspicion that we had a secret to keep. And I made it my business, gentlemen, to study the practical engineering problem.

“I had long ago chosen the spot for the dam; a point in the canyon where the granite cliffs rise highest. I drew charts—” Peter glanced toward Rawley, and his eyes twinkled “—of a system of underground workings which, when filled with black powder augmented by light charges of dynamite, would break the granite walls and heave them into the river. I worked upon the principle that it would be better to use too much than not enough, and for fifteen years—yes, for longer than that—I have been buying and storing black powder. To-day, gentlemen, I have in place explosives which, with hush money that I was compelled to pay for the secret, have cost approximately one hundred thousand dollars. In place! Wired, tamped with heavy cement, ready to go. Ready to shoot!”

He looked from face to face, smiling while he waited for the information to sink in. He saw certain newspaper men poise pencils before they set down the sum, then scribble furiously.