“Young Jess—by river,” she said reluctantly. “I walk in moonlight, no can sleep. Comes big shootin’. I fall down. Bimeby I hear Nevada—she call me come quick. I no see Jess no more. I come.” She recapitulated slowly. “Jess by river, look on river. Comes shoot. No see Jess no more. Nevada call loud. Jess no come.”
The eyes of the two men met significantly. Peter turned and went out, and Rawley followed him.
“Concussion,” Rawley said succinctly. “If he were on the edge of the bank, it would throw him off, very likely. It’s high, out here, and pretty steep. He went into the river, in that case.”
“Yes—some folks upriver came near getting it when we shot in the second dam,” Peter said tonelessly. “I sent a man up on a hill to wave back any stragglers, but the doctor had to do some patching on the crowd, nevertheless. Well, I’ll go and look along the river. He may be hurt, under the bank.”
Rawley did not think so, but he went with Peter and searched the bank thoroughly. Halfway down, caught behind a bowlder, he found Young Jess’s hat. He managed to retrieve it and bring it to Peter. Peter turned it over in his hand, looked at Rawley and nodded.
“It’s his,” he said shortly. “It’s all we’ll ever find.”
He turned away toward the shack, swung back suddenly and faced the tremendous heap of broken rock visible from midstream to the farther shore. He lifted both hands high above his head, his face twisted, his eyes black with sublime fury.
“Damn you!” he cried. “Curse the thought, born in greed, fostered in rapacity, that put you there! Curse the bitter years that brought you to pass! For the greed of the gold they would have filched, for the vulture’s eye that watched and waited all these years, to swoop down and snatch and grab, with never a thought for the rights of other men, I curse the thing I helped to make!
“Born in selfishness, you have defiled a mighty river that God meant should flow through the land and one day be a blessing to mankind. You have made of the river a monster. It is you that is driving women and little children from their homes! You, God damn you! You have been a traitor to the mind that brought you forth. You have destroyed the two who worked and waited, that you might pander to their greed. You have tried to destroy the dearest thing I have on earth, because I saw in you something big and beautiful—because I was fool enough to think that an idea spawned in devil-greed could live in noble achievement.
“Look at the slimy thing the vultures have made of the river! The leprous thing over which the vultures croaked—for a little while—croaked and went down and died! The Eagle would never stop the river, leave it a naked, stinking thing under the sky. For the good of mankind, the Eagle would have tamed the river, without destroying it. The Eagle would have had it run peacefully within its banks, helping without hurting. Now the river lies shamed in its bed—that magnificent stream!—and men flee from it in terror. The two who thought to feast in the slime—yes, and I, too, could stoop so low as to root for gold like a hog in the mire!—you have swept them to destruction, have cheated them at the last of their prey.