“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.