“We’ll get to town in time for a late luncheon at the hotel,” was the way he put it; “and on as fine a day as this I like to ride out of doors and take in the scenery.”
Starbuck acquiesced, and smiled as one well used to the scenery. Truly, the trip through the Timanyoni Canyon was one which usually brought the tourists crowding to the rear platform of the train, but until the morning of this purely sight-seeing jaunt he had been thinking that Maxwell’s big friend was altogether superior to the scenic attractions.
Now, however, Sprague seemed greatly interested in the canyon passage. Again and again he called his companion’s attention to the engineering difficulties which had been overcome in building the narrow pathway for the rails through the great gorge. Particularly, he dwelt upon the stupendous cost of making the pathway, and upon the temerarious courage of the engineers in adopting a grade so near, in dozens of places, to the level of the foaming torrent at the track-side.
“Yes,” Starbuck agreed; “it sure did cost a heap of money. Dick says the thirty-six miles are bonded at one hundred thousand dollars a mile, and even that didn’t cover the cost of construction on some of the miles.”
“But why did they put the grade so close to the river level?” persisted the expert, when the foam from a mid-stream bowlder breathed a misty breath on them as the train slid past. “Isn’t there constant trouble from high water?”
“No, the Timanyoni’s a tolerably dependable creek,” was Starbuck’s answer. “Summer and winter it holds its own, with nothing like the variation you find in the Mississippi Valley rivers. An eight-foot rise is the biggest they’ve ever recorded at the High Line dam, so J. Montague Smith tells me.”
“They are fixed to take care of that much of a rise at the High Line dam, are they?” queried Sprague.
“Oh, yes; I reckon they could take a bigger one than that, if they had to. That dam is built for keeps. Williams, who was the constructing engineer, says that the dam and plant will stand when the water of the river is pouring through the second-story windows of the power-house.”
“And that, you would say, would never happen?” put in the expert thoughtfully, adding, “If it should happen, your brother-in-law would have to build him a new railroad through this canyon, wouldn’t he?”
“He sure would. That eight-foot rise I spoke of gave them a heap of trouble up here—washouts to burn!”