Ernest Wilton was surprised. He thought he had made one of the simplest inquiries possible; and he looked his astonishment at the answer given him before he said anything more. The idea of a practical man, as he regarded Mr Rawlings, speaking so!
“How is that?” said he, after a pause. “I should think you would have no trouble in telling me?”—and he looked from Mr Rawlings to Seth Allport with some curiosity.
“Some things that appear simple enough,” said Mr Rawlings somewhat pragmatically, “are more difficult to answer, my clear fellow, than most people would think; and you ought to know that from your engineering experience!”
“Certainly,” replied the other; “but here’s a mine with men working in it from day to day, and digging through each separate stratum in turn, and knowing at the close of each day the result of that day’s labour. Surely, one would think that the day on which they struck water they would not forget it?”
“Granted, my dear fellow,” answered Mr Rawlings, who dearly loved a bit of argument when he could come across a foeman worthy of his steel. “I accede in toto to your premises; but your deduction is somewhat a little too rapid, for there are other circumstances to be considered which I have not yet brought to your notice, and which, I have no doubt, will alter your decision.”
“By Jove!” said Ernest Wilton, with a laugh, “I must treat it as a conundrum, and give it up. I am certain that I cannot solve it.”
“Stop a minute,” said Mr Rawlings, “and you’ll soon see how it is. During the winter we had a hard time of it to keep the roof of our house over our head, let alone preserving the mine in working order! The snow, the ice, the stormy gales, that seem to haunt the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains and their outlying ranges, each in turn assailed us: and then, on the melting of the snow at the first breath of approaching spring, the floods, which were the most virulent antagonists with whom we had to grapple, almost overwhelmed us! There was ‘water, water everywhere,’ as Coleridge says in his ‘Ancient Mariner.’ The whole valley, almost as far as you can see, was one vast foaming torrent, that bore down all our puny protections in the shape of ramparts and stockades. It nearly swept away our rough dwelling bodily; it did more, it demolished the dam we had erected across the gulch just there,”—pointing to the spot as he spoke—“and wrecked the heading of the shaft, filling the mine as a matter of course.”
“And up to then, in spite of all your digging, you had met with no water?” asked Ernest Wilton. “Was that so?”
“Not a drop, which I very much wondered at, considering that we are almost in the centre of the tributaries of the Cheyenne and Missouri—any number of tiny streams rising amongst these hills, and gaining additional body as they proceed onward to join the greater rivers from fresh sources that cross their course at different angles.”
“And after the floods?”