Week after week we kept at it, steadily and perseveringly pegging away, and at last, one day near the end of July, summoning our six Mexicans to witness the ceremony, Dick and I, in alternate "licks" drove the last spike, and the flume was finished!
CHAPTER XIX Pedro's Bold Stroke
All this time the wolves had let us alone. Frequently, toward evening, we would detect them standing on the hillsides watching us, but they were afraid to come near: the hammering and sawing, the stir and bustle checked them and they kept aloof—by daylight.
Every night, though, they came down to the edge of the cañon to howl at us, and as the flume neared completion there was danger that they might summon courage to cross by it—the old bridge we had long ago tumbled into the stream. To prevent this, we at first set up every night a temporary gate across it, but later, we adopted a safer and better plan. We set two doors in our flume, one in the down-stream end, the other in the side, about the middle, so that by closing the former and opening the latter, all the water could be made to fall into the stream below. Our supply could thus be regulated at the flume instead of going all the way up to the old head-gate for the purpose.
These gates being set, Pedro and another Mexican went up and opened connection between the lake and the low place where we had stirred up the deer the first day we were up there, and very soon there was a second little lake formed. Then, the flume being ready, we two and Pedro went up and raised the stone head-gate three inches. The rush with which the water came out was astonishing, and before the day was over it had come on down to the flume and was pouring through the side gate into the gorge—making a perfect defence against the wolves.
During the two months, or thereabouts, that we had been engaged in this work, Dick had made altogether three trips to Mosby, on which occasions he had written to Arthur, detailing our progress. Arthur, on his part, had written to us—or, rather, somewhat to our surprise, he had written to the professor instead of directly to Dick—once from Santa Fé and once from the City of Mexico, whither he had been sent to institute a search of the records there. His last letter stated that up to that time no trace of the old patent had been found, but that, in spite of that drawback, his father was vigorously stirring things up at his end of the line, and that we might expect to see "something doing" in the enemy's camp at any time. He stated also that he had hopes of rejoining us some time early in July.
In consequence, we had been constantly on the watch for him for nearly a month, but here was the end of July approaching and no Arthur had appeared.
As we were very anxious to know when to expect him, and as we were also in need of new supplies, the moment the flume was finished Dick set off once more for Mosby, while Pedro and I, transferring all our tools from the far side of the gorge, picked out a new working-ground on our side.