Leaving the ruins and following the shelf high above the blue lake, we came quite unexpectedly on the dam, not five miles further. It was a surprise to reach our first night’s stop with half the dread Trail behind us, and no thrilling escapes from destruction. We learned at the Inn that the worst sixteen miles lay ahead on the road to Fish Creek. Indeed, the Apache Trail, although narrow, full of turns and fairly precipitous in places, proved a far simpler matter than the unadvertised “highway” out of Winkleman, while the scenery itself was hardly lovelier.
Rounding the shoulder of a massive cliff, we swung sharply down hill to a narrow bridge of masonry, the arm holding back the great artificial body of water. In front was the dam, one of the largest in the world, and in difficulty of construction, one of the most interesting to engineers. Yet the flood twice Niagara’s height pouring over it, is dwarfed to a mere trickle by the majesty of the cliffs above. To get its full impressiveness you must descend to the bottom of the masonry and look up at the volume pouring over the curved wall, which has made a quarter of a million acres of desert the most fruitful section of this continent. You observe a man walking along the steps which line the concave wall of the dam in close formation, and notice that his shoulder is on a level with the step above. Gradually, isolated from its dwarfing surroundings, the handiwork of Man impresses you. There has been talk of placing near the dam a memorial to Roosevelt, but no fitting memorial could be placed there which would not seem of pigmy significance. The best and most appropriate memorial to the man of deeds is the dam itself, and the fertile and prosperous Salt River Valley below it.
At the Inn built on the borders of the lake we asked for rooms. The innkeeper, a plump and rubicund Irishman, seemed flustered. His eyes swam, and he looked through us and beyond us with a fixed glare. His breath came short and labored—very fragrant.
“Don’t hurry me, lady,” he replied pettishly to Miss Susan, “can’t you see the crowds waiting for rooms? They ain’t trying to get in ahead of their turn. They’re behaving themselves. They aint trying to nag the life out of me asking for this and that. They aint pushin’ and shovin’. Now, lady,” fixing a stern eye upon her, and speaking like a man whose patience would outlast any strain, “I’m at my wit’s end with all these people. Can’t you be reasonable and wait till I git ’round to you?”
As we were the only people in sight, we were forced to conclude he was seeing us in generous quantities. Possibly, too, we were not standing still, but were whirling around in an irritating way. So we waited patiently for an hour or so, while John made frequent trips to the back of the house. As the afternoon shortened, and John’s temper with it, the crowd steadily increased.
“Are our rooms ready yet?” I finally asked. His eye wandered past me and lighted upon Miss Susan. He fixed upon her, as a person who had given him much trouble a long time ago.
“What! You here again?” He had a fine exclamatory style. “Lady, you’re giving me more trouble than all the rest of ’em put together. Here, Ed,” he called a clerk, with great magnanimity, “take ’em. Give ’em a room. Give ’em the hotel. Give ’em anything they want. Only get ’em out of my way.”
They led us to our tents, where the beds were still unmade. The clerk left, promising to get John to send a chambermaid. We felt less hopeful than he, for as we were banished from his presence we observed him feeling his way, a cautious mile or so at a time, to the far reaches of the kitchen. We made one or two trips to the hotel to induce somebody to make up our beds, keeping Miss Susan well in the background, for the sight of her seemed more than John could bear. But he pounced on her.
“Have you any idea of the troubles of a hotel keeper?” His forbearance by now had become sublime. “Any idea? No, lady, I can see you haven’t. If you had you’d be a little patient.”
Our beds were made, but an hour later we were still without towels and water, while one tent had no lights. The rest of us were thoroughly cowed by this time, but opposition had stiffened little Miss Susan to the point where she would risk being hurled over the dam before she would be brow-beaten. We timidly followed, giving her our physical if not our moral support, while she stated our case, which she did quite simply.