Rawley had them rounded up in the private car—governors and high officials and newspaper representatives—lighting cigars, cigarettes and pipes and eyeing, their curiosity politely veiled, the big, broad-shouldered man with the brown skin and piercing blue eyes, who stood at one end of the car waiting for them to settle themselves into easy, listening attitudes. This was informal,—but if they were to believe that keen young man, George Rawlins King, it was going to be pretty important; and, what appealed to most of them like a window opened in a stifling room, fresh and untalked. It is impossible to eat, sleep and live with one subject for months without feeling a tingle of relief when some entirely new angle crops up,—something that hasn’t been argued, weighed and considered a hundred times. The Colorado River Commission was on the job,—heart, soul and mind. But that did not preclude secret sighs of anticipation when the Commission faced something wholly new to every member.
Not a man among them knew Peter Cramer. Not one had ever heard the name. He looked a man of the desert, every inch of his six-feet-and-something-over. He might turn out to be a bore; he did not look like a boor. He did not wear his hair in the prevailing fad; it grew thick to the nape of his neck and was trimmed there neatly by some barber who remembered how they used to cut hair. His dark suit was incontestably made to his measure,—but it had been made before the War. You don’t get such material nowadays. At least, men of the desert do not get it. His hands, as he shuffled a few slips of paper, showed how hardly they had been used. They were the hands of a laborer, scrubbed meticulously clean, the nails trimmed painstakingly,—with a pocket-knife, one could guess. So there he stood, towering above them all, with pre-War clothes, the hands of a laborer, the eyes of a thinker.
The car became very still. Every man there looked at Peter. And one man’s eyes held love, sympathy and a shade of anxiety. To this moment, Rawley King could only guess at what his Uncle Peter was going to say. There was a little prayer in Rawley’s heart, in his eyes. A modern, young-man prayer, “God, don’t let him pull a boner!” It would be well if all the prayers in all the churches were as sincere.
“Gentlemen of the Colorado River Commission” (Peter began in his deep, even voice that carried far) “you do not know me, and I do not know you. I thank you for consenting to listen to me. When I am done, you may thank me for consenting with myself to talk to you. In the words of a certain wise man—whose wisdom I wish I might borrow as I borrow his words—‘I am not a clever speaker in any way at all; unless, indeed, by a clever speaker they mean a man who speaks the truth. You will not hear an elaborate speech dressed up with words and phrases. I will say to you what I have to say, without preparation and in the words which come first, for I believe that my cause is just. So let none of you expect anything else.’ If I could better that statement, make it more forceful, I should hesitate. Gentlemen, they stand for absolute honesty of purpose. Let them stand for me now, as they stood for Socrates—but I hope with happier effect.
“Fifty-four years ago, I was born within sight and sound of the Colorado River and within sight of the cliffs of Black Canyon. The river has been a part of my life. The wilderness hedged me in, mile upon mile. When I was ten, so long ago as that, I was taught the use of a rifle that I might help defend lives and property from hostile Indians and renegade white men. My mother is the granddaughter of a chief, and the daughter of a Spanish nobleman who voyaged up from Mexico before white men had seen this country. I am therefore one-fourth Indian,—a son of the desert. My father was a white man of good blood.
“When I was a boy and helped in my father’s mine at Black Canyon, I was urged to greater labor by the great plan my father had conceived in his long labor at the placer claims. He would save his gold until he had enough and more than enough. Then, when he had gold enough, he would dam the flow of the Colorado River and get the gold that lies in the river bed, washed down through the ages.
“That plan became the splendid dream of my life, Gentlemen of the Commission. The stupendousness of the idea took root in my very soul. I would stand and watch the river hurrying past, and I would think how best it might be done, and I would picture the river held back, halted in its headlong course to the sea.
“When I was fifteen I was studying, in a small, groping way, the engineering feat of damming the river at Black Canyon. I knew that I had a tremendous problem before me. I knew that the problem was doubled by the need of secrecy, which had been impressed upon me from the time I was a child. No one had thought of getting the gold from the river bed. The river was too swift, its currents too treacherous. I used to watch the steamboats warp up against the sweep of that current, to make the landing at El Dorado. That gave me an idea of the giant strength we should have to combat, to conquer. No one ever suspected the purpose that grew within the minds of the ‘squaw man’ Cramer and his breed boys, mining at Black Canyon. Deliberately we fostered the belief in our commonplace lives, our lack of ambition, our ignorance. That belief, gentlemen, was a necessary factor in our ultimate success.
“Studying alone—for my younger brother avoids thinking when possible, and my father gave himself up wholly to the thought of getting the gold—I felt the need of help from our great engineers. I could not take the time for college, for studying in the schools that turn out engineers. I am a man of the desert, as you see me. What I know I have learned by reading when others slept. I could not give my working hours to study, for they were sold to the need of getting gold to build the dam in order to get more gold! I alone realized the magnitude of the undertaking; to me they looked for the wit to accomplish their desire. And I remembered, gentlemen, the engineering problem solved by half-savage peoples; their power is gone, but their engineering feats remain to testify for them. I remembered the pyramids, some of the wonderful old cathedrals of Europe, the marvelous ruined cities of the Incas, the Aztecs,—I counted myself a savage who must think for himself, and I went at the problem of making the splendid dream a reality.
“Gentlemen, when I was yet a boy I was experimenting with explosives. I was studying the resistance of granite, the lifting power of black powder; I was preparing to build the dam. Before I had books on the subject, I had measured so many cubic feet of granite and had heaved it a certain distance with so many pounds of black powder. Over and over again I did it, in spare time when I was not working in the underground placer claims by the river.
“I will be brief, gentlemen, but I want to be understood by each one of you before I stop talking. I told my father, when I was in my teens, that we must have a million dollars before we could hope to carry out his idea. I told him that we must have enough, or lose what we had. I showed him where failure to dam the river would mean a total loss of time, money, labor. I convinced him that I knew what I was talking about. I hope that I can convince you.
“Gentlemen, in order to dam the Colorado River and mine the gold in its bed, for a distance of, say, a mile or two, you must make sure first of all of the means, second of the secrecy of your plan, and third of the practicability of the project. We had placer ground of unsuspected riches; an underground watercourse with gravel bed, carrying placer gold. This gave us the means. We simulated poverty and ignorance and a paucity of ambition, which gave us immunity from suspicion that we had a secret to keep. And I made it my business, gentlemen, to study the practical engineering problem.
“I had long ago chosen the spot for the dam; a point in the canyon where the granite cliffs rise highest. I drew charts—” Peter glanced toward Rawley, and his eyes twinkled “—of a system of underground workings which, when filled with black powder augmented by light charges of dynamite, would break the granite walls and heave them into the river. I worked upon the principle that it would be better to use too much than not enough, and for fifteen years—yes, for longer than that—I have been buying and storing black powder. To-day, gentlemen, I have in place explosives which, with hush money that I was compelled to pay for the secret, have cost approximately one hundred thousand dollars. In place! Wired, tamped with heavy cement, ready to go. Ready to shoot!”
He looked from face to face, smiling while he waited for the information to sink in. He saw certain newspaper men poise pencils before they set down the sum, then scribble furiously.
“You didn’t know that, did you? No one has told the Colorado River Commission, until now, when I am telling you, that twenty-five miles from here, in the cliffs beside the river, there is at this moment peacefully reposing a giant ready to rise up and fling rocks into the river, and lie back again when all is done, to watch the Colorado halt in its headlong rush to the sea! I will be more explicit, gentlemen.
“In the cliffs, ready to shoot—bear that always in mind—I have five hundred thousand pounds of blasting powder, and fifty thousand pounds of forty per cent. dynamite, so disposed that, fired simultaneously on both sides of the river, the volume of rock will meet midway and drop into the channel. Some distance up the river, I have an auxiliary dam built, ready to blow at a moment’s notice if the main dam seems in danger of not holding against the terrific pressure of the Colorado’s flow.
“Incidentally—I had nearly forgotten to tell you—I have perhaps the oldest, most complete private record of the flow, rise and fall of the Colorado River in existence. The record goes back thirty-nine years, gentlemen. I still use a gauge which I invented when I was about fifteen, and I find that it is practical, though crude.
“I have planned the auxiliary dam, as I call it, to check and help hold the pressure against the main dam, if necessary. In flood time the force is terrific; I have provided against that. The auxiliary dam, if thrown in, will give me time to strengthen the main dam. I have not expected that one big blast will end the matter. Once that is in, and further secrecy impossible, I shall be prepared to rush one hundred men, whose names and addresses I have on file, to work with compressors (two on each side of the river, each one portable and capable of running three drills each—with jack hammers and expert men behind them). These will rush another system of undermining, so that a second installment of Black Canyon can be heaved in upon the first.
“You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that we are first in the field by a good many laborious years. I grant you that the idea was born in greed. The eye of the vultures have dwelt upon the gold in the river, these fifty years. But even the vulture must give way to the Eagle. I have seen the wing of the Eagle spread, and its shadow has touched our dam in Black Canyon. Gentlemen, the vulture has come to make terms with the Eagle.”
That, for reasons best known to the Commission, was applauded. A great man asked a question.
“How much, approximately, have you spent in this undertaking?”
Peter glanced down at a slip of paper in his hand.
“It is something I have waited to tell you. I divided our capital into budgets, as follows:
“A dredger, now waiting at Needles to be towed up the river, four hundred thousand dollars. (That, of course, is our personal property and need not be considered in our negotiations, if any are carried on.) Fund for payment of damages to property caused by blasting, one hundred thousand dollars. (That, I thought, should pay for all the windows and crockery we may break, and that remains in bank until such time as we need it.) Property bought along the river above the dam site, which may be inundated, fifty thousand. Incidental expenses covering a period of years, fifty thousand. Explosives, wiring, battery and cement—with hush money paid out—one hundred thousand dollars.
“The explosives, gentlemen, I should expect the government to buy, if you take over our dam; which I hope that you will do. I have no desire now to infringe upon the rights of the government, even if I could. The project has been my life’s work. The achievement in itself has been the big dream of my life. If it will be of any service to you, if your engineers find my idea a practical one, I shall feel that my life so far has been well-spent. I had an idea that our dredger might still be used in the river bed to extract the gold. We have claims on both sides of the river. I have hoped that we might still be able to operate our dredger, paying a royalty to the government on whatever gold we may take out. If that is impossible, then we shall be obliged to unload our dredger for whatever we can get for it.
“Finally, gentlemen, I must urge you to extend your stay in Las Vegas, so that you may see our dam, and understand more fully what I have been trying to make plain to you: That we have a dam, ready to shoot within an hour’s notice—yes, in fifteen minutes from the time you say the word. I believe that it will hold. You may find that, by reënforcing it, by building spillways and preparing for your canals, our dam will be of real, practical benefit to you—put you that much farther along the trail. Give you something concrete to work to, something besides politics, talk, theories, factions. It’s there. It’s ready to speak its little piece to-morrow, if you like—though I am not so ignorant as to speak seriously of that. I merely wish to point my information, make it definite. You, or you, or you, could go down to our place, and if I told you just where I have hidden the battery, you could hook it up to our wires and dam the Colorado—like that.” He snapped the fingers he had pointed and stood waiting. And while he waited, no man in that car did more than breathe, and look at Peter, and think rapidly, with some consternation, of the significance of his information.
“Gentlemen, I have finished. I should like to show you the Cramer Dam, to-morrow. It may upset your schedule, just as I am making you late for the banquet, which is probably waiting and cooling at this moment. But, gentlemen, it will pay you to upset your schedule. It will pay you to take the time and walk the two or three miles between the nearest road and the dam. Until you do see the Cramer Dam, which I now publicly announce as being completed, you are not fully qualified to make your report, if report you must make, to the Secretary of the Interior, or whoever receives and passes upon your findings in the matter. Gentlemen, I thank you.”