“Going to try for a rescue of the—body?” Jerry Newton looked up from fussing with one of the best small cameras on the market to-day. He had “got” that dramatic race with the flood, and he made no apologies for his enterprise. It was his business to get such scenes.
The Governor pressed his lips together and pointed downward.
“We’re going to save the living,” he said. “Where’s that doctor?”
A shrewd-eyed, tanned man was already feeling of Peter’s skull with finger tips that seemed to own a detached intelligence.
“Just a simple contusion,” he announced cheerfully. “Put you to sleep for a minute, though, didn’t it? Here. I’ll fix you up in two shakes so you’ll feel like new. Let’s have a look at your chest.”
In five minutes Peter was standing steadily on his own feet, ready to go. Rawley caught his somber glance at the place where Old Jess had disappeared and shook his head, unconsciously aping the Governor.
“No use, Uncle Peter. I tried to get him. It’s running like a mill race. He landed square in the middle of it.”
“He did this.” Peter swept his arm out toward the bared river bed while his eyes sought the Governor’s. “Crazy,—you saw that. My half-brother would have more sense. The old man did it, to get the gold before the government could beat him to it.”
He looked from one face to another trying to choose who stood highest in rank.
“I want permission,” he said more firmly, as the doctor’s stimulant took hold, “to go ahead now and carry out my plans. I warn you, gentlemen, that if that is not done there may be a great flood. Let me go ahead and shoot in that auxiliary dam now. That will relieve the pressure until we can shoot in more rock here. If I hold back the flood for you, at my expense, you can do as you think best with me afterwards, and with the river.”
He threw out a hand toward the mutinous inshore stream.
“That dam is all rock; tons upon tons of it. Inshore is where a channel could eat through. The cliffs overhang and would prevent a full drop there of broken rock. I counted on this. It was my natural run-off. If it broke through anywhere, it would break here. Nature’s a pretty good engineer, gentlemen. But we’ll make it a safe proposition. We’ll shoot in the auxiliary dam. I want a free hand in this, or—I can’t answer for the consequences. I warn you.”
The Governor lifted his eyebrows at the great engineer of the party. The engineer looked at the Chairman of the Commission. He looked at the river. Plainly, he disliked to give his word, which would carry much weight and which might lead them astray. Peter walked steadily along, between the Governor and Rawley, who held him solicitously by the arm.
“You will bear in mind that I have studied this problem all my life,” Peter added urgently. “I’ve been spending a good deal of money on it. I have laid my plans very carefully, so as to risk neither lives nor money. The people below us will be safe, if you let me go ahead. In spite of the high water the Cramer Dam will hold—if you let me go ahead and finish the job.”
The engineer shut his technical eyes and listened to his common reason. The Governor was still glancing his way between steps, wanting his opinion.
“There’s a good deal in that,” the engineer said at last. “I should advise that under the circumstances we permit Mr. Cramer to go ahead and make his dam as safe as possible. It will not render the present danger any greater. The longer the Cramer Dam holds, the better chance we will have of averting disaster. Give me a little time, and I can, I think, promise to get the river under control without any disastrous flood condition arising.”
Peter’s eyes darkened at the inference, but he had won at least one point. That, he reflected, was more than might have happened. These were truly great men; they were greater than their training of keeping well within the red-tape fences.
“Very well, Mr. Cramer,” the Governor said. “I appoint you to take charge of the safeguarding of the river against a flood. I cannot promise immediate funds, however,—”
Peter dismissed that point with a gesture.
“I expected to finance the Cramer Dam from start to finish,” he said bluntly. “I still expect to do that. All I ask is to be left alone.”
They had reached the flat rock, on the river bank opposite the shacks. Peter sent a glance that way, saw that the shacks were standing, apparently unharmed, and dismissed from his mind the thought of danger to his family. With the engineer beside him, the Governor and others behind him, he kept straight on to the dam site. He was wondering if that maniac, Old Jess, had thought to remove the big launch to a safe point around the bend above. If not, they might not be able to cross the river, should they want to do so. There were a few ticklish little points in the situation, he was bound to admit.
Rawley let go his arm and turned away toward the camp, and Peter called after him.
“Have Gladys and Nevada cook a big breakfast, son. We’ll be back in an hour or so. And look out for another blast. But it will be a lot farther off than this one was. Have plenty of hot coffee.”
“You bet!” Rawley promised, his heart curiously light. Angry or pleased, Nevada was very close. In another minute or two he would see her. There would be plenty to talk about, besides themselves. Just to hear her voice, he thought exultantly, would be a panacea for his loneliness.
As he neared the place he stopped as though some one had thrust him back. Then he went on, running as he had not run from the small flood in the river. The shacks stood, unharmed save for gaping window sashes, splinters of glass sticking like flattened icicles to the edges. The porch of Nevada’s rock-faced dugout cabin stood upright, though slightly twisted. But behind the porch the rockwork was tumbled in a confused heap.
At a certain place in the ruins, Anita was whimpering and tearing at the rock with her fingers. Two of the older children were trying to help. It was the sight of these which filled Rawley with a cold fear. They would not tear at the wreck of an empty cabin.
Anita turned and stared at him dully. Then she pointed, her hand shaking as if she were stricken with palsy.
“In there—Nevada,” she quavered. “My girl die, mebby! Lil time ago, speak to me. Now don’t speak no more. Mebby die.”
“Get back, out of the way.” Rawley went up, looked at the place where they had been digging, and caught his breath.
“A little more, and you’d have had the whole thing in on top of her. Don’t you see that wall just ready to topple? Kid, go get a pick and shovel. I’ll try the roof.”
He recalled the construction of the place, thanking God that he had spent many days there. The rock cabin had been set back into the hill, against a rock ledge of the prevailing granite. That, he felt sure, would hold against anything but a direct charge of explosives. In the far corner a dark, closet-like recess had been cut, and roofed with poles, corrugated iron and the dirt. It was used, he remembered, as a storeroom. It had never been finished like the two rooms in front. The rock walls were bare, the poles and iron showed in the low roof.
With pick and shovel he began digging at the roof, which had remained intact. As he worked he cursed Peter’s thoroughness in constructing the place. The poles were set rather close together, and they were spiked down to heavy beams. The oldest boy brought a pinch-bar for that, and Rawley, throwing back the iron roofing, pried up a pole and let himself down into blackness.
The heavy curtain that hung in the doorway of the storeroom was slit. Beyond, the room seemed at his first dismayed glance to be completely filled with rock and débris. Then, quite close, he saw her.
She was sitting before the homemade desk that held her typewriter. Spread out before her were the books wherein she kept the records of the Cramer Dam. She had been working on the books when the blast wrecked the place. A beam from the ceiling had fallen, caught upon another beam, and pinned her down, bowed over her desk. Perhaps she had been leaning upon her folded arms to rest, when the shock came. But the beam was lying against her back, holding her down, and upon that, around it, rocks were piled.
Rawley set his teeth, carefully removed the rocks between him and the girl, and crept closer. Hesitating, afraid, he reached out and touched her fingers, still closed around something which she had been holding in her hand. Her fingers were cool, pliable,—alive, he could have sworn. So his heart, that had seemed to stop altogether, gave a great jump.
Very gently he released the thing she was holding and drew it toward him. His old, weather-scarred, briar pipe! He looked down at it dumbly, looked at Nevada and very carefully laid the pipe back, against her fingers. His eyes were very blue and bright; his face was very pale. He steadied himself. He would get her out; he must free her and bring her alive to the safe outside, where—
A fear stabbed him. They were going to shoot in the other dam! He hadn’t much time, then. Another shock,—Peter had told him to look out for a blast. It was perhaps a matter of minutes.
He raised himself, looked at the beams. They seemed to be solidly braced, for the present, though another concussion would be likely to throw them down. He looked down.
Nevada was sitting on a reed stool, with two cushions upon it to give her height. He crept closer, raised himself and set a shoulder against the beam that lay along her bowed shoulders. He steadied it so while he took firm hold of a cushion and pulled it from beneath her.
Nevada’s body sagged a bit. Rawley could see daylight now between her shoulders and the beam. He waited a breath, felt no settling of the beam, and pulled out the remaining cushion. Still the beam held fast. Nevada, then, was not being crushed; she had been pinned down without bearing the weight of the beam.
Rawley went back, crouching under the caved roof. His arms were round Nevada when he stopped and picked up the pipe, slipping it into the pocket of her blouse. Then, pulling her gently to him, he drew her out from under the beam and into the granite-walled storehouse. As he lifted her in his arms Nevada groaned.
Anita’s arms were uplifted to receive her when Rawley came up head and shoulders through the gaping hole in the dugout roof. But he shook his head, stepped out with her in his arms and dug heels in the soft bank, working his way down to the level.
He still held the girl in his arms, looking for a place where he might lay her comfortably, when the earth shook beneath his feet. The terrific boom of the explosion deafened him. The jumble of rock shook and fell, tighter packed.
The auxiliary dam was in.