“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.