“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.