“I know I found a doctor,--he’s going to follow at our tail light. I hid the battery where Jess and the old man couldn’t find it. The rest we’ll know when we get there.” Peter’s exultation had left him completely. He sat back in a corner of the wide seat and said no more. And by that, Rawley knew that Peter was worried. The reporter was saying that Needles had reported every window in town broken by the concussion. “Of course they counted, in the five minutes they must have had before you wired,” Rawley exclaimed irritably. If Peter was worried over the folks in the basin, then Rawley knew that there was cause. He told the driver to “hit ’er up, the road’s good”, and thereby gained some minutes and gave some great men a jolting. They left the road to Black Canyon and went on to Nelson. They could drive to the river that way, and one glance would tell them whether the dam was holding. That was important. The Governor of the State having called for help, it was necessary to see first of all what the river was doing below the dam,--if dam there were. Several cars fell in behind them, no doubt cognizant of the fact that the Governor, Peter and the great engineer were in the first automobile, and that they knew where they were going. So it was a swift procession that swung up over the summit and down into El Dorado Canyon. The September moon was lingering upon a mountain top, loath to withdraw its gaze from the crippled river he had watched over all these ages long. Peter was first out of the car, which, for reasons readily apprehended, he had stopped well up the wash. If the dam was holding so long, there would be a great, engulfing wave when it broke, and the longer the dam held, the greater the flood. “The river’s high for this time of year, on account of the storms in the mountains,” the chief engineer of the party informed them superfluously, since the occurrence was sufficiently unusual to have excited comment before now. “She’s running close to fifty thousand second feet,--or was, when we left Needles yesterday.” He turned to Peter with courteous criticism; not for him was it to censure or judge, but he ventured a remark nevertheless which betrayed his own personal belief. “You should have waited until the edge of winter before you let that charge loose. This is an unusual year, I grant; but with your knowledge of the river, you must know the danger of attempting to dam it while there is so great a discharge.” The group hurried its pace to listen, but Peter, in the lead, seemed wholly unconscious of criticism and listeners alike. He was absorbed by his own thoughts, his own fears.