“It was madness to do it now, in any case,” he agreed simply. “For years we’ve talked of shooting it during September, when the water begins to lower definitely for the winter months. That would give us the longest possible time for strengthening the dam. If this wasn’t a sheer accident, it was done by a madman,--the vulture who feared the Eagle would snatch away his feast. I know of no better simile. Gentlemen, I fear you will have to cope with a madman who ran amuck when he discovered my absence and feared that I would betray the whole scheme to the government. He could see nothing but disaster in that. If he deliberately blew up the dam, it was with a crazy notion of forestalling the government. I don’t know; I hid the battery.” He was leading them up on the high bank on the north side of the wash by a narrow trail he knew. Even in his haste he remembered that the lives of great men must not be placed in danger, and he had not needed the reminder of the engineer that it was a risky proceeding, blowing in the dam at the height of this sporadic high water. Not so high as to overflow its banks, it is true, but with not too wide a margin of safety, either. No man there knew better than Peter what an unexpected breakage would do, no man there felt more keenly the elements of disaster, once his first exultation over their disbelief had passed; a flare of triumph over the wise ones. Peter had been on that river just yesterday. His launch was still at Needles, where he had left it to take the train for Barstow. He had arrived in Las Vegas on the train which brought the private car of the Commission. He had planned it so, to be sure of seeing them, and also to conceal his errand from the two Cramers, whose rage would not have stopped at murder, it is likely, had they known what was in his mind. When Peter had embarked in his launch, the river was running forty-three thousand second feet. He had looked at the gauge. He had not known how the government gauge had read at Needles when his train left there, but he did not doubt the word of the engineer. There had been unusual, heavy storms in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah. An edge of it had swept his own State. To attempt to dam that sweeping flood was, as he had named it, madness. Once up the bank they walked rapidly. Rawley, glancing back, saw other automobiles stop behind their car, and men trailing after them up the bank. It was a somewhat circuitous route; he wondered if his party would follow Peter so patiently if they knew that they could have driven to the water’s edge. They were walking half a mile when they might have ridden. But Peter was taking no risk. They reached the high bank of the river just as the moon slipped--like the face of a boy who has been peering over a stone wall and who has lost his footing--dropped suddenly out of sight, and left the river dark, the far hills gilded tantalizingly with its white light. The party halted. “She’s dammed,” Peter said tersely.