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.