Nevada was sitting on a reed stool, with two cushions upon it to give her height. He crept closer, raised himself and set a shoulder against the beam that lay along her bowed shoulders. He steadied it so while he took firm hold of a cushion and pulled it from beneath her. Nevada’s body sagged a bit. Rawley could see daylight now between her shoulders and the beam. He waited a breath, felt no settling of the beam, and pulled out the remaining cushion. Still the beam held fast. Nevada, then, was not being crushed; she had been pinned down without bearing the weight of the beam. Rawley went back, crouching under the caved roof. His arms were round Nevada when he stopped and picked up the pipe, slipping it into the pocket of her blouse. Then, pulling her gently to him, he drew her out from under the beam and into the granite-walled storehouse. As he lifted her in his arms Nevada groaned. Anita’s arms were uplifted to receive her when Rawley came up head and shoulders through the gaping hole in the dugout roof. But he shook his head, stepped out with her in his arms and dug heels in the soft bank, working his way down to the level. He still held the girl in his arms, looking for a place where he might lay her comfortably, when the earth shook beneath his feet. The terrific boom of the explosion deafened him. The jumble of rock shook and fell, tighter packed. The auxiliary dam was in. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE THE EAGLE’S WING Nevada was lying on the bed in Anita’s shack, trying to convince Rawley that the doctor knew what he was talking about. The doctor had declared that Nevada’s injuries were mostly superficial bruises and the nervous shock of sitting cramped in one position for hours, expecting every moment to be crushed to death. Nevada had seemed rather crestfallen when Rawley told her how simple a matter it had been to free her from the beam. “The whole thing caught me unawares just when I had stopped a minute to rest,” she explained defensively. “I think I was half asleep when it happened, and of course my lamp was smashed too flat even to think of exploding. It was black dark, and I suppose it was natural to imagine that I was being crushed when I was merely held fast. I did not try to move. I was afraid the whole thing would come down on me. Of course, I should have thought of the cushions,--” “You’d be a wonder if you had; even more of a wonder than you are.” Rawley took her hand in both of his and patted it, in a sublime disregard of the circumstances of his last visit to the basin. “I believe in omens, Nevada. Fate gave me a splendid one when I found you.” Rawley smiled at her mysteriously, his eyes twinkling. “In the general wreck, my old pipe had landed from some cranny right on the desk beside you. You can’t make me believe that Fate didn’t mean something by that! The way I interpret it--”