Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, May 8, 1917, Page 7

a a CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY “AUTHOR +f “THE CHALICE OF COURAGE” “JHE ISLAND OF REGENERATION” ETC, AND CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY JR. CIVIL ENGINEER. SYNOPSIS. neer repre: t Meade, ; ational bridge, the gr ructure the world has ev the shadow of the uncomplet » young Meade receives Colonel Ill- rth, dent of the Martlet Bridge structors, and the colon- . Helen, whom he loves. d ea CHAPTSR Il—At dinner the possible weakness of the compression members of is talked of and Meade defends « calculations. CHAPTER I1I—Meade and Helen go out upon the bridge in the moonlight a .2 Helen narrowly escapes a fall to the river below. Meade telis his love and they go to the colonel, who approves their mar- riage when the bridge is finished CHAPTER IV—Abbott, the construction neer, tells Meade there is a deflection meniber C-10-R, but makes light of it e in Meade, after vainly trying to stop the wor wires his father and follows the telegram to New York. CHAPTER ‘V—At ‘the ‘great engi office father and son try to preve aster, but young Meade only react one! Illingworth as a message comes the bridge, with 150 men, is in the R Vi—Abbott goes on with the ng Meade's protests, but w inspecting 0-R the 1 er his eyes and he goes Into e the other men on the river. nde with er falling ‘TER WII—Young Meade has out to his father the possible , but his objections have been 1. His fat prepares ment showing hi fault his secretary, with it. ! meets Rodney, an old ther reporters at the ffice. He finds his rt failure. He assumes en ponsibility for the catastrophe. who has obeyed lei the papers the di him to ke public, imger Meade. « APTER IX-—In her father’s pre a cr her protest Meade break encasement with Helen. CHAPTEI ~Out W , at a bie gation ¢ nder construction, Me e r n as a rodman med name. TER X1—Meade has gone tc r of Winters, a_ college r t taken stock ‘of himself er he has med to » from dishonor. H as anv Helen and Rodney c from n of hi yed by he knows the his confidence. Mew spite nself empl R X10 Mex r to tell 1 wry. He is TER -XIv.- r the he a Ity Jove.” said Rodney, “I believe n doit. You can’t drive that old said the woman. \ havent told him that you ht it was his fault?” No. do anything with a man You eun. you 1 let him see he ch the reinstatement of Bert M You can couldn't KegShurtlitt. devotion You ean win in honor g in menns to you. Meanwhile you will help me, won't In any way. in-every way. Do you w where he has gone?” ; the slightest idea. He] night be in Afriea, or South America. or out West, or up North. Do you see she pointed to a great | of American Beauty roses, | d been foreed fer her appar- | ud which she had received on rds, you know, the Madison avenue florist, sends me a box of magnificent lossoms—roses, * vio- lets, orchids, always different—every | Week. They speak to me ef him.” : you ever tried to trace theni?” Menow whence they come and \ is all. We will hear from him ; day, somewhere, somehow. Meanwhile we will work, work, work!” “And you will allow me to say be- ‘fore T go that since I have had this Conversation with you [ do net see how even Tove for his father or his fimily name would have led Meade to do it haven't those flowers? unch lave o. that some Jon't say anything against him,” | Said Helen Wlingworth quickly. “He . “as mad with anxiety, shame, regret. | Whatever he did, I love him just the same.” CHAPTER XIII. Working Up. The autumn went by as a dream. Winter, warm and mild in that far Southern eclime, was at hand before Meade realized it.. An ordinary engi- Heer of half the ability of Bertram Meade, so suddenly reduced to the ranks, would have ‘chafed against the Position of subordination and would have resented the humble duties, with .vhich he was charged. But Meade ‘vas happy to be following, even in this extremely modest way, the profession that he loved. And he did his unim- | portant work with zeal and care. It is not much to say, but he was the most efficient of the junior engineering , force on the dam. d 2, It was not because Meade was un- scgal that he kept to himself—not at S Irom his ow n galvanized-iron | Quarters he used to stare longingly at the men ¢. HEN grouped nd the oe ie we chi fires for eh than re erowl 1 arour ) w ~%e COPYRIGHT SY FLEMING MH. REVELL COMPANY moking and laughing Periences und telling stories, would have pleased him better than to have joined in, and he could have told Stories and related experienc that would have been unique even in gay crowd of young adventurers. he did not dare. He fenred te himself, What he wanted erything was to pres But betray rove ey rve his incognito. It would be fatal to his chances of ever working up to anything worth if they found out who he was. while character; and ey srybody knows th ey if the water should rise high enough to ! | overflow an earth dam it would not last | it} And he had a tremendous pride to | sustain him, Th respected him now. As a matter of fact, they put his with- drawal of himself down to vagaries of temperament or causes they could pot imagine, and they grew rather to like him even as they left hlin alone. And a few of the men of the humbler sort to whom he had been kind on oc and helpful, were stoutly him. sion, devoted to The idleness of an aimless life did / not append to periods tion. Even in his off-duty Doing nothing had no attrac He could not get relief that way. rambling won the would not > quick ond active a Man, so vigorous und bu spirit, so strong a body and 4 not caler d for aimless Wandering, Meade Was a very accomplished en- eed. There was no branch of the art about which he did not know a litte, although hydraulies and struc tural Were the things about hills serve. gineer i steel that most Jappenled to him. He got relief in the duality of bis affections for these branches of his of them ever fession, Neither one palivd on him because he did not work monotonously at either of them. He, had a natural instinet for topography, und instend of purpose lessly strolling about the country, he m: Je a careful inspection of the vz which was to be converted into < reservoir by the dam. The dam itself Was, perhaps. an eighth of a mile tong at the bottom and touched the receding hill on ene side other top—a huge of earth with a clay core ox iding } Va } He Had a Natural Instinct for Topog- raphy. side to side at the narrowest part of the vulles When completed it would be 5 feet high above the old river hed. with a readway 20 feet broad on top of it Below the dam and on the low ground between the mesa and Buldwin’s knob the camp, with its gal- vanized iron shops, bunkhouses, dining halls, kitchens und officers’ quarters, had been erected. The configuration of the ground was such that, although it was unusual to put them there, con- venience had rendered it desirable in this case. It was intended to complete the dam | before the earty spring of next year, if any time in the country «ould be characterized, the rainy seuson. Of course, just as soon as the dam had begungto rise, the flow of the Picket Wire below it had been stopped, except When an occasional freshet had heen alowed to pass the undersiuice. It was known that the run-off of the river in the rainy season of some years was so sinall as scarcely to fill the res- ervoir, and it had been decided to store nll the flow of the autumn and winter so that even if the spring rainy season were deficient, the beginning of the next summer would find the reservoir full and the new irrigation system could commence operations suce fully. Vandeventer, like the lost Abbott of the International, was also a driver, who spared neither his men nor him- self, The work had proceeded with ¢ tonishing rapidity, although this was partially accounted for by the fact that the spillway, which should have occupied their attention, had ass yet been only partially excavated. Now, to those ignorant of engineering, 1 earth dam may seem a temporary ex pedient, although most of the great, ir- which was, ! pigation dams of the world are of that} | the | | the mesa was equally visible to him. | longer than it takes to describe its utter giving way. A flood would sweep it out of the way at once. device whereby possible floods controlled and such dangers avert- | ed, consists of a broud channel at one at such a dis- } that if, through | or matural hap ting. lure of the sluice gates, excessive ruins, cloudbursts. or foods, | the height of the wat until it promises to overtiow side of the dam, aid tance below its crest ay mischanc such as the f¢ ris increased the dam ihis opening will earry off the surplus without a cer’ rmlessly, An earth dam would pres destruction to ally spillway almost ain who lived in the val- In the f the Picket Wire dam, the spill ad to be cut and. in part, b d out of the mountain side—that is. throngh the spor of the mesa, which reached down from its high wall towards the narrows, a of blune and mishups, which included the explosion of a ship- ment of dynumite on the railroad, with Y disastrous Consequences to accom- panying rock ishers and m other machinery. The spilly Its openir out twelve feet b level of the dam. Vandeventer was u sible The chief engi- had fumed und protested, but had | en directed by headquarters to go | ahead with the other work and tackle | the spillway later. There was, indeed, | little reason to hold up the building of that ticular dain be of the| noncomnpletion of the spillway. There had been series had not should “nh compl have been of cours ise That was a country, so the most de- | ed inhabitants freely admitted, in | which it was always sufe to bet that | it would not tin, no mutter how | ve threatening might be the appearance the sky; for in ninety-nine times out a hundred the negative would win | bet. Said inhabitants did not say the hundredth time at for all the other failur Tike the little girl with the eurl—when it did rain s ne doubt in anybody's mind as to | compensate The weathe ial the fact. Sometimes the fountains of | the great deep, which, in Holy Serip- | tare ut leust, extended oy sad, would Violence of the and sudden- such that the West- call ita , if seemed ep open and th vd the quantity of it sor it, would bi would ‘clondburst to be. Outsids were uni tie: which, indee the rainy on cloudbursts ard of and even in that sea Bor un extremely son rare, of the Picket Wire and in the plain | beneath carefully tabulated reports of the rainfall for years had been consid ered by the engineers. They had cho- sen the right season for the building of the dam, but when its crest hesan to rise ubove the designed level of the spillway the delay in opening the chan nel gave cause for se larm It is not the probable or certain that is feared. An old version that, of “onime enotumn pre magniti it is only the unknown of which men are afraid. oF only the unknown to be feared! Still there was nothing Vandeventer could | ) but obey orders and go ahead. The | ager, atte I, was trifling. Another consequence of the whiting was t to work on the spill hands to devote to his i ys he um Mm wit the ‘The of the country behind it was such that when the Picket Wire flowed with sufficient volume to fill it, vung back through the val- | #% the | In| 1 had more Jit rose the quicker. st a long lik ley, or cunyon, and twisting hills for some miles would ether words, the dam would beautiful artificial sheet of wate! dered on one side by a high rar hilis, on the other by the dam, and on} the third by the hills and the low hog- back above Spanish mesa, which sepa- rated the Picket Wire. valley from the | Kicking Horse gorge up which the rail- | road ran. Buried in his own thoughts, ¢om- | muning with himself, considering cease- | lessly his position, dreaming of the woinun he loved, planning a new ca- reer, Meade yet explored every foot of the ley and ravine. He climbed to the top of Spanish mesa, and from its | height the whole country clear up the valley to the main range was visible .to him. He could look down into tne deep ravine of the Kicking Horse, and note the marvelovs peauty and airiness of the arch bridge for all it so solidly carried the heavy freight trains of the railway. i He could see far up and around the | crooked course of the Picket Wire. The | big grass-covered, but otherwise bare and treeless hogback, that ran from the upper end of the stone island of | As it was the low tide of the new res- | ervoir, he descended to it and studied | it carefully. On another occasion, hav- | ing said nothing to anyone about his excursion, he took advantage of a half- holiday to go out and inspect the ho back and ascertain its elevation with relation to the dam. Of course the en- gineers who planned the great irriga- | tion works had done that, but he want- | ed to do it for himself. At one pli } where the distance between what | might be called the edge of the ley | and the head of the ravine was nurrow- est—indeed, he estimated after pacing | it that it measured not over twenty) feet he discovered that the! rounded earth crest was slightly lower thun the intended tevel of the top of the dam. ‘ When he: returned to the office, he) found on examining*the construction drawings that an earth dike was) planned to run along the hogback so | that the top level should be higher! than that of the dam. This dike would | be only a hundred and fifty feet Jor | the on the | as well as the disadvanta and a few feer high, ui in a few days’ time. Work on the m dam being more important, had as yet been done on the dike. Meade had been promoted end of the fall and in a rather unusual way. One of the transit men a young engineer, got a und left his instrument. called Meade before him. “Roberts,” he suid, “there's cancy for a transit man. such good work so far and shown such fainiliarity with fieldwork thet 1 give it to you if T had any th you knew better job ideventer va You've done ithing about handling in- nts," “T think IT may b i with one, sir.” unswered Mer is eves bright eniy “Yes. perhaps: but T have ched you in odd hours The young men ound he with the transits put a hund to one “Tm not Vandevente T really didn’t practice, but if are const: I've nity practicing bo: een you How : tly a returned think it you trust e r, Mr, “and to young Meude necess ary me with one I believe L cant Old Vandeventer in mige il lenned b and ck od in his chair the office low lessly ay from Meade to all appe ances. He clasped his hands b his head und seemed lost in thought. Suddenly he began humming u little of np of verse about which Cambridge men sing with zest : I'm a physical wreck From the grasa old Te But a h— of an engineer! He stopped : in his und shot quick glance at Meide. It was a trap. as he sprang it Vandeventer surprised swin, ir, the ghost of a sm repressed quickly but there, on Meade'’s lips he chief eng! er was sutisfied Before this, little thing had betr: a fellow alumnus, or at least fellow student of the old Lawrence Scientitic Vandeventer was pleased at his sdroit- He did to it. not, however, refer Pher a new transit floor there.” he said, resuming his indifferent manner. “I've had the ase opened, but I havent taken it out. fet it, und we'll outside t you can do with it.” Now transit, for all it is used rough fleldwe one of the ind delicate instrumen > of the most a in that box go and see wh Aire expensive It is capt justinent, und if it is to be use. the retinement of tents must in ' © by unskillc ' ! Phe boxes ir 1 ustru MLS ure pped very carefully constructed in accordance with the principles which exy e has showa to be necessary, und hone is espe. Clally fitted to the particular str went to be contained therein "The box is licnted thing and tuken out or replice With a knowlec k, it ‘ept in one w so is > combina itively simple to take uw transit to sper which none but an expert transitinan, or the packer himself car t it is rather difficult without runn a risk of ruining strument, This command was another deventer’s therefore, of Van Mende tests, knew this as well as his superior. In spite of himself, he would have to be tray his fumilinrity Well, he had brought himself to the conclusion that he could not his work with- out very soon disclosing the fuct that he had been an engineer. And in cause of the inevitable, the mer the bet- ter. So long as he had to betray him- self he would have all the advantages . He un- door of the box, slid the out quickly, accurately, moment's hesitation, and continue locked the instrument without a could be built) ain In nothin; F | down and out toward | #82in, and can’t do anything but this. /i¢ did not rain down in the valley, (It's not our business, Stafford; he does | and there was u constant, if very | good work for us and we're satisfied.” another college | {had “Oh, it’s the old story, I suppose; e's come a cropper somewhere— and wants to begin CHAPTER XIV. The Former and the Latter Rain. The work on the dum was progres ing splendidly. ideventer, driving | his men hard, shared in all their furi- ous efforts Ile not only their uder, but their inspiration, He had | surrounded himself with body of | able tunts, and his teamsters and | work had been culled until they | u small army of picked | vhich to be proud, | all Meade was n ome men tong these stood very high. In the four months he had been | with Vandeventer he had shown such | a grasp of things, such an ability to handle men, in one or two instances | when, with intention to try him, the dent engineer had given him ze of some special work, that Vandeventer unconsciously looked to wruptly, whirled about | And | school, | rapidiy unscrewed the head from the, slide-board, and screwed it curefully on the tripod. Vandeventer’s eyes sparkled. “Come outside,” he said, leading the way to the side of the hill, “und set it up there over the tack in that stake | and level it” Beginners have been known to take ten minutes to get a transit set up, leveled and centered. ff it is done inside of a minute; thirty seconds is very fast. In forty-five sec- | onds Meade reported, “all ready, sir.” He could have done it in less, but he was 2 little out of practice, he said to himself. “Look here,” said Vandeventer, “you can't pull any more bluff on me, Rob- | erts; you're an engineer, all right.” “I know something about the practi- | cal side of it, sir,” answered Meade, turning a little pale and wondering how far Vandeventer would press his questions and what he would learn. But the engineer was a man. “Practical, yes, and theoretical too, | Tl be bound, but I don’t seek to pry | Inte your antecedents. It’s enough for me if you do good work for me here.” “T'll do my best, sir.” “Good; the instrument is yours.” That was the first step and the next step came very shortly after, when, having further demonstrated his ca pacity in other ways, Meade was giv- en charge of the work on the east end of the dam. “I don’t care who he ts,” said Van- deventer to his chief subordinate, “he Tt is good work | | level of the vall | by He Had Accompanied the Younger Man on One of His Rambles. hii in any emergency He netus found himself consulting Merde ovce sion He had accompanied © younger} Monsen one of or sles which he bud hitherto taken alone. He had not broken down 3} es re but he} nad won his admirution ndeventer was not ur et ne ‘ hh vais veing His experi do be | extensive M t =| n } | t | ( | ir, | for Mende pur pose concealment, for bis incognito, that test of hi ! b d ! hat he had heen out of te with American en] gines for practically the whole of | his Vandeventer was a Dhur. vard Y ” 1th de it espe- cially 1 fonds Keep from betraying hin As on nutter o tthe younger man aetually lonsed | to muke a clenn breast of but hel could net quite bring bimself to do it vet. That might come | Three inonths it te the coi pletion of the darn and tt ail, which was to carry the ter to the irr tien ditches be Vian- deventer Ss ulready waking pluns for another big j und he hud de- ed, in his own mind, thas wmeng the subordinates whom he would With him the new should ve the first chance. Vandeventer felt proud and siutistied when he surveyed the work that had been accomplished in the six months of labor. To be sure the delay in the Gompletion of the spillway disquieted him a little. The dam had tehed the spillway level a fortnizhr | nd had new passed it. Indeed, on the fifth of Jan uury the dum builders were within five feet of the top; that is, the crest of the dam was vove the y bad planned to run the spillway uround the eust- erp end of the dam. The rock drills and dynamite which had been ordered had finally urrived in December, and putting many as possible to work on the spillway Vandeventer hud suc ‘ded in opening it for its entire width tu an uveruge depth of about seven f below the intended top of the dani; th. s, it was new about two feet deeper than. the actual crest of the dai, but it still lacked tive feet of its designed depth. The rainy season, an inspection of ,the records hud shown, wis not due {for a month und a half yet. That would give him sample time to com- plete the dam and the spillwe This knows what he’s about, and if you! watch him you'll see. He's keen on hendling men. men will be hard put to keep up with The other section fore- | him. He keeps watch on himself, He’s | Kot some secret he won't betray. He doesn’t mingle with the crowd, but every once In a while something slips out. What he doesn’t know about en- gineering ‘nobody needs to know, Tl Wager.” “How do you account for his being ont_here?” eur, however, there hud been some very unusua! ruins during the fall and the water back of the dam was now 9S feet deep, which made it 22 feet below the level to which the dam had risen and 20 feet below the spillway. Thi» Was much more water than bad dreamed would be in the voir at that time, and was pertuips more than should have been allowed. a reser- Still, there wus a safety margin of 22 feet, which Vandeventer was sure would be ample. The financial promo- ters of the project were very anxious to have the reservoir full when the | irrigating season opened, und the en- gineer’s judgment had been influenced by their eagerness to get it working. The broad sheet of w baek every j rate into the valley for many miles, In fact, country Into a beautiful Jake. the had transformed ‘the Some- times it rained in the mountains wher dam small, rise in the level. Vandeventer personally carefully guuged the water day. Naturally he had noteé that it rose gradually, but as the dam rose proportionately more rapidly, he was not uneasy.’ Yet, as a good en- gineer, he was watchful and largely because of the unfinished spillway he’ urged the men to the very limit. The weatherwise from the town who sometimes rode up to inspect the work, ussured Vandeventer that it could not possibly rain before Murch, und the mere fuct that so much water had fallen rendered it improl- ble that any more would me down. ut at three on the n of Jar uary sixth it suddenly began to raie hard without warning and with ne premonition on the purt of anybody It was not one of those terrible down more pours known as cloudbursts, but it Was an excc vely hard, steady rain. The bh ens over the range were black with clouds and so far as any- one at the dam could see, it was rain- ing from the crest of the mountains down. There were some anxious dis- cussions in the dining room of the res- ident engineer and his American a» sistants. At four o'clock it was decided te open the undersluice gate about half- way, but when this was done the vok ume of water it was capable of dis charging was too small to help verr much, and on opening it to its fullest extent the velocity of the water rushb- ing through was so great that the river bed was rapidly scoured out, For fear of undermining the toe of the dam it was necessury partially te close the sluice once more. ‘The water was rising, first at the of three or four inches an hour, then half a foot, and finally nearly « foot. By six o’clock thot night i had ri two feet. It was still rain ing hard at that hour, although not quite so furiously as it had been, If it did rain until morning of the pres ent rate, there would still be a mar gin of safety of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet at dawn. Although the situation required watehtuln and wus somewhat alarming, it was not desperate, The men © advised te put in all the time in their bunks se nas to be good and ready for the hard battle which might come in the morn- they were all tired out day's work the tittle group up und each man went to ing, and with thei ron broke us his quarters, Vandeventer, however, comd not sleep. The rain kept up steadily all hight. The resident engineer fluaiiy got up and dressed himself, and pro- tected by high rubber beots and a cowhoy slicker sand sou ter, lett his quarters and went out te inspect the dam. He carried a hiniern, of cour for it was piteh dark and, if possil the rain dropping from the blaék sky made more difficult ta see. He was surprised when he got to the dam to see on the other side another lantern, Closing the stide his own lantern Co prevent observation, aud be ing oon Na ground, 1 w raight toward the other side. I noise of the rain subdued any sonnd* that he made, and he w uble to come quite close te the other light without bei Hotivwd Th liuntern was standing on* the dway on top of the dam. A man s kneeling beyond it, his figure seen A Man Was Kneeling Beyond it. dimly in the faint Might of the lantern, He was staring intently down the fropt of the dam» at the water. The lantern was near the edge and it faint- ly illuminated the black, rain-dlasher surface below. Vahdeventer realized with a shock of horror how much tore! rapid the rise had be A quick esti- mate convinced him that the level of the wuter was now within ht or nine feet of the dam—and it was still rain- ing! The face of the kneeling man was hidden by a sou'wester and te bad on a heavy black rubber raincoat. Van- deventer reached over and touched hiro on the shoulder. “What asked, The kneeling man sprang up with on The re- t are you doing here?” he exclamation, It was Meade, Nef in Vandeventer’s mind was gre: | at the recognition. “T just © out to look at the w ter, I i sleep with all thet pounding on the fron roof of the quar- ters, so I dressed and came ont,” Vandeventer opened the slide of his own lantern und threw the light on the reservoir. (Continued Tomorrow)