Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / June 29, 1917, edition 1 / Page 2
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b WEB CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY and CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY, Jr. Author and Clergyman Civil Engineer Copyright by' Fleming H. Revel Co. TRY AS HE WILL TO CONCEAL HIS EXPERT KNOWLEDGE OF ENGINEERING, MEADE FAILS AND PROMOTION COMES TO HIM RAPIDLY AT THE DAM Following the collapse of a great bridge which his father, a noted engineer, had planned, and the old man's sudden death from disgrace and shock, Bertram Meade takes the blame for the disaster which cost many lives and disappears from his home in New York. He goes to the Southwest, gets a job under the name of Roberts on an irrigation dam project and makes good. Meanwhile Helen Illingworth, Meade's, sweetheart, and Rodney, an old friend, are quietly working to clear the young man's name and to learn his whereabouts. They are par ticularly anxious to get possession of a letter written by the elder Meade to assume responsibility for the accident. This paper is secret ly held by Shurtliff, who had been the old man's devoted private sec retary for many years. CHAPTER XI IContinued. "I believe you are right," said Rod ney, leaning back in his chair and staring at her through his glasses. "If we can only make him speak But where is he?" "Working for my father." "What do you mean?" "I mean that I suspected him from the first, and as there was an opening for a private confidential tnan, who un derstood engineering a vacancy made by the promotion of my father's pri vate secretary I prevailed upon him to give the position to Shurtliff. Fa ther hates the name of Meade, but he worships efficiency and he knows that Shurtliff is the very incarnation of the particular kind of ability that he de sires, so he is with my father con stantly and I have him always under my eye. When we go awayin the car, he goes along." "What are jou going to do?" "Win his confidence, his affection if I can, appeal to him, and " "By Jove," said Rodney, "I believe you can do it. You can't drive that old man." "I know it," said the woman. "You haven't told him that you thought it was his fault?" "No." "I couldn't do anything with a man like Shurtliff. You can. You can win his devotion, you can let him see how much the reinstatement of Bert Meade in honor again means to you. You can do it." "Meanwhile you will help me, won't you?" "In any way, in every way. Do you know where he has gone?" might be in Africa, or South America, or out West, or up North. Do you see those flowers?" she pointed to a great bunch of American Beauty roses, which had been forced for her appar ently, and which she had received on that very day "Dards, you know, the Madison avenue florist, sends me a box of magnificent blossoms roses, vio lets, orchids, always different every wTeek. They speak to me of him." "Have you ever tried to trace them?" "No. I know whence they come and that is all. We will hear from him some day, somewhere, somehow. He Had Natural Instinct fq raphy. f .we will work, wr '11 allow met wtfnee I h jth you rM j ior nis iatner or ,uld have led Meade to lything against him," said in Illingworth quickly. "He was 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 clime, was at hand before Mende realized it. An ordinary engl p! of half the ability of Bertram OF :By Meade, so suddenly reduced to the ranks, would have chafed against the position of subordination and would have resented the humble duties with which he was charged. But Meade was 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. It was not because Meade was un social that he kept to himself not at all. From his own galvanized-iron quarters he used to stare longingly at the men grouped around the big camp fires, for the nights were growing chill, smoking and laughing, exchanging ex periences and telling stories. Nothing would have pleased him better than to have joined in, and he could have told stories and related experiences that would have been unique even in that gay crowd of young adventurers. But he did not dare. He feared to betray himself. What he wanted above ev erything was to preserve his incognito. It would be fatal to his chances of ever working up to anything worth while if they found out who he was. And he had a tremendous pride to sustain him. They respected him now. As a matter of fact, they put his with drawal of himself down to vagaries of temperament or causes they could not imagine, and they grew rather to like him even as they left him alone. And a few of the men of the humbler sort to whom he had been kind on occasion, and helpful, were stoutly devoted to him. The idleness of an aimless life did not appeal to him even in his off-duty periods. Doing nothing had no attrac tion. He could not get relief that way. Even rambling alone about the hills would not serve. So quick and active a man, so vigorous and buoyant a spirit, so strong a body and mind were not calculated for aimless wandering. Meade was a very accomplished en gineer indeed. There was no branch of the art about which he did not know a little, although hydraulics and struc tural steel were the things that most appealed to him. He got relief in the duality of his affections for these branched of his profession. Neither one of them ever palled on him because he did not work monotonously at either of them. lie had a natural instinct for topography, and Instead of purpose lessly strolling about the country, he made a careful inspection of the valley which was to be converted into a huge reservoir by the dam. The dam itself was, perhaps, an eighth of a mile long at the bottom and touched the receding hill on one side and the spur of Spanish mesa on the other at the top a huge mound of earth with a clay core extending from side to side at the narrowest part of the valley. When completed it would be 125 feet high above the old river bed, with a roadway 20 feet broad on top of it. Below the f am and on the low ground between the mesa and Baldwin's knob the camp, with its gal- tlized iron shops, bunkhouses, dining kitchens and officers' quarters, fbeen erected. The configuration Aground was such that, although Tfuusual to put them there, con- ntended to complete the dam fe early spring of next year, s, if any time in the country I so characterized, the rainy V)f course, just as soon as the begun to rise, the flow of the fire below it had been stopped, refhen an occasional freshet had Jllowed to pass the undersluice. .us known that the run-off of the r in the rainy season of some years vas so small as scarcely to fill the res ervoir, and it had been decided to store all 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 success fully. Vandeventer, like the lost Abbott of the International, was also a driver, who spared neither his men ror him self. The work had proceeded with as tonishing rapidity, although this was partially accounted for by the fact that the spillway, which should have occupied their attention, had, as yet been only partially excavated. Now, to those Ignorant of engineering, an earth dam may seem a temporary ex pedient, although most of the great ir rigation dams of the world are of that character; and everybody knows that If the water should rise high enough to overflow an earth dam it would not last longer than it takes to describe Its utter giving way. A flood would sweep It out of the way at once. The device whereby possible floods are controlled and such dangers avert ed, consists of a broad channel at one side of the dam, and at such a dis tance below Its crest that if, through any mischance or natural happening, such as the failure of the sluice gates, excessive rains, cloudbursts, or floods, the height of the water is increased until it promises to overflow the dam, this opening will carry off the surplus harmlessly. An earth dam without a spillway would presage almost certain destruction to all who lived in the val ley below it. In the case of the Picket Wire dam, the spillway had to be cut and, in part, blasted out of the mountain side that is, through the spur of the mesa, which reached down from its high wall towards the narrows. There had been a series of blunders and mishaps, which included the explosion of a ship ment of dynamite on the railroad, with very disastrous consequences to accom panying rock crushers and mixers, and other machinery. The spillway ht.d not been completed. Its opening should have been about twelve feet below the level of the dam. Vandeventer was not responsible, of course. The chief engi neer had fumed and protested, but had been 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 particular dam because of the noncompletion of the spillway. That was a country, so the most de voted inhabitants freely admitted, in which it was always safe to bet that it would not rain, no matter how threatening might be the appearance of the sky ; for in ninety-nine times out of a hundred the negative would win the bet. Said Inhabitants did not say the hundredth time might compensate for all the other failures. The weather was like the little girl with the pro verbial curl when it did rain there was no doubt In anybody's mind as to the fact. Sometimes the fountains of the great deep, which, in Holy Scrip ture at least, extended overhead, would be broken open and the violence of the fall and the quantity of it, and sudden ness of it, would be such that the West erners would graphically call it a "cloudburst," which, indeed, it seemed to be. Outside the rainy season cloudbursts were unheard of, and even in that sea son extremely rare. For the valley 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 began to rise above the designod level of the spillway the delay in opening the chan nel gave cause for some alarm. It is not the probable or certain that is feared. An old version that, of "omne ignotum pro magnifico" it is only the unknown of which men are afraid, or only the unknown to be feared ! Still there was nothing Vandeventer could do but obey orders and go ahead. The danger, after all, was trifling. Another consequence of the waiting was that in his inability to work on the spill way, he had more hands to devote to the dam and it rose the quicker. The shape of the country behind It was such that when the Picket Wire flowed with sufficient volume to fill it, a long lake going back through the val ley, or canyon, and twisting among the hills for some miles would result. In other words, the dam would make a beautiful artificial sheet of water bor dered on one side by a high range of hills, 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, com muning with himself, considering cease lessly his position, dreaming of the woman he loved, planning a new ca reer, Meade yet explored every foot of the valley 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 the deep ravine of the Kicking Horse, and note the marvelous beauty and airiness of the arch bridge for all it so solidly carried the heavy freight trains of the railway. 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 the mesa was equally visible to him. 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 hog 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 place, where the distance between what might be called the edge of the valley and the head of the ravine was narrow est Indeed, he estimated after pacing it that It measured not over twenty feet across he discovered that the rounded earth crest was slightly lower than the intended level 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 long and a few feet high, and could be built in a few days' time. Work on the main dam being more important, nothing had as yet been done on the dike. Meade had been promoted toward the end of the fall and in a rather unusual way. One of the transit men, a young engineer, got a better job and left his Instrument. Vandeventer called Meade before him. "Roberts," he said, "there's a va cancy for a transit man. You've done such good work so far and shown such familiarity with fleldwork, that I'd give It to you if I had any Idea that you knew anything about handling In struments." "I think I may be trusted with 'one, sir," answered Meade, his eyes bright ening. "Yes, perhaps; but I have watched you in odd hours. The young men around here are constantly practicing with the transits. I've never seen you put a hand to one. How about It?" "I'm not exactly a youngster, Mr. Vandeventer," returned Meade, "and I really didn't think it necessary to practice, but if you trust me with one I believe I can manage It." Old Vandeventer leaned back In his chair In the office and looked care lessly away from Meade to all appear ances. He clasped his hands, back of his head and seemed lost in thought. Suddenly he began humming a little scrap of verse about another college which Cambridge men sing with zest : I'm a physical wreck. From the grand old Tech', But a h of an engineer! ne stopped abruptly, whirled about in his swingchair, and shot a quick glance at Meade. It was a trap. And as he sprang it Vandeventer surprised the ghost of a smile, repressed quickly but there, on Meade's lips. The chief engineer was satisfied. Before this, little things had betrayed a fellow alumnus, or at least a fellow student of the old Lawrence Scientific school. Vandeventer was pleased at his adroit ness. He did not, however, refer to it. "There's a new transit In that box on the floor there," he said, resuming his Indifferent manner. "I've had the case opened, but I haven't taken It out. Get it, and we'll go outside and see what you can do with it." Now a transit, for all It is used in rough fleldwork, is one of the most expensive and delicate of Instruments. It is capable of the most accurate ad justment, and If it is to be of any real use, the refinement of these adjustments-must not be impaired in any degree by unskilled and reckless pack ing. The boxes In which the instru ments are shipped are very carefully constructed in accordance with the principles which experience has shown to be necessary, and each one is espe cially fitted to the particular instru ment to be contained therein. The box is a complicated thing and the transit cannot be taken out or replaced except in one way. With a knowledge of the combination, so to speak, It is comparatively-simple to take a transit from the box ; without that knowledge, which none but an expert transitman, or the packer himself can have, it Is rather difficult without running a risk of ruining the instrument. This command was another of Van deventer's tests, therefore. Meade knew this as well as his superior. In spite of himself, he would have to be tray his familiarity. Well, he had brought himself to the conclusion that he could not continue his work with out very soon disclosing the fact that he had been an engineer. And In case of the inevitable, th sooner the bet ter. So long as he had to betray him self, he would have all the advantages as well as the disadvantages. He un locked the door of the box, slid the instrument out quickly, accurately, without a moment's hesitation, and rapidly unscrewed the head from the slide-board, and screwed It carefully on the tripod. Vandeventer's eyes sparkled. "Come outside," he said, leading the way to the side of the hill, "and 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. It is good work If 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 a 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, I'll be bound, but I don't seek to pry Into your antecedents. It's enough for me if you do good work for me here." "I'll do my best, sir." "Good ; the instrument Is yours." That was the first step and the next stop 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 is," said Van deventer to his chief, subordinate, "he knows what he's about, and if you watch him you'll see. lie's keen on handling men. The other section fore men will be hard put to keep up with him. ne keeps watch on himself. He's got 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, I'll wager." "How do you account for his being out here?" "Oh, it's the old story, I suppose; he's come a cropper somewhere down and out and wants to begin again, and can't do anything but this. It's not our business, Stafford ; he does good work for us and we're satisfied." CHAPTER XIV. The Former and the Latter Rain. The work on the dam was progress ing splendidly. Vandeventer, driving his men hard, shared in all their furi ous efforts. He was not only their leader, but their inspiration. He had surrounded himself with a body of able assistants, and his teamsters and workmen had been culled until they had become a small army of picked men of which to be proud. Among all these Meade 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 resident engineer had given him He Had Accompanied the Younger Man on One of His Rambles. charge of some special work, that Vandeventer unconsciously looked to him in any emergency. He actually found himself consulting Meade on occasion. He had accompanied the younger man on one of those rambles which he had hitherto taken alone. He had not broken down Meade's reserve, but he had won his admiration and regard. Vandeventer was not. unknown in en gineering circles. In earthwork he was by way of being an authority. His experience had been varied and extensive. Meade's. reserve and reti cence rather hurt the older engineer. He had invited confidence and ,had even given his affection. He intimat ed delicately that if the other were under a cloud Vandeventer might be in a position to help him. It was fortunate for Meade's pur pose of concealment, "for his incognito, that most of his engineering work had been dbne abroad and that he had been out of touch with American engineering- for practically the whole of his career, Vandeventer was a Har vard man, too, and that made it espe cially hard for Meade to keep from betraying himself. As a matter of fact, the 3'ounger man actually longed to make a clean breast cJ it, but he could not quite bring himself to do it yet. That might come later. Three months ought to see he com pletion of the dam and the long canal, which was to carry the stored water to the irrigation ditches below. Van deventer was already making plans for another big job, and he had de cided, in his own mind, that among the subordinates whom he would take with him the newcomer should have the first chance. Vandeventer felt proud and satisfied when he surveyed the work that had been accomplished in the six months of labor. To be sure the delay in the completion of the spillway disquieted him a little. The dam had reached the spillway level a fortnight before, and had now passed it. Indeed, on the fifth of Jan uary the dam builders were within five feet of the top; that is, the crest of the dam was 120 feet above the level of the valley. They Tiad planned to run the spillway around the east ern end of the dam. The rock drills and dynamite which had been ordered had finally arrived In December, and by putting as many as possible to work on the spillway Vandeventer had succeeded in opening It for its entire width to an average depth of about seven feet below the Intended top of the dam; that is, it was now about two feet deeper than the actual crest cf the dam, but it still lacked five feet cf its designed depth. The rainy season, an inspection of the records had shown, was not due for a m'vnth and a half yet. That would give him ample time to com plete the dam and the spillway. This year, however, there had been some very unusual rains during the fall -md the water back of the dam was now 98 feet deep, which made it 22 feet below the level to which the dam had risen and 20 feet below the spillway. This was much more water than anyone had dreamed would be In the reser voir at that time, and was perhaps more than should have been allowed. Still there was 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, ' and the en gineer's judgment had been influenced by their eagerness to get it working. The broad sheet of water ran back Into the valley for many miles. In fact, the dam had transformed the country into a beautiful lake. Some times it rained in the mountains when it did not rain down in the valley, and there was a constant, If very small, rise in the level. Vandeventer personally carefully gauged the water every day. Naturally he had noted 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, assured Vandeventer that it could not possibly rain before March, and the mere fact that so much water had fallen rendered it more, improb able that any more would come down. But at three on the afternoon of Jan uary sixth it suddenly began to rain hard without warning and with no premonition on the part of anybody. It was not one of those terrible down pours known as cloudbursts, but it was an excessively hard, steady rain. The heavens over the range were black with clouds and so far as any oue 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 as sistants. At four o'clock it was decided to open the undersluice gate about half way, but when this was done the vol ume of water it was capable of dis charging was too small to help very much, and on opening it to its fullest extent the velocity of the water rush ing through was so .great that the river bed was rapidly scoured out. For fear of undermining the toe of the dam it was necessary partially to close the sluice once more. The water was rising, first at the rate of three or four inches an hour, then half a foot, and finally nearly a foot. By six o'clock that night it had risen 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 at 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 watchfulness and was somewhat alarming, it was not desperate. The men were advised to put in all the time in their bunks so. as to be good and ready for the hard battle which might come in the morn ing, and as they were all tired out with their day's work the little group soon broke up and each man went to his quarters. Vandeventer, however, could not sleep. The rain kept up steadily all night. The resident engineer finally got up and dressed himself, and pro tected by high rubber boots and a cowboy slicker and a sou'wester, left his quarters and went out to inspect the dam. He carried a lantern, of course, for it was pitch dark and, if possible, the rain dropping from the black sky made it more difficult to see. He was surprised when he got to the dam to see on the other side another lantern. Closing the slide of his own lantern to prevent observation, and be ing on familiar ground, he went straight toward the other side. The noise of the rain subdued any sound that he made, and he was able to come quite close to the other light without being noticed. How young Roberts, the mys terious engineer, uses his talents and knowledge to good advan tage is told in the next install ment he gets the opportunity to wipe out all disgrace, real or fancied. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Alexandria. There are few cities that can look back to a past like that of Alexandria, and fewer still with such a past that can contrive to keep up with the times and look forward to the future. The relics of 25 dead centuries of Alex andrian history have to be looked for In the guide books. In the city Itself they are covered up by the latest mod ern improvements. A few erudite Alexandrians may argue about the real nationality of Cleopatra, but most of them are talking about the price of cotton and the latest project for dredg ing the harbor. Wanted Joy Distributed. Marion was given a beautiful ring. Christmas eve. She was overjoyed, but changed it from one finger to the Other all evening. No one noticed it that evening, but she kept it up the next morning. Her mother, fearing Marlon would lose the ring, said: "Why don't you put your ring on one finger and keep it there, Marion?" "Well, I don't like to be mean. When I keep It on one finger I pit, the others."
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
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June 29, 1917, edition 1
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