human
We are in luck on the cement proposition, he told the eager money-maker.
gpt
We shall probably manufacture our own supply right here on the ground. There is plenty of limestone and an excellent shale in those hills just beyond our camp; and for burning fuel there is a fairly good vein of bituminous coal underlying that farther range at the head of the valley.
human
H'm, said the millionaire;
gpt
Oh, yes; we've had experts in here for more than a year. The material is all right.
human
And your labor?
gpt
On the dam, you mean? One advantage of concrete work is that it does not require any great proportion of skilled labor, the crushing, mixing, and placing all being done by machinery. We shall work all the Indians we can get from the Navajo Reservation, forty-odd miles south of here; for the remainder we shall import men from the States, bringing them in over the Timanyoni High Line--the trail from Quesado on the Red Butte Western. At least, that is what we shall do for the present. Later on, the railroad will probably build an extension up the Barking Dog and over War Arrow Pass.
human
Fuel for your power plant?--wood I take it? he surmised; and then:
gpt
Oh, I forgot; you say you have coal.
human
Yes; there is coal, of a sort; good enough for the cement kilns. But we sha'n't burn it for power. Neither shall we burn the timber, which can be put to much better use in building and in false- and form-work. There are no finer lumber forests this side of the Sierras. For power we shall utilize the river. There is another small canyon at the head of the valley where a temporary dam can be built which will deliver power enough to run anything--an entire manufacturing city, if we had one.
gpt
Julius Cæsar! he exploded.
human
You stand there and tell me calmly that the government has all these resources coopered up here in a barrel?--that nobody is going to get a chance to make any money out of them? It's a crime, Mr. Brouillard; that's just what it is--a crime!
gpt
No; I didn't say that. The resources just happen to be here and we shall turn them to good account. But if there were any feasible transportation facilities I doubt if we should make use of these native raw materials. It is the policy of the department to go into the market like any other buyer where it can. But here there are no sellers, or, rather, no way in which the sellers can reach us.
human
No sellers and no chance for a man to get the thin edge of a wedge in anywhere, lamented the money-maker despairingly. Then his eye lighted upon the graybeard dump of a solitary mine high up on the face of Mount Chigringo.
gpt
What's that up there?
human
It is a mine, said Brouillard, showing Miss Cortwright how to adjust the field-glass for the shorter distance.
gpt
Two men named Massingale, father and son, are working it, I'm told. And then again to Miss Genevieve:
human
That is their cabin--on the trail a little to the right of the tunnel opening.
gpt
I see it quite plainly, she returned.
human
Two people are just leaving it to ride down the path--a man and a woman, I think, though the woman--if it is a woman--is riding on a man's saddle.