The City of Numbered Days

Оглавление

Lynde Francis. The City of Numbered Days

I. The Heptaderm

II. J. Wesley Crœsus

III. Sands of Pactolus

IV. A Fire of Little Sticks

V. Symptomatic

VI. Mirapolis

VII. The Speedway

VIII. Table Stakes

IX. Bedlam

X. Epochal

XI. The Feast of Hurrahs

XII. Quicksands

XIII. Flood Tide

XIV. The Abyss

XV. The Setting of the Ebb

XVI. The Man on the Bank

XVII. The Circean Cup

XVIII. Love's Crucible

XIX. The Sunset Gun

XX. The Terror

Отрывок из книги

Measured even by the rather exacting standards of the mining and cattle country, Brouillard was not what the West calls "jumpy." Four years of field-work, government or other, count for something; and the man who has proved powder-shy in any stage of his grapple with the Land of Short Notice is customarily a dead man.

In spite of his training, however, the young chief of construction, making an early morning exploration of the site for the new dam at the mouth of the outlet gorge while the rank and file of the pioneer force were building the permanent camp half-way between the foot-hills and the river, winced handsomely when the shock of a distance-muffled explosion trembled upon the crisp morning air, coming, as it seemed, from some point near the lower end of the canyon.

.....

"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."

Mr. Cortwright made a clucking noise with his tongue and blew his cheeks out like a swimmer gasping for breath.

.....