a three- or four-mile haul from either end of the abyss, added to which
it will be a pretty rough road to travel.' He grinned ruefully. 'You are
speaking to an expert on the subject. I went down it the hard way, and I
wouldn't want to do it again. There are at least five chutes and rock
jams that I can remember being thrown over.'
'What is your better idea, then?' she asked.
'It's not my idea,' he contradicted her. 'It's Taita's idea really.'
She peered over the edge. 'You mean to build a scaffold down the cliff,
just the way he did it?
'What's good enough for Taita is good enough for me,' he acknowledged.
'The old boy probably had a good look at the alternative of using the
river bed as an access road, and abandoned the idea.'
'When will you start work on the scaffold, then?'
'One of our teams is already cutting bamboo poles higher up the gorge.
Tomorrow we will begin carrying them up here, and stacking them. We
can't waste a day.
Once the darn is closed we have to get into the dry pool as soon as
possible.'
As if to add weight to his words there came a far-off mutter of thunder,
and they both craned their heads to peer up with trepidation at the
escarpment. Probably a hundred miles to the north, faintly washed as a
sepia print superimposed upon the razor-edged blue silhouette of the
loescarpment wall rose high tumbled towers of cumu nimbus clouds.
Neither of them spoke about it, but both 'were aware of how ominously
the torm clouds were settling on the distant mountains.
Nicholas glanced at his wrist-watch and stood up.
'Time to start back if we are to get into camp before dark.'
He gave her his hand and lifted her to her feet. She dusted off her
clothes and then stepped right to the very lip of the canyon.
ks,' she called I 'Wake up, Taita. We are hot on your trac down into the
shadows.
'Don't challenge him.' Nicholas took her arm and drew VI, her back. 'The
old ruffian has given us enough trouble already.'
The axemen had left the stumps of several great trees standing on the
banks of the Dandera upstream from the dam- Sapper used these as anchor
points for the heavy cables that he strung across the river. Through the
cables he had rigged a cunning series of pulley blocks. The main cable
was run back and connected to the tow hitch on the front-ender.
Two other cables were laid out, one to each bank, where the Buffaloes
and the Elephants stood ready to handle them- One team was under the
direction of Nicholas, and the other under Mek Nimmur. For this crucial
part of the construction, Mek had come down from the hills to lend a
hand.
The grating of massive treetrunks lay on the river verge, already half
in the water. Heavily weighted with boulders, it was an unwieldy
structure that would require all their combined efforts to manoeuvre
into position.
Sapper slitted his eyes as he studied the layout, and then looked
downstream to the partially completed dam. The two walls of gabions
