Life seemed quiet and innocuous.
Liquor was prohibited.

The regime was military.

Soon after the bugle had sounded Retreat each evening the raw little settlement became silent, save for the unending requiem to hope which the great waters chafing through the turbines continually moaned.

It was apparently a place of peace.
Doctor Barnes felt reasonably sure that the attack, if any, would come through the valley at the lower dam, for that would be the only practical entry point of the marauders marooned somewhere back in the hills.

The trail between these two dams lay almost wholly above the rocky river bed.