第97章

I feel tempted sometimes to help it out a little--artistically, you know--but of course that wouldn't do.She'd make a ripping yarn, though, if I could get up some motive outside mere trade rivalry for the blowing up of those dams.That would just round it off."Wallace Carpenter was about to reply that such a motive actually existed, when the conversation was interrupted by the approach of Thorpe and Big Junko.The former looked twenty years older after his winter.His eye was dull, his shoulders drooped, his gait was inelastic.The whole bearing of the man was that of one weary to the bone.

"I've got something here to show you, Harry," cried Wallace Carpenter, waving one of the papers."It was a great drive and here's something to remember it by.""All right, Wallace, by and by," replied Thorpe dully."I'm dead.

I'm going to turn in for a while.I need sleep more than anything else.I can't think now."He passed through the little passage into the "parlor bed-room,"which Mrs.Hathaway always kept in readiness for members of the firm.There he fell heavily asleep almost before his body had met the bed.

In the long dining room the rivermen consumed a belated dinner.

They had no comments to make.It was over.

The two on the veranda smoked.To the right, at the end of the sawdust street, the mill sang its varying and lulling keys.The odor of fresh-sawed pine perfumed the air.Not a hundred yards away the river slipped silently to the distant blue Superior, escaping between the slanting stone-filled cribs which held back the logs.

Down the south and west the huge thunderheads gathered and flashed and grumbled, as they had done every afternoon for days previous.

"Queer thing," commented Hamilton finally, "these cold streaks in the air.They are just as distinct as though they had partitions around them.""Queer climate anyway," agreed Carpenter.

Excepting always for the mill, the little settlement appeared asleep.

The main booms were quite deserted.Not a single figure, armed with its picturesque pike-pole, loomed athwart the distance.After awhile Hamilton noticed something.

"Look here, Carpenter," said he, "what's happening out there? Have some of your confounded logs SUNK, or what? There don't seem to be near so many of them somehow.""No, it isn't that," proffered Carpenter after a moment's scrutiny, "there are just as many logs, but they are getting separated a little so you can see the open water between them.""Guess you're right.Say, look here, I believe that the river is rising!""Nonsense, we haven't had any rain."

"She's rising just the same.I'll tell you how I know; you see that spile over there near the left-hand crib? Well, I sat on the boom this morning watching the crew, and I whittled the spile with my knife--you can see the marks from here.I cut the thing about two feet above the water.Look at it now.""She's pretty near the water line, that's right," admitted Carpenter.

"I should think that might make the boys hot," commented Hamilton.

"If they'd known this was coming, they needn't have hustled so to get the drive down.

"That's so," Wallace agreed.

About an hour later the younger man in his turn made a discovery.

"She's been rising right along," he submitted."Your marks are nearer the water, and, do you know, I believe the logs are beginning to feel it.See, they've closed up the little openings between them, and they are beginning to crowd down to the lower end of the pond.""I don't know anything about this business," hazarded the journalist, "but by the mere look of the thing I should think there was a good deal of pressure on that same lower end.By Jove, look there! See those logs up-end? I believe you're going to have a jam right here in your own booms!""I don't know," hesitated Wallace, "I never heard of its happening.""You'd better let someone know."

"I hate to bother Harry or any of the rivermen.I'll just step down to the mill.Mason--he's our mill foreman--he'll know."Mason came to the edge of the high trestle and took one look.

"Jumping fish-hooks!" he cried."Why, the river's up six inches and still a comin'! Here you, Tom!" he called to one of the yard hands, "you tell Solly to get steam on that tug double quick, and have Dave hustle together his driver crew.""What you going to do?" asked Wallace.

"I got to strengthen the booms," explained the mill foreman."We'll drive some piles across between the cribs.""Is there any danger?"

"Oh, no, the river would have to rise a good deal higher than she is now to make current enough to hurt.They've had a hard rain up above.This will go down in a few hours."After a time the tug puffed up to the booms, escorting the pile driver.The latter towed a little raft of long sharpened piles, which it at once began to drive in such positions as would most effectually strengthen the booms.In the meantime the thunder-heads had slyly climbed the heavens, so that a sudden deluge of rain surprised the workmen.For an hour it poured down in torrents;then settled to a steady gray beat.Immediately the aspect had changed.The distant rise of land was veiled; the brown expanse of logs became slippery and glistening; the river below the booms was picked into staccato points by the drops; distant Superior turned lead color and seemed to tumble strangely athwart the horizon.

Solly, the tug captain, looked at his mooring hawsers and then at the nearest crib.