eam
over the solidly banked logs. Without waiting the command, a dozen
men followed him. The little group bobbed away irregularly into the
distance, springing lightly from one timber to the other, holding their
quaintly-fashioned peaveys in the manner of a rope dancer's balancing
pole. At the lowermost limit of the rollways, each man pried a log
into the water, and, standing gracefully erect on this unstable craft,
floated out down the current to the scene of his dangerous labor.

"Kerlie," went on Thorpe, "your crew can break rollways with the rest
until we get the river fairly filled, and then you can move on down
stream as fast as you are needed. Scotty, you will have the rear. Tim
and I will boss the river."

At once the signal was given to Ellis, the dam watcher. Ellis and his
assistants thereupon began to pry with long iron bars at the ratchets
of the heavy gates. The chore-boy bent attentively over the ratchet-pin,
lifting it delicately to permit another inch of raise, dropping it
accurately to enable the men at the bars to seize a fresh purchase. The
river's roar deepened. Through the wide sluice-ways a torrent foamed and
tumbled. Immediately it spread through the brush on either side to the
limits of the freshet banks, and then gathered for its leap against the
uneasy rollways. Along the edge of the dark channel the face of the logs
seemed to crumble away. Farther in towards the banks where the weight of
timber still outbalanced the weight of the flood, the tiers grumbled and
stirred, restless with the stream's calling. Far down the river, where
Bryan Moloney and his crew were picking at the jam, the water in eager
streamlets sought the interstices between the logs, gurgling excitedly
like a mountain brook.

The jam creaked and groaned in response to the pressure. From its face a
hundred jets of water spurted into the lower stream. Logs up-ended here
and there, rising from the bristling surface slowly, like so many arms
from lower depths. Above, the water eddied back foaming; logs shot down
from the rollways, paused at the slackwater, and finally hit with a
hollow and resounding BOOM! against the tail of the jam. A moment later
they too up-ended, so becoming an integral part of the "chevaux de
frise."

The crew were working desperately. Down in the heap somewhere, two logs
were crossed in such a manner as to lock the whole. They sought those
logs.

Thirty feet above the bed of the river six men clamped th