had automatically broken. In a little time
the eddy caught up some of these logs, and immediately the inception of
another jam threatened. The rivermen, without hesitation, as calmly as
though catastrophe had not thrown the weight of its moral terror against
their stoicism, sprang, peavey in hand, to the insistent work.

"By Jove!" said the journalist again. "That is magnificent! They are
working over the spot where their comrades died!"

Thorpe's face lit with gratification. He turned to the young man.

"You see," he said in proud simplicity.

With the added danger of freshet water, the work went on.

At this moment Tim Shearer approached from inland, his clothes dripping
wet, but his face retaining its habitual expression of iron calmness.
"Anybody caught?" was his first question as he drew near.

"Five men under the face," replied Thorpe briefly.

Shearer cast a glance at the river. He needed to be told no more.

"I was afraid of it," said he. "The rollways must be all broken out.
It's saved us that much, but the freshet water won't last long. It's
going to be a close squeak to get 'em out now. Don't exactly figure on
what struck the dam. Thought first I'd go right up that way, but then I
came down to see about the boys."

Carpenter could not understand this apparent callousness on the part
of men in whom he had always thought to recognize a fund of rough but
genuine feeling. To him the sacredness of death was incompatible with
the insistence of work. To these others the two, grim necessity, went
hand in hand.

"Where were you?" asked Thorpe of Shearer.

"On the pole trail. I got in a little, as you see."

In reality the foreman had had a close call for his life. A
toughly-rooted basswood alone had saved him.

"We'd better go up and take a look," he suggested. "Th' boys has things
going here all right."

The two men turned towards the brush.

"Hi, Tim," called a voice behind them.

Red Jacket appeared clambering up the cliff.

"Jack told me to give this to you," he panted, holding out a chunk of
strangely twisted wood.

"Where'd he get this?" inquired Thorpe, quickly. "It's a piece of the
dam," he explained to Wallace, who had drawn near.

"Picked it out of the current," replied the man.

The foreman and his boss bent eagerly over the morsel. Then they stared
with solemnity into each other's eyes.

"Dynamite, by God!" exclaimed Shearer.

Chapter L

For a moment the three men stared