der of the dam, dividing the waters into long,
arrow-shaped furrows of light. At half-past twelve Tom Clute was swept
over the dam into the eddy. He swam ashore. Purdy took his place.

When the supports had reached out over half of the river's span, and the
water was dotted with the shoulders of men gracefully slanted against
the current, Jimmy gave orders to begin placing the flash-boards. Heavy
planks were at once slid across the supports, where the weight of the
racing water at once clamped them fast. Spikes held the top board beyond
the possibility of a wrench loose. The smooth, quiet river, interrupted
at last, murmured and snarled and eddied back, only to rush with
increased vehemence around the end of the rapidly growing obstruction.

The policeman, passing back and forth on Canal Street, heard no sound
of the labour going on. If he had been an observant policeman, he would
have noted an ever-changing tone in the volume of sound roaring up from
the eddy below the dam. After a time even he remarked on a certain
obvious phenomenon.

"Sure!" said he; "now, that's funny!"

He listened a moment, then passed on. The vagaries of the river were,
after all, nothing to him. He belonged on Canal Street, east side; and
Canal Street, east side, seemed peaceful.

The river had fallen absolutely silent. The last of Jimmy's flash-boards
was in place. Back in the sleeping town the clock in Pierce's Tower
struck two.

Jimmy and his men, having thus raised the level of the dam a good three
feet, emerged dripping from the west-side canal, and cheerfully took
their way northward to where, in the chilly dawn, their companions were
sleeping the sleep of the just. As they passed the riffles they paused.
A heavy grumbling issued from the logs jammed there, a grumbling brutish
and sullen, as though the reluctant animals were beginning to stir. The
water had already backed up from the raised dam.

Of course the affair, from a river-driver's standpoint, at once became
exceedingly simple. The slumbering fifteen were aroused to astounded
drowsiness. By three, just as the dawn was beginning to differentiate
the east from the west, the regular _clank, clank, clink_ of the
peavies proclaimed that due advantage of the high water was being
seized. From then until six was a matter of three hours more. A great
deal can be accomplished in three hours with flood-water. The last
little jam "pulled" just about the time the first citizen of the we