e-strokes against the middle of the
sill-timbers of the sluice itself, notching each heavy beam deeply that
the force of the current might finally break it in two. The night was
very dark, and very still. Even the night creatures had fallen into
the quietude that precedes the first morning hours. The muffled, spaced
blows of the axes, the low-voiced comments or directions of the workers,
the crackle of the fire ashore were thrown by contrast into an undue
importance. Men in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to the
blaze.

Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud and
exultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to the
top of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to life.
A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like the rapid
explosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers smote the air;
and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy, rushed from its pent
quietude into the new passage opened for it. At the same moment, as
though at the signal, a single bird, premonitor of the yet distant day,
lifted up his voice, clearly audible above the tumult.

Orde stormed into the camp up stream, his eyes bright, his big voice
booming exultantly.

"Roll out, you river-hogs!" he shouted to those who had worked out their
shifts earlier in the night. "Roll out, you web-footed sons of guns, and
hear the little birds sing praise!"

Newmark, who had sat up the night through, and now shivered sleepily by
the fire, began to hunt around for the bed-roll he had, earlier in the
evening, dumped down somewhere in camp.

"I suppose that's all," said he. "Just a case of run logs now. I'll turn
in for a little."

But Orde, a thick slice of bread half-way to his lips, had frozen in an
attitude of attentive listening.

"Hark!" said he.

Faint, still in the depths of the forest, the wandering morning breeze
bore to their ears a sound whose difference from the louder noises
nearer at hand alone rendered it audible.

"The troops!" exclaimed Orde.

He seized a lantern and returned down the trail, followed eagerly by
Newmark and every man in camp.

"Troops coming!" said Orde to Daly.

The men drew a little to one side, watching the dim line of the forest,
dark against the paling sky. Shadows seemed to stir in its blackness.
They heard quite distinctly the clink of metal against metal. A man rode
out of the shadow and reined up by the fire. "Halt!" comma