nd
upstream from the main works. The third section containing a remainder
of about seventy million had by the twenty-sixth of June reached the
slack water above the city of Redding.

XXXVIII

The morning of June twenty-sixth dawned clear. Orde was early on the
road before the heat of the day. He drove his buckboard rapidly over the
twelve miles that separated his home from the distributing booms, for he
wanted at once to avoid the heat of the first sun and to arrive at the
commencement of the day's work. After a glance at the river, he entered
the tiny office and set about the examination of the tally sheets left
by the foreman. While he was engaged in this checking, the foreman, Tom
North, entered.

"The river's rising a little"? he remarked conversationally as he
reached for the second set of tally boards.

"You're crazy," muttered Orde, without looking up. "It's clear as a
bell; and there have been no rains reported from anywhere."

"It's rising a little, just the same," insisted North, going out.

An hour later Orde, having finished his clerical work, walked out over
the booms. The water certainly had risen; and considerably at that. A
decided current sucked through the interstices in the piling. The penned
logs moved uneasily.

"I should think it was rising!" said Orde to himself, as he watched the
slowly moving water. "I wonder what's up. It can't be merely those rains
three days ago."

He called one of the younger boys to him, Jimmy Powers by name.

"Here, Jimmy," said he, "mark one of these piles and keep track of how
fast the water rises."

For some time the river remained stationary, then resumed its slow
increase. Orde shook his head.

"I don't like June floods," he told Tom North. "A fellow can understand
an ordinary spring freshet, and knows about how far it will go; but
these summer floods are so confounded mysterious. I can't figure out
what's struck the old stream, unless they're having almighty heavy rains
up near headwaters."

By three o'clock in the afternoon Jimmy Powers reported a rise since
morning of six inches. The current had proportionately increased in
power.

"Tom," said Orde to the old riverman, "I'm going to send Marsh down for
the pile-drivers and some cable. The barge company has some fifteen inch
manilla."

North laughed.

"What in blazes do you expect to do with that?" he inquired.

"We may need them," Orde stated with conviction. "Everything's safe
enough