acedly.

"I'll tie into her wherever you say," said one big fellow. "If you
fellows are going back to the jam, I'm with you."

Two or three more volunteered. The remainder said nothing, but in
silence took charge of the dredged channel.

Orde and his men now returned to the jam where, on the pile-driver, the
tugs, and the booms, they set methodically to strengthening the defences
as well as they were able.

"She's holding strong and dandy," said Orde to Tom North, examining
critically the clumps of piles. "That channel helps a lot in more ways
than one. It takes an awful lot of water out of the river. As long as
those fellows keep the logs moving, I really believe we're all right."

But shortly the water began to rise again, this time fairly by leaps.
In immediate response the jam increased its pressure. For the hundredth
time the frail wooden defences opposed to millions of pounds were tested
to the very extreme of their endurance. The clumps of piles sagged
outward; the network of chains and cables tightened and tightened
again, drawing ever nearer the snapping point. Suddenly, almost without
warning, the situation had become desperate.

And for the first time Orde completely lost his poise and became
fluently profane. He shook his fist against the menacing logs; he
apostrophised the river, the high water, the jam, the deserters, Newmark
and his illness, ending finally in a general anathema against any and
all streams, logs, and floods. Then he stormed away to see if anything
had gone wrong at the dredged channel.

"Well," said Tom North, "they've got the old man real good and mad this
time."

The crew went on driving piles, stringing cables, binding chains,
although, now that the inspiration of Orde's combative spirit was
withdrawn the labours seemed useless, futile, a mere filling in of the
time before the supreme moment when they would be called upon to pay the
sacrifice their persistence and loyalty had proffered for the altar of
self-respect and the invincibility of the human Soul.

At the dredged channel Orde saw the rivermen standing idle, and,
half-blind with anger he burst upon them demanding by this, that and the
other what they meant. Then he stopped short and stared.

Square across the dredged channel and completely blocking it lay a
single span of an iron bridge. Although twisted and misshapen, it was
still intact, the framework of its overhead truss-work retaining its
cage-like shape. Behind