el mare was tugging hard at the rein and pawing the mud under
her feet, while Jack listened to the talk.

"Stand it? No!" he heard a man say. "That dam wasn't built to stand
any such crowdin' as that. Hark!"

A groaning, straining, cracking sound came from the barrier behind
which the foaming flood was widening and deepening the pond.

"There it goes! It's breaking!"

Jack wheeled the sorrel, as a dull, thunderous report was answered by a
great cry from the crowd; and then he dashed away down the homeward
road.

"I must get to Crofield before the water does," he said. "Glad the
creek's so crooked; it has twice as far to travel as I have."

Not quite, considering how a flood will sweep over a bend instead of
following it. Still, Jack and the sorrel had the start, and nearly all
the way it was a downhill road.

The Crofield people gathered fast, after the sky cleared, for a rumor
went around that there was something wrong with the dam, and that a man
had gone to the Four Comers to warn the people there.

All the men that could crowd into the mill had helped Mr. Hammond get
his grain up into the second story, but the water was a hand-breadth
deep on the lower floor by the time it was done.

There came a moment when all was silent except the roar of the water,
and through that silence the thud of hoofs was heard coming down from
Main Street. Then a shrill, excited voice shouted:

"All of you get off that bridge! The Four Corners dam's gone. The
boom's broken, and the logs are coming!"

There was a tumult of questioning, as men gathered around the sorrel,
and there was a swift clearing of people from the bridge.

"Why, it's shaking now!" said the blacksmith to Mr. Murdoch. "It'll go
down with the first log that strikes it. You drive your best home to
Mertonville and warn them. You may be just in time."

Away went the editor, carrying with him an extraordinary treasure of
news for the next number of his journal. Jack dismounted, and her
owner took the sorrel to her stable; she was very muddy but none the
worse for the service she had rendered.

The crowd stood waiting for what was sure to come. Miller Hammond was
anxiously watching his threatened and already damaged property. Jack
came and stood beside him.

"Mr. Hammond," he said, "all the gravel that you were going to sell to
father is lying under water."

"More than two acres of it," said the miller. "The water'll run off,
though. I'll