The Riverman Part 7

Orde thrust back his felt hat and ran his fingers through his short, crisp hair.

"There you've got me," he confessed, "but, if necessary, we'll pile the old warrior."

He walked to the edge of the dam and stood looking down current. For perhaps a full minute he remained there motionless, his hat clinging to one side, his hand in his hair. Then he returned to the grimly silent rivermen.

"Boys," he commanded briefly, "get your peavies and come along."

He led the way past the mill to the shallows below.

"There's a trifle of wading to do," he announced. "Bring down two logs--fairly big--and hold them by that old snag," he ordered. "Whoa-up!

Easy! Hold them end on--no, pointing up stream--fix 'em about ten foot apart--that's it! George, drive a couple of stakes each side of them to hold 'em. Correct! Now, run down a couple dozen more and pile them across those two--side on to the stream, of course. Roll 'em up--that's the ticket!"

Orde had been splas.h.i.+ng about in the shallow water, showing where each timber was to be placed. He drew back, eyeing the result with satisfaction. It looked rather like a small and bristly pier.

Next he cast his eye about and discovered a partially submerged boulder on a line with the newly completed structure. Against this he braced the ends of two more logs, on which he once more caused to be loaded at right angles many timbers. An old stub near sh.o.r.e furnished him the basis of a third pier. He staked a thirty-inch b.u.t.t for a fourth; and so on, until the piers, in conjunction with the small centre jam already mentioned, extended quite across the river.

All this was accomplished in a very short time, and immediately below the mill, but beyond sight from the sluice-gate of the dam.

"Now, boys," commanded Orde, "shove off some sh.o.r.e logs, and let them come down."

"We'll have a jam sure," objected Purdy stupidly.

"No, my son, would we?" mocked Orde. "I surely hope not!"

The stray logs floating down with the current the rivermen caught and arranged to the best possible advantage about the improvised piers.

A good riverman understands the correlation of forces represented by saw-logs and water-pressure. He knows how to look for the key-log in breaking jams; and by the inverse reasoning, when need arises he can form a jam as expertly as Koosy-oonek himself--that bad little G.o.d who brings about the disagreeable and undesired--"who hides our pipes, steals our last match, and brings rain on the just when they want to go fis.h.i.+ng."

So in ten seconds after the sh.o.r.e logs began drifting down from above, the jam was taking shape. Slowly it formed, low and broad. Then, as the water gathered pressure, the logs began to slip over one another. The weight of the topmost sunk those beneath to the bed of the stream. This to a certain extent dammed back the water. Immediately the pressure increased. More logs were piled on top. The piers locked the structure.

Below the improvised dam the water fell almost to nothing, and above it, swirling in eddies, grumbling fiercely, bubbling, gurgling, searching busily for an opening, the river, turned back on itself, gathered its swollen and angry forces.

"That will do, boys," said Orde with satisfaction.

He led the way to the bank and sat down. The men followed his example.

Every moment the water rose, and each instant, as more logs came down the current, the jam became more formidable.

"Nothing can stand that pressure," breathed Newmark, fascinated.

"The bigger the pressure the tighter she locks," replied Orde, lighting his pipe.

The high bank where the men sat lay well above the reach of the water.

Not so the flat on which stood Reed's mill. In order to take full advantage of the water-power developed by the dam, the old man had caused his structure to be built nearly at a level with the stream.

Now the river, backing up, rapidly overflowed this flat. As the jam tightened by its own weight and the acc.u.mulation of logs, the water fairly jumped from the lowest floor of the mill to the one above.

Orde had not long to wait for Reed's appearance. In less than five minutes the old man descended on the group, somewhat of his martial air abated, and something of a vague anxiety manifest in his eye.

"What's the matter here?" he demanded.

"Matter?" inquired Orde easily. "Oh, nothing much, just a little jam."

"But it's flooding my mill!"

"So I perceive," replied Orde, striking a match.

"Well, why don't you break it?"

"Not interested."

The old warrior ran up the bank to where he could get a good view of his property. The water was pouring into the first-floor windows.

"Here!" he cried, running back. "I've a lot of grain up-stairs. It'll be ruined!"

"Not interested," repeated Orde.

Reed was rapidly losing control of himself.

"But I've got a lot of money invested here!" he shouted. "You miserable blackguard, you're ruining me!"

Orde replaced his pipe.

Reed ran back and forth frantically, disappeared, returned bearing an antiquated pike-pole, and single-handed and alone attacked the jam!

Astonishment and delight held the rivermen breathless for a moment. Then a roar of laughter drowned even the noise of the waters. Men pounded each other on the back, rolled over and over, clutching handfuls of earth, struggled weak and red-faced for breath as they saw against the sky-line of the bristling jam the lank, flapping figure with the old plug hat pus.h.i.+ng frantically against the immovable statics of a mighty power. The exasperation of delay, the anxiety lest success be lost through the mulish and narrow-minded obstinacy of one man, the resentment against another obstacle not to be foreseen and not to be expected in a task redundantly supplied with obstacles of its own--these found relief at last.

"By Jove!" breathed Newmark softly to himself. "Don Quixote and the windmills!" Then he added vindictively, "The old fool!" although, of course, the drive was not his personal concern.

Only Orde seemed to see the other side. And on Orde the responsibility, uncertainty, and vexation had borne most heavily, for the success of the undertaking was in his hands. With a few quick leaps he had gained the old man's side.

"Look here, Reed," he said kindly, "you can't break this jam. Come ash.o.r.e now, and let up. You'll kill yourself."

Reed turned to him, a wild light in his eye.

"Break it!" he pleaded. "You're ruining me. I've got all my money in that mill."

"Well," said Orde, "we've got a lot of money in our logs too. You haven't treated us quite right."

Reed glanced frantically toward the flood up stream.

"Come," said Orde, taking him gently by the arm. "There's no reason you and I shouldn't get along together all right. Maybe we're both a little hard-headed. Let's talk it over."

He led the old man ash.o.r.e, and out of earshot of the rivermen.

At the end of ten minutes he returned.

"War's over, boys!" he shouted cheerfully. "Get in and break that jam."

At once the crew swarmed across the log barrier to a point above the centre pier. This they attacked with their peavies, rolling the top logs off into the current below. In less than no time they had torn out quite a hole in the top layer. The river rushed through the opening.

Immediately the logs in the wings were tumbled in from either side.

At first the men had to do all of the work, but soon the river itself turned to their a.s.sistance. Timbers creaked and settled, or rose slightly buoyant as the water loosened the tangle. Men trod on the edge of expectation. Constantly the logs s.h.i.+fted, and as constantly the men s.h.i.+fted also, avoiding the upheavals and grindings together, wary eyes estimating the correlation of the forces into whose crus.h.i.+ng reach a single misstep would bring them. The movement accelerated each instant, as the music of the play hastens to the climax. Wood fibres smashed.

The whole ma.s.s seemed to sink down and forward into a boiling of waters.