Part 12

“I think myself he probably would,” agreed Orde.

“Surely,” spoke up Newmark, “whatever the status of the damage suits, you have the legal right to run your logs.”

Orde rolled a quizzical eye in his direction.

“Per-fect-ly correct, son,” he drawled, “but we're engaged in the happy occupation of getting out logs. By the time the law was all adjusted and a head of steam up, the water'd be down. In this game, you get out logs first, and think about law afterward.”

“How about legal damages?” insisted Newmark.

“Legal damages!” scoffed Orde. “Legal damages! Why, we count legal damages as part of our regular expenses--like potatoes. It's lucky it's so,” he added. “If anybody paid any attention to legal technicalities, there'd never be a log delivered. A man always has enemies.

“Well, what are you going to do?” persisted Newmark.

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 splashing 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 shore furnished him the basis of a third pier. He staked a thirty-inch butt 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 shore 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 god 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 fishing.”

So in ten seconds after the shore 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 accumulation 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.