The work was breathless in its speed. From one to another sweat-bathed, panting man the logs were handed on. As yet only the advance of the big jam had arrived at the dredged channel.
“We can't keep this up when the main body hits us,” he panted to his neighbour, Jim Denning. “We'll have to do some more pile-driver work.”
He made a rapid excursion to the boom camp, whence he returned with thirty or forty of the men who had given up work on the jam below.
“Here, boys,” said he, “you can at least keep these logs moving in this channel for a couple of hours. This isn't dangerous.”
He spoke quite without sarcastic intent; but the rivermen, already over their first panic, looked at each other a trifle shamefacedly.
“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.