“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on driving piles, stringing cables, binding chains, although, now that the inspiration of Orde's combative spirit was withdrawn the labours seemed useless, futile, a mere filling in of the time before the supreme moment when they would be called upon to pay the sacrifice their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 it the logs had of course piled up in a jam, which, sinking rapidly to the bed of the channel, had dammed back the water.
“Where in hell did that drop from?” cried Orde.
“Come down on top the jam,” explained a riverman. “Must have come way from Redding. We just couldn't SCARE her out of here.”
Orde, suddenly fallen into a cold rage, stared at the obstruction, both fists clenched at his side.
“Too bad, boy,” said Welton at his elbow. “But don't take it too hard. You've done more than any of the rest of us could. And we're all losers together.”
“That about settles it,” repeated Welton.
“Settle!” cried Orde. “I should think not.”
“Licked, hell!” said Orde. “We've just begun to fight.”
“Get that bridge span out of there, of course.”
“Oh, there is,” replied Welton. “Of course--take her apart bolt by bolt and nut by nut.”
“Send for the wrenches, then,” snapped Orde.
“But it would take two or three days, even working night and day.”
“But it would be too late--it would do no good--”
“Perhaps not,” interrupted Orde; “but it will be doing something, anyway. Look here, Welton, are you game? If you'll get that bridge out in two days I'll hold the jam.”
“You can't hold that jam two hours, let alone two days,” said Welton decidedly.
“That's my business. You're wasting time. Will you send for lanterns and wrenches and keep this crew working?”