The position of General Manager as Bruce interpreted it was no sinecure. A General Manager who worked was an anomaly, something unheard of in the district where the title carried with it the time-honored prerogative of sitting in the shade issuing orders, sustained and soothed by an unfailing supply of liquid refreshment.
And while the crew wondered, they criticised—not through any lack of regard for Bruce but merely from habit and the secret belief that whatever he did they could have done better. In their hours of relaxation it was their wont to go over his plans for working the ground, so far as they knew them, and explain to each other carefully and in detail how it was impossible for Bruce with the kind of a “rig” he was putting in, to handle enough dirt to wash out a breast-pin. Yet they toiled none the less faithfully for these dispiriting conversations, doing the work of horses, often to the point of exhaustion.
When the trestle was well along Bruce commenced sawing lumber for the half mile of flume which was to bring the water from the head-gate across the trestle to the pressure-box above the power-house. He sawed in such frenzy of haste—for there was so much to do and so little time to do it in—and with such concentration that when he raised his eyes the air seemed full of two by fours, and bottoms. When he closed them at night he saw “inch stuff,” and bottoms. When he dreamed, it was of saw-logs, battens and bottoms.
Spring came unmistakably and Bruce waited anxiously for word from Jennings that the repairs had been made and the machinery was on its way to Meadows—the mountain town one hundred and fifty miles above where the barges would be built and loaded for their hazardous journey.
As the sun grew stronger daily Bruce began to watch the river with increasing anxiety. He wondered if he had made it clear to Jennings that delay, the difference of a week, might mean a year’s postponement. The period nearest approaching safety was when the river was at the middle stage of the spring rise—about eight feet above low water. After it had passed this point only the utterly foolhardy would have attempted it.
Bruce’s nerves were at a tension as the days went by and he saw the great green snake swelling with the coming of warmer weather. Inch by inch the water crept up the sides of “Old Turtle-back,” the huge glazed rock that rose defiantly, splitting the current in the middle. A few hot suns would melt the snowbanks in the mountains to send the river thundering between its banks until the very earth trembled, and its navigation was unthinkable.
The telegram came finally, and Bruce’s relief was so great that, as little as he liked him, he could almost have embraced Smaltz, the man who brought the news that the machinery was boxed and on its way to Meadows.
“Thank God, that worry’s over!” Bruce ejaculated as he read it, and Smaltz lingered. “I may get a night’s sleep now instead of lying awake listening to the river.”
“Oh, the machinery’s started?”
Bruce had an impression that he already knew the contents of the telegram in spite of his air of innocence and his question.