At first he could not see the water, but, as they pressed into the crowd, he caught sight of the broad pool, dark even in the moonlight. It was over the road, now, through the fence, and had crept halfway across the stretch of grass before John Massey's door. Tom Brighton's white-clad figure was going back and forth among the men, but it was Cousin Jasper, standing high above the others on the seat of a wagon, who was directing operations and getting this confused army of workers into rapid organization.
"Tom, take half the men to shovel dirt and pile up the sand sacks, and send the other half back to the sand pits to fill them. Clear the road so that the wagons can go back and forth. Henry Brook, take out your horses and join your team with Johnson's, the tractor can pull two wagons and we need four horses to each of the others. Now, go to it and bring the sandbags as fast as they can be filled. We can't save John Massey's house, but we will build a dam to hold the water a hundred yards back, where the ground begins to rise. And remember, you can't be too quick if you want to save the valley."
Oliver took off his coat and jumped out of the car.
"Go over where Polly is," he told Janet "I am going into this game with the others."
He was in every portion of it, as the night wore by, never quite knowing how he passed from one task to another, but following orders blindly, hour after hour. He helped to dig, but was not quite so quick as the others; he carried the sacks of sand that were brought up, loaded high upon the wagons, but he had not the quick swing of the more sturdy farmers. He found himself at last on the high, vibrating seat of the heavy tractor, rumbling down the road with a line of wagons behind him, stopping at the sand pits to have them filled, then turning laboriously to haul them back again. The owner sat beside him on the first trip, directing him how to manage the unfamiliar machine, but as they made ready for a second he ejaculated, "You'll do," and jumped down to labor with the diggers. Oliver was left to drive his clumsy, powerful steed alone.
He saw the broad, semicircular wall of piled sandbags, banked with earth, rise slowly as the men worked with feverish haste, he saw the water come up to the foot of it, seem to hesitate, and then creep up the side. He saw, suddenly, just as they had all stopped to breathe, a long portion of the dike begin to tremble, then cave in with a hideous, sucking crash that shook the ground under them, he saw the flood of muddy water come roaring in and sweep against the painfully built rampart which swayed and crumbled to its fall.
In a wild turmoil of running, shouting men, backing wagons and rearing horses, he managed to extricate the clumsy monster that had been put under his care, brought it laboring and snorting out on higher ground and fell to work again. The barrier they had set up with so much toil was tumbling and collapsing in great gaps where the hungry current flung against it, but it held just long enough for them to raise another wall, longer, higher, firmer than the other and built with the frantic haste of desperate men.
The hours went by, it was long after midnight, with the sky growing pale for the morning. Once or twice Oliver had seen Anthony Crawford working among the rest, carrying sacks of sand, jostled and cursed by the men about him, but in spite of their abuse, toiling steadily onward. When the dike collapsed and the men ran for their lives, one wagon lurched off the road; its driver was flung from the seat and caught under the wheel, while the horses, having jammed the tongue against the bank, reared and plunged helplessly. Oliver saw Anthony Crawford run out, with the swift, muddy water flowing knee-deep around him, watched him extricate the man, drag him to the seat, and back the frantic horses away from the bank to bring them struggling through the water to safety. There was no time for words of commendation. Both men at once went back to their task of carrying sacks as the slow building of another wall began.
Some one had built a fire on the knoll, and here the farmers' wives, with Janet and Polly among them, were boiling coffee, frying bacon, and serving out food to the hungry, worn-out men. Oliver had munched a generous sandwich as he drove down the road. As he came back again he noticed a strange lull and observed that the men were leaning on their shovels and that the work had ceased. Tom Brighton, wet and muddy from head to foot, motioned him to come near.
"We've done all we can," the big farmer beside them was saying, "the sacks are nearly gone and the men are dead beat. If she breaks through now, the whole valley will have to go under."