There was a long wait before any rock fell. Marshall and Rickard waited for the pour. The whistles blew again.
“Why in Hades,” began Marshall, and then they saw what was wrong. The morning light showed a rock weighing several tons which was resisting the efforts of the pressing crew. Out of the gloom sprang other figures with crowbars.
“Why don’t they try to use mountains?” swore Marshall, and the rock tottered, fell. The river tossed it as though it were a tennis ball, sent it hurtling down the lower face of the dam. The river’s strength was never more terrible.
“Damn those almighty fools!” screamed Tod Marshall.
“A fluke,” yelled Rickard.
Things began to go wild. The men were growing reckless. They were sagging toward exhaustion; mistakes were made. Another rock, as heavy as the last, was worked toward the edge. No one listened to the frantic signals to dynamite that rock, break it on the car. Men were thick about it with crowbars. There was another wait, the whistles confusing the men on the train. They hurried. One concerted effort, drawing back as the rock toppled over the edge. One man was too slow, or too tired. He slipped. The watchers on the bank saw a flash of waving arms, heard a cry; they had a glimpse of a blackened face as the foam caught it. The waters closed over him.
There was a hush of horror; a halt.
“God Himself couldn’t save that poor devil,” cried Marshall. “Have the work go on!”
Pour rocks on that wretch down there? Pin him down? Never had it seemed more like war! “A man down? Ride over him! to victory!” Soberly, Rickard signaled for the work to go on.
The rock-pour stuttered as if in horror. The women turned sick with fear. No one knew who it was. Some poor Mexican, probably.