"Never mind, Jerry. I think I'll work in toward the shore a bit first, and, anyway, she can't drift upstream." So Jerry went on his way out toward the middle of the dam.
It was really a monstrous affair, that dam. The old part was built on and from solid rock, being really a jutting out of a lime stone cliff which had stood high and dry before the water had been dammed up by the heavy timber cribs cutting across the original stream. Concrete abutments secured these timbers and linked the walls of stone with the huge gates opening into the millrace that fed the water to the ponderous undershot millwheel. Just now the gates were open and the water rushed through with deafening force. Jerry made his way across the stonework section, having a hard time in the water-worn crevices, slimed over with recent overflows, for when the millgates were closed, Plum Run thundered over this part of the dam in a spectacular waterfall.
He had hardly reached the flat concrete before he noticed that the roar from the millrace had ceased; the gates had been closed. All the better; this part of the river was shallow; when the water rose, big fish would be coming in to scour over the fresh feeding grounds. So he moved a little nearer shore and quickly trimmed his lines. He heard a hail from the bank as he made his first cast. It was from Dave.
"Mind if I come out and try my luck beside you?"
"Not at all. Water's coming up fast. Best try some grubs or worms, though. No good for minnows here now."
"Sure," agreed Dave, settling comfortably beside him. "Water sure is filling up, isn't she? Guess the Miller of the Dee dropped a cogwheel into his wheat."
"Not wishing anybody any bad luck, but I hope they don't start up again all day. This'll be a backwater as soon as the current starts going over the dam. Another six inches—say! Look at Tod. If he isn't fishing right above the flume. Wonder if he's noticed."
"Noticed? He's got a bite, that's what! Look at him bending to it. It's a big one, you bet. Golly, did you see that!"
"I see more than that," exclaimed Jerry grimly, dropping his precious pole and starting across the slippery rocks on the run. "If he doesn't get out of there in about thirty seconds, he's going over the dam!"
But just as Jerry mounted the last clump of rocks, just as Dave's desperate shouts had aroused Tod to a realization of his danger,—something happened. You have watched a big soap bubble swelling the one last impossible breath; you have seen a camp coffee kettle boiling higher and higher till splush! the steaming brown mass heaves itself into the fire—the bending, crowding mile-wide surface of Plum Creek found a sudden outlet. And right in the center of that outlet was a plunging tiny boat.