“It looks bad; I’m very sorry,” said Kermode when they reached the wrecked building.
“I’m afraid we can’t get things straight until spring and I don’t know how I’ll raise the money then,” declared Ferguson. “A good deal of the lumber seems destroyed, and I’ve levied pretty heavily on every friend I’ve got.” Then he tried to assume a philosophic tone. “Well, I suppose this is the result of impatience; there were spikes I didn’t put in because I couldn’t wait for them and some tenons were badly cut. It blew hard last night and there must have been a big weight of snow on the new shingling.”
“I don’t think you’re right,” Kermode said dryly, and turned to a bridge-carpenter who stood near-by. “What’s your idea?”
“The thrust of what roof they’d got up wouldn’t come on the beams that gave,” rejoined the man. “There’s something here I don’t catch on to.”
“Just so,” said Kermode. “Suppose you take a look at the king-posts and stringers. We’ll clear this fallen lumber out of the way, boys.”
They set to work, and in an hour the sound and damaged timber had been sorted into piles. Then, when the foundations were exposed, Kermode and the carpenter examined a socket in which a broken piece of wood remained.
“This has been a blamed bad tenon,” the mechanic remarked. “The shoulders weren’t butted home.”
“I’m afraid that’s true; I made it,” Ferguson admitted; but Kermode, laying his finger on the rent wood, looked up at his companion.
“For all that, should it have given way as it has done?”
“I’ll tell you better when we find the beam it belonged to.”