She questioned him with a look.
“I can’t jest explain, Swickey, but git your camera ready. They got a grip on her now.”
Then, amid shouts from the men on the bank there came a crack like a rifle-shot. The entire fabric bulged up and out. A long roar, a thundering and groaning of tons of liberated logs and water, and five of the seven men ran like squirrels from log to log toward shore. Where were the other two? Joe was coming—no, he was going back. Swickey raised her arms and shrieked to him. He turned as though he had heard and flung out one arm in an indescribable gesture of salutation and farewell to the blue-gowned figure on the rocks above him. Then he ran down a careening log and reached for something in the water. He caught an upraised arm and struggled to another log. He stooped to lift the inert something he had tried so fearlessly to save, but before he could straighten up, the loosened buttress of timbers charged down upon him and brushed him from sight. The crest of the jam sunk and dissolved in the leaping current.
“Gone, by God!” said Avery.
Men looked at each other and then turned away.
Above, the pine warblers darted back and forth across the chasm in the sun.
Swickey slid from the rock where she had been standing and grasped her father’s arm. “It was Joe, wasn’t it?” she gasped, although she knew.
“Yes—and Andy,” replied Avery. “Joe might of got out, but Andy slipped and Joe went back to git the leetle skunk. Thet was Joe all over—dam his ole hide.”
She dropped to her knees and crossed her arms before her face. With one accord the rivermen turned and walked away. Avery stooped and lifted her to her feet.
“Thar, thar, leetle gal—”