He cursed them with the vigor of a master of galley slaves when the bateau was frothing along the deadwater. Then he bellowed into the fog, seeking a replying hail which would locate for him the Flagg crew. There was no repentance in him; his was a panic of compromise—a headlong rush to save himself from consequences. There was just as much uncertainty about what Latisan would do as there was about the dynamiter’s exact location in that fog.
Therefore, Craig announced himself with raucous staccato of: “I quit! I quit! Get that man! Tell him I quit!”
Men hailed from the shore and their voices guided the rowers. Craig leaped from the bow of the bateau and waded for the last few yards.
“Go stop him! Bring him here!” He tossed his arms.
“Huh!” scoffed old Vittum. “That’s a job for somebody who can tell which way the next stroke of lightning is heading.”
“I’ll give five hundred dollars to the man who’ll get to him and stop him before he smashes that dam!”
Craig added to the other visions which had been torturing him the possible catastrophe of the Comas logs roaring through past the mouth of a useless canal; he could look ahead still farther and see the grins of the sawmill men down the Noda, setting their own prices.
Once more Craig was finding that his money was getting him nothing that day, and his sense of helplessness was revealed by his sagging jowls and dolorous eyes; and he had always depended on what money could buy!
There was no alacrity for service shown by any man of Flagg’s crew.
“We’re not afraid,” said Felix Lapierre, breaking on Craig’s furious taunts. “We have promise’ to keep off and let him make good for himself—the lone hand—that’s it!”