At the first peep of light next morning he was at the sorting-gap in full command, removing a burden of responsibility from Rodburd Ide which had made that little man a quaking wreck of his ordinarily self-reliant self; for in every log that had come spinning around the upper bend of the Umcolcus his fears had seen the peak of Pulaski Britt’s rushing bateau.
That the river tyrant would come, furious beyond words, was a fact accepted by Dwight Wade, and Wade was ready to meet him. But every hour that passed without bringing the drive-master meant so much more towards the success of the Enchanted drive.
The logs came in stampeding droves. Withee’s were mixed among the “double diamonds,” but there were no delays at the sorting-gap. Two crews fed them through—one for day and one for night, with a dozen lanterns lighting their work. Wade was resolved that Britt should lack at least one argument in the bitter contention. The sorting should be done faithfully and promptly, and the down-river drive should be hurried on its way. But at the end of four days not one of the logs nicked with the “double hat,” Britt’s registered mark, had shown up. Nor did Britt himself appear.
A sullen, suffering man of Britt’s crew, who came walking into Castonia with hand held above his head to ease the agony of a felon, brought the first news.
Blunder Lake dam had been blown up, he reported, and such a chasm had been opened in the bed-rock that the lake had vomited its waters to the west until the bed of Britt’s shallow canal to the east was above the water-line. Britt had only his splash dams along Jerusalem for a driving-head. In the past years the pour of the canal had given him a current in Jerusalem dead-water. Now he was trying to warp his logs across there with head-works and anchor. But the south wind was howling against him, and no human muscle could turn the windlass, even when the oaths of the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt dinned in the ears of his toilers. All this the new-comer related.
“And it’s something awful to hear!” said the man. “He walks the platform of that head-works, back and forth and back and forth. He cusses God and the angels, the wind and all it blows across. And then when he is well worked up to cussin’, he ’tends to the case of the devil that blowed up Blunder Lake dam. And his face is as red as my shirt, and the veins stick out on his for’ead as big as a baby’s finger. They say that you can’t cuss only about so much without somethin’ happenin’ to you. I’ve read about the cap’n of a ship that done it too much once, and his ghost is still a-sailin’. All I’ve got to say is that if Pulaski Britt don’t stop, he’ll get his.”
The “It-’ll-git-ye Club” had listened to this recital intently. It agreed forebodingly. In fact, in special session the club passed a vote of dismal prophecy for the whole Jerusalem operation.