The storm was in full swing before he reached Jasper’s lateral. He followed it until he came to the tiny bridge that spanned it, and there found the photograph wagon. Sheltered within the wagon, Fogg had trained his camera toward the mountain. There the play of the lightning had become something stupendous. Davison was trying to hold the bronchos and keep them quiet in the beating rain.
“I’ve taken several exposures already,” Fogg announced, when Justin made his appearance and his report. “If those horses can be kept still another minute I’ll try it there just over the dam.”
A blinding flash burned across the sky. It was so vivid that Justin closed his eyes against it. The burst of the thunder, like the explosion of a cannon, was thrown back by the stony walls of the mountain, and rolled away, booming and bellowing in the clouds. The thunder roll was followed shortly by a confused and jarring crash.
“I got that flash all right, I think,” said Fogg, “and there goes the side of the mountain!”
Landslides occurred occasionally on the sides of the mountain, and Fogg thought this was one.
“No,” Davison shouted, “it’s—the dam!”
Another crash was heard, accompanied by a popping of breaking timbers; then, with a roar like a cyclone, the dam went out, sweeping down the swollen stream in a great tangle of logs and splintered timbers. Justin galloped toward the stream.
“Better look out there, Justin,” Fogg bellowed at him. “That will bring the river out on the jump, and you don’t want to get caught by it!”
Justin heard the wagon being driven away from the little bridge. It was an exciting minute, yet he had time to think with regret of what the loss of the dam would mean to the farmers. His reflections were cut short by a scream, followed by a cry for help.
Then in the lightning’s white glare he saw on the ground before him a woman clinging to the prostrate form of a man. Justin galloped wildly, and reaching them leaped down. To his amazement the woman was Lucy Davison and the man was Ben. She had apparently dragged him beyond the reach of the water that splashed and rolled in a wild flood but a few yards away.