With the added danger of freshet water, the work went on.
At this moment Tim Shearer approached from inland, his clothes dripping wet, but his face retaining its habitual expression of iron calmness. “Anybody caught?” was his first question as he drew near.
“Five men under the face,” replied Thorpe briefly.
Shearer cast a glance at the river. He needed to be told no more.
“I was afraid of it,” said he. “The rollways must be all broken out. It's saved us that much, but the freshet water won't last long. It's going to be a close squeak to get 'em out now. Don't exactly figure on what struck the dam. Thought first I'd go right up that way, but then I came down to see about the boys.”
Carpenter could not understand this apparent callousness on the part of men in whom he had always thought to recognize a fund of rough but genuine feeling. To him the sacredness of death was incompatible with the insistence of work. To these others the two, grim necessity, went hand in hand.
“Where were you?” asked Thorpe of Shearer.
“On the pole trail. I got in a little, as you see.”
In reality the foreman had had a close call for his life. A toughly-rooted basswood alone had saved him.
“We'd better go up and take a look,” he suggested. “Th' boys has things going here all right.”