He drove them ashore with a storm of profanity and a multitude of kicks, his steel-blue eyes blazing.
“There's nothing for it but to get the boys out again,” said Tim; “I kinder hate to do it.”
But when the Fighting Forty, half asleep but dauntless, took charge of the driver, a catastrophe made itself known. One of the ejected men had tripped the lifting chain of the hammer after another had knocked away the heavy preventing block, and so the hammer had fallen into the river and was lost. None other was to be had. The pile driver was useless.
A dozen men were at once despatched for cables, chains, and wire ropes from the supply at the warehouse.
“I'd like to have those whelps here,” cried Shearer, “I'd throw them under the jam.”
“It's part of the same trick,” said Thorpe grimly; “those fellows have their men everywhere among us. I don't know whom to trust.”
“You think it's Morrison & Daly?” queried Carpenter astonished.
“Think? I know it. They know as well as you or I that if we save these logs, we'll win out in the stock exchange; and they're not such fools as to let us save them if it can be helped. I have a score to settle with those fellows; and when I get through with this thing I'll settle it all right.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“The only thing there is to be done. We'll string heavy booms, chained together, between the cribs, and then trust to heaven they'll hold. I think we can hold the jam. The water will begin to flow over the bank before long, so there won't be much increase of pressure over what we have now; and as there won't be any shock to withstand, I think our heavy booms will do the business.”