WAR!
the headline ran.
RIOTING AND BLOODSHED IN THE WOODS RIVERMEN AND DAM OWNERS CLASH!
There followed a vague and highly coloured statement to the effect that an initial skirmish had left the field in possession of the rivermen, in spite of the sheriff and a large posse, but that troops were being rushed to the spot, and that this “high-handed defiance of authority” would undoubtedly soon be suppressed. It concluded truthfully with the statement that the loss of life was as yet unknown.
Orde folded up the paper and handed it back.
“Don't you know any better than to get into that kind of a row down here?” Daly had been saying. “Do you want to bring us up for good here? Don't you realise that this isn't the northern peninsula? What are you trying to do, any way?”
“Sure I do,” replied Orde placidly. “Come along here till I show you the situation.”
Ten minutes later, Daly, relieved in his mind, was standing by the fire drinking hot coffee and laughing at Orde's description of Reed's plug hat.
To Orde's satisfaction, the sheriff did not reappear. Reed evidently now pinned his faith to the State troops.
All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals of every few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been removed. The gate was then blocked to prevent its fall when its nether support should be withdrawn, and two men, leaning over cautiously, began at arm's-length to deliver their axe-strokes against the middle of the sill-timbers of the sluice itself, notching each heavy beam deeply that the force of the current might finally break it in two. The night was very dark, and very still. Even the night creatures had fallen into the quietude that precedes the first morning hours. The muffled, spaced blows of the axes, the low-voiced comments or directions of the workers, the crackle of the fire ashore were thrown by contrast into an undue importance. Men in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to the blaze.