Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud and exultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to the top of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to life. A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like the rapid explosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers smote the air; and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy, rushed from its pent quietude into the new passage opened for it. At the same moment, as though at the signal, a single bird, premonitor of the yet distant day, lifted up his voice, clearly audible above the tumult.
Orde stormed into the camp up stream, his eyes bright, his big voice booming exultantly.
“Roll out, you river-hogs!” he shouted to those who had worked out their shifts earlier in the night. “Roll out, you web-footed sons of guns, and hear the little birds sing praise!”
Newmark, who had sat up the night through, and now shivered sleepily by the fire, began to hunt around for the bed-roll he had, earlier in the evening, dumped down somewhere in camp.
“I suppose that's all,” said he. “Just a case of run logs now. I'll turn in for a little.”
But Orde, a thick slice of bread half-way to his lips, had frozen in an attitude of attentive listening.
“Hark!” said he.
Faint, still in the depths of the forest, the wandering morning breeze bore to their ears a sound whose difference from the louder noises nearer at hand alone rendered it audible.
“The troops!” exclaimed Orde.
He seized a lantern and returned down the trail, followed eagerly by Newmark and every man in camp.