The morning of June twenty-sixth dawned clear. Orde was early on the road before the heat of the day. He drove his buckboard rapidly over the twelve miles that separated his home from the distributing booms, for he wanted at once to avoid the heat of the first sun and to arrive at the commencement of the day's work. After a glance at the river, he entered the tiny office and set about the examination of the tally sheets left by the foreman. While he was engaged in this checking, the foreman, Tom North, entered.
“The river's rising a little”? he remarked conversationally as he reached for the second set of tally boards.
“You're crazy,” muttered Orde, without looking up. “It's clear as a bell; and there have been no rains reported from anywhere.”
“It's rising a little, just the same,” insisted North, going out.
An hour later Orde, having finished his clerical work, walked out over the booms. The water certainly had risen; and considerably at that. A decided current sucked through the interstices in the piling. The penned logs moved uneasily.
“I should think it was rising!” said Orde to himself, as he watched the slowly moving water. “I wonder what's up. It can't be merely those rains three days ago.”
He called one of the younger boys to him, Jimmy Powers by name.
“Here, Jimmy,” said he, “mark one of these piles and keep track of how fast the water rises.”
For some time the river remained stationary, then resumed its slow increase. Orde shook his head.
“I don't like June floods,” he told Tom North. “A fellow can understand an ordinary spring freshet, and knows about how far it will go; but these summer floods are so confounded mysterious. I can't figure out what's struck the old stream, unless they're having almighty heavy rains up near headwaters.”