"It's a diver caught down at the mouth of the outlet pipe of the reservoir," the man explained. "They're trying to get him up but they don't seem to get him."
"Why not?" Joe wanted to know.
"Because they can't pull any harder on the life line than they have been pulling for fear either of breaking the line or of injuring the diver. And they have to be careful, too, of fouling his air hose. If that breaks it would be death for him."
"How terrible!" exclaimed Helen. "Can nothing be done to save him?"
"They're trying everything they can think of, Miss," was the man's answer. "The water company has sent for another diver to go down and see what the trouble is, but it will be half a day before he can get here, and by that time——"
He did not finish, but Joe and Helen knew what was meant.
The big crowd about the reservoir was excited, and yet it was a tense, quiet sort of excitement. It was a grim waiting for what might, at any moment, happen. Either the diver would be hauled up, or he would perish deep down there under the calm water.
"How did it happen?" asked Joe. The man seemed to know considerable about the accident.
"It was this way," he replied. "The reservoir is a new one, and it hasn't worked just right since the water was let in. That is, the main supply pipe, by which the water goes out to other and smaller pipes to be distributed to the different municipalities, gets clogged up every now and then.
"At first they thought it was because some refuse matter, left on the ground when the reservoir was built, had gotten into the valves. But a diver went down and found there was something the matter with the valves themselves. They open and close the valves from the gate house over there," and he indicated it, standing on the main dam wall of the big reservoir.