Berwick and his companion sat and watched their home going to destruction. Deliberately, it seemed, the mass of ice and water fell upon their workings. There was a loud crack as the windlass went down; and then the fury of water poured into their shaft. It was but for an instant. The flood tore against their cabin. Would the cabin endure the shock?
The answer soon came. There was a rending of timber; the cabin was pushed before the ice; and then it seemed to melt away, swallowed up by the flood. The lights went out. Lower and lower it sank, till the roof was touched by the surging ice. Then that, too, went under, and nothing but a fractured log or pole was left of the little home. John shivered.
The flood fell almost as quickly as it had risen, now that its work was proved effectual. Berwick turned to look at his man. Joe was already hard at work with an axe on a fallen tree, from which the chips flew.
There was no doubt about it now. The Judas Creek venture was a failure: he could write it down as such. He had known many miners on whom Fortune had smiled; drunken swine, many of them, to whom money appealed only as a means to dissipation.
And he, to whom money—the price of his future home-happiness—meant so much!
Joe struck a match, applied it to a handful of birch-bark, and the flame sprang up.
By all the canons of his life, Berwick should have jumped into the fray and helped Joe make their camp; but, after all, it was only a little past nine o'clock.
Yes. Now he must throw up Judas Creek!
Joe laid twigs on top of the birch-bark and soon had a fire, to which he added larger sticks and logs. Then he cut down a fir-tree and made a bed, over which he spread the canvas of a tent and blankets. The night was perfectly clear, they would be warm and snug enough beside the fire.
Joe cut several more logs of wood and piled them near, after which he sat down upon the blankets, took off his boots and coat, rolled this into a pillow, and soon was asleep.