Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods Part 33

He asked his companion what it meant.

"Logs him jump up in water. Knock together and make big noise."

Hippy suddenly visualized the scene that the Indian's brief words had pictured.

"Watch it! I'm going for help!" cried Hippy, sprinting for the shack. As he neared it the familiar sounds of the earlier evening greeted his ears. The fiddler was still sawing away; the bang of hob-nailed shoes on the floor of the shack resounded rhythmically, and Hippy thought, as he ran, of the weariness that the Overland girls must feel after their strenuous evening of constant dancing with the rough and ready lumberjacks who knew neither fatigue for themselves nor for their entertainers.

Reaching the doorway, Hippy caught Tom Gray's eye and beckoned to him.

"Yes?" questioned Tom eagerly as he stepped over to Lieutenant Wingate.

"w.i.l.l.y says the dam has gone out. I can't tell whether it has or not, but it sounds that way."

"What dam?" demanded Tom Gray.

"That up-river dam of the timber-pirates. You remember we shut the gates to keep the water below it low while we were driving the spiles for our dam."

Tom ran out into the open and stood listening. A moment of it was all that was necessary to tell him what had happened.

"Quick! The gates. We must get our gates open or we're lost!"

The two men sprinted for the river, Tom in the lead, Hippy a close second. He wondered why he had not thought of the gates, and chided himself for his stupidity.

"Come fast!" called w.i.l.l.y, referring to the rushing flood that now had become a sullen roar.

"Call out the jacks. Hurry!" ordered Tom.

w.i.l.l.y flashed away. Tom paused only for an instant to listen and estimate how much time they had before the flood would be upon them.

"Are you game for it, Hippy?" he demanded.

"For what?"

"To help me get the gates up?"

"Yes."

"Come on then, and watch your footing," shouted Tom, running out on the top log that formed the cap on top of the spiles. The footing was slippery, but not ordinarily perilous. Now, in the face of that which was hurtling down upon them, their undertaking was a desperate one.

Neither had on his spiked boots, which, in a measure, would have aided them in keeping their footing, and they slipped and stumbled, and sprawled on all fours again and again.

Being so familiar with the operation of the gates that they had planned and built, they had no difficulty in finding the gate-levers, but these were heavy, necessarily so, operating somewhat after the manner of a sweep in an old-fashioned well.

Tom and Hippy threw themselves upon one of the two big levers that operated the gates, and began tugging with all their strength. In the meantime w.i.l.l.y Horse had reached the lumberjacks' bunk-house.

"Dam go out! Water come down!" he shouted to make himself heard. "Big Boss say come quick."

The fiddler ceased playing, and the dancers gazed at the Indian, not fully understanding.

"Water come down! Come quick! Run!"

This time they understood. Uttering a shout the jacks burst out through the narrow doorway, and ran for the river, followed by the Overland girls on flying feet, and meeting Joe Shafto on the way to the scene of the disaster.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE RIOT OF THE LOGS

"We'll have to be quick!" shouted Tom to make himself heard above the roaring of the waters. "Beardown hard!"

"I can't. I'm slipping!" gasped Hippy.

"The gates are moving! Keep it up!"

The two men struggled and fought, gaining a few inches at a time but not enough to permit the jam of logs that was rushing down the stream to pa.s.s through the gates in the flood.

At this juncture the Overland girls and the jacks came running down the bank. They saw the two men struggling with the gates, and at the same instant they saw something else. In the reflected light of the moon, they saw a white crest sweeping around a bend in the river, hurling logs into the air, which came tumbling and shooting ahead like huge black projectiles. A warning scream from the girls was unheard by either of the struggling men. A dozen lumberjacks leaped to the cap-log to go to the a.s.sistance of Tom and Hippy, who they knew were in great peril.

"Come back! Boys, come back! You can't help them now," cried Grace in an agony of apprehension.

"The fools! Why don't they run?" raged Joe Shafto, and the pet bear growled in sympathy with her at the unusual sounds.

It was a terrifying moment for those who could do no more than stand helplessly watching. The jacks by this time were well out on the cap-log, with w.i.l.l.y Horse in the lead and red-headed Spike close at his heels. They were suddenly halted by a report that sounded like an explosion of heavy artillery.

An advance log, rushing straight towards the gates, swerved when within a few feet of them, and, rearing half its dripping length, hurled itself against the gate-lever at which Hippy and Tom were tugging.

Both saw the giant rise from the boiling flood.

"Too late! Save your--" Tom did not finish. Hippy and Tom at that instant were catapulted into the air, hurled by the gate-lever, and fell into the river below the dam with a splash.

Without an instant's hesitation, w.i.l.l.y Horse, followed by Spike, leaped to the rescue, knowing well that only a few seconds lay between them and the cataract of logs that was about to tumble over into the Little Big Branch below the dam.

The rest of the jacks hesitated only for an instant, then they too leaped into the river and made their way towards Tom and Hippy, both of whom were unconscious. w.i.l.l.y Horse grabbed up Hippy with apparent ease, and raised him to his own back just as he would shoulder a dead deer.

"Git Big Boss!" he shouted, and began struggling sh.o.r.eward with his burden.

In the meantime Spike had sprung to Tom Gray, but despite his great strength he did not succeed in shouldering Tom.

"Give a hand here!" he bellowed.

The lumberjacks reached him at this juncture and, together, Spike and his companions brought the unconscious man towards the sh.o.r.e.

Then the spiling gave way under the strain that for several minutes had been put upon it, and the dam went out with a crash and a roar, accompanied by a series of terrifying explosions.

It would have been an awesome sight to the Overland Riders had not their attention, at that moment, been centered on the lumberjacks. The jacks reached the sh.o.r.e only a few seconds before the structure gave way and the logs, hurtled into the air, fell splashing into the flood below the dam. Hippy and Tom were borne up the bank and laid on the ground.

"Are--are they dead?" gasped Emma.