"They're in a nice pickle," he acknowledged; "but Nolan's in charge
and will do his best. I think we may have troubles of our own right
here at home."
He slept that night at the booms. The water, contrary to all
expectation, rose steadily. By morning it had crept so far up the
piles that there began to be danger that it would overflow their
tops. In that case, of course, the logs in the booms would also run
out.
"Guess it's time we did a little work," remarked Orde.
He set a crew of men to raising the height of the piling by tying
logs firmly to the bolted timbers atop. This would take care of an
extra two feet of water; a two feet beyond all previous records.
Another crew stretched the fifteen inch manilla cables across the
field of logs in order to segregate them into several units of mass,
and so prevent them from piling up at the down-stream end of the
enclosure. The pile-driver began to drop its hammer at spots of
weakness. In spite of the accelerated current and the increased
volume of the river, everything was soon shipshape and safe.
"We're all right now," said Orde. "The only thing I'm a little
uneasy about is those confounded temporary booms upstream. Still
they're all right unless they get to piling up.
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