Toward noon the piles gave out again.
"Where in HELL is Newmark!" exploded Orde, and immediately was
himself again, controlled and resourceful. He sent North and a crew
of men to cut piles from standing timber in farm wood lots near the
river.
"Haul them out with your winch," said he. "If the owners object,
stand them off with your peavies. Get them anyway."
About three of the afternoon the LUCY BELLE splattered up stream
from the village, carrying an excursion to see the jam. Captain
Simpson brought her as close in as possible. The waves raised by
her awkward paddle-wheel and her clumsy lines surged among the logs
and piles. Orde looked on this with distrust.
"Go tell him to pull out of that," he instructed Jimmy Powers "The
confounded old fool ought to know better than that. Tell him it's
dangerous. If the jam goes out, it'll carry him to Kingdom Come."
Jimmy Powers returned red-faced from his interview.
"He told me to go to hell," he said shortly.
"Oh, he did," snapped Orde. "I should think we had enough without
that old idiot!"
With the short nervous leaps of a suppressed anger he ran down to
where the SPRITE had just towed the Number One driver into a new
position.
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