"Work fast!" Orde called to the men on the pile-driver. "If we can
close the opening before those Redding logs hit us, we may be able
to turn them into our new channel."
He did not add that if the opening were not closed before the jam
broke, as break it would in a very few moments, the probabilities
were that both pile-driver and tug would be destroyed. Every man
knew that already.
Tom North ordered a pile placed in the carriage; the hammer
descended. At once, like battering rams logs began to shoot up from
the depths of the river end foremost all about them. These timbers
were projected with tremendous force, leaping sometimes half their
length above the surface of the water. If any of them had hit
either the tug or the pile-driver squarely, it would have stove and
sunk the craft. Fortunately this did not happen; but Marsh hastily
towed the scow back to a better position. The pile had evidently
been driven into the foot of the jam itself, thus loosening timbers
lying at the bottom of the river.
The work went forward as rapidly as possible. Four times the jam
shrugged and settled; but four times it paused on the brink of
discharge. Three of the clumps had been placed and bound; and
fifteen piles of the last clump had been driven.
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