Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/204

. Of these, two hundred and fifty were in the vicinity of the bridge, the abutments and piers of which were being put in just below the Dunning ranch. Near at hand Bill Dancing, with a big gang, had been for some time watching the ice and dynamiting the jams. McCloud brought in more men as the river continued to rise. The danger line on the gauges was at length submerged, and for three days the main-line construction camps had been robbed of men to guard the soft grades above and below the bridge. The new track up and down the valley had become a highway of escape from the flood, and the track patrols were met at every curve by cattle, horses, deer, wolves, and coyotes fleeing from the waste of waters that spread over the bottoms.

Through the Dunning ranch the Crawling Stone River makes a far bend across the valley to the north and east. The extraordinary volume of water now pouring through the Box Canyon exposed ten thousand acres of the ranch to the caprice of the river, and if at the point of its tremendous sweep to the north it should cut back into its old channel the change would wipe the entire body of ranch alfalfa lands off the face of the valley. With the heat of the lengthening June days a vast steam rose from the chill waters of the river, marking in ominous windings the chan- 180