Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/174

162 behind him and spurted over him, and I yelled to him to get out of that. It was too late. The wooden dam seemed to open and sink as if there was an earthquake. And then, that side of the steel dam—loosened with the piles it was bolted to—fell inward like a big fence.

"Larsen went under."

He made a gesture of apology for the emotion that had clouded his voice. "I swung over the window-sill and struck the water at the same time as one of the men. We caught Larsen as he came up, and we dragged him out. I saw he could n't stand. His legs were all sort of twisted. He looked down at them as if he was surprised to see them there.… I beg your pardon.… You see, his back was broken. He 'd held himself braced between the timbers and the steel until his spine cracked."

He blew his nose hastily. The others did not look at him.

"He did n't pay any attention to old Nolan's assurance that he and his family would be 'looked after.' He did n't pay any attention to me. All he said was—when they were carrying him aboard the tug: 'She 's all gone, this time'—speaking of the dam."

He was silent.

The business man challenged him: "Well?"

"Well!" he cried, suddenly, "we 're all hired men, are n't we? Do I work the way I do, for money alone, or out of any loyalty to anybody? Does a soldier, or a clergyman, or a doctor, or an artist? Does even a man like Larsen? Is the world really run by