Page:Patches (1928).pdf/259

 Pressure of the water along the entire dam. Instead their dam curved down in the middle and Larry wondered as he looked at it how it had ever managed to hold back the great volume of water behind it. The stones from which it had been built were not even quarried, they were simply boulders of every size and shape held together in a flimsy way by concrete which had been dumped in between them.

The sluice-way was wide open but this did not begin to care for the great volume of water for it poured over the dam two feet deep for its entire length. The water was dark and angry and the whole scene was one of grandeur and mighty power held in check by the ingenuity of man.

Larry was just thinking what a devastating flood would be set loose if this flimsy dam ever gave way when a great boulder near the sluice-way toppled from its place and crashed into the creek below. This seemed to precipitate a sort of land slide or rather a stone slide for one boulder after another went crashing after the first and almost in less time than it takes to tell the entire sluice-way itself rushed out and the water came pouring through a gap twenty feet wide and as many high.

"Gracious!" cried the boy under his breath, "I guess they're in for some water down below."

But the words were barely out of his mouth when