Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/160

 tionally high, with a base of more than three hundred feet, and is constructed across the bed of an ancient lake. Its foundations may rest upon masses of rotted driftwood, or upon a sand bar—we do not know. Tremendous pressure from the river outside has forced this stream to flow underneath our embankment, and to bubble up inside like a spring.”

“Isn't that dangerous?” queried Senator Conway.

“Dangerous?” Clancy lowered his tone to avoid discouraging the workers. “It is tearing out the interior of Grimshaw's levee, and unless he stops it, quick, the whole embankment must collapse.”

In spite of her pretended obsession by the sand boil, Jessica did not fail to see Furlong when he came rushing back, with Senator Rutherford just behind him. Rutherford had been three times defeated before he landed in the United States Senate—the kind of man who never lets go. But Furlong was intent upon his job, and brushed off presidential possibilities as a cow shakes off a swarm of gnats. The senator galled his flank until he waded into waist-deep water, and left Rutherford stranded at the edge.

“Brace up, boys!” Furlong shouted cheerily. “Help's coming. Pass me those sacks.”

The congressional committee drew nearer to watch every movement of the young engineer, who began laying his sandbags under water, in a ring around the boil. After marking out a circle he summoned his foreman.

“Here, Mr. Barlow, take Ellis and build your second ring—outside of this. Lay 'em close.”

While Miss Faison realized the absurdity of Furlong B. Grimshaw, Jr., dabbling in this messy mud, yet she felt a thrill to see how blindly men obeyed him. Human authority could not be more despotic.

Suddenly everybody stopped. No man spoke. Workers halted in their tracks, listening to a sputter and choking of the geyser. For one harrowing instant its flow had really ceased; then it belched up a stump, and gushed out again with double force. The watchers stood paralyzed until Furlong's sharp command aroused them:

“Quick! Four of you! Get in! Throw out this stump. Good! Now more bags. More bags! Jenkins, you and Bradley help lay them.”

Five men were now placing the sandbags and results began to show, like a coral atoll built up by insects that toil beneath the waves. As tier upon tier was added, a hollow tower arose from the bottom, encircling the geyser whose pent-up waters skimmed over its top.

“Colonel, what's that for?” a congressman inquired.

“He's confining the flow.” Clancy nodded approval. “By forcing a column of water to rise inside his levee, Grimshaw counterbalances the weight of the river outside. That checks the underground current, and retards internal caving.”

The puzzled lawmakers were struggling to comprehend this application of a familiar hydraulic principle when Grimshaw gave his abrupt order: “Three men! Quick! Jump on these sacks. Tramp 'em.”

He gave the command so curtly that the nearest three, a negro, a white boy, and Colonel Clancy himself, very promptly obeyed. They were the nearest three. Nobody smiled, not even Jessica, as the heavyweight officer went splashing round and round the ring like a well-trained circus horse.

“Tramp 'em tight!” Furlong emphasized the order, then laughed as he recognized his superior. “Oh! That's you, Colonel Clancy? Sorry I couldn't meet your steamer, but I'm busy.”

“So'm I,” the colonel grinned.

By dint of concerted effort their circular dam of sandbags had now grown shoulder high, and become almost impervious. Flow from the boil was perceptibly checked, and a clearer stream brought far less mud. Which meant that the internal erosion was less.

“Bully!” Furlong expressed his satisfaction. “Now, boys, I can leave you for a while. We've mighty near stopped the caving.”

When the drenched engineer waded out, Senator Rutherford maneuvered into position on his right flank, just as one of the sack bearers fell and dropped a bag. The man must have hurt himself against a stump, for he rolled over and did not rise.

“Pick up that bag!” Furlong gave the nearest man a shove. This bystander happened to be Senator Rutherford, who expected no violence to his person, when Furlong's powerful impetus sent him toppling into waist-deep water. Senators are not immune, and the engineer never glanced at