When Titans Drive/Chapter 1

ITH muscles tense and legs spread wide apart, Bob Bainbridge found himself crouching in the middle of the office shanty. It was yet dark, and in his ears still seemed to sound the dull, rumbling detonation which had made him leap from the bunk before he was even half awake. For a second the stillness was absolute. Then from the other side of the small room came a hoarse, shaking whisper:

“Bobby! What the dickens was that?”

The young man drew a long breath, and an instant later the flame of a match split the darkness.

“Don’t know, John,” he answered, hastily lighting a candle. “It sounded a lot like—dynamite!”

He set the candle down on a rough table, and, reaching for one high, spiked shoe, began swiftly to drag it on. From the bunk across the room came a stifled gasp of dismay, and a short, stout, middle-aged man with a heavy, square face and deep-set blue eyes rolled forth into the uncertain, wavering light, and sat for an instant staring at his companion.

“Dynamite!” he repeated, in a tone of consternation. “You don’t mean to say”

“I don’t mean to say anything,” was the crisp reply, as Bainbridge tied the leather lacings with a jerk, and reached for the other shoe. “I only know it sounded like dynamite to me, and people don’t usually set that off at three in the morning—for fun.”

John Tweedy delayed no longer. With an agility surprising in one so bulky, he fairly flung himself at the pile of outer garments lying on a near-by box, and when Bainbridge, a couple of minutes later, jerked open the door to plunge forth into the night, the stout man was close at his heels.

Quickly as they had acted, there were others equally swift. The windows of the big bunk house across the clearing glowed faintly, and they had no more than reached the open before the door was flung wide to eject a crowd of men fully dressed in the garb of the lumber country. They were headed by Griggs, foreman of the drive. Tall, lean, with a tanned, impassive countenance which betrayed nothing, he glanced for a second toward the approaching pair, and then fell into step with Bainbridge.

“Well?” queried the latter crisply. “What is it, Harvey? The dam?”

The foreman’s eyes narrowed, and, under the drooping lids, seemed to gleam dully.

“I don’t know what else,” he said. “Listen!”

For a second Bainbridge stood still, head thrust slightly forward in the direction of his foreman’s pointing finger. Behind him was the thud and clatter of men still pouring from the bunk house, mingled with the bustle of those already in the open, chafing at the delay, and impatient to reach the scene of action. The wind was blowing half a gale from the north, but above it all could be heard—faintly, intermittently—the distant, ominous roar of rushing water.

It brought Bob’s teeth together with a click, but not in time to cut off a savage exclamation. Then he turned and started down the slope toward the south, followed closely by the entire crowd.

The hillside was dotted thick with stumps and great piles of tops and “slashings.” The resinous, green, unwithered masses of pine branches, as well as the whiteness of stump ends and scattered chips, showed the cutting to have been lately done. It had, in fact, been completed scarcely a month before; the last load of timber had been sent down the short, narrow stream to Chebargo Lake within the past twelve hours. And at the thought of that great drive of logs, held in place by the many booms until the moment came for it to be sent down the river to the mills, Bob’s jaw hardened, and his face took on an expression of tense anxiety and suspense.

Still he did not speak. Griggs was at one elbow, Tweedy at the other, both puffing a little, but moving with unexpected ease and agility. Behind, at a lope, came the throng of husky woodsmen.

At the foot of the hill Bainbridge swerved sharply to the left along the narrow stream. A space had been cleared through the undergrowth for a rough road diversified by protruding roots and bowlders, bog holes and stretches of corduroy leading across swampy places. The rush of water sounded clearer now, and more distinct, and presently, unable longer to restrain himself, Bob broke into a run.

Up and down slopes and hillocks, in and out of hard-wood groves he sped. Behind him the thud of many feet pounding on the frozen ground mingled with quickening breaths and an occasional muttered imprecation. Then suddenly the whole crowd, racing up the side of a knoll which overlooked the upper end of the lake, stopped abruptly with an odd, concerted gasp.

Below them lay the lake bed—for it was a lake no longer. In spite of the darkness, the starlight showed Bainbridge quite enough to make him give a low groan of dismay and fury.

The lake was an artificial one some two miles long by three-quarters wide, formed for the purpose of facilitating the handling of Bainbridge & Tweedy’s huge Chebargo cut. The dam had been constructed only the summer before under Bob’s personal supervision, and was equipped with the latest thing in patent locked gates to prevent any possible meddling with the head of water.

Evidently, however, these had proved insufficient in the present instance. Out in the center of the lake bed a swiftly diminishing flow of water was vanishing toward the dam. In five minutes at most nothing would be left save the narrow, crooked stream curving between slopes of mud. Along the face of these slopes sprawled the massive, useless booms of logs which had been designed and constructed to hold in check the great drive of timber that now towered over and behind them, stranded high and dry beyond the possibility of human interference.

Bob paused here only a minute or two before starting on toward the location of the dam. He realized perfectly the futility of such a move. He knew as well as if they were looking upon the ruin that the dam had been destroyed or rendered utterly useless. The mere opening of the gates could have no such far-reaching effect as this. Nevertheless, he felt that he must see it with his own eyes before he could bring himself to plan for the future. And so he kept on.

He was right, of course. They found the concrete structure utterly ruined. More than half its surface had been blown away, leaving a great, gaping, ragged fissure through which the water must have rushed, a veritable flood. Long before that could be repaired the spring freshets would have ceased entirely. It would be a physical impossibility to bring the head of water back to its original level until next season. The great drive of finest white pine stranded back in that mudhole was doomed to lie there a prey to rot and destructive boring insects for the better part of a twelvemonth, and in the end was quite likely to prove an almost total loss.

Such a catastrophe would be a serious blow to any firm, no matter how great their resources might be. To a concern whose credit had already been strained almost to the breaking point, it would quite likely mean ruin.