had spread themselves along the regardless of the cold rain of the dawn and there they waited the bridge for the flood only kept his men together behind the swell of the guard tower where the stone boats lay tied fore and aft with wire rope and chains a shrill wail ran along the line growing to a yell half fear and half wonder the face of the river from bank to bank between the stone and the spurs went out in of foam mother had come bank high in haste and a wall of water was her messenger there was a shriek above the roar of the water the complaint of the coming down on their blocks as the were whirled out from under their the stone boats groaned and each other in the that the and their clumsy rose higher and higher against the dim sky line before she was shut between these walls we knew what she would do now she is thus cramped god only knows what she will do said watching the furious turmoil the guard tower oh l fight then i fight hard for it is thus that a woman wears herself out but mother would not fight as desired after the first down stream plunge there came no more walls of water but the river lifted herself bodily as a snake when she drinks in and along the and up behind the till even began to the strength of his work when day came the village ed only last night men said turning to each other it was as a town in the river bed look now i the bridge and they looked and wondered at the deep water the racing water that licked the throat of the the farther bank was veiled by rain into which the bridge ran out and vanished the spurs up stream were marked by no more than and and down un the pent river once freed of her guide lines had spread like a sea to the horizon then hurried by rolling in the water dead men and oxen together with here and there a patch of roof that melted when it touched a pier big flood said and nodded it was as big a flood as he had any wish to watch his bridge would stand what was upon her now but not very much more and if by any of a thousand chances there happened to be a weakness in the mother would carry his honour to the sea with the other worst of all there was nothing to do except to sit still and sat still imder his till his became on his head and his boots were over ankle in mire he took no count of time for the river was marking the hours inch by inch and foot by foot along the and he listened and hungry to the straining of the stone boats the hollow thunder under the and the hundred noises that make the full note of a flood once a dripping servant brought him food but he could not eat and once he thought that he heard a faint from a ck the river and then he smiled the bridge s failure would hurt his assistant not a little but was a yoimg man with his big work yet to do for himself the crash meant everything that made a the bridge hard worth the they would bay the men of his own profession he remembered the things that he had said when i b new burst and broke down in and and s spirit broke in him and he died he remembered what he himself had said when the bridge went out in the big by the and most he remembered poor b face three weeks later when the shame had marked it his bridge was twice the size of b and it carried the as well as the new pier the bolted shoe there were no excuses in his service government might listen perhaps but his own kind would judge him by his bridge as that stood or fell he went over it in his head plate by plate span by span brick by brick pier by pier remembering comparing and lest there should be any mistake and through the long hours and through the flights of that danced and wheeled before him a cold fear would come to pinch his heart his side of the waa beyond question but what man knew mother s even as he was making all sure by the table the river might be a pot hole to the very bottom of any one of those eighty foot that carried his reputation again a servant came to him with food but his mouth was dry and he could only drink and return to the in his brain and the river was still rising in a mat shelter coat crouched at his feet watching now his face and now the face of the river but saying nothing jn the bridge at last the rose and through the mud towards the village but he was careful to leave an ally to watch the boats presently he returned most driving before him the priest of his a fat old man with a grey beard that whipped the wind with the wet cloth that blew over his shoulder never was seen so lamentable a what good are and little lamps and dry grain shouted if in the mud is all that thou do thou hast dealt long with the when they were contented and well wishing now they are angry speak to them what is a man against the wrath of gk ds the priest as the wind took him let me go to the temple and i will pray there son of a pig pray here is there no return for salt fish and powder and dried call i tell mother we have had enough 