The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1902-03-06

II i
watched the engineer narrowly, and
when he stopped midway Of the dam
in the attitude of one listening in
tently, I listened, too. Above the
thunder of the waste hoarser roar
filled the air, coming suddenly but
persisting like the sustained jar of a
distant explosion. Like the lions
roar, the sound once heard is unmis-
taxable. 1t was cloudburst, and the
test of the great wall of masonry
was fairly upon it. s- .'
Wykamp hesitated but an instant,
and in that instant man darted out
OF the mouth of the outlet tunnel on
the opposite side of the canyon and
began to climb the mountain side as
one who flies danger. 1t was Jacob
Setter, and took it he had been try
ing to ambush the engineer. He, too,
had heard the ominous roar of the
| oncoming flood, and whatever his OBJ
ject had been he had apparently
abandoned it to seek safety. It is
doubtful if Wykamp saw him. The
man in the engineer-there is man
hidden in whatsoever outward husk
of depravity poor humanity walks
abroad-was alive at last, and he was
racing down in great leaps and
bounds toward the girl standing in
the very shadow of the towering wall.
While I looked, he reached her, gath
cred her in his arms and carried her
swiftly aside and up the hither slope,
nd hov ho foo "a, Id oil
with her there was margin of safety
behind them.
I held my breath and my heart
skipped a beat when I beheld the
dark wall of water, brown and debris
laden, rushing down the upper can
yon upon the great stone barrier.
1t seemed incredible that any work of
man could withstand the impact of
such a terrible battering ram; and I
climbed still higher, though my perch
was we'll above the level of the reser-
voir. The engineer had more cour-
age, or a better confidence in his own
work. He had risen and lifted Nan
to her feet, and together they stood
and watched the huge brown wall of
water leap high in air to fling itself
over the stone coping of the dam.
The masonry stood the shock like a
wall of living rock. The brown cata-
ract choked the waste weir and
poured many feet deep over the top
of the dam, filling the channel below
until at it's maximum the foaming
torrent was tapping at the feet of
the man and the woman standing on
the half-buried bowlder on the hither
slope, but they did not move.
It was while the flood was roaring
it's loudest that I CHANGED to lift my
eyes to the opposite cliff where Sell
ter had disappeared. To my horror
I saw him plunging recklessly down
the declivity toward the submerged
dam, and his frenzied yells came to
me above the clamor of the waters.
Not until that great day when the
books shall be opened will his motive
be revealed, but the pointing of it
was clear enough. He was making
frantic haste to reach the couple in
the ravine below, and striving to an
ticipate by shrek and wild gestures
the warning he was bringing.
When he reached the streams
brink there was but one way to cross,
and he took it without an instant's
pause. The yellow-red arch of the
flood springing clear from the edge
of the dam was. subsiding, but it was
at least two feet deep over the ma
sorry when he plunged in and be-
gan to wade across. For dozen pal
pitant heart-beats thought he would
make it; and then the end came.
A huge column of mud and water
shot up behind the dam like mighty
geyser-jet; there was a deep growl
of imprisoned thunder; a nauseating
shock that seemed to kill the very
air; and the great wall of masonry
toppled outward and downward,
crumbling like sand in the forefront
of the food that gathered itself for
| the onrush to the doomed valley be-
low. I closed my eyes in the sicken-
ing horror of it, and when I opened
them was alone with the clamorous
waters. The bowlder where Wykamp
andNan had been standing was gone,
and in it's bed the angry flood was
cutting a wider and still wider chan
mel in the loose shale of the canyon
slope.