Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-29

l speed ana then smut down. Hardy drop of water flowed in the bed of the stream The crews set laboriously to work to pull and roll the logs out in such fiat fashion that head of water should send them out.
 This was even harder work than the other, for they had not the floating power of water to help them in the lifting. AS usual, part of the men worked below, part above. ...: 1 Jimmy Powers, curly haired, laugh ing faced, was irrepressible. He bad gered the others until they threw bark at him and menaced him with their peaveys. Always he had at his tongues end the proper quip for the occasion, so that in the long run the work was frightened by him. When the men stop ped to think at all they thought of Jimmy Powers with very kindly hearts, for it was known that he had had more trouble than most and that coin was not made too small for him to divide with a needy comrade. .
 Thorpe approved thoroughly of Jim- my Powers. He thought him good influence. He told Wallace so, stand ing among the spectators on the cliff top.
 "He is all right" said Thorpe. "I wish I had more like him. The others are good boys too"
 Five men were at the moment tug ging futilely at a reluctant timber. They were attempting to roll one end of it over the side of another projecting log, but were continually foiled, because the other end was jammed fast. Each bent his knees, inserting his shoulders under the projecting peavey stock, to straighten in mighty effort
 It was fine spring day, clear eyed and crisp, with hint of new foliage in the thick buds of the trees. The air was so pellucid that one distinguished without difficulty the straight entrance to the gorge mile away, and even the West Bend, fully five miles distant. Jimmy Powers took off his cap and wiped his forehead.
 ''You boys," he remarked politely, ''think you are boring with mighty big auger.''
 My Godw screamed one of the spec tators on top of the cliff.
 At the same instant Wallace Carpen- ter seized his friends arm and pointed. Down the bed of the stream from the upper bend rushed a solid wall of wa ter several feet high. It flung itself forward with the headlong impetus of a cascade. Even in the short interval between the visitors exclamation and Carpenters rapid gesture it had loomed in sight. twisted dozen trees from the river bank and loaned into the en- trance of the gorge. An instant later it collided with the tail of the jam.
 Even ill the railroad rush of those few moments several things happened. Thorpe leaped for. rope. The crew working on top of the dam ducked instinctively to right and left and be- gan to scramble toward safety. The men below, at first bewildered and not comprehending, finally understood and ran toward the face of the jam with the intention of clambering up it. There could be no escape in the narrow can- yon below, the walls of which rose sheer.
 Then the flood hit square. A great sheet of water rose like surf from the tail of the jam; mighty cataract pour ed down over its surface, lifting the free logs; from either wing timbers crunched, split, rose suddenly into wracked prominence, twisted beyond the semblance of themselves. Here and there single logs were even pro- jected bodily upward, as an apple seed is shot from between the thumb and forefnger. Then the jam moved.
 Scotty Parsons, Jack Hyland, Red Jacket and the forty or fifty men had reached the shore. By the wriggling activity which is river mans alone they succeeded in pulling themselves beyond the snap of deaths jaws. It was a narrow thing for most of them and miracle for some.
 Jimmy Powers, Archie Harris, Long Pine Jim, Big Nolan and Mike Mo- loney, the brother of Bryan, were in worse case. They were, as has been said, engaged in sfattening' part of the jam about eight or ten rods below the face of it. When they finally un- derstood that the affair was one of escape, they ran toward the jam, hop ing to climb out. Then the crash came. They heard the roar of the waters, the wrecl1ing of the timbers; they saw the logs bulge outward in anticipation of the break. Immediately they turned and f1ed they knew not where.
 All but Jimmy Powers. He stopped short in his tracks and threw his bat tered old felt hat defiantly full into the face of the destruction hanging over him. Then, his bright hair blowing in the wind of death, he turned to the spectators standing helpless and para lyzed forty feet above him.
 It was an instant's impression-the arrested motion seen in the flash of lightning-and yet to the onlookers it had somehow the quality of time. For perceptible duration it seemed to them they stared at the contrast between the raging hell above and the yet peace able river below. ..."@ .,-
 Yet afterward, when they attempted to recall definitely the impression, they