Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1907-01-02
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One midnight in March Frank
Wetherbee, engineer at the Hammond
limerick quarry, and Benton Foster,
his nineteen-year-old assistant, were
in the boiler-house, pumping the pit
clear for the morrow's work. A
thirty-hour Southwestern was dying
out in the rather unreasonable novel
ty, a spring thunderstorm with album
dant sheet lightning.
Wetherbee strewed a fresh shovel
fuI Of coal over the glowing fire
bed.
Look down at the next flash,
Bent" said he, "and see if We're
gaining on the water
Foster leaned out through the lit
tie window by the hoistre. The hun
dred-foot chasm right below him was
suddenly filled with dazzling white
light, showing the tracks still flood
ed and the walls gushing with num-
erOus streams. A suspiciously large
torrent directly opposite drew his
quick glance up beyond the summit
of the cliff to a low bank of earth.
The blaze vanished with a tremen-
dous thunder-crash that almost drown
ed his cry OF alarm:
Its running over the DAM"
The engineer was quickly at his
side, peering into the gloom.
Cant bel" he exclaimed. Gust
before dark the ice was solid, and six
inches below the top"
But the next flash convinced him.
'You're right, Bent!' he shouted.
''That means troubled"
s:ShaH l run after Tom Sparrow and
his brother?' inquired Foster.
eve haven't a second to waste.
The two Of us can do more than a
dozen could in fifteen minutes"
Hastily donning caps and rubber
coats. they each seized a coal-shovel
and Wetherbee hung the lighted Ian
tern on his left arm. As they har-
ried toward the door, he jerked down
the white-cord and loOped it over a
nail. Overhead pealed out the seam
blast, shrill and insistent.
"That may call somebody, if the
storm isn't too loud" said he.
Buffeted by the southwest gale
they slzirted the edge of the pit at q
cautious dog-trot through the wet
slippery grass. Now the lightning
revealed their path with painful dis
tinctness: now only the dancing rays
from their lantern penetrated the
gloom.
mind your footing!" exclaimed
the engineer, as they drew closer to
the brink.
The cause Of this hurried expedition
was an eight-foot dam across an old
sunken road through the tOpTOck be
tween the Hammond quarry and the
adjoining Sales quarry, nov aban
doned and full of water. This road con
structed some twenty years before
when the rock was hauled out by teams
and both plants were operated or
the same level, had fallen into dis
use as the excavations grew deeper
and steam-hOisting was introduced
The abandonment Of the Sales quarry
and its gradual flooding had made
dam necessary the previous summer
AS it was expected that work would
soon be resumed and the pit pumped
out. the owners OF the Hammond
0aarry. erected only a temporary dir
wall. which was increased in height
with the rise of the water.
Should it yield a body of water
eight feet deep and covering three
or four acres would rush and flood
the deeper but smaller pit.
AS Wetherbee looked down fro1f
the bank above the road. he gave
CRY of Gismay. A second later Eos
ter stood beside him, gazing at the
dam. There was good reason fo'
alarm.
The rotten ice in the Sales quarry
had broken up. The strong wind
raking it from end to end and blow
ing directly down the road, had kick
cd ND a chop" that was. splashins
over the dam and washing away its
rain-softened top. Half a dozen rap
idlv increasing streams were gully
inc out the soft slope. No time
was to be lost.
Setting the lantern on the edge o
the grass, the engineer sprang down
shovel in hand, followed by his assist
ant. They began to dig clay from
the banks on his side, and to throw i
on the face of the dam, which wai
thirty feet long and about the sam
distance from the brink of the quar-
~. It was hard work. The surface
was little better than porridge, an
the frost still fingered underneath
and almost every shove'.ul had t
be carried from ten to twenty feet