The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1917-08-17

It up little longer-tin they dropped
dead. AS the mad thoroughbred falls
in his stride on the track, pushed be-
yond his power Of endurance, as even
the common carthOrse can be made to
go until he drops, so these men, white,
haggard, nervous, drawn-faced, sweat
mingling with the rain on their sodden
bodies, would go till they broke. They
had not quite reached that point yet.
There were some five hundred heavy
cement bags which had been filled with
sand and piled up on the roadway at
convenient points. AS forlorn hope,
as a last try, Vandeventer called all
the diggers and ditchers, and hewers
and drivers, and babe them tackle the
Sandbags. The timber wall that rose
to four or five feet was now packed to
a height of three with an unequal wall
of earth.
The waves were beginning to roll
against the rampant, although their
force as yet was broken by the brush
wood. Vandeventer jumped up on the
palisade near the center. There were
some large logs there where he could
stand, and whence he could get as
clear view Of the whole top Of the
dam as was possible through the driv-
ing rain.
There" shouted the engineer, point
ing to red trickle-it seemed to him
like blood, taking its hideous hue
from the red clay Of the banks-where
the water had found low spot and
was washing across the top and
trickling through the new wall and
down on the other side. Even as he
pointed, the trickle became q stream
and the stream babe fair to be flood.
Men ran and dropped sandbags over
in front Of the palisade, right where
the leak had occurred. Other men
heaped up the earth behind the wall,
seeking to smother it and stop it. The
water checked there, they were forced
to do the same thing at another place.
Desperately they dropped their sand
bags, sturdily they piled their shovels
in the mud; scrambling and yelling,
they ran from leak to leak. They lift
ed the heavy bags Of sand as If they
had been loaves of bread and jammed
them down. They swung pick and
shovel like toys, although the rain
made all the earth sticky mud and
the work all the harder. The water
was clear over the top of the dam now,
and streaming through the revetment
of brush and surging against the pail
SADIE. Where it did not let the water
through, the line Of stakes was begin
ming to bend backward.
The men who had expended their
sandbags and could get no more, in
one final effort ran to the palisade, dug
their heels madly in the wet, Shiny
earth and put their shoulders against
the bending stakes as if to hold them
up by main strength. Thin streams
were flowing here and there, now I'M
needed. Checked and held in one spot,
the water broke through at another.
The spillway could not control the
rise.
"She's gone, she's gone!" gasped
Handkerchief under his breath. He had
fought good fight. He could do no
more. There were no more bags of
sand. Save for the men straining at
the wall here and there and every
where, there was left nothing but to
stand and wait, having done all. AS
one man saw another the whole hun
dred and fifty caught the contagion
and threw themselves against the pail
SADIE, wet and chilled from the rain,
but yet madly, recklessly, Americans
and foreigners alike. They would hold
it by main strength for another min
ute, they swOre, obliviOuS to the fact
that just as soon as it went it would
go with rush.
The stockade would be swept away
first, and they would go with it. What
of that? The men back of it matched
their brawny arms against rain and
wind, the powers Of man against the
powers of God, but not mockingly. 1t
is perhaps doubtful if they realized
what they did. 1t was instinct, habit,
blind desperation now. If the fiimsy
wall failed under the terrific water
pressure, they would be hurled beneath
it, swept down the slope Of the dam,
buried in the debris as it was swept
away, caught up if they by any chance
survived so far, and hurled, broken and
battered, down the valley in the ter
rible flood that would ensue. What
did they know about that, or knowing,
what did they care, as they strained
at the wavering timber wall? And
still they held as the rain poured down
on them, soaking through their soggy
clothes, the colder on their exhausted
bodies for the keen wind that blew
across them.
Well, they had done everything they
could. Vandeventer jumped down and
pressed himself against the nearest
timber with the men and waited, silent.
He had never sustained such a pres
sure in all his life. Like Atlas, he
felt as if he were holding up a world.
And the hooking thing about it all
was his feeling, nay his realization,
that he was not really holding any,
thing, that If the palisades failed. his
pressure, his resistance and that of all
the other men amounted to nothing.
Yet he held on, and they, too-demi-
gods.
CHAPTER XVI.