The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1917-05-18
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CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY JR

palisade near the center. There were
some large logs there where he could
stand, and whence he could get as
clear a view of the whole top of the
dam as was possible through the driv-
ing rain.
There" shouted the engineer, point
ing to a 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 a stream
and the stream babe fair to be a 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 1t 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 pall-
SADIE. Where it did not7let 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 un-
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
Vandeventer 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,
bred 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 1t went it would
go with a rush.
The stockade would be swept away
first, and they would 60 with 1t. What
of that? The men back of 1t matched
their brawny arms against rain and
wind, the powers Of man against the
powers of God, but not mockingly. II
is perhaps doubtful If they realized
what they did. 1t was instinct, habit
blind desperation now. If the flimsy
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
rlble 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 pres
sure in all his life. Like Atlas, he
felt as If he were holding up 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-deml
gods.
ITO be continued)