Through the tree tops came a confusion of voices, but none of them
human. A wind was racing to almost gale-like violence and with it came
the inrush of warm air to peaks and valleys that had been tight-frozen.
Between precipices echoed the crash of ice sliding loose and
splintering as it fell in ponderous masses. Men sweating in the glare
of collossal bonfires toiled at the work of re-inforcing the dam.
They had been faithful; they were still faithful, but the stress of
exhaustion was beginning to sap their morale; to drive them into
irritability so that, under the strain of almost superhuman exertion,
they threatened to break. Brent was not of their blood and knew little
of how to handle them, and though Parson Acup was indefatigable, his
face became more and more apprehensive.
"Ef we kin hold 'em at hit till ther crack of day, we've got a right
gay chanst ter save them big sticks," he announced bluntly to Brent
near midnight. "But hit hain't in reason ter expect men ter plum kill
themselves off fer ther profit of somebody else--an' him likely ter be
dead by termorrer."
"Could McGivins have kept them in line himself?" demanded Brent and the
Parson scratched his head. "Wa'al he mout. Thar's somethin' masterful
in thet breed thet kinderly drives men on. I don't know es I could
name what it air though."
Then even as he spoke a group of humanity detached itself from the
force on the dam and moved away as men do who are through with their
jobs. They halted before Acup and one of them spoke somewhat
shame-facedly: "I disgusts ter quit on a man in sore need, Parson, but
us fellers kain't hold up no longer. We're plum fagged ter
death--mebby termorrer mornin'----"
He broke off and Acup answered in a heavy-hearted voice: "So fur as
this hyar job's consarned most likely thar won't be no termorrer. Old
man McGivins lays over thar, mebby a-dyin' an' this means a master lot
to him----"
"If it's a matter of pay," began Brent and left his suggestion
unfinished. A quick glance of warning from Acup cautioned him that
this was a tactless line and one of the men answered shortly, "Pay
hain't skeercely ergoin' ter hold a man up on his legs when them legs
gives out under him, stranger."
"No, Lige, pay won't do it, but upstandin' nerve _will_--an' I knows
ye've got hit. Ef anybody quits now, they're all right apt ter foller
suit."
At the sound of the first words, Brent had pivoted as suddenly as
though a bolt had struck him. They came in a voice so out of keeping
with the surroundings, so totally different from any he had heard that
day, that it was a paradox of sound. In the first place it was a
woman's voice and here were only sweating men. In the second, although
full and clear as if struck from well cast bell metal, it had a rich
sweetness and just now the thrill of deep emotion.
In the red flare of the bonfire that sent up a shower of sparks into
the wet darkness, he saw a figure that brought fresh astonishment.
The woman stood there with a long rubber slicker tight-buttoned from
collar to hem. Below that Brent saw rubber boots. She stood with a
lance-like straightness, very tall, very pliant, and as he stared with
a fixity which would have amounted to impertinence had it not been
disarmed by amazement she looked past him and through him as if he were
himself without substance.
Then she took off the heavy Nor'wester that had shaded her face, and
the firelight fell on masses of hair deeply and redly gold; upon
features exquisitely modeled, in no wise masculine or heavy, yet full
of dominance. Duskily-lashed eyes of dark violet were brimming with a
contagious energy and her rounded chin was splendidly atilt. A
sculptor might have modeled her as she stood, and entitled his bronze
"Victory."
Her coloring too was rich, almost dazzling, and Brent thought that he
had never seen such arresting beauty or such an unusual though
harmonious blending of feminine allurement--and masculine spirit.
Though in height she approached the heroic of scale, the first summary
of impression which he drew from feature and coloring was "delicately
gorgeous."
The girl vouchsafed him no attention of any kind but remained silent
for a moment with her eyes raining so resolute a fire that those of the
exhausted workers kindled into faint responsiveness.
Then the vibrant clarity of the voice sounded again--and the voice too
had that strangely hypnotic quality that one felt in the glance. "You
boys have all worked here hour on hour, till ye're nigh dead. My paw
an' me are already powerful beholden to ye all but----" She paused and
under just such an emotion the ordinary woman's throat would have
caught with a sob and her eyes would have filled with tears. It was
not so with Alexander. Her note only softened into a deeper gravity.
"But he lays over thar an' I mistrusts he's a-dyin' ternight. He
wouldn't suffer me ter tarry by his bed-side because he 'lowed thet you
boys needed a man ter work along with ye in his place. If ye quits now
all the labor ye've done spent goes fer naught." She paused a moment
and then impulsively she broke out: "An' I couldn't hardly endure ter
go back thar an' tell him that we'd failed."
As she paused the hollow-eyed men shuffled their feet but none of them
spoke. They had given generously, prodigally even, of their effort and
it had not been for hire. Yet under the burning appeal of her eyes
they flushed as though they had been self-confessed malingerers.
"But as fer me," went on Alexander, "I've got ter git ter work."
She unbuttoned and cast off the long rubber coat and Brent felt as if
he had seen the unveiling of a sculptured figure which transcended
mediocrity. A flannel shirt, open on a splendidly rounded throat,
emphasized shoulders that fell straight and, for a woman unusually
broad, though not too broad for grace. She was an Amazon in physique
yet so nicely balanced of proportion that one felt more conscious of
delicate litheness than of size. As her breath came fast with
excitement the fine arch of her heaving bosom was that of a Diana.
Belted about a waist that had never known the cramp of stays, she wore
a pair of trousers thrust into her boot tops and no man there was more
unself-conscious.
The exhausted men stirred restlessly as they watched her go down to the
dam, and one of those who had dropped to a sitting posture came
lumberingly to his feet again.
"I reckon I've got my second wind now," he lamely announced. "Mebby
thar's a leetle mite more work left in me yit atter all," and he
started back, stumbling with the ache of tired bones, to the task he
had renounced, while his fellows grumbled a little and followed his
lead.
Throughout the day Brent had felt himself an ineffective. He had done
what he could but his activities had always seemed to be on the less
strenuous fringe of things like a bee who works on the edge of a honey
comb.
Now as the replenished fire leaped high and the hills resounded to an
occasional peal of unseasonable thunder the figure of the woman who had
assumed a man's responsibility became a pattern of action. In the
flare and the shadow he watched it, fascinated. It was always in the
forefront, frequently in actual but unconsidered peril, leading like
the white plume of Navarre.
It was all as lurid and as turgid a picture as things seen in nightmare
or remembered from mythology--this turmoil of emergency effort through
a fire-lit night of storm and flood; figures thrown into exaggeration
as the flames leaped or dwindled--faces haggard with weariness.
To Brent came a new and keener spirit of combat. The outskirts of
action no longer sufficed, but with an elemental ardor and elation his
blood glowed in his veins.
When at last all that could be done had been done, the east was
beginning to take on a sort of ashen light--the forerunner of dawn.
Alexander had held to the sticking-point the quailing energies of spent
men for more than six agonized hours. Below them the river bed that
had been almost dry forty-eight hours ago was a madly howling torrent.
Men with faces gray and hollow-eyed laid down their crow-bars and
pike-poles. Brent, reeling unsteadily as he walked, looked about him
in a dazed fashion out of giddy eyes. He saw Alexander wiping the
steaming moisture from her brow with the sleeve of her shirt and heard
her speak through a confused pounding upon eardrums that still seemed
full of cumulative din.
"Unless ther flood carries ther river five foot higher then hit's ever
gone afore, we've done saved thet timber," she said slowly. "An' no
men ever worked more plum slavish ner faithful then what you men have
ternight."
"That hain't nothin' more left ter do now," said Parson Acup, "unless
hit be ter go home an' pray."
But Alexander shook her head with a vigorous and masculine
determination.
"No, thar's still one thing more ter do. I want thet when you men goes
home ye send me back a few others--fresh men. I'm goin' back ter see
how my daddy's farin' an' whether he's got a chanst ter live, but----"
she paused abruptly and her voice fell, "thar's a spring-branch over
thar by my house. Ye kin mighty nigh gauge how ther water's risin' or
fallin' hyar by notin' ther way hit comes up or goes down over yon. I
aims ter keep a watchin' hit, whilst I'm over thar."
The parson nodded his head. "That's a right good idee, Alexander, but
wharfore does ye seek ter hev us send more men over hyar? All thet kin
be done, has been done."
The girl's eyes snapped. In them were violet fires, quick-leaping and
hot.
"I hain't gone this fur only ter quit now," she passionately declared.
"Them logs is rafted. Ef they goes out on this flood-tide, I aims ter
ride 'em down-stream 'twell I kin land 'em in a safe boom."
"But my God Almighty, gal," Parson Acup, wrenched out of his usual
placidity by the effrontery of the project, spoke vehemently. "Any
tide thet would bust thet dam would sartain shore rip them rafts inter
fragments. Ef they goes out a-tall they goes out ter destruction and
splinters an' sure death, I fears me. Hit's like ridin' a runaway hoss
without no bit in his mouth."
"Thet's a thing I've done afore now," the girl assured him. "An' I
aims ter undertake hit ergin."
She turned and, taking the rubber coat from a tree crotch, went
striding away with her face toward the pale east and despite fatigue
she went high-headed and with elasticity in her step.