d. The shacks and tents were
white in the hollow, over which there floated a haze of thin, blue smoke;
the rapid creek that flowed past them showed in leaden-colored streaks
among the ice; and somber pines rose in harsh distinctness from the
hillside.

Then the half-covered frame of the church caught Kermode's eye. Something
was wrong with it. The skeleton tower looked out of the perpendicular;
and on his second glance its inclination seemed to have increased. The
snow, however, was clogging the front of his sled and he set to work to
scrape it off. While he was thus engaged there was a sharp, ripping
sound, and then a heavy crash, and swinging around he saw that the tower
had collapsed. Where it had stood lay a pile of broken timber, and planks
and beams were strewn about the snow.

Kermode urged his team downhill, and when a group of men came running up
to meet him, he recognized Ferguson some distance in front of them. The
man's face showed how heavy the blow had been.

"It looks bad; I'm very sorry," said Kermode when they reached the
wrecked building.

"I'm afraid we can't get things straight until spring and I don't know
how I'll raise the money then," declared Ferguson. "A good deal of the
lumber seems destroyed, and I've levied pretty heavily on every friend
I've got." Then he tried to assume a philosophic tone. "Well, I suppose
this is the result of impatience; there were spikes I didn't put in
because I couldn't wait for them and some tenons were badly cut. It blew
hard last night and there must have been a big weight of snow on the new
shingling."

"I don't think you're right," Kermode said dryly, and turned to a
bridge-carpenter who stood near-by. "What's your idea?"

"The thrust of what roof they'd got up wouldn't come on the beams that
gave," rejoined the man. "There's something here I don't catch on to."

"Just so," said Kermode. "Suppose you take a look at the king-posts and
stringers. We'll clear this fallen lumber out of the way, boys."

They set to work, and in an hour the sound and damaged timber had been
sorted into piles. Then, when the foundations were exposed, Kermode and
the carpenter examined a socket in which a broken piece of wood remained.

"This has been a blamed bad tenon," the mechanic remarked. "The shoulders
weren't butted home."

"I'm afraid that's true; I made it," Ferguson admitted; but Kermode,
laying his finger on the rent wood, looked up at his companion.

"For all th