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.

CHAPTER III