with a great horror.

"Look!" she cried, pointing back to the dam; and when he wheeled he saw
that they were all looking; standing agape as if they had been shown the
Medusa's head. The third great stone had been swung out over the dam,
and, little by little, with jerkings that made the wire cables snap and
sing, the grappling-hooks were losing their hold in mid-air. The yells
of the workmen imperilled rose sharply above the thunder of the river,
and the man at the winding-drums seemed to have lost his nerve and his
head.

Young Blacklock, who was taking an engineering course in college, turned
and ran back down the path, shouting like a madman. Ballard made a
megaphone of his hands and bellowed an order to the unnerved hoister
engineer. "Lower away! Drop it, you blockhead!" he shouted; but the
command came too late. With a final jerk the slipping hooks gave way,
and the three-ton cube of granite dropped like a huge projectile,
striking the stonework of the dam with a crash like an explosion of
dynamite.

Dosia Van Bryck's shriek was ringing in Ballard's ears, and the look of
frozen horror on Elsa's face was before his eyes, when he dashed down
the steep trail at Blacklock's heels. Happily, there was no one killed;
no one seriously hurt. On the dam-head Fitzpatrick was climbing to a
point of vantage to shout the news to the yard men clustering thickly on
the edge of the cliff above, and Ballard went only far enough to make
sure that there had been no loss of life. Then he turned and hastened
back to the halted buckboards.

"Thank God, it's only a money loss, this time!" he announced. "The hooks
held long enough to give the men time to get out of the way."

"There was no one hurt? Are you sure there was no one hurt?" panted Mrs.
Van Bryck, fanning herself vigorously.

"No one at all. I'm awfully sorry we had to give you such a shock for
your leave-taking, but accidents will happen, now and then. You will
excuse me if I go at once? There is work to be done."

"H'm--ha! One moment, Mr. Ballard," rasped the major, swelling up like a
man on the verge of apoplexy. But Mrs. Van Bryck was not to be set
aside.

"Oh, certainly, we will excuse you. Please don't waste a moment on us.
You shouldn't have troubled to come back. So sorry--it was very
dreadful--terrible!"

While the chaperon was groping for her misplaced self-composure,
Wingfield said a word or two to Dosia, who was his seat-mate, and sprang
to the ground.