e fifteen inch manilla cables across the field of logs in
order to segregate them into several units of mass, and so prevent them
from piling up at the down-stream end of the enclosure. The pile-driver
began to drop its hammer at spots of weakness. In spite of the
accelerated current and the increased volume of the river, everything
was soon shipshape and safe.

"We're all right now," said Orde. "The only thing I'm a little uneasy
about is those confounded temporary booms upstream. Still they're all
right unless they get to piling up. Then we'll have to see what we can
do to hold them. I think as soon as the driver is through down at the
sorting end, she'd better drive a few clumps of piles to strengthen the
swing when it is shut. Then if the logs pile down on us from above, we
can hold them there."

About two hours later the pile-driver moved up. The swing was opened;
and the men began to drive clumps of piles in such a position as to
strengthen the swing when the latter should be shut. It was a slow
job. Each pile had to be taken from the raft at the stern of the scow,
erected in the "carrier," and pounded into place by the heavy hammer
raised and let drop in the derrick at the bow.

Long before the task was finished, the logs in the temporary booms had
begun to slide atop one another, to cross and tangle, until at last
the river bed inside the booms was filled with a jam of formidable
dimensions. From beneath it the water boiled in eddies. Orde, looking at
it, roused himself to sudden activity.

"Get a move on," he advised Captain Aspinwall of the driver. "If that
jam breaks on us, we want to be ready; and if it don't break before you
get this swing strengthened, maybe we can hold her where she is. There's
no earthly doubt that those boom piles will never stand up when they get
the full pressure of the freshet."

He departed up river on a tour of inspection from which he returned
almost immediately.

"Hurry up! Hurry up!" he cried. "She can't last much longer!"

Indeed even to the men on the pile-driver, evidences of the pressure
sustained by the slender boom piles were not wanting. Above the steady
gurgle of the water and the intermittent puffing and other noises of the
work, they could hear a creaking and groaning of timbers full of portent
to those who could read the signs.

The driver's crew laboured desperately, hoisting the piles into the
carriage, tripping the heavy hammer, sending it aloft again, bin