During perhaps ten seconds the survivors1 watched the end of Thorpe's rope trailing in the flood. Then the young man with a deep sigh began to pull it towards him.
At once a hundred surmises2, questions, ejaculations broke out.
"What happened?" cried Wallace Carpenter.
"What was that man's name?" asked the Chicago journalist with the eager instinct of his profession.
"This is terrible, terrible, terrible!" a white-haired physician from Marquette kept repeating over and over.
A half dozen ran towards the point of the cliff to peer down stream, as though they could hope to distinguish anything in that waste of flood water.
"The dam's gone out," replied Thorpe. "I don't understand it. Everything was in good shape, as far as I could see. It didn't act like an ordinary break. The water came too fast. Why, it was as dry as a bone until just as that wave came along. An ordinary break would have eaten through little by little before it burst, and Davis should have been able to stop it. This came all at once, as if the dam had disappeared. I don't see."
His mind of the professional had already began to query3 causes.
"How about the men?" asked Wallace. "Isn't there something I can do?"
"You can head a hunt down the river," answered Thorpe. "I think it is useless until the water goes down. Poor Jimmy. He was one of the best men I had. I wouldn't have had this happen--"
The horror of the scene was at last beginning to filter through numbness4 into Wallace Carpenter's impressionable imagination.
"No, no!" he cried vehemently5. "There is something criminal about it to me! I'd rather lose every log in the river!"
Thorpe looked at him curiously6. "It is one of the chances of war," said he, unable to refrain from the utterance7 of his creed8. "We all know it."
"I'd better divide the crew and take in both banks of the river," suggested Wallace in his constitutional necessity of doing something.
"See if you can't get volunteers from this crowd," suggested Thorpe. "I can let you have two men to show you trails. If you can make it that way, it will help me out. I need as many of the crew as possible to use this flood water."
"Oh, Harry," cried Carpenter, shocked. "You can't be going to work again to-day after that horrible sight, before we have made the slightest effort to recover the bodies!"
"If the bodies can be recovered, they shall be," replied Thorpe quietly. "But the drive will not wait. We have no dams to depend on now, you must remember, and we shall have to get out on freshet water."
"Your men won't work. I'd refuse just as they will!" cried Carpenter, his sensibilities still suffering.
Thorpe smiled proudly. "You do not know them. They are mine. I hold them in the hollow of my hand!"
"By Jove!" cried the journalist in sudden enthusiasm. "By Jove! that is magnificent!"
The men of the river crew had crouched9 on their narrow footholds while the jam went out. Each had clung to his peavey, as is the habit of rivermen. Down the current past their feet swept the debris10 of flood. Soon logs began to swirl11 by,--at first few, then many from the remaining rollways which the river had automatically broken. In a little time the eddy12 caught up some of these logs, and immediately the inception13 of another jam threatened. The rivermen, without hesitation14, as calmly as though catastrophe15 had not thrown the weight of its moral terror against their stoicism, sprang, peavey in hand, to the insistent16 work.
"By Jove!" said the journalist again. "That is magnificent! They are working over the spot where their comrades died!"
Thorpe's face lit with gratification. He turned to the young man.
"You see," he said in proud simplicity17.
With the added danger of freshet water, the work went on.
At this moment Tim Shearer18 approached from inland, his clothes dripping wet, but his face retaining its habitual19 expression of iron calmness. "Anybody caught?" was his first question as he drew near.
"Five men under the face," replied Thorpe briefly20.
Shearer cast a glance at the river. He needed to be told no more.
"I was afraid of it," said he. "The rollways must be all broken out. It's saved us that much, but the freshet water won't last long. It's going to be a close squeak21 to get 'em out now. Don't exactly figure on what struck the dam. Thought first I'd go right up that way, but then I came down to see about the boys."
Carpenter could not understand this apparent callousness22 on the part of men in whom he had always thought to recognize a fund of rough but genuine feeling. To him the sacredness of death was incompatible23 with the insistence24 of work. To these others the two, grim necessity, went hand in hand.
"Where were you?" asked Thorpe of Shearer.
"On the pole trail. I got in a little, as you see."
In reality the foreman had had a close call for his life. A toughly-rooted basswood alone had saved him.
"We'd better go up and take a look," he suggested. "Th' boys has things going here all right."
The two men turned towards the brush.
"Hi, Tim," called a voice behind them.
Red Jacket appeared clambering up the cliff.
"Jack25 told me to give this to you," he panted, holding out a chunk26 of strangely twisted wood.
"Where'd he get this?" inquired Thorpe, quickly. "It's a piece of the dam," he explained to Wallace, who had drawn27 near.
"Picked it out of the current," replied the man.
The foreman and his boss bent28 eagerly over the morsel29. Then they stared with solemnity into each other's eyes.
"Dynamite30, by God!" exclaimed Shearer.
收听单词发音 |
1
survivors
|
|
| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
surmises
|
|
| v.臆测，推断( surmise的第三人称单数 )；揣测；猜想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
query
|
|
| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
numbness
|
|
| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
vehemently
|
|
| adv. 热烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
utterance
|
|
| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
creed
|
|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
crouched
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
debris
|
|
| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
swirl
|
|
| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
eddy
|
|
| n.漩涡，涡流 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
inception
|
|
| n.开端，开始，取得学位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
hesitation
|
|
| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
catastrophe
|
|
| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
insistent
|
|
| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
simplicity
|
|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
shearer
|
|
| n.剪羊毛的人；剪切机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
habitual
|
|
| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
briefly
|
|
| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
squeak
|
|
| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
callousness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
incompatible
|
|
| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
insistence
|
|
| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
jack
|
|
| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
chunk
|
|
| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
morsel
|
|
| n.一口，一点点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
dynamite
|
|
| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |