“Give me a little longer, old girl!” he cried. “Only a little longer, and I can do it!”
The flume shivered as though a hundred ton of rolling stock crossed it.
“By Heaven!’ said Ormond; “she’s struck! But she’s carrying; I knew she would!” And he drove in the underwash with an insane pride that his work should be so strong.
Something splashed in the water at his shoulder. Something gripped him about the neck, bearing him down sideways. Ormond knew the man even as his clutching hands slid over him.
“Randal! For God’s sake let me up! Ah-h!”
In that moment he would have killed Randal if he could. He tried, striking with the chopper, which Randal caught by the blade, wrenching it this way and that. There was no more speech. Just the roar of the night, and of the rising water and the hard-drawn breathing of the men, and the crack of straining muscles. Ormond swung free once, beating on the board joint with a strength beyond his own. But as the wood splintered Randal bore him down. And along the ways he could hear the flood coming.
There were stones in the flume now—new-torn flint that scarred them as the water power rushed it by. Ormond clung to the bottom board with the muddy wetness round his ears.
