Impatience burst out.
"Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven't they brought two men?"
"It's only one man," shouted the captain, "and he seems to be a cripple.
By Jiminy!--it is--yes!--it's Tom Sparrell!"
There was a dead silence. Then, I grieve to say, shame and its twin
brother rage took possession of their weak humanity. Oh, yes! It was all
of a piece! Why in the name of Folly hadn't he sent for an able-bodied
man. Were they to be drowned through his cranky obstinacy?
The blows still went on slowly. Presently, however, they seemed to
alternate with other blows--but alas! they were slower, and if possible
feebler!
"Have they got another cripple to work?" roared the Contingent in one
furious voice.
"No--it's a woman--a little one--yes! a girl. Hello! Why, sure as you
live, it's Delaware!"
A spontaneous cheer burst from the Contingent, partly as a rebuke to
Sparrell, I think, partly from some shame over their previous rage. He
could take it as he liked.
Still the blows went on distressingly slow. The girls were hoisted
on the men's shoulders; the men were half submerged. Then there was a
painful pause; then a crumbling crash. Another cheer went up from the
canyon.
"It's down! straight across the trail," shouted Fairfax, "and a part of
the bank on the top of it."
There was another moment of suspense. Would it hold or be carried away
by the momentum of the flood? It held! In a few moments Fairfax again
gave voice to the cheering news that the flow had stopped and the
submerged trail was reappearing. In twenty minutes it was clear--a muddy
river bed, but possible of ascent! Of course there was no diminution of
the water in the canyon, which had no outlet, yet it now was possible
for the party to swing from bush to bush along the mountain side until
the foot of the trail--no longer an opposing one--was reached. There
were some missteps and mishaps,--flounderings in the water, and some
dangerous rescues,--but in half an hour the whole concourse stood
upon the trail and commenced the ascent. It was a slow, difficult, and
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