It was but a question of minutes. He could already see the trees
sway as the mad flood struck them, the smaller ones rebounding,
the large ones toppling over. Then came a dull roar like that of a
tram through a covered bridge, and then a great wall of yellow
suds, boiling, curling, its surface covered with sticks, planks,
shingles, floating barrels, parts of buildings, dashed itself
against the smoothed earth slopes of his own "fill," surged a
third of its height, recoiled on itself, swirled furiously again,
and then inch by inch rose toward the top. Should it plunge over
the crest, the "fill" would melt away as a rising tide melts a
sand fort, the work of months be destroyed, and his financial ruin
be a certainty.
But the man who had crawled out on the shore end of the great
cantilever bridge over the Ohio, and who had with his own hands
practically set the last rebellious steel girder one hundred feet
above the water level, had still some resources left. Grabbing a
shovel from a railroad employe, he called to his men and began
digging a trench on the tunnel end of the "fill" to form a
temporary spillway should the top of the flood reach the crest of
the road bed.
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