It was an instant's impression,--the arrested motion seen in the flash of lightning--and yet to the onlookers it had somehow the quality of time. For perceptible duration it seemed to them they stared at the contrast between the raging hell above and the yet peaceable river bed below. They were destined to remember that picture the rest of their natural lives, in such detail that each one of them could almost have reproduced it photographically by simply closing his eyes. Yet afterwards, when they attempted to recall definitely the impression, they knew it could have lasted but a fraction of a second, for the reason that, clear and distinct in each man's mind, the images of the fleeing men retained definite attitudes. It was the instantaneous photography of events. “So long, boys,” they heard Jimmy Powers's voice. Then the rope Thorpe had thrown fell across a caldron of tortured waters and of tossing logs. Chapter XLIX During perhaps ten seconds the survivors 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 surmises, 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 query 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 numbness into Wallace Carpenter's impressionable imagination. “No, no!” he cried vehemently. “There is something criminal about it to me! I'd rather lose every log in the river!” Thorpe looked at him curiously. “It is one of the chances of war,” said he, unable to refrain from the utterance of his creed. “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.