The sharp cry from the hind sweepman made him turn. They had rounded the ledge abreast and Smaltz's boat inside was crowding Saunders hard. Saunders and his helper were working with superhuman strength to throw the boat into the outer channel in the fraction of time before it started on the final shoot. Could they do it! could they! Bruce felt his lungs--his heart--something inside him hurt with his sharp intake of breath as he watched that desperate battle whose loss meant not only sunk machinery but very likely death. Bruce's hands were still full getting his own boat to safety. He dared not look too long behind. "They're goin' to make it! They're almost through! They're safe!" Then--shrilly--"They're gone! they've lost a sweep." Bruce turned quickly at his helper's cry of consternation, turned to see the hind-sweep wildly threshing the air while the boat spun around and around in the boiling water, disappearing, reappearing, sinking a little lower with each plunge. Then, at the risk of having every rib crushed in, they saw the bailer throw his body across the sweep and hold it down before it quite leaped from its pin. The hind-sweepman was scrambling wildly to reach and hold the handle as it beat the air. He got it--held it for a second--then it was wrenched out of his hand. He tried again and again before he held it, but finally Bruce said huskily---- "They'll make it--they'll make it sure if Saunders can hold her a little longer off the rocks." His own boat had reached quieter water. Simultaneously, it seemed, both he and his helper thought of Smaltz. They took their eyes from the boat in trouble and the hind-sweepman's jaw dropped. He said unemotionally--dully--as he might have said--"I'm sick; I'm hungry"--"They've struck." Yes--they had struck. If Bruce had not been so absorbed he might have heard the bottom splintering when she hit the rock. Her bow shot high into the air and settled at the stern. As she slid off, tilted, filled and sunk, Smaltz and Porcupine Jim both jumped. Then the river made a bend which shut it all from Bruce's sight. It was half a mile before he found a landing. He tied up and walked back, unexcited, not hurrying, with a curious quietness inside. Smaltz and Jim were fighting when he got there. Smaltz was sitting astride the latter's chest. There were epithets and recriminations, accusations, counter-charges, oaths. The Swede was crying and a little stream of red was trickling toward his ear. Bruce eyed him calmly, contemplatively, thinking what a face he made, and how ludicrous he looked with the sand matted in his corn-silk hair and covering him like a tamale casing of corn-meal as it stuck to his wet clothes.