Reed's plug hat.

To Orde's satisfaction, the sheriff did not reappear. Reed
evidently now pinned his faith to the State troops.

All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals
of every few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been
removed. The gate was then blocked to prevent its fall when its
nether support should be withdrawn, and two men, leaning over
cautiously, began at arm's-length to deliver their axe-strokes
against the middle of the sill-timbers of the sluice itself,
notching each heavy beam deeply that the force of the current might
finally break it in two. The night was very dark, and very still.
Even the night creatures had fallen into the quietude that precedes
the first morning hours. The muffled, spaced blows of the axes, the
low-voiced comments or directions of the workers, the crackle of the
fire ashore were thrown by contrast into an undue importance. Men
in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to the blaze.

Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud and
exultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to
the top of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to
life. A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like
the rapid explosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers
smote the air; and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy,
rushed from its pent quietude into the new passage opened for it.
At the same moment, as though at the signal, a single bird,
premonitor of the yet distant day, lifted up his voice, clearly
audible above the tumult.