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"I declare the receiver's dropped off the hook!" Bruce ignored the answer; he did not even look, but stepped closer. "Why didn't you shut down?" Smaltz summoned his impudent grin, but it wavered and faded under Bruce's burning eyes even while he replied in a tone of injured innocence "How should I know? The bell didn't ring Banule hadn't told me to." Bruce paid no attention to the foolish excuse.
He was still writing when Banule came, breathing hard and still dripping from his frigid swim. He stopped short and his jaw dropped at seeing Smaltz. He was obviously disappointed at finding him alive. Smaltz handed Bruce the paper when he had finished and signed his name. Neither the writing or composition was that of an illiterate man.
Smaltz was a liar, as he said, but Bruce knew that he had told the truth regarding Banule's work. He confirmed the suspicions and fears that had been in Bruce's mind for months. Therefore, when he said quietly to Banule "You'd better go up the hill!" there was that in his voice and eyes which made that person take his departure with only a little less celerity than Smaltz had taken his.
I've nothin' to win or lose. This machinery never will run. The plant was a failure before it was put up. And," he nodded contemptuously at Banule, "nobody knew it better than that dub." "Jennings," he went on "advised this old-fashioned type of machinery because it was the only kind he understood and he wanted the job of putting it up, honestly believin' at the time that he could.
From start to finish you've been stung." He turned mockingly to Banule: "As we know, Alphy, generally there's a kind of honor among crooks that keeps us from squeakin' on each other, but that little speech of yourn about takin' a turn of a las' rope round my neck kind of put me on the prod.
"I didn't mean anything," Banule mumbled, temporarily cowed. Bruce heard Smaltz snicker as he walked away. The sluice-boxes upon which Bruce was putting the finishing touches were his particular pride. They were four feet wide and nearly a quarter of a mile in length.
Before Bruce reached the pump-house he heard Banule ringing the telephone violently, and his frenzied shout: "Shut down, Smaltz! Shut down! Where are you? Can't you hear? For God's sake shut down, everything's burnin' up!" He was ringing as though he would have torn the box loose from the wall when Bruce reached the pump-house door.
He demanded again: "Why didn't you shut down, Smaltz?" "I've told you once," was the sullen answer. Bruce turned to the telephone and rang the bell hard. "Hello hello hello!" came the frantic reply. "Can you swim, Banule?" "Yes." "Then take it where the cable crosses the river. Come quick." He put the receiver back on its hook and stepped to the lever.
As, in his imagination, he faced the ordeal he unconsciously straightened up. "Burt! Burt! come quick!" Banule was waving his arms frantically from the platform of the pump-house. There was desperation in his cry for help. He dashed back inside as soon as he saw Bruce jump out of the sluice-box.
To go back begging after all these years no, no, he could not do it to save his life! He would meet the pay-roll with his own checks so long as he had a cent, and hope for the best until he knew there was no best. The end of his rope was painfully close the day Banule announced, after frequent testings, that they might start.
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