The Greater Power by Harold Bindloss — Read

They set to work on the new heading at sunrise next morning, but it was a week or two before they had made much of an opening in the rock beneath the fall. Though Nasmyth had lowered the level of the river a little, the smooth-worn stone still rose sheer from the depths of the whirling pool, and the blasting had obliterated every trace of their previous operations. They were compelled to make new approaches, and they toiled, drenched with the icy spray, on frail, slung stages, cutting sockets for the logs to hold a heavier platform for the little boring-machine Nasmyth had purchased in Victoria. When the platform was built, the working face was narrow, and the rock of a kind that yielded very slowly to the cutting-tool. They had no power but that of well-hardened muscle, and none of the workers had any particular knowledge of engineering.

They pushed the new heading toilsomely beneath the fall, working in rock fissured by the last explosion, through which the water poured in on them, while the river rose when the frost broke up and was succeeded by a week or two of torrential rain. The water swirled high among the boulders, and had crept almost to the mouth of the heading, when one evening Wheeler walked into the shanty. He said nothing of any consequence until supper was over, and he then took a newspaper out of his pocket.