“Better stand off a little! Move back! You’re too close. No--no one knows what may happen. The frame isn’t shored up--propped in place--yet.... Get back--back--I say!”

Thus Atlas delivered his commands, looking up, a frowning young god, of lowering brows, from under the weight which he was steadying--helping to steady. And if his tones were cramped, they were the more imperious.

The May-flower flock of faces, swimming before his bent gaze, receded--retreated to the confines of the shipyard; all--all save one!

One defied him. One still derided him with that firefly challenge which silently said, “Dear me! how important we are!”

“Back!” waved Atlas again, flourishing a half-numbed arm. But the Flame was still defiant. He knew it for a Flame now: a flame of mischief, sunlit mockery, obstinacy, perhaps--temper, upon occasion--and all manner of deeper fires.

He did not know that it was named by the Council Fire for what it was--and what it aspired to be of kindling warmth--Sesooā, the Flame; otherwise, Sara Davenport, embodiment of “pep” in a Camp Fire Group.

Once more he waved his right hand imperiously. Even the fingers began to feel wooden and look yellow in the sunlight, like the great branching timber, measuring thirty feet in its curve, weighing half a ton, which to an onlooker he seemed to be supporting upon his back and shoulders, although the ponderous weight was still really suspended in the hempen falls of the derrick.

Relying upon these straining ropes, one of the two ship-carpenters who had been steadying the ponderous rib with their hands, leaped down to lend some aid in “shoring it,” propping it in place upon the skeleton vessel’s narrow keel-timbers.

It might have been ten seconds later that Atlas felt the peculiar thrill and quiver all through his bent back, his numbing legs--with their feet braced upon the stocks, or building-blocks--that he felt when trout-fishing or “drailing” in the ocean, if a big fish nibbled at his line.

He had got a nibble now! A danger nibble! There was a tremble, a shudder, in the great rib pressing upon him.

Er-er-err-r! It was the gurgle of an aged rope, a worn-out rope, parting, strand by strand, in mid-air.

“My s-soul! The--the falls--derrick’s falls--are--giving--way!”

The nibble had become a bite now, with the hook in his brain.

And he came of a race--a ready-witted race--which was accustomed to act upon any strong nibble of conviction--to take lightning-hold upon a situation.

It was a lightning vision which swam before Atlas now, against a black background of shipyard. He saw the great rib, the ponderous timber, released by the derrick’s failing ropes, unable to maintain, even with his aid, its balance, tottering--tumbling--sidewise, off from him--crashing down into the yard.

He saw, too, that the near-by girl defying him with that merry, wilful glance pointed to mockery on the golden tips of her eyelashes,............