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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41052 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+     BOOKS BY KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN
+     PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+     THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP. 12mo     net, $1.00
+     THE MESSENGER. 16mo                   net, .50
+     PHILIPPA AT HALCYON. Illustrated. 12mo   $1.50
+
+
+
+
+THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MARIAN COULD ONLY LIE BY THE FIRE AND TEASE EMPRESS
+   AND FRET THE ENDLESS HOURS AWAY.]
+
+
+
+
+     THE HALLOWELL
+     PARTNERSHIP
+
+     BY
+     KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN
+
+     AUTHOR OF "PHILIPPA AT HALCYON," ETC.
+
+     _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+     NEW YORK
+     CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+     1912
+
+
+
+
+     COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+     CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+     Published October, 1912
+
+
+
+
+     To
+     THE HOUSE OF THE BROWN THRUSH
+
+
+
+
+The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of _The Youth's
+Companion_, in permitting this publication of "The Hallowell
+Partnership."
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     Marian could only lie by the fire and tease Empress
+     and fret the endless hours away                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                FACING
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+     On the edge of the opposite bank stood the quaintest,
+     prettiest group that her eyes had ever beheld                  62
+
+     "Well, Captain Lathrop!" Commodore McCloskey's
+     voice rang merciless and clear                                138
+
+     Marian was on her knees by his chair, clasping his
+     cold hands in her own                                         234
+
+
+
+
+The Hallowell Partnership
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHEN SLOW-COACH GOT HIS FIGHTING CHANCE
+
+
+"Rod!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Rod, what did that messenger boy bring? A special-delivery letter? Is
+it anything interesting?" Marian Hallowell pushed Empress from her
+knee and turned on her pillows to look at Roderick, her brother, who
+sat absorbed and silent at his desk.
+
+Roderick did not move. Only Empress cocked a topaz eye, and rubbed her
+orange-tawny head against Marian's chair.
+
+"Rod, why don't you answer me?" Marian's thin hands twitched. A sharp,
+fretted line deepened across her pretty, girlish forehead. It was not
+a pleasant line to see. And through her long, slow convalescence it
+had grown deeper every day.
+
+"_Roderick Hallowell!_"
+
+Roderick jumped. He turned his sober, kind face to her, then bent
+eagerly to the closely written letter in his hand.
+
+"Just a minute, Sis."
+
+"Oh, very well, Slow-Coach!" Marian lay back, with a resigned sniff.
+She pulled Empress up by her silver collar, and lay petting the big,
+satiny Persian, who purred like a happy windmill against her cheek.
+Her tired eyes wandered restlessly about the dim, high-ceiled old
+room. Of all the dreary lodgings on Beacon Hill, surely Roderick had
+picked out the most forlorn! Still, the old place was quiet and
+comfortable. And, as Roderick had remarked, his rooms were amazingly
+inexpensive. That had been an important point; especially since
+Marian's long, costly illness at college. That siege had been hard on
+Rod in many ways, she thought, with a mild twinge of self-reproach. In
+a way, those long weeks of suffering had come through her own fault.
+The college physician had warned her more than once that she was
+working and playing beyond her strength. Yet she felt extremely
+ill-used.
+
+"It wasn't nearly so bad, while I stayed in the infirmary at college."
+She sighed as she thought of her bright, airy room, the coming and
+going of the girls with their gay petting and sympathy, the roses and
+magazines and dainties. "But here, in this tiresome, lonely place! How
+can I expect to get well!"
+
+Here she lay, shut up in Rod's rooms, alone day after day, save for
+the vague, pottering kindnesses of Rod's vague old landlady. At night
+her brother would come home from his long day's work as cub
+draughtsman in the city engineer's office, too tired to talk. And
+Marian, forbidden by overstrained eyes to read, could only lie by the
+fire, and tease Empress, and fret the endless hours away.
+
+At last, with a deep breath, Rod laid down the letter. He pulled his
+chair beside her lounge.
+
+"Tired, Sis?"
+
+"Not very. What was your letter, Rod?"
+
+"I'll tell you pretty soon. Anything doing to-day?"
+
+"Isabel and Dorothy came in from Wellesley this morning, and brought
+me those lovely violets, and told me all about the Barn Swallows'
+masque dance last night. And the doctor came this afternoon."
+
+"H'm. What did he say?"
+
+Marian gloomed.
+
+"Just what he always says. 'No more study this year. Out-door life.
+Bread and milk and sleep.' Tiresome!"
+
+Roderick nodded.
+
+"Hard lines, Sister. And yet--"
+
+He dropped his sentence, and sat staring at the fire.
+
+"Rod! Are you never going to tell me what is in that letter?"
+
+"That letter? Oh, yes. Sure it won't tire you to talk business?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Well, then--I have an offer of a new position. A splendid big one at
+that."
+
+"A new position? Truly?" Marian sat up, with brightening eyes.
+
+"Yes. But I'm not sure I can swing it." Rod's face clouded. "It
+demands a mighty competent engineer."
+
+"Well! Aren't you a competent engineer?" Marian gave his ear a mild
+tweak. "You're always underrating yourself, you old goose. Tell me
+about this. Quick."
+
+Rod's thoughtful face grew grave.
+
+"It's such a gorgeous chance that I can't half believe in it," he
+said, at length. "Through Professor Young, I'm offered an engineer's
+billet with the Breckenridge Engineering and Construction Company. The
+Breckenridge Company is the largest and the best-known firm of
+engineers in the United States. Breckenridge himself is a wonder. I'd
+rather work under him than under any man I ever heard of. The work is
+a huge drainage contract in western Illinois. One hundred dollars a
+month and all my expenses. It's a two-year job."
+
+"A two-year position, out West!" Marian's eyes shone. "The out-West
+part is dreadful, of course. But think of a hundred-dollar salary,
+after the sixty dollars that you have been drudging to earn ever since
+you left Tech! Read Professor Young's letter aloud; do."
+
+Roderick squirmed.
+
+"Oh, you don't want to hear it. It's nothing much."
+
+"Yes I do, too. Read it, I say. Or--give it to me. There!"
+
+There was a short, lively scuffle. However, Marian had captured the
+letter with the first deft snatch; and Roderick could hardly take it
+from her shaky, triumphant hands by main force. He gave way,
+grumbling.
+
+"Professor Young always says a lot of things he doesn't mean. He does
+it to brace a fellow up, that's all."
+
+"Very likely." Marian's eyes skimmed down the first page.
+
+"'--And as the company has asked me to recommend an engineer of whose
+work I can speak from first-hand knowledge, I have taken pleasure in
+referring them to you. To be sure, you have had no experience in
+drainage work. But from what I recall of your record at Tech, your
+fundamental training leaves nothing to be desired. When it comes to
+handling the mass of rough-and-ready labor that the contract employs,
+I am confident that your father's son will show the needed judgment
+and authority. It is a splendid undertaking, this reclamation of waste
+land. It is heavy, responsible work, but it is a man's work, straight
+through; and there is enough of chance in it to make it a man's game,
+as well. If you can make good at this difficult opportunity, you will
+prove that you can make good at any piece of drainage engineering that
+comes your way. This is your fighting chance at success. And I expect
+to see you equal to its heaviest demands. Good luck to you!'
+
+"That sounds just like Professor Young. And he means it. Every word."
+Marian folded the letter carefully and gave it back to her brother.
+"Honestly, Rod, it does sound too good to be true. And think, what a
+frabjous time you can have during your vacations! You can run over to
+the Ozarks for your week-ends, and visit the Moores on their big fruit
+ranch, and go mountain-climbing--"
+
+Roderick chortled.
+
+"The Ozarks would be a trifling week-end jaunt of three hundred miles,
+old lady. Didn't they teach you geography at Wellesley? As to
+mountains, that country is mostly pee-rary and swamp. That's why this
+contract will be a two-year job, and a stiff job at that."
+
+"What does district drainage work mean, anyway?"
+
+"In district drainage, a lot of farmers and land-owners unite to form
+what is called, in law, a drainage district. A sort of mutual benefit
+association, you might call it. Then they tax themselves, and hire
+engineers and contractors to dig a huge system of ditches, and to
+build levees and dikes, to guard their fields against high water. You
+see, an Illinois farmer may own a thousand acres of the richest
+alluvial land. But if half that land is swamp, and the other half lies
+so low that the creeks near by may overflow and ruin his crops any
+day, then his thousand mellow acres aren't much more use than ten
+acres of hard-scrabble here in New England. To be sure, he can cut his
+own ditches, and build his own levee, without consulting his
+neighbors. But the best way is for the whole country-side to unite and
+do the work on a royal scale."
+
+"How do they go about digging those ditches? Where can they find
+laboring men to do the work, away out in the country?"
+
+"Why, you can't dig a forty-foot district canal by hand, Sis! That
+would be a thousand-year job. First, the district calls in an
+experienced engineer to look over the ground and make plans and
+estimates. Next, it employs a drainage contractor; say, the
+Breckenridge firm. This firm puts in three or four huge steam
+dredge-boats, a squad of dump-carts and scrapers, an army of laborers,
+and a staff of engineers--including your eminent C. E. brother--to
+oversee the work. The dredges begin by digging a series of canals; one
+enormous one, called the main ditch, which runs the length of the
+district and empties into some large body of water; in this case, the
+Illinois River. Radiating from this big ditch, they cut a whole family
+of little ditches, called laterals. The main ditch is to carry off the
+bulk of water in case of freshets; while the laterals drain the
+individual farms."
+
+"It sounds like slow, costly work."
+
+"It is. And you've heard only half of it, so far. Then, following the
+dredges, come the laborers, with their teams and shovels and
+dump-carts. Along the banks of the ditch they build low
+brush-and-stone-work walls and fill them in with earth. These walls
+make a levee. So, even if the floods come, and your ditch runs
+bank-full, the levee will hold back the water and save the crops from
+ruin. Do you see?"
+
+"Ye-es. But it sounds rather tangled, Rod."
+
+"It isn't tangled at all. Look." Rod's pencil raced across the
+envelope. "Here's a rough outline of this very contract. This squirmy
+line is Willow Creek. It is a broad, deep stream, and it runs for
+thirty crooked miles through the district, with swampy shores all the
+way. A dozen smaller creeks feed into it. They're swampy, too. So you
+can see how much good rich farm-land is being kept idle.
+
+"This straight line is the main ditch, as planned. It will cut
+straight through the creek course, as the crow flies. Do you see, that
+means we'll make a new channel for the whole stream? A straight, deep
+channel, too, not more than ten miles long, instead of the thirty
+twisted, wasteful miles of the old channel. The short lines at right
+angles to the main ditch represent the little ditches, or laterals.
+They'll carry off surplus water from the farm-lands: even from those
+that lie back from the creek, well out of harm's way."
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+"What will your work be, Rod?"
+
+"I'll probably be given a night shift to boss. That is--if I take the
+job at all. The laborers are divided into two shifts, eleven hours
+each. The dredges have big search-lights, and puff along by night,
+regardless."
+
+"How will you live?"
+
+"We engineers will be allotted a house-boat to ourselves, and we'll
+mess together. The laborers live on a big boat called the
+quarter-boat. The firm furnishes food and bunks, tools, stationery,
+everything, even to overalls and quinine."
+
+"Quinine?"
+
+"Yes. Those Illinois swamps are chock-full of chills and fever."
+
+"Cheerful prospect! What if you get sick, Rod?"
+
+"Pooh. I never had a sick day in all my life. However, the
+farm-houses, up on higher ground, are out of the malaria belt. If I
+get so Miss Nancy-fied that I can't stay in the swamp, I can sleep at
+a farm-house. They say there are lots of pleasant people living down
+through that section. It is a beautiful country, too. I--I'd like it
+immensely, I imagine."
+
+"Of course you will. But what makes you speak so queerly, Rod? You're
+certainly going to accept this splendid chance!"
+
+Rod's dark, sober face settled into unflinching lines.
+
+"We'll settle that later. What about you, Sis? If I go West, where
+will you go? How will you manage without me?"
+
+"Oh, I'll go up to Ipswich for the summer. Just as I always do."
+
+Rod considered.
+
+"That won't answer, Marian. Now that the Comstocks have moved away,
+there is nobody there to look after you. And you'd be lonely, too."
+
+"Well, then, I can go to Dublin. Cousin Evelyn will give me a corner
+in her cottage."
+
+"But Cousin Evelyn sails for Norway in June."
+
+"Dear me, I forgot! Then I'll visit some of the girls. Isabel was
+teasing me this morning to come to their place at Beverly Farms for
+August. Though--I don't know----"
+
+Rod's serious young eyes met hers. A slow red mounted to his thatched
+black hair.
+
+"I don't believe that would work, Sis. I hate to spoil your fun.
+But--we can't afford that sort of thing, dear."
+
+"I suppose not. To spend a month with Isabel and her mother, in that
+Tudor palace of theirs, full of man-servants, and maid-servants, and
+regiments of guests, and flocks and herds of automobiles, would cost
+me more, in new clothes alone, than the whole summer at Ipswich. But,
+Rod, where can I stay? I'd go cheerfully and camp on my relatives,
+only we haven't a relative in the world, except Cousin Evelyn.
+Besides, I--I don't see how I can ever stand it, anyway!" Her fretted
+voice broke, quivering. Mindful of Rod's boyish hatred of sentiment,
+she gulped back the sob in her throat; but her weak hand clutched his
+sleeve. "There are only the two of us, Rod, and we've never been
+separated in all our lives. Not even for a single week. I--I can't let
+you go away out there and leave me behind."
+
+Now, on nine occasions out of ten, Slow-Coach was Rod's fitting title.
+This was the tenth time. He stooped over Marian, his black eyes
+flashing. His big hand caught her trembling fingers tight.
+
+"That will just do, Sis. Stop your forebodings, you precious old
+'fraid-cat. I'm going to pack you up and take you right straight
+along."
+
+"Why, Roderick Thayer Hallowell!"
+
+Marian gasped. She stared up at her brother, wide-eyed.
+
+"Why, I couldn't possibly go with you. It's absurd. I daren't even
+think of it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, it's such a queer, wild place. And it is so horribly far away.
+And I'm not strong enough for roughing it."
+
+"Nonsense. Illinois isn't a frontier. It's only two days' travel from
+Boston. As for roughing it, think of the Vermont farm-houses where
+we've stayed on fishing trips. Remember the smothery feather-beds, and
+the ice-cold pickled beets and pie for breakfast? Darkest Illinois
+can't be worse than that."
+
+"N-no, I should hope not. But it will be so tedious and dull!"
+
+"Didn't the doctor order you to spend a dull summer? Didn't he
+prescribe bread and milk and sleep?"
+
+"Rod, I won't go. I can't. I'd be perfectly miserable. There, now!"
+
+Roderick gave her a long, grave look.
+
+"Then I may as well write and decline the Breckenridge offer, Sis. For
+I'll take you with me, or else stay here with you. That's all."
+
+"Rod, you're so contrary!" Marian's lips quivered. "You must go West.
+I won't have you stay here and drudge forever at office work. You must
+not throw away this splendid chance. It isn't possible!"
+
+"It isn't possible for me to do anything else, Sis." Roderick's stolid
+face settled into granite lines. Marian started at the new ring of
+authority in his voice. "Haven't you just said that you couldn't stand
+it to be left behind? Well, I--I'm in the same boat. I can't go off
+and leave you, Sis. I won't run the chances of your being sick, or
+lonely, while I'm a thousand miles away. So you'll have to decide for
+us both. Either you go with me, or else I stay here and drudge
+forever, as you call it. For I'd rather drudge forever than face that
+separation. That's all. Run along to bed now, that's a good girl.
+You'll need plenty of sleep if you are to start for Illinois with me
+next week. Good-night."
+
+"Well, but Rod----"
+
+"Run along, I say. Take Empress with you. I want to answer this
+letter, and she keeps purring like a buzz-saw, and sharpening her
+claws on my shoes, till I can't think straight."
+
+"But, Rod, you don't understand!" Marian caught his arm. Her eyes
+brimmed with angry tears. "I don't _want_ to go West. I'll hate it. I
+know I shall. I want to stay here, where I can be with my friends,
+where I can have a little fun. It's not fair to make me go with you!"
+
+"Oh, I understand, all right." Roderick's eyes darkened. "You will not
+like the West. You'll not be contented. I know that. But, remember,
+I'm taking this job for both of us, Sis. We're partners, you know. I
+wish you could realize that." His voice grew a little wistful. "If
+you'd be willing to play up----"
+
+"Oh, I'll play up, of course." Marian put her hands on his shoulders
+and gave him a pettish kiss. "And I'll go West with you. Though I'd
+rather go to Moscow or the Sahara. Come, Empress! Good-night, Rod."
+
+The door closed behind her quick, impatient step. Roderick sat down at
+his desk and opened his portfolio. He did not begin to write at once.
+Instead, he sat staring at the letter in his hand. He was a slow,
+plodding boy; he was not given to dreaming; but to-night, as he sat
+there, his sober young face lighted with eager fire. Certain phrases
+of that magical letter seemed to float and gleam before his eyes.
+
+--"'A splendid undertaking ... heavy, responsible work, but a man's
+work, and a man's game.... This is your fighting chance. If you can
+make good.... And I expect to see you equal to its heaviest demands.'"
+
+Rod's deep eyes kindled slowly.
+
+"I'll make good, all right," he muttered. His strong hand clinched on
+the folded sheet. "It's my fighting chance. And if I can't win out,
+with such an opportunity as this one--then I'll take my name off the
+_Engineering Record_ roster and buy me a pick and a shovel!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TRAVELLERS THREE
+
+
+"Ready, Marian? The Limited starts in thirty minutes. We haven't a
+minute to spare."
+
+"Y-yes." Marian caught up her handbag and hurried into the cab. "Only
+my trunk keys--I'm not sure----"
+
+"Your trunk keys! You haven't lost them, of all things!"
+
+"No. Here they are, safe in my bag. But Empress has been so frenzied I
+haven't known which way to turn."
+
+Poor insulted Empress, squirming madly in a wicker basket, glared at
+Rod, and lifted a wild, despairing yowl.
+
+"You don't propose to leave Mount Vernon Street for the wilds of
+Illinois without a struggle, do you, Empress?" chuckled Rod. "Never
+you mind. You'll forget your blue silk cushion and your minced steak
+and cream, and you'll be chasing plebeian chipmunks in a week. Look at
+the river, Marian. You won't see it again in a long while."
+
+Marian followed his glance. It was a silver hoar-frost morning. The
+sky shone a cloudless blue, the cold, delicious air sparkled,
+diamond-clear. Straight down Mount Vernon Street the exquisite little
+panel of the frozen Charles gleamed like a vista of fairyland. Marian
+stared at it a little wistfully.
+
+"It will all be very different out West, I suppose. I wonder if any
+Western river can be half as lovely," she pondered.
+
+Roderick did not answer. A sudden worried question stirred in his
+thought. Yes, the West would be "different." Very different.
+
+"Maybe I've done the worst possible thing in dragging Marian along,"
+he thought. "But it's too late to turn back now. I can only hope that
+she can stand the change, and that she'll try to be patient and
+contented."
+
+Marian, on her part, was in high spirits. She had been shut up for so
+long that to find herself free, and starting on this trip to a new
+country, delighted her beyond bounds. At South Station, a crowd of
+her Wellesley chums stormed down upon her, in what Rod described later
+as a mass-play, laden with roses and chocolates and gay, loving
+farewells. Marian tore herself from their hands, half-laughing,
+half-crying with happy excitement.
+
+"Oh, Rod, I know we're going to have the grandest trip, and the most
+beautiful good fortunes that ever were!" she cried, as he put her
+carefully aboard the train. "But you aren't one bit enthusiastic. You
+stodgy tortoise, why can't you be pleased, too?"
+
+"I'm only too glad if you like the prospect, Sis," he answered
+soberly.
+
+Marian's spirits soared even higher as the hours passed. Roderick grew
+as rapt as she when the train whirled through the winter glory of the
+Berkshires. Every slope rose folded in dazzling snow. Every tree,
+through mile on mile of forest, blazed in rainbow coats of icy mail.
+The wide rolling New York country was scarcely less beautiful.
+
+At Buffalo, the next morning, a special pleasure awaited them. A party
+of friends met them with a huge touring car, and carried them on a
+flying trip to the ice-bridge at Niagara Falls. To Marian, every
+minute spelled enchantment. She forgot her dizzy head and her aching
+bones, and fairly exulted in the wild splendor of the blue ice-walled
+cataract. Roderick, on his part, was so absorbed by the marvellous
+engineering system of the great power-plant that for once he had no
+eyes nor thought for his sister, nor for any other matter.
+
+Their wonderful day closed with an elaborate dinner-party, given in
+their honor. Neither Marian nor Rod had ever been guests at so grand
+an affair. As they dashed to their train in their host's beautiful
+limousine, Marian looked up from her bouquet of violets and orchids
+with laughing eyes.
+
+"If this is the West, Rod, I really think it will suit me very well!"
+
+Rod's mouth twisted into a rueful grin.
+
+"Glad you enjoy it, Sis. Gloat over your luxury while you may. You'll
+find yourself swept out of the limousine zone all too soon. By this
+time next week you'll be thankful for a spring wagon."
+
+By the next morning, Marian's spirits began to flag. All day they
+travelled in fog and rain, down through a flat, dun country. Not a
+gleam of snow lightened those desolate, muddy plains. There seemed no
+end to that sodden prairie, that gray mist-blotted sky. Marian grew
+more lonely and unhappy with every hour. She struggled to be
+good-humored for Roderick's sake. But she grew terribly tired; and it
+was a very white-faced girl who clung to Roderick's arm as their train
+rolled into the great, clanging terminal at Saint Louis.
+
+Roderick hurried her to a hotel. It seemed to her that she had
+scarcely dropped asleep before Rod's voice sounded at the door.
+
+"Sorry, Sis, but we'll have to start right away. It's nearly eight
+o'clock."
+
+"Oh, Rod, I'm so tired! Please let's take a later train."
+
+"There isn't any later train, dear. There isn't any train at all.
+We're going up-river on a little steamer that is towing a barge-load
+of coal to our camp. That's the only way to reach the place. There is
+no railroad anywhere near. There won't be another steamer going up
+for days. It's a shame to haul you out, but it can't be helped."
+
+An hour later, they picked their way down the wet, slippery stones of
+the levee to where the _Lucy Lee_, a tiny flat-bottomed
+"stern-wheeler," puffed and snorted, awaiting them. As they crossed
+the gang-plank, the pilot rang the big warning bell. Immediately their
+little craft nosed its way shivering along the ranks of moored
+packets, and rocked out into mid-channel.
+
+Marian peered back, but she could see nothing of the city. A thick icy
+fog hung everywhere, shrouding even the tall warehouses at the river's
+edge, and drifting in great, gray clouds over the bridges.
+
+"The river is still thick with floating ice," said the captain, at her
+elbow. "The _Lucy_ is the first steam-boat to dare her luck, trying to
+go up-stream, since the up-river ice gorge let go. But we'll make it
+all right. It's a pretty chancy trip, yet it's not as dangerous as
+you'd think."
+
+Marian twinkled. "It looks chancy enough to me," she confessed. She
+looked out at the broad, turbid stream. Here and there a black patch
+marked a drifting ice cake, covered with brush, swept down from some
+flooded woodland. Through the mist she caught glimpses of high, muddy
+banks, a group of sooty factories, a gray, murky sky.
+
+"I don't see much charm to the Mississippi, Rod. Is this all there is
+to it? Just yellow, tumbling water, and mud, and fog?"
+
+"It isn't a beautiful stream, that's a fact," admitted Rod. Yet his
+eyes sparkled. He was growing more flushed and alert with every turn
+of the wheels that brought him nearer to his coveted work, his man's
+game. "This is too raw and cold for you, Marian. Come into the cabin,
+and I'll fix you all snug by the fire."
+
+"The cabin is so stuffy and horrid," fretted Marian. Yet she added,
+"But it's the cunningest place I ever dreamed of. It's like a
+miniature museum."
+
+"A museum? A junk-shop, I'd call it," Rod chuckled, as he settled her
+into the big red-cushioned rocker, before the roaring cannon stove.
+
+The tight little room was crowded with solemn black-walnut cabinets,
+full of shells and arrowheads, and hung thick with quaint,
+high-colored old pictures. Languishing ladies in chignons and
+crinoline gazed upon lordly gentlemen in tall stocks and gorgeous
+waistcoats; "Summer Prospects," in vivid chromos fronted "Snow
+Scenes," made realistic with much powdered isinglass. Crowning all,
+rose a tall, cupid-wreathed gilt mirror, surmounted by a stern stuffed
+eagle, who glared down fiercely from two yellow glass eyes. His mighty
+wings spread above the mirror, a bit moth-eaten, but still terrifying.
+
+"Look, Empress. Don't you want to catch that nice birdie?"
+
+Poor bewildered Empress glared at the big bird, and sidled, back
+erect, wrathfully sissing, under a chair. Travel had no charms for
+Empress.
+
+"Will you look at that old yellowed pilot's map and certificate in the
+acorn frame? '1857!'" chuckled Rod. "And the red-and-blue worsted
+motto hung above it: 'Home, Sweet Home!' I'll wager Grandma Noah did
+that worsted-work."
+
+"Not Grandma Noah, but Grandma McCloskey," laughed the captain. "She
+was the nicest old lady you ever laid eyes on. She used to live on the
+boat and cook for us, till the rheumatism forced her to live ashore.
+Her husband is old Commodore McCloskey; so everybody calls him. He has
+been a pilot on the Mississippi ever since the day he got that
+certificate, yonder. He's a character, mind that. He shot that eagle
+in '58, and he has carried it around with him ever since, to every
+steamer that he has piloted. You must go up to the pilot-house after a
+bit and make him a visit. He's worth knowing."
+
+"I think I'd like to go up to the pilot-house right away, Rod. It is
+so close and hot down here."
+
+Obediently Rod gathered up her rugs and cushions. Carefully he and the
+captain helped her up the swaying corkscrew stairs, across the dizzy,
+rain-swept hurricane deck, then up the still narrower, more twisty
+flight that ended at the door of the high glass-walled box, perched
+like a bird-cage, away forward.
+
+Inside that box stood a large wooden wheel, and a small, twinkling,
+white-bearded old gentleman, who looked for all the world like a Santa
+Claus masquerading in yellow oilskins.
+
+"Ask him real pretty," cautioned the captain. "He thinks he runs this
+boat, and everybody aboard her. He does, too, for a fact."
+
+With much ceremony Roderick rapped at the glass door, and asked
+permission for his sister to enter. With grand aplomb the little old
+gentleman rose from his wheel and ushered her up the steps.
+
+"'Tis for fifty-four years that I and me pilot-house have been honored
+by the ladies' visits," quoth he, with a stately bow. "Ye'll sit here,
+behind the wheel, and watch me swing herself up the river? Sure, 'tis
+a ticklish voyage, wid the river so full of floatin' ice. I shall be
+glad of yer gracious presence, ma'am. It will bring me good luck in me
+steerin'."
+
+Marian's eyes danced. She fitted herself neatly into the cushioned
+bench against the wall. The pilot-house was a bird-cage, indeed,
+hardly eight feet square. The great wheel, swinging in its high frame,
+took up a third of the space; a huge cast-iron stove filled one
+corner. For the rest, Marian felt as if she had stepped inside one of
+the curio-cabinets in the cabin below; for every inch of wall space in
+the bird-cage was festooned with mementoes of every sort. A string of
+beautiful wampum, all polished elks' teeth and uncut green turquoise;
+shell baskets, and strings of buckeyes; a four-foot diamond-back
+rattlesnake's skin, beautiful and uncanny, the bunch of five rattles
+tied to the tail. Close beside the glittering skin hung even an odder
+treasure-trove: a small white kid glove, quaintly embroidered in faded
+pink-and-blue forget-me-nots.
+
+"Great-Aunt Emily had some embroidered gloves like that in her
+trousseau," thought Marian. "I do wonder----"
+
+"Ye're lookin' at me keepsakes?" The pilot sighted up-stream, then
+turned, beaming. "Maybe it will pass the time like for me to tell ye
+of them. There is not one but stands for an adventure. That wampum was
+given to me by Chief Ogalalla; a famous Sioux warrior, he was. 'Twas
+back in sixty-wan, and the string was the worth of two ponies in thim
+days. Three of me mates an' meself was prospectin' down in western
+Nebraska. There came a great blizzard, and Chief Ogalalla and three of
+his men rode up to our camp, and we took them in for the night."
+
+"And he gave you the wampum in payment?"
+
+"Payment? Never! A man never paid for food nor shelter on the plains.
+No more than for the air he breathed. 'Twas gratitude. For Chief
+Ogalalla had a ragin' toothache, and I cured it for him. Made him a
+poultice of red pepper."
+
+"Mercy! I should think that would hurt worse than any toothache!"
+
+"Maybe it did, ma'am. But at least it disthracted his attention from
+the tooth itself. That rattlesnake, I kilt in a swamp near Vicksburg.
+Me and me wife was young then, and we'd borrowed a skiff, an' rowed
+out to hunt pond-lilies. Mary would go in the bog, walkin' on the big
+tufts of rushes. Her little feet were that light she didn't sink at
+all. But the first thing I heard she gave a little squeal, an' there
+she stood, perched on a tuft, and not three feet away, curled up on a
+log, was that great shinin' serpent. Just rockin' himself easy, he
+was, makin' ready to strike. An' strike he would. Only"--the small
+twinkling face grew grim--"only I struck first."
+
+Marian shivered.
+
+"And the little white glove?"
+
+The old pilot beamed.
+
+"Sure, I hoped ye'd notice that, miss. That glove points to the proud
+day f'r me! It was the summer of '60. I was pilotin' the _Annie
+Kilburn_, a grand large packet, down to Saint Louis. We had a
+wonderful party aboard her. 'Twas just the beginnin' of war times, an'
+'twould be like readin' a history book aloud to tell ye their names.
+Did ever ye hear of the Little Giant?"
+
+"Of Stephen A. Douglas, the famous orator? Why, yes, to be sure. Was
+he aboard?"
+
+"Yes. A fine, pleasant-spoke gentleman he was, too. But 'tis not the
+Little Giant that this story is about. 'Twas his wife. Ye've heard of
+her, sure? Ah, but I wish you could have seen her when she came
+trippin' up the steps of me pilot-house and passed the time of day
+with me, so sweet and friendly. Afterward they told me what a great
+lady she was. Though I could see that for meself, she was that gentle,
+and her voice so quiet and low, and her look so sweet and kind. I was
+showin' her about, an' feelin' terrible proud, an' fussy, an' excited.
+I was a young felly then, and it took no more than her word an' her
+smile to turn me foolish head. An' I was showin' her how to handle the
+wheel, and by some mischance, didn't I catch me blunderin' hand in the
+frame, an' give it a wrench that near broke every bone! I couldn't
+leave the wheel till the first mate should come to take me place. And
+Madame Douglas was that distressed, you'd think it was her own hand
+that she was grievin' over. She would tear her lace handkerchief into
+strips, and bind up the cut, and then what does she do but take her
+white glove, an' twist it round the fingers, so's to keep them from
+the air, till I could find time to bandage them. I said not a word.
+But the minute her silks an' laces went trailin' down the hurricane
+ladder, I jerked off that glove an' folded it in my wallet. An' there
+it stayed till I could have that frame made for it. And in that frame
+I've carried it ever since, all these long years.
+
+"Those were the grand days, sure," he added, wistfully. "Before the
+war, we pilots were the lords of the river. I had me a pair of
+varnished boots, an' tight striped trousers, an' a grand shiny
+stove-pipe hat, an' I wouldn't have called the king me uncle. It's
+sad times for the river, nowadays." He looked away up the broad,
+tumbling yellow stream. "Look at her, will ye! No river at all, she
+is, wid her roily yellow water, an' her poor miry banks, an' her
+bluffs, all washed away to shiftin' sand. But wasn't she the grand
+stream entirely, before the war!"
+
+Marian looked at the framed river-chart above the wheel. She tried to
+read its puzzle of tangled lines. The old man sniffed.
+
+"Don't waste yer time wid that gimcrack, miss. Steer by it? Never!" He
+shrugged his shoulders loftily. "It hangs there by government request,
+so I tolerate it to please the Department. I know this river by heart,
+every inch. I could steer this boat from Natchez to Saint Paul wid me
+eyes shut, the blackest night that ever blew!"
+
+Marian dimpled at his majestic tone.
+
+"Will you show me how to steer? I've always been curious as to how it
+is done."
+
+"Certain I will."
+
+Keenly interested, Marian gripped the handholds, and turned the heavy
+wheel back and forth as he directed. Suddenly her grasp loosened.
+Down the stream, straight toward the boat, drifted a rolling black
+mass.
+
+"Mercy, what is that? It looks like a whole forest of logs. It's
+rolling right toward us!"
+
+"Ye're right. 'Tis a raft that's broke adrift. But we have time to
+dodge, be sure. Watch now."
+
+His right hand grasped the wheel. His left seized the bell-cord. Three
+sharp toots signalled the engine-room for full head of steam.
+Instantly the _Lucy_ jarred under Marian's feet with the sudden heavy
+force of doubled power. Slowly the steam-boat swung out of her course,
+in a long westward curve. Past her, the nearest logs not fifty feet
+away, the great, grinding mass of tree-trunks rolled and tumbled by,
+sweeping on toward the Gulf.
+
+"'Tis handy that we met those gintlemen by daylight," remarked the
+pilot, cheerfully. "For one log alone would foul our paddle-wheels and
+give us a bad shaking up. And should all that Donnybrook Fair come
+stormin' into us by night, we'd go to the bottom before ye could say
+Jack Robinson."
+
+Marian's eyes narrowed. She stared at the dusk stormy yellow river,
+the blank inhospitable shores. She was not by any means a coward. But
+she could not resist asking one question.
+
+"Do we go on up-river after nightfall? Or do we stop at some landing?"
+
+"There's no landing between here and Grafton, at the mouth of the
+Illinois River. We'll have to tie up along shore, I'm thinkin'." The
+old man spoke grudgingly. "If I was runnin' her meself, 'tis little
+we'd stop for the night. But the captain thinks different. He's young
+and notional. Tie up over night we must, says he. But 'tis all
+nonsense. Chicken-hearted, I'd call it, that's all."
+
+Marian laughed to herself. Inwardly she was grateful for the captain's
+chicken-heartedness.
+
+A loud gong sounded from below. The pilot nodded.
+
+"Yon's your supper-bell, miss. I thank ye kindly for the pleasure of
+yer company. I shall be honored if ye choose to come again. And soon."
+
+Marian made her way down to the cabin through the stormy dusk. The
+little room was warm and brightly lighted; the captain's negro boy was
+just placing huge smoking-hot platters of perfectly cooked fish and
+steak upon the clean oil-cloth table. They gathered around it, an odd
+company. Marian and Roderick, the captain, the _Lucy's_ engineer, a
+pleasant, boyish fellow, painfully embarrassed and redolent of hot oil
+and machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on their way, like Rod,
+to the Breckenridge contract. Save the captain and Rod, they gobbled
+bashfully, and fled at the earliest possible moment. Rod and the
+captain were talking of the contract and of its prospects. Marian
+trifled with her massive hot biscuit, and listened indifferently.
+
+"I hope your coming on the work may change its luck, Mr. Hallowell,"
+observed the captain. "For that contract has struggled with mighty
+serious difficulties, so far. Breckenridge himself is a superb
+engineer; but of course he cannot stay on the ground. He has a dozen
+equally important contracts to oversee. His engineers are all well
+enough, but somehow they don't seem to make things go. Carlisle is the
+chief. He is a good engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly
+dead with malaria that he can't do two hours' work in a week. Burford,
+his aid, is a young Southerner, a fine chap, but--well, a bit
+hot-headed. You know our Northern labor won't stand for much of that.
+Then there is Marvin, who is third in charge. But as for Marvin"--he
+stopped, with a queer short laugh--"as for Marvin, the least said the
+soonest mended. He's a cub engineer, they call him; a grizzly cub at
+that. He may come out all right, with time. You can see for yourself
+that you haven't any soft job. With a force of two hundred laborers,
+marooned in a swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a railroad in
+the county; with half the land-owners protesting against their
+assessments, and refusing to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and
+your coal shipments held up by high water--no, you won't find your
+place an easy one, mind that."
+
+"I'm not doing any worrying." Rod's jaw set. His dark face glowed.
+Marian looked at him, a little jealously. His whole heart and thought
+were swinging away to this work, now opening before him. This was his
+man's share in labor, and he was eager to cope with its sternest
+demands.
+
+"Well, it's a good thing you have the pluck to face it. You will need
+all the pluck you've got, and then some." The captain paced restlessly
+up and down the narrow room. "Wonder why we don't slow down. We must
+be running a full twelve miles an hour. Altogether too fast, when
+we're towing a barge. And it is pitch dark."
+
+He stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. "Hi, Smith! Why are you
+carrying so much steam? I want to put her inshore."
+
+A muffled voice rose from the engine-room.
+
+"All right, sir. But McCloskey, he just rung for full speed ahead."
+
+"He did? That's McCloskey, all over. The old rascal! He has set his
+heart on making Grafton Landing to-night, instead of tying up
+alongshore. Hear that? He's making that old wheel jump. To be sure, he
+knows the river channel like a book. But, even with double
+search-lights, no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far enough
+ahead to dodge them."
+
+"Let's take a look on deck," suggested Rod.
+
+Once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night wind swept down on
+them, a driving, freezing blast. The little steamer fairly raced
+through the water. Her deck boards quivered; the boom of the heavy
+engine throbbed under their feet.
+
+"Thickest night I've seen in a year," growled the captain. "I say,
+McCloskey! Slow down, and let's put her inshore. This is too dangerous
+to suit me."
+
+No reply. The boat fled pitching on.
+
+"_McCloskey!_"
+
+At last there came a faint hail.
+
+"Yes, captain! What's yer pleasure, sir?"
+
+"The old rascal! He's trying to show off. He's put his deaf ear to the
+tube, I'll be bound. Best go inside, Miss Hallowell, this wind is full
+of sleet. McCloskey! Head her inshore, I say."
+
+On rushed the _Lucy_. Her course did not change a hair's breadth.
+
+"No wonder they call him Commodore McCloskey!" Rod whispered wickedly.
+"Even the captain has to yield to him."
+
+"McCloskey!" The captain's voice was gruff with anger. "_Head her
+inshore!_ Unless you're trying to kill the boat----"
+
+Crash!
+
+The captain's sentence was never finished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ENTER MR. FINNEGAN
+
+
+With that crash the floor shot from under their feet. Stumbling and
+clutching, the three, Marian, Rod, and the captain, pitched across the
+deck and landed in a heap against the rail. The lighted cabin seemed
+to rear straight up from the deck and lunge toward them. There was an
+uproar of shouts, a hideous pounding of machinery. Marian shut her
+eyes.
+
+Then, with a second deafening crash, the steamer righted herself; and,
+thrown like three helpless ninepins, Marian, Rod, and the captain
+reeled back from the rail and found themselves, bumped and dizzy,
+tangled in a heap of freight and canvas. Rod was the first on his
+feet. He snatched Marian up, with a groan.
+
+"Sister! Are you hurt? Tell me, quick."
+
+"Nonsense, no." Marian struggled up, bruised and trembling. "I whacked
+my head on the rail, that's all. What has happened?"
+
+"We've struck another bunch of runaway logs. They've fouled our
+wheel," shouted the captain. "Put this life-preserver on your sister.
+Swing out the yawl, boys!" For the deck crew was already scrambling up
+the stairs. "Here, where's Smith?"
+
+"He's below, sir, stayin' by the boiler. The logs struck us for'ard
+the gangway. She's got a hole stove in her that you could drive an
+ice-wagon through," answered a fireman. "Smith says, head her inshore.
+Maybe you can beach her before she goes clean under."
+
+The captain groaned.
+
+"Her first trip for the year! The smartest little boat on the river!
+McCloskey!" he shouted angrily up the tube. "Head her inshore, before
+she's swamped. You hear that, I reckon?"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir." It was a very meek voice down the tube.
+
+Very slowly the _Lucy_ swung about. Creaking and groaning, she headed
+through the darkness for the darker line of willows that masked the
+Illinois shore.
+
+For a minute, Roderick and Marian stood together under the swaying
+lantern, too dazed by excitement to move. On Marian's forehead a
+cheerful blue bump had begun to rise; while Rod's cheek-bone displayed
+an ugly bruise. Suddenly Marian spoke.
+
+"Rod! Where is Empress! She will be frightened to death. We must take
+her into the yawl with us."
+
+The young fireman turned.
+
+"That grand big cat of yours, ma'am? You'll never coax a cat into an
+open boat. They'll die first. But have no fear. We are not a hundred
+yards from shore, and in shallow water at that. 'Tis a pity the _Lucy_
+is hurt, but it's fortunate for us that she can limp ashore."
+
+Marian felt a little foolish. She pulled off the cork jacket which Rod
+had tied over her shoulders.
+
+"We aren't shipwrecked after all, Rod. We're worse frightened than
+hurt."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. Keep that life-preserver on, Sis."
+
+The _Lucy_ was blundering pluckily toward shore. But the deck jarred
+with the thud and rattle of thrashing machinery, and at every forward
+plunge the boat pitched until it seemed as if the next fling would
+surely capsize her.
+
+Rod peered into the darkness.
+
+"We'll make the shore, I do believe. Shall I leave you long enough to
+get our bags and Empress?"
+
+"Oh, I'll go too. You'll need me to pacify Empress. She will be
+panic-stricken."
+
+Poor Empress was panic-stricken, indeed. The little cabin was a chaos.
+The shock of the collision had overturned every piece of furniture.
+Even the wall cabinets were upset, and their shells and arrowheads
+were scattered far and wide. The beautiful old-time crystal
+chandeliers were in splinters. Worst, the big gilt mirror lay on the
+floor, smashed to atoms. Only one object in all that cabin held its
+place: the stuffed eagle. And high on the eagle's outspread wing,
+crouched like a panther, snarling and spitting, her every silky hair
+furiously on end, clung poor, terrified Empress. Rod exploded.
+
+"You made friends with the nice bird, after all, didn't you, Empress!
+Come on down, kitty. Let me put a life-preserver on you too."
+
+No life-preservers for Empress! Marian coaxed and called in vain. She
+merely dug her claws into the eagle's back and growled indignant
+refusal.
+
+"Let's go back on deck, Sis. She'll calm down presently."
+
+The _Lucy_ was now working inshore with increasing speed. But, as they
+stepped on deck, the boat careened suddenly, then stopped, with a
+sickening jolt.
+
+"Never mind, miss," the young fireman quickly assured her. "She has
+struck a sand-bar, and there she'll stick, I fear. But we are safe
+enough, for the water is barely six feet deep. We'll have to anchor
+here for the night, but don't be nervous. She can't sink very far in
+six feet of water."
+
+"I suppose not." Yet Marian's teeth chattered. Inwardly she
+sympathized with Empress. What a comfort it would be to climb the
+stuffed eagle and perch there, well out of reach of even six feet of
+black icy water!
+
+The captain was still more reassuring.
+
+"Well, we're lucky that we've brought her this near shore." He wiped
+his forehead with a rather unsteady hand. "Ten minutes ago my heart
+was in my mouth. I thought sure she'd sink in mid-stream. You're
+perfectly safe now, Miss Hallowell. Better go to your state-room and
+get some sleep."
+
+"Yes, the _Lucy_ will rest still as a church now," said the young
+fireman, with a heartening chuckle. "She's hard aground. Though that's
+no thanks to our pilot. I say, McCloskey! Where were you trying to
+steer us? Into a lumber-yard?"
+
+Down the hurricane deck came Mr. McCloskey, white beard waving, eyes
+twinkling, jaunty and serene as a May morning.
+
+"This little incident is no fault of me steerin'," said he, with
+delightful unconcern. "'Twas the carelessness of thim raftsmen,
+letting their logs get away, no less. Sure, captain dear, I'd sue them
+for damages."
+
+"I'll be more likely to sue you for running full speed after dark,
+against orders," muttered the captain. Then he laughed. "I ought to
+put you in irons. But the man doesn't live that can hold a grudge
+against you, McCloskey. Take hold now, boys. Bank your fires, then
+we'll patch her up as best we can for the night."
+
+Marian went to her state-room, but not to sleep. There was little
+sleep that night for anybody. In spite of protecting sand-bar and
+anchor, the boat careened wretchedly. Strange groans and shrieks rose
+from the engine-room; hurrying footsteps came and went through the
+narrow gangway. And the rush of the swift current, the bump of
+ice-cakes, and the sweep of floating brush past her window kept her
+aroused and trembling. It seemed years before the tiny window grew
+gray with dawn.
+
+The captain's voice reached her ears.
+
+"No, the _Lucy_ isn't damaged as badly as we thought. But it will take
+us two days of bulkheading before we dare go on. You'd best take your
+sister up to the camp in my launch. It is at your service."
+
+"That's good news!" sighed Marian. "Anything to escape from this
+sinking ship. I don't like playing Casabianca one bit."
+
+She swallowed the hot coffee and corn bread which the captain's boy
+brought to her door, and hurried on deck. Their embarking was highly
+exciting; for poor Empress, having been coaxed with difficulty from
+the eagle's roost, where she had spent the night, promptly lost her
+head at sight of the water and fled shrieking to the pilot-house. Rod,
+the pilot, the engineer, and the young fireman together hunted her
+from her fastness, and, after a wild chase, returned scratched but
+victorious, with Empress raging in a gunny-sack.
+
+"Best keep her there till you're ashore, miss," laughed the young
+fireman. And Marian took the precaution to tie the mouth of the sack
+with double knots.
+
+Up-stream puffed the launch, past Grafton Landing into the narrower
+but clearer current of the Illinois River. Now the black mud banks
+rose into bluffs and wooded hills. Here and there a marshy backwater
+showed a faint tinge of early green. But there was not a village in
+sight; not even a solitary farm-house. Hour after hour they steamed
+slowly up the dull river, beneath the gray mist-hooded sky. Marian
+looked resentfully at her brother. He had unrolled a portfolio of
+blue-prints, and sat over them, as absorbed and as indifferent to the
+cold and discomfort as if he were sitting at his own desk at home.
+
+"He's so rapt over his miserable old contract that he is not giving me
+one thought," Marian sulked to herself. "I just wish that I had put my
+foot down, and had refused, flatly, to come with him. If I had dreamed
+the West would be like this!"
+
+Presently the launch whistled. An answering whistle came from
+up-stream. Rod dropped his blue-prints with a shout.
+
+"Look, Marian. There is the contract camp, the whole plant! See,
+straight ahead!"
+
+Marian stared. There was not a house to be seen; but high on the right
+bank stood an army of tents; and below, moored close to shore, lay a
+whole village of boats, strung in long double file. Midway stood a
+gigantic steam-dredge. Its vivid red-painted machinery reared high on
+its black, oil-soaked platform, its strange sprawling crane spread its
+iron wings, like the pinions of some vast ungainly bird of prey.
+Around it were ranked several flat-boats, a trim steam-launch, a
+whole regiment of house-boats. Rod's eyes sparkled. He drew a sharp
+breath.
+
+"This is my job, all right. Isn't it sumptuous, Marian! Will you look
+at that dredge! Isn't she magnificent? So is the whole outfit, barges
+and all. That's worth walking from Boston to see!"
+
+"Is it?" Marian choked back the vicious little retort. "Well, I'd be
+willing to walk back to Boston--to get away!"
+
+"Ahoy the launch! This is Mr. Hallowell?" A tall, haggard man in
+oilskins and hip boots came striding across the dredge. "Glad to see
+you, sir. We hoped that you would arrive to-day. I am Carlisle, the
+engineer in charge." He leaned over the rail to give Rod's hand a
+friendly grip. He spoke with a dry, formal manner, yet his lean yellow
+face was full of kindly interest. "And this is your sister, Miss
+Hallowell? You have come to a rather forlorn summer resort, Miss
+Hallowell, but we will do our best to make it endurable for you."
+
+Roderick, red with pleasure, stood up to greet his new chief. Behind
+Mr. Carlisle towered a broad-shouldered, heavily built young man, in
+very muddy khaki and leggings, his blond wind-burnt face shining with
+a hospitable grin.
+
+"This is our Mr. Burford, Mr. Hallowell. At present, you and he will
+superintend the night shifts."
+
+Mr. Burford gave Roderick a hearty handshake, and beamed upon Marian.
+
+"Mr. Burford will be particularly glad to welcome you, Miss Hallowell,
+on Mrs. Burford's account. She has been living here on the work for
+several months, the only lady who has graced our camp until to-day. I
+know that she will be eager for your companionship."
+
+Mr. Burford grew fairly radiant.
+
+"Sally Lou will be wild when she learns that you are really here," he
+declared eagerly, in his deep southern drawl. "She has talked of your
+coming every minute since the news came that we might hope to have you
+with us. You will find us a mighty primitive set, but you and Sally
+Lou can have plenty of fun together, I know. I'd like to bring her and
+the kiddies to see you as soon as you feel equal to receiving us."
+
+"Thank you very much." Marian tried her best to be gracious and
+friendly. But she was so tired that young Burford's broad smiling face
+seemed to blur and waver through a thickening mist. "I'm sure I shall
+be charmed----"
+
+"Hi, there!" An angry shout broke upon her words. "Mr. Carlisle, will
+you look here! That foreman of yours has gone off with my skiff again.
+If I'm obliged to share my boat with your impudent riffraff----"
+
+"Mr. Marvin, will you kindly come here a moment?" The chief's voice
+did not lose its even tone; but his heavy brows narrowed. "I wish you
+to meet Mr. Hallowell, who is your and Mr. Burford's new associate.
+Miss Hallowell, may I present Mr. Marvin?"
+
+Marian bowed and looked curiously at the tall, dark-featured young man
+who shuffled forward. She remembered the captain's terse
+description--"a cub engineer, and a grizzly cub at that." Mr. Marvin
+certainly acted the part. He barely nodded to her and to Roderick,
+then clamored on with his grievance.
+
+"You know I've told the men time and again to leave my boat alone.
+But your foreman borrows my launch whenever he takes the notion, and
+leaves her half-swamped, or high and dry, as he chooses. If you won't
+jack him up for it, I will. I'll not tolerate----"
+
+"I'll take that matter up later, Mr. Marvin." Marvin's sullen face
+reddened at the tone in his chief's voice. "Mr. Hallowell, I have
+found lodgings for your sister three miles up the canal, at the Gates
+farm. Mr. Burford will take you to Gates's Landing, thence you will
+drive to the farm-house. Your own quarters will be on the engineers'
+house-boat, and we shall hope to see you here for dinner to-night.
+Good-by, Miss Hallowell. I hope that Mrs. Gates will do everything to
+make you comfortable."
+
+The launch puffed away up the narrow muddy canal. It was a straight,
+deep stream of brown water, barely forty feet wide. Its banks were a
+high-piled mass of mire and clay, for the levee-builders had not yet
+begun work. Beyond rose clumps of leafless trees. Then, far as eye
+could see, muddy fields and gray swampy meadows. Rod gazed, radiant.
+
+"Isn't it splendid, Marian! The finest equipment I ever dreamed of.
+Look at those barges!"
+
+"Those horrid flat-boats heaped with coal?"
+
+"Yes. Think of the yardage record we're making. Five thousand yards a
+day!"
+
+Marian rubbed her aching eyes.
+
+"I don't know a yardage record from a bushel basket," she sighed.
+"What is that queer box-shaped red boat, set on a floating platform?"
+
+"That is the engineers' house-boat, where your brother is to live.
+Mayn't we take you aboard to see?" urged Burford.
+
+Marian stepped on the narrow platform and peered into the cubby-hole
+state-rooms and the clean, scoured mess-room. She was too tired to be
+really interested.
+
+"And that funny, grass-green cabin, set on wooden stilts, up that
+little hill--that play-house?"
+
+Burford laughed.
+
+"That's my play-house. Sally Lou insists on living right here, so that
+she and the babies and Mammy Easter can keep a watchful eye on me. You
+and Sally Lou will be regular chums, I know. She is not more than a
+year or so older than you are, and it has been pretty rough on her to
+leave her home and come down here. But she says she doesn't care; that
+she'd rather rough it down here with me than mope around home, back in
+Norfolk, without me. It surely is a splendid scheme for me to have her
+here." He laughed again, with shy, boyish pride. "Sally Lou is a
+pretty plucky sort. And, if I may say it, so are you."
+
+Marian managed to smile her thanks. Inwardly she was hoping that the
+marvellous Sally Lou would stay away and leave her in peace. She was
+trembling with fatigue. Through the rest of the trip she hardly spoke.
+
+At Gates's Landing they were met by a solemn, bashful youth and a
+buckboard drawn by two raw, excited horses. They whirled and bumped
+through a rutted woods road and stopped at last before a low white
+farm-house. Marian realized dimly that Rod was carrying her upstairs
+and into a small tidy room. She was so utterly tired that she dropped
+on the bed and slept straight through the day.
+
+She did not waken until her landlady's tap called her to supper. Mr.
+and Mrs. Gates, two quiet, elderly people, greeted her kindly, and set
+a Homeric feast before her: shortbread and honey, broiled squirrels
+and pigeon stew, persimmon jam and hot mince pie. She ate dutifully,
+then crept back to her little room, with its mournful hair wreaths and
+its yellowed engravings of "Night and Morning" and "The Death-bed of
+Washington," and fell asleep again.
+
+The three days that followed were like a queer, tired dream. It rained
+night and day. The roads were mired hub deep. Roderick could not drive
+over to see her, but he telephoned to her daily. But his hasty
+messages were little satisfaction. The heavy rains had overflowed the
+big ditch, he told her. That meant extra work for everybody on the
+plant. Carlisle was wretchedly sick, so Rod and Burford were sharing
+their chief's watch in addition to their own duties. Worst, Marvin had
+quarrelled with the head runner of the big dredge, and "We're having
+to spend half our time in coddling them both for fear they'll walk off
+and leave us," as Rod put it. In short, Roderick had neither time nor
+thought for his sister. Marian realized that her brother was not
+inconsiderate. He was absorbed in his work and in its risks. Yet she
+keenly resented her loneliness.
+
+"It isn't Rod's fault. But if I had dreamed that the West would be
+like this!"
+
+But on the fourth day, while she sat at her window looking out at the
+endless rain, there came a surprising diversion.
+
+"A gentleman to see you, Miss Hallowell. Will you come downstairs?"
+
+"Why, Commodore McCloskey!" Marian hurried down, delighted. "How good
+of you to come!"
+
+Commodore McCloskey, dripping from his sou'wester to his mired boots,
+beamed like a drenched but cheery Santa Claus.
+
+"I've taken the liberty to bring a friend to call," he chuckled. "He's
+young an' green, an' 'tis few manners he owns, but he's good stock,
+an'--Here, ye rascal! Shame on ye, startin' a fight the minute ye
+enter the house!"
+
+Marian gasped. Past her, with a wild miauw, shot a yellow streak. That
+streak was Empress. Straight after the streak flew a fat, brown,
+curly object, yapping at the top of its powerful lungs. Up the
+window-curtain scrambled Empress. With a frantic leap she landed on
+the frame of Grandpa Gates's large crayon portrait. Beneath the
+portrait her curly pursuer yelped and whined.
+
+"Why, he's a collie puppy. Oh, what a beauty! What is his name?"
+
+"Beauty he is. And his name is Finnegan, after the poem, 'Off again,
+on again, gone again, Finnegan.' Do ye remember? 'Tis him to the life.
+He is a prisint to ye from Missis McCloskey and meself. An' our
+compliments an' good wishes go wid him!"
+
+"How more than kind of you!" Marian, delighted, stooped to pat her new
+treasure. Finnegan promptly leaped on her and spattered her fresh
+dress with eager, muddy paws. He then caught the table-cover in his
+teeth. With one frisky bounce he brought a shower of books and
+magazines to the floor. Mr. McCloskey clutched for his collar. The
+puppy gayly eluded him and made a dash for the pantry. Marian caught
+him just as he was diving headlong into the open flour-barrel.
+
+"I do thank you so much! He'll be such a pleasure; and such a
+protection," gasped Marian, snatching Mrs. Gates's knitting work from
+the puppy's inquiring paws.
+
+"'Tis hardly a protector I'd call him," Mr. McCloskey returned. "But
+he'll sure keep your mind employed some. Good-day to ye, ma'am. And
+good luck with Finnegan."
+
+Poor Empress! In her delight with this new plaything, Marian quite
+forgot her elder companion. Moreover, as Mr. McCloskey had said,
+Finnegan could and did keep her mind employed, and her hands as well.
+
+"That pup is energetic enough, but he don't appear to have much
+judgment," said Mrs. Gates, mildly. In two hours Finnegan had carried
+off the family supply of rubbers and hid them in the corn-crib; he had
+torn up one of Rod's blue-prints; he had terrorized the hen-yard; he
+had chased Empress from turret to foundation-stone. At length Empress
+had turned on him and cuffed him till he yelped and fled to the
+kitchen, where he upset a pan of bread sponge.
+
+"Suppose you take him for a walk, down to the big ditch. Maybe the
+fresh air will calm him down."
+
+Marian made a leash of clothes-line and marched Finnegan down the
+sodden woods toward the ditch. She was so busy laughing at his droll
+performances that she quite forgot the dull fields, the wet, gray
+prospect. Crimson-cheeked and breathless, she finally dragged him from
+the third alluring rabbit-hole, despite his pleading whines, and
+started back up the canal. As she pushed through a hedge of willows a
+sweet, high, laughing voice accosted her.
+
+"Good-morning, my haughty lady! Won't you stop and talk with us a
+while?"
+
+Startled, Marian turned toward the call. Across the ditch, high on the
+opposite bank, stood the quaintest, prettiest group that her eyes had
+ever beheld. A tall, fair-haired girl of her own age, dressed in a
+bewitching short-waisted gown of scarlet and a frilly scarlet bonnet,
+stood in the leafless willows, a tiny white-clad child in her arms.
+Behind her a stout beaming negress in bandanna turban and gay plaid
+calico was lifting another baby high on her ample shoulder.
+
+Marian stared, astonished. The whole group might well have stepped
+straight out of some captivating old engraving of the days before the
+war.
+
+"Haven't you time to pass the time o' day?" the sweet, mischievous
+voice entreated. "You are Miss Hallowell, I know. I'm Sarah Louisiana
+Burford, and I am just perishin' to meet you. There is a board bridge
+just a rod or so up the canal. We'll meet you there. Do please come,
+and bring your delightful dog. March right along now!"
+
+And Marian, laughing with amusement and delight, marched obediently
+along.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS
+
+
+Marian picked her way up the shore to the board bridge, with Finnegan
+prancing behind her. She felt a little abashed as she remembered her
+rather tart indifference to young Burford's cordial invitation of the
+week before. But all her embarrassment melted away as she crossed the
+little bridge and met Sally Lou's welcoming face, her warm clasping
+hands.
+
+"You don't know how hungry I have been to see you," vowed Sally Lou,
+her brown eyes kindling under the scarlet bonnet.
+
+"We've been counting the hours till we should dare to go to call on
+Miss Northerner, haven't we, kiddies? This is my son, Edward Fairfax
+Burford, Junior, Miss Hallowell. Three years old, three feet square,
+and weighs forty-one pounds. Isn't he rather gorgeous--if he does
+belong to me! And this is Thomas Tucker Burford. Eighteen months
+old, twenty-six pounds, and the disposition of an angel, as long as he
+gets his own way. And this is Mammy Easter, who came all the way from
+Norfolk with me, to take care of the babies, so that I could live here
+on the contract with Ned. Wasn't she brave to come out to this cold,
+lonesome country all for me? And this martin-box is my house, and it
+is anxious to meet you, too, so come right in!"
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE EDGE OF THE OPPOSITE BANK STOOD THE QUAINTEST,
+   PRETTIEST GROUP THAT HER EYES HAD EVER BEHELD.]
+
+Marian climbed the high, narrow outside steps that led to the tiny
+play-house on stilts, and entered the low, red doorway, feeling as if
+she had climbed Jack's bean-stalk into fairyland. Inside, the
+martin-box was even more fascinating. It boasted just three rooms. The
+largest room, gay with Mother Goose wall-paper and rosy chintz, was
+obviously the realm of Edward, Junior, and Thomas Tucker. The next
+room, with its cunning miniature fireplace, its shelves of books, its
+pictures and photographs, and its broad high-piled desk, was their
+parents' abode; while the third room boasted fascinating white-painted
+cupboards and sink, a tiny alcohol stove, and a wee table daintily
+set.
+
+"Aren't you shocked at folks that eat in their kitchen?" drawled Sally
+Lou, observing Marian with dancing eyes. "But all our baking and heavy
+cooking is done for us, over on the quarter-boat. I brought the stove
+to heat the babies' milk; and, too, I like to fuss up goodies for Ned
+when he is tired or worried. Poor boys! They're having such an
+exasperating time with the contract this week! Everything seems
+possessed to go awry. We'll have to see to it that they get a lot of
+coddling so's to keep them cheered up, won't we?"
+
+"Why, I--I suppose so. But how did you dare to bring your little
+children down here? They say that this is the most malarial district
+in the State."
+
+"I know. But they can't catch malaria until May, when the mosquitoes
+come. Then I shall send them to a farm, back in the higher land. Mammy
+will take care of them; and I'll stay down here with Ned during the
+day and go to the babies at night. They're pretty sturdy little tads.
+They are not likely to catch anything unless their mother is careless
+with them. And she isn't careless, really. Is she, Tom Tucker?" She
+snatched up her youngest son, with a hug that made his fat ribs
+creak. "Come, now! Let's brew some stylish afternoon tea for the lady.
+Get down the caravan tea that father sent us, Mammy, and the preserved
+ginger, and my Georgian spoons. And fix some chicken bones on the
+stoop for Miss Northerner's puppy. This is going to be a banquet, and
+a right frabjous one, too!"
+
+It was a banquet, and a frabjous one, Marian agreed. Sally Lou's tea
+and Mammy's nut-cakes were delicious beyond words. The bright little
+house, the dainty service, Sally Lou's charming gay talk, the babies,
+clinging wide-eyed and adorable to her knee, all warmed and heartened
+Marian's listless soul. She was ravished with everything. She looked
+in wonder and delight at the high sleeping-porch, with its double
+mosquito bars and its duck screening and its cosey hammock-beds. ("Ned
+sleeps so much better here, where it is quiet, than on that noisy
+boat," Sally Lou explained.) She gazed with deep respect at the tiny
+pantry, built of soap-boxes, lined with snowy oil-cloth. She marvelled
+at the exquisite old silver, the fine embroidered table-linen, the
+delicate china. And she caught her breath when her eyes lighted upon
+the beautiful painting in oils that hung above young Burford's desk.
+It was a magical bit of color: a dreamy Italian garden, walled in
+ancient carved and mellowed stone, its slopes and borders a glory of
+roses, flaunting in splendid bloom; and past its flowery gates, a
+glimpse of blue, calm sea. She could hardly turn her eyes away from
+the lovely vista. It was as restful as an April breeze. And across the
+lower corner she read the clear tracing of the signature, a
+world-famous name.
+
+Sally Lou followed her glance.
+
+"You surely think I'm a goose, don't you, to bring my gold teaspoons,
+and my wedding linen, and my finest tea-set down to a wilderness like
+this? Well, perhaps I am. And yet the very best treasures that we own
+are none too good for our home, you know. And this _is_ home. Any
+place is home when Ned and the babies and I are together. Besides, the
+very fact that this place is so queer and ugly and dismal is the best
+of reasons why we need all our prettiest things, and need to use them
+every day, don't you see? So I picked out my sacredest treasures to
+bring along. And that painting--yes, it was running a risk to bring so
+valuable a canvas down here. But doesn't it just rest your heart to
+look at it? That is why I wanted it with us every minute. You can look
+at that blue sleepy sky, and those roses climbing the garden wall, and
+the sea below, and forget all about the noisy, grimy boats, and the
+mud, and sleet, and malaria, and the cross laborers, and the broken
+machinery, and everything else; and just look, and look, and dream.
+That is why I carted it along. Especially on Ned's account, don't you
+see?"
+
+"Y-yes." At last Marian took her wistful eyes from the picture. "I
+wish that I had thought to bring some good photographs to hang in
+Rod's state-room. I never thought. But there is no room to pin up even
+a picture post-card in his cubby-hole on the boat. I must go on now. I
+have had a beautiful time."
+
+"There goes your brother this minute! In that little red launch, see?
+He is going up the ditch. Ring the dinner-bell, Mammy, that will stop
+him. He can take you and your dog up to Gates's Landing and save you
+half an hour's muddy walk."
+
+Mammy's dinner-bell pealed loud alarm. Roderick heard and swung the
+boat right-about. His sober, anxious face lighted as Marian and Sally
+Lou gayly hailed him.
+
+"I'm glad that you've met Mrs. Burford," he said, as he helped Marian
+aboard and hoisted Finnegan astern with some difficulty and many
+yelps; for Finnegan left his chicken-bones only under forcible urging.
+"She is just about the best ever, and I hope you two will be regular
+chums."
+
+"I love her this minute," declared Marian, with enthusiasm. "Where are
+you bound, Rod? Mayn't Finnegan and I tag along?"
+
+Rod's face grew worried.
+
+"I'm bound upon a mighty ticklish cruise, Sis. It is a ridiculous
+cruise, too. Do you remember what I told you last week about the law
+that governs the taxing of the land-owners for the making of these
+ditches?"
+
+"Yes. You said that when the majority of the land-owners had agreed on
+doing the drainage work, then the law made every owner pay his tax,
+in proportion to the acreage of his land which would be drained by the
+ditches, whether he himself wanted the drainage done or not. And you
+said that some of the farmers did not want the ditches dug, and that
+they were holding back their payments and making trouble for the
+contractors; while others were making still more trouble by blocking
+the right of way and refusing to let the dredges cut through their
+land. But how can they hold you back, Rod? The law says that all the
+district people must share in the drainage expenses, whether they like
+to or not, because the majority of their neighbors have agreed upon
+it."
+
+"The law says exactly that. Yes. But there are a lot of kinks to
+drainage law, and the farmers know it. Burford says that two or three
+of them have been making things lively for the company from the start.
+But just now we have only one troublesome customer to deal with. And
+she is a woman, that is the worst of it. She is a well-to-do,
+eccentric old lady, who owns a splendid farm, just beyond the Gateses.
+She paid her drainage assessment willingly enough. But now she says
+that, last fall, the boys who made the survey tramped through her
+watermelon-field and broke some vines and sneaked off with three
+melons. At least, so she indignantly states. Maybe it is so; although
+the boys swear it was a pumpkin-field, and that they didn't steal so
+much as a jack-o'-lantern. Furthermore, she has put up barb wire and
+trespass notices straight across the contract right of way; and she
+has sent us notice that she is guarding that right of way with a gun,
+and that the first engineer who pokes his nose across her boundary
+line is due to receive a full charge of buckshot. Sort of a shot-gun
+quarantine, see? Now we must start dredging the lateral that crosses
+her land next Monday, at the latest. It must be done at the present
+stage of high water, else we'll have to delay dredging it until fall.
+Carlisle planned to call on her to-day, and to mollify her if
+possible, but he's too sick. So I must elbow in myself, and see what
+my shirt-sleeve diplomacy can do. I'm glad that I can take you along.
+Perhaps you can help to thaw her out."
+
+"Of all the weird calls to make! What is the old lady like, Rod?"
+
+"Burford says that she is a droll character. She has managed her own
+farm for forty years, and has made a fine success of it. Her name is
+Mrs. Chrisenberry. She is not educated, but she is very capable, and
+very kind-hearted when you once get on the right side of her. Yonder
+is her landing. Don't look so scared, Sis. She won't eat you."
+
+Marian's fear dissolved in giggles as they teetered up the narrow
+board walk to the low brick farm-house. They could not find a
+door-bell; they rapped and pounded until their knuckles ached.
+Finnegan yapped helpfully and chewed the husk door-mat. At last, a
+forbidding voice sounded from the rear of the house.
+
+"You needn't bang my door down. Come round to the dryin' yard, unless
+you're agents. If you're agents, you needn't come at all. I'm busy."
+
+Meekly Rod and Marian followed this hospitable summons.
+
+Across the muddy drying yard stretched rows of clothes-line,
+fluttering white. Beside a heaped basket of wet, snowy linen stood a
+very short, very stout little old lady, her thick woollen skirts
+tucked up under a spotless white apron, her small nut-cracker face
+glowering from under a sun-bonnet almost as large as herself. She took
+three clothes-pins from her mouth and scowled at Rod.
+
+"Well!" said she. "Name your business. But I don't want no
+graphophones, nor patent chick-feed, nor golden-oak dinin'-room sets,
+nor Gems of Poesy with gilt edges. Mind that."
+
+Marian choked. Rod knew that choke. Tears of strangling laughter stood
+in his eyes as he humbly stuttered his errand.
+
+"W-we engineers of the Breckenridge Company wish to offer our sincere
+apologies for any annoyance that our surveyors may have caused you. We
+are anxious to make any reparation that we can. And--er--we find
+ourselves obliged, on account of the high water, to cut our east
+laterals at once. We will be very grateful to you if you will be so
+kind as to overlook our trespasses of last season, and will permit us
+to go on with our work. I speak for the company as well as for
+myself."
+
+The old lady stared at him, with unwinking, beady eyes. There was a
+painful pause.
+
+"Well, I don't know. You're a powerful slick, soft-spoken young man.
+I'll say that much for you." Marian gulped, and stooped hurriedly to
+pat Finnegan. "And I don't know as I have any lastin' gredge against
+your company. Them melons was frost-bit, anyway. But if you do start
+your machinery on that lateral, mind I don't want no more tamperin'
+with my garden stuff. And I don't want your men a-cavortin' around,
+runnin' races on my land, nor larkin' evenings, nor comin' to the
+house for drinks of water. One of them surveyors, last fall, he come
+to the door for a drink, an' I was fryin' crullers, an' he asked for
+one, bold as brass. Says I, 'Help yourself.' Well, he did that. There
+was a blue platter brim full, and if he didn't set down an' eat every
+single cruller, down to the last crumb! An' then he had the impudence
+to tell me to my face that they was tolerable good crullers, but that
+he'd wager the next platterful would taste better than the first, an'
+he'd like to try and find out for sure!"
+
+"I don't blame him. I'd like to try that experiment myself," said Rod
+serenely. The old lady glared. Then the ghost of a twinkle flickered
+under the vasty sun-bonnet.
+
+"Well, as I say, I ain't made up my mind yet. But I'll let you know
+to-night, maybe. Now you'd better be goin'. Looks like more rain."
+
+"Can't we help you with the clothes first?" asked Marian. The old lady
+shook out a huge, wet table-cloth and stood on tip-toe to pin it
+carefully on the line.
+
+"You might, yes. Take these pillow-cases. But don't you drop them in
+the mud. My clothes-line broke down last week, and didn't I spend a
+day of it, doin' my whole week's wash over again!"
+
+The strong breeze caught the big cloth and whipped it like a banner.
+Finnegan, who had been waiting politely in the background, beheld this
+signal with joy. With a gay yelp he bolted past Marian and seized a
+corner of the table-cloth in his teeth.
+
+"Scat!" cried Mrs. Chrisenberry, startled. "Where did that pup come
+from? Shoo!"
+
+Finnegan, unheeding, took a tighter grip, and swung his fat heavy body
+from the ground. There was a sickening sound of tearing linen. Marian
+stood transfixed. Rod, his arms full of wet pillow-slips, dashed to
+the rescue. But he was not in time.
+
+"Scat, I say!" Mrs. Chrisenberry flapped her apron.
+
+Amiable creature, she wanted to play with him! Enchanted, the puppy
+let go the table-cloth and dashed at her, under full steam. His sturdy
+paws struck Mrs. Chrisenberry with the force of a young battering-ram.
+With an astonished shriek she swayed back, clutching at the
+table-cloth to steady herself. But the table-cloth and clothes-pins
+could not hold a moment against the onslaught of the heavy puppy. By
+good fortune, the basketful of clothes stood directly behind Mrs.
+Chrisenberry. As the faithless table-cloth slid from the rope, back
+she pitched, with a terrified squeal, to land, safely if forcibly, in
+its snowy depths.
+
+Marian, quite past speech, sank on the porch steps. Rod stood gaping
+with horror. Mrs. Chrisenberry rose up with appalling calm.
+
+"You! You come here. You--varmint!"
+
+Finnegan did not hesitate. Trustfully he gambolled up; gayly he
+seized her apron hem in his white milk teeth and bit out a
+feather-stitched scallop. Mrs. Chrisenberry stooped. Her broad palm
+landed heavily on Finnegan's curly ear.
+
+Alas for discipline! Finnegan dodged back and eyed her, amazed. One
+grieved yelp rent the air. Then, instantly repenting, he leaped upon
+her and smothered her with muddy kisses. This was merely the lady's
+way of playing with him. How could he resent it!
+
+Then Rod came to his wits. He seized Mr. Finnegan by the collar and
+cuffed him into bewildered silence. He caught up the wrecked
+table-cloth and the miry pillow-slips, he poured out regrets and
+apologies and promises in an all but tearful stream. Mrs. Chrisenberry
+did not say one word. Her small nut-cracker face set, ominous.
+
+"You needn't waste no more soft sawder," said she, at length. "I 'low
+these are just the rampagin' doings I could look for every day if I
+once gave you folks permission to bring your dredge on my land. So I
+may's well make up my mind right now. Tell your boss that those
+trespass signs an' that barb wire are still up, and that they'll most
+likely stay up till doomsday. Good-mornin'."
+
+"Well! I don't give much for my shirt-sleeve diplomacy," groaned Rod,
+as they teetered away, down the board walk.
+
+"I'm sorry, Rod." Then Marian choked again. Weak with laughter, she
+clung to the gate-post. "It was j-just like a moving picture! And when
+she vanished into the basket--Oh, dear--oh, dear!"
+
+"You better believe it was exactly like a moving picture," muttered
+Rod. "It all went so fast I couldn't get there in time to do one
+thing. It went like a cinematograph--Zip! And off flew all our chances
+for all time. Finnegan, you scoundrel! Do you realize that your
+playful little game will cost the company a lawsuit and a small
+fortune besides?"
+
+Finnegan barked and took a friendly nip of Rod's ankle. Finnegan's
+young conscience was crystal-clear.
+
+"Let's take the launch down to Burford's and tell them our
+misfortunes," said Rod. "I need sympathy."
+
+The Burfords heard their mournful tale with shouts of unpitying joy.
+
+"Yes, I know, it's hard luck. Especially with Marvin in the sulks and
+Carlisle sick," said Ned Burford, wiping his eyes. "But the next time
+you start diplomatic negotiations, you had better leave that dog at
+home. I'm going over to the house-boat to tell Mr. Carlisle. Poor sick
+fellow, this story will amuse him if anything can."
+
+He jumped into the launch. A minute later Rod brought it alongside the
+house-boat and Burford disappeared within.
+
+"Mr. Carlisle, sir!" They heard his laughing voice at the chief's
+state-room door. "May I come in? Will I disturb you if I tell you a
+good joke on Hallowell?"
+
+There was a pause. Then came a rush of feet. Burford dashed from the
+cabin and confronted Rod and Marian. His face was very white.
+
+"Hallowell! Come aboard, quick!" he said, in a shaking voice. "Mr.
+Carlisle is terribly ill. He's lying there looking like death; he
+couldn't even speak to me. Hurry!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY
+
+
+Roderick leaped aboard. Marian followed, trembling with fear.
+
+Mr. Carlisle lay in his seaman's hammock beside the window. His gaunt
+hands were like ice. His lean face was ashen gray. But he nodded
+weakly and put out a shaking, courteous hand.
+
+"Too bad to alarm you thus," he gasped. "I--I was afraid of this.
+Malaria plays ugly tricks with a man's heart now and then. You'd
+better ship me to the hospital at Saint Louis. They can patch me up in
+a week probably. Only, the sooner you can get me there, the better."
+
+"You call the foreman and tell him to get up steam on the big launch,
+Hallowell." Burford, very pale, took command of the situation. "Miss
+Hallowell, will you go and bring Sally Lou? I want her right away.
+She's all kinds of good in an emergency."
+
+Marian fled, her own heart pounding in her throat. But Sally Lou,
+after the first scared questions, rose to the occasion, steady and
+serene.
+
+"Light the stove and make our soapstones and sand-bags piping-hot,
+Mammy. Heat some bouillon and put it into the thermos bottle. Ned, you
+and the foreman must take him down to Grafton Landing on the launch.
+The _Lucy Lee_ is due to reach Grafton late this afternoon. I'll catch
+the _Lucy's_ captain on the long-distance telephone at the landing
+above Grafton, and tell him to wait at Grafton Landing till you get
+there with Mr. Carlisle. Then you can put him aboard the _Lucy_. She
+will make Saint Louis in half the time that you could make it with the
+launch. Besides, the _Lucy_ will mean far easier travelling for Mr.
+Carlisle."
+
+"I never thought of the _Lucy_! I'd meant to wait with him at the
+Landing and take the midnight train. But the steam-boat will be a far
+easier trip. Sally Lou, you certainly are a peach!" Young Burford
+looked at his wife with solemn admiration. "Go and telephone, quick.
+We'll have Carlisle ready to start in an hour."
+
+In less than an hour the launch was made ready, with cot and pillows
+and curtains, as like an ambulance as a launch could well be. With
+clumsy anxious pains Roderick and Burford lifted their chief aboard.
+Marian hung behind, eager to help, yet too frightened and nervous to
+be of service. But Sally Lou, her yellow hair flying under her ruffly
+red bonnet, her baby laughing and crowing on her shoulder, popped her
+flushed face gayly under the awning to bid Mr. Carlisle good-by.
+
+"If it wasn't for these babies I'd go straight along and take care of
+you myself, Mr. Carlisle," she cried. "But the hospital will take
+better care of you than I could, I reckon. And the week's vacation
+will do you no end of good. Besides it will set these two lazybones to
+work." She gave her husband a gentle shake. "Ned and Mr. Hallowell
+will have to depend on themselves, instead of leaving all the
+responsibility to you. It will be the making of them. You'll see!"
+
+"Perhaps that is true." Carlisle's gray lips smiled. He was white with
+suffering, but he spoke with his unvarying kind formality. "I am
+leaving you gentlemen with a pretty heavy load. But--I am not
+apprehensive. I know that you boys will stand up to the contract, and
+that you will carry it on with success. Good-by, and good luck to
+you!"
+
+The launch shot away down-stream. Sally Lou looked after it. Marian
+saw her sparkling eyes grow very grave.
+
+"Mr. Carlisle is mighty brave, isn't he? But he will not come back to
+work in a week's time. No, nor in a month's time either if I know
+anything about it. But there's no use a-glooming, is there, Thomas
+Tucker! You two come up to my house and we'll have supper together and
+watch for Ned; for if he meets the _Lucy_ at Grafton he can bring the
+launch back by ten to-night."
+
+Sally Lou was a good prophet. It was barely nine when Ned's launch
+whistled at the landing. Ned climbed the steps, looking tired and
+excited.
+
+"Yes, we overhauled the _Lucy_, all right. Mr. Carlisle seemed much
+more comfortable when we put him aboard. He joked me about being so
+frightened and said he'd come back in a day or so as good as new.
+But--I don't know how we'll manage here. With Carlisle laid up, and
+Marvin gone off in the sulks, for nobody knows how long--Well, for the
+next few days this contract is up to us, Hallowell. That is all there
+is to that. And we've got to make good. We've got to put it through."
+
+"You certainly must make good. And it is up to us girls to help things
+along," said Sally Lou, briskly. "Isn't it, Marian? Yes, I'm going to
+call you Marian right away. It's such a saving of time compared to
+'Miss Hallowell.' And the very first thing to-morrow morning we will
+drive over to Mrs. Chrisenberry's, and coax her into letting you boys
+start that lateral through her land."
+
+Three startled faces turned to her. Three astounded voices rose.
+
+"Coax her, indeed! On my word! When she drove Rod and me off the place
+this very morning!"
+
+"Think you dare ask her to take down her barb-wire barricade and lay
+away her shot-gun? 'Not till doomsday!'"
+
+"Sally Lou, are you daft? You've never laid eyes on Mrs. Chrisenberry.
+You don't know what you're tackling. We'll not put that lateral
+through till we've dragged the whole question through the courts.
+Don't waste your time in dreaming, child."
+
+"I'm not going to dream. I'm going to act. You'll go with me, won't
+you, Marian? We'll take the babies and the buckboard. But, if you
+don't mind, we'll leave Mr. Finnegan at home. Finnegan's diplomacy is
+all right, only that it's a trifle demonstrative. Yes, you boys are
+welcome to shake your heads and look owlish. But wait and see!"
+
+"She'll never try to face that ferocious old lady," said Rod, on the
+way home.
+
+"Of course not. She's just making believe," rejoined Marian.
+
+Little did they know Sally Lou! Marian had just finished her breakfast
+the next morning when the yellow buckboard, drawn by a solemn, scraggy
+horse, drove up to Mrs. Gates's door. On the front seat, rosy as her
+scarlet gown and cloak, sat Sally Lou. From the back seat beamed
+Mammy Easter, in her gayest bandanna, with Edward Burford, Junior,
+dimpled and irresistible, beside her, and Thomas Tucker bouncing and
+crowing in her arms.
+
+"Climb right in, Miss Northerner! Good-by, poor Finnegan! This time
+we're going to try the persuasive powers of two babies as compared to
+those of one collie. Here we go!"
+
+"Are we really going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's? Are you actually planning
+to ask her for the right of way?" queried Marian.
+
+Sally Lou chuckled. Her round face was guileless and bland.
+
+"Certainly not. I am going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's to buy some
+goose-grease."
+
+"To buy some _goose-grease_! Horrors! What is goose-grease, pray?"
+
+"Goose-grease is goose-grease. Didn't you ever have the croup when you
+were young, Miss Northerner? And didn't they roll you in warm
+blankets, and then bandage your poor little throat with goose-grease
+and camphor and red pepper?"
+
+"An' a baked onion for your supper," added Mammy Easter. "An' a big
+saucer of butterscotch, sizzlin'-hot. Dey ain't no croup what kin
+stand before dat!"
+
+"Mercy, I should hope not. I never heard of anything so dreadful. You
+aren't going to give goose-grease to your own babies, I hope?"
+
+Sally Lou surveyed her uproarious sons, and allowed herself a brief
+giggle.
+
+"They've never had a sign of croup so far, I'm thankful to say. But
+one ought to be prepared. And Mrs. Chrisenberry has the finest
+poultry-yard in the country-side. We'll enjoy seeing that, too. Don't
+look so dubersome. Wait and see!"
+
+Mrs. Chrisenberry was working in her vegetable garden as they drove
+up. Her queer little face was bound in a huge many-colored "nuby," her
+short skirts were kilted over high rubber boots. She leaned on her
+spade and gave the girls a nod that, as Marian told Rod later, was
+like a twelve-pound shot squarely across the enemy's bows.
+
+Sally Lou merely beamed upon her.
+
+"Wet weather for putting in your garden, isn't it?" she cried, gayly.
+"I'm Mrs. Burford, Mrs. Chrisenberry. My husband is an engineer on
+the Breckenridge contract."
+
+"H'm!" Mrs. Chrisenberry glared. Sally Lou chattered gayly on.
+
+"I'm staying down at the canal with these two youngsters, and I want
+to buy some of your fine goose-grease. They've never had croup in all
+their born days, but it's such a cold, wet spring that it is well to
+be prepared for anything."
+
+"Goose-grease!" Mrs. Chrisenberry looked at her keenly. "For those
+babies? Highty-tighty! Goose-grease is well enough, but hot mutton
+taller is better yet. I've raised two just as fine boys as them, so I
+know. Mutton taller an' camphire, that's sovereign."
+
+She put down her spade and picked her way to the buckboard. Edward
+Junior hailed her with a shriek of welcome. Thomas Tucker floundered
+wildly in Mammy's grasp and clutched Mrs. Chrisenberry around the neck
+with a strangling squeeze.
+
+Marian gasped. For Mrs. Chrisenberry, grim, stern little nut-cracker
+lady, had lifted Thomas to her stooped little shoulder and was
+gathering Edward Junior into a lean strong little arm. Both babies
+crowed with satisfaction. Thomas jerked off the tasselled nuby and
+showered rose-leaf kisses from Mrs. Chrisenberry's tight knob of gray
+hair to the tip of her dour little chin. Edward pounded her gleefully
+with fists and feet.
+
+"They'll strangle her," Marian whispered, aghast.
+
+"Pooh, she doesn't mind," Sally Lou whispered back. "You mustn't let
+them pull you to pieces, Mrs. Chrisenberry. They're as strong as
+little bear cubs."
+
+"Guess I know that." Mrs. Chrisenberry shook Edward's fat grip loose
+from her tatting collar. "They're the living images of my own boys,
+thirty years ago. I hope your children bring you as good luck as mine
+have brought me. They've grown up as fine men as you'd find in a day's
+journey. Let me take 'em to see the hen yard. They'll like to play
+with the little chickens, I know."
+
+Edward and Thomas Tucker were charmed with the hen yard. They fell
+upon a brood of tiny yellow balls with cries of ecstasy. Only the
+irate pecks and squawks of the outraged hen mother prevented them
+from hugging the fuzzy peepers to a loving death.
+
+"They're a pretty lively team," remarked Mrs. Chrisenberry. "Let's
+take 'em into the house, and I'll give them some cookies and milk. I
+don't know much about new-fangled ways of feeding children, but I do
+know that my cookies never hurt anybody yet."
+
+She led them through her shining kitchen into a big, bright
+sitting-room. Again Marian halted to stare. This was not the customary
+chill and dreary farm-house "parlor." Instead, she saw a wide,
+fire-lit living-room, filled with flowering plants, home-like with its
+books and pictures; and at the arched bay-window a beautiful upright
+piano.
+
+Mrs. Chrisenberry followed her glance.
+
+"Land, I don't ever touch it," she said, with a dry little nut-cracker
+chuckle. "My oldest boy he gave it to me, for he knows I'm that hungry
+for music, and whenever my daughter-in-law comes to visit she plays
+for me by the hour, and it's something grand. And now and then a
+neighbor will pick out a tune for me. My, don't I wish I could keep
+it goin' all the time! You girls don't play, I suppose?"
+
+Sally Lou's eyes met Marian's with a quick question. Marian's cheeks
+grew hot.
+
+"I--I play a little. But I'm sure that Mrs. Burford----"
+
+"Mrs. Burford will play some other time," interrupted Sally Lou,
+hastily. "Go on, that's a good girl!"
+
+Now, it bored Marian dismally to play for strangers. She refused so
+habitually that few of her friends knew what a delightful pianist she
+really was. But dimly she realized that Sally Lou's eyes were flashing
+with anxious command. She opened the piano.
+
+She ran through the airs from the "Tales from Hoffmann," then played a
+romping folk-dance, and, at last, the lovely magic of the "Spring
+Song."
+
+Mrs. Chrisenberry hardly breathed. She sat rigidly in her chair, her
+knotted little hands shut tight, her beady eyes unwinking.
+
+"My, but that goes to the place," she sighed, as the last airy harmony
+died away. "Now I'll bring your cookies and milk, you lambs, and then
+you'd better be starting home. It looks like rain."
+
+Marian and Sally Lou fell behind in the procession to the carriage.
+Edward Junior toddled down the board walk, clinging to his hostess's
+skirt. Thomas Tucker laughed and gurgled in her arms. Mrs.
+Chrisenberry put Thomas on Mammy's lap, then picked up Edward, who,
+loath to depart, squeezed her neck with warm, crumby little hands and
+snuggled his fat cheek to her own. Mrs. Chrisenberry looked down at
+him. Her grim little nut-cracker face quivered oddly. A dim pink
+warmed her brown, withered cheek.
+
+"It's nice while they're little, isn't it?" she said, with a queer,
+wistful smile. "Though I dassent complain. My boys are the best sons
+anybody ever had, and they treat me like a queen. Here, son, stop
+pulling my ears so hard; it hurts. Now, I'll send you a whole bowlful
+of mutton taller to-morrow; and a jar of goose-grease the very next
+rendering I make. Didn't you say you're living on the drainage job?
+Well"--the dim pink grew bright in her cheek--"well, you tell your
+man that he kin go right ahead and cut his ditch through my land. I'll
+not stand in the way no longer. Though tell him that I'll expect him
+to see that his men don't tramp through my garden nor steal my
+watermelons. Mind that."
+
+"I know I can promise that, always." Sally Lou's eyes were brown
+stars. "And thank you more than tongue can tell, Mrs. Chrisenberry.
+You don't know what this will mean to my husband, and I never can tell
+you how much we shall appreciate your kindness. Packed in all right,
+Mammy? Come, Edward, son. Good-by!"
+
+They drove away in the silence of utter, astonished joy.
+
+"Your goose-grease worked that miracle, Sally Lou!"
+
+"Nonsense! It was your music that carried the day. But oh, I was so
+afraid you were going to say no!"
+
+Again Marian's cheeks flushed hot, with queer, vexed shame.
+
+"Well, I did all but refuse. I do hate to play for anybody, especially
+for strangers."
+
+"Why?" Sally Lou looked hopelessly puzzled. "But when it gives them so
+much pleasure! And besides, if you want a selfish reason, think how
+you have helped the boys. There they come now."
+
+With a joyful call Sally Lou waved her scarf to the two figures
+plodding up the canal road. Then as the flimsy silk could not do
+justice to her feelings, she caught up little Thomas Tucker and
+flourished him, a somewhat ponderous banner. The boys hurried to meet
+them. They listened to the girls' excited tale, at first unbelieving,
+then with faces of amazement and relief.
+
+"Well, you two girls deserve a diamond medal," declared Burford,
+heartily. His flushed, perturbed face brightened. "You don't know what
+a load you have taken off our shoulders." He looked at Roderick. "This
+is a real sterling-silver lining to our cloud, isn't it, Hallowell? So
+big that it fairly bulges out around the edges."
+
+"A silver lining to what cloud, Ned?" demanded Sally Lou, promptly
+curious. "Has something gone wrong with the work? Another break in the
+machinery? Or trouble among the laborers, or what?"
+
+The two boys looked at each other. Marian studied their faces. Burford
+was flushed and excited. Rod's stolid, dark face was frowning and
+intent.
+
+"Own up!" commanded Sally Lou, sternly. "Don't you dare try to keep
+your dark and dreadful secrets from us!"
+
+The boys laughed. But a quick warning glance flashed from one to the
+other. Then Burford spoke.
+
+"Don't conjure up so many bogies, Sally Lou. We--we've had bad news
+from Mr. Carlisle. His doctor told me, over the long-distance, that he
+would not be able to leave the hospital for a fortnight. And he must
+not come back on the work for two months at the best."
+
+Sally Lou sobered.
+
+"That is bad news. Poor Mr. Carlisle! But is that all that you have to
+tell me, Ned?"
+
+Burford jumped. He reddened a little.
+
+"Y-yes, I reckon that's all. You girls will have to excuse us now.
+Hallowell and I are going back to our boat-house to fix up our March
+reports."
+
+"Anything we two can help about?"
+
+"You two have put in a mighty good day's work in securing that right
+of way. Though if you're hunting for a job you might verify the
+yardage report I left on your desk. Run along now, we're going to be
+busy."
+
+"Such is gratitude," remarked Sally Lou, with ironic philosophy, as
+she drove away. "'Run along, we're busy.' Just like a boy!"
+
+Roderick and Ned looked after the buckboard, a little shame-faced at
+Sally Lou's parting shot.
+
+"Just the same, it does no good to tell them all our ill-luck," said
+Burford.
+
+"And Marvin's threatening to quit is even worse luck than Carlisle's
+illness. For his quarrel with the foreman has started half a dozen
+quarrels among the workmen. Queer, isn't it? A grouch like that will
+spread like wild-fire through a whole camp."
+
+"Marvin is waiting on the house-boat for us this minute." Ned peered
+through a telescope of his hands. "Now we'll listen to a tale of woe!"
+
+Marvin did not wait till they could reach the boat. His angry voice
+rang out across the canal.
+
+"Well, _Mister_ Hallowell! I just got the note that you so kindly
+sent me. So you and Mr. Burford here think that I ought to stand by
+the job, hey, 'and not let my private quarrels influence me into
+deserting the contract?' Thank you, _Mister_ Hallowell, for your kind
+advice. But I rather guess I can get along without any orders from
+either of you two swells. No, nor criticisms, either."
+
+"We're not giving orders, and you know that, Marvin." Rod spoke
+sharply. "But you're never going to throw down your billet just
+because of a two-cent fuss with the foreman. Think what a hole you'd
+leave the company in! Carlisle sick, high water holding back our
+freight, coal shipments stalled, everything tied up----"
+
+"And you're directly responsible to the company for that berm
+construction," broke in Burford hotly. "You know well enough that we
+can't watch that work and oversee the ditch-cutting at one and the
+same time. You're not going to sneak out and play quitter----"
+
+"I'm going to play quitter, as you call it, whenever I choose. That
+happens to be right now. You two silk-stockings can like it, or lump
+it. Mulcahy!" he yelled to the camp commissary man, who was just
+starting down the canal in his launch on his way to Grafton for
+supplies. "Wait, I'm going with you. Here, take this."
+
+He bolted into his cabin, then dashed back, carrying a heavy
+suit-case. He heaved it into the launch, then sprang in beside the
+open-mouthed steward.
+
+"Now, I'm off!" He blazed the words at the two boys staring from the
+bank. "You can run this contract to suit yourselves, gentlemen. I'll
+send my resignation direct to the company. I don't have to take orders
+from you two swells another hour. Good-morning, gentlemen!"
+
+The steward grinned sheepishly at sight of his superior officer
+behaving himself like a spunky small boy. With a rueful nod toward
+Roderick he headed the launch down the canal.
+
+Burford expressed himself with some vim.
+
+"Well, he's gone. Good riddance, I call it. The surly hound!"
+
+"I don't know about that," muttered Rod. "It was my fault, maybe,
+writing him that letter. I was too high and mighty, I suppose."
+
+"You needn't blame yourself," returned Burford bluntly. "We've put up
+with his insolence and his scamped work and his everlasting wrangling
+long enough. Mr. Carlisle won't blame us; neither will the company."
+
+"We ought to wire company head-quarters at Chicago, and report just
+how things stand; then they'll send us a supervising engineer to take
+Mr. Carlisle's place. And a new scrub, too, instead of Marvin."
+
+"You're right, Hallowell. You wire them straight off, will you? I'm
+going up to the first lateral to watch the afternoon shift."
+
+Early that evening Roderick received the answering wire from
+head-quarters. He read it carefully. His sober young face settled into
+grim lines.
+
+An hour later Burford turned up, tired, but in high spirits, for his
+dredge had made a flying start on the lateral. Roderick handed him the
+despatch.
+
+The two boys stared at each other. A deep flush burned to Burford's
+temples. Rod's hard jaw set.
+
+The message was curt and to the point.
+
+     "THE BRECKENRIDGE ENGINEERING COMPANY.
+     OFFICE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT.
+
+     RODERICK HALLOWELL, ESQ.
+     _c/o Contract Camp, Grafton, Illinois._
+
+_Sir:_ Your report received. Consider yourself and Burford as jointly
+in command till further orders. I shall reach camp on route inspection
+by 26th inst. Kindly report conditions daily by wire.
+
+     BRECKENRIDGE."
+
+"So we're made jointly responsible. Put in charge by Breckenridge. By
+Breck the Great, his very self. H'm-m." Burford looked out at the
+crowded boats, the muddy, half-built levee, stretching far as eye
+could see; the night shift of laborers, eighty strong, shuffling
+aboard the quarter-boat for their hot supper; the massed, powerful
+machinery, stretching its black funnels and cranes against the red
+evening sky. "So we're the two Grand Panjandrums on this job.
+Responsible for excavation that means prosperity or ruin for half the
+farmers in the district, according as we do or don't finish those
+laterals before the June rise; responsible for a pay-roll that runs
+over four hundred dollars a day; responsible for a time-lock contract
+that will cost our company five hundred dollars forfeit money a day
+for every day that we run over our time limit. Well, Hallowell?"
+
+"It strikes me," said Rod, very briefly, "that it's up to us."
+
+"Yes, it is up to us. But if we don't make good----"
+
+"Don't let that worry you." Rod's jaw set, steel. "Don't give that a
+thought. We'll make good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CONTRACT'S RECEIVING DAY
+
+
+"Hello, Sis!" It was Roderick's voice over the telephone. "How are you
+feeling this fine, muggy morning?"
+
+"Pretty well, I suppose. How are you, Rod? Where are you telephoning
+from?"
+
+"From Burford's shack. We're in a pinch down here, Marian. We need you
+to help out. Can't you ask Mr. Gates to hitch up and bring you down to
+camp right away? Or if you'll walk down to Gates's Landing I'll send
+Mulcahy with the launch, to bring you the rest of the way. And put on
+your very best toggery, Sis. War paint and feathers and all that. That
+pretty lavender silk rig will do. But don't forget the gimcracks. Put
+on all the jewelry you own."
+
+"Why, Roderick Hallowell! What can you mean? Dress up in my best, and
+come down to camp at nine in the morning, and on Sunday morning at
+that?"
+
+"I mean just what I say." Then Roderick chuckled irresistibly. "Poor
+Sis, I don't wonder you're puzzled. But Sunday is the contract's day
+at home, and we want you to stand in line and receive; or pour tea,
+whichever you prefer to do. Do you see?"
+
+"No, I don't see. All I do see is that you're talking nonsense. And I
+don't intend to come down to the camp. It is such a hot, horrid
+morning, I don't propose to stir. I want you to come up and spend the
+day here instead. Mrs. Gates wants you, too, she says, for dinner and
+for supper as well. And yesterday the rural-delivery man brought a
+whole armful of new magazines. We'll sit on the porch, and you can
+read and I'll write letters, and we'll have a lovely, quiet day
+together."
+
+There was a pause. When Roderick spoke again, his voice was rather
+quenched.
+
+"Sorry, Sis, but it isn't possible for me to come, even for dinner.
+I'll be hard at it here, every minute of the day."
+
+"You mean that you must work on the contract all day Sunday? When you
+have worked fourteen hours a day, ever since you came West?" Marian's
+voice was very tart. "Can't you stop long enough to go to church with
+me, even? There's a beautiful little church four miles away. It's just
+a pleasant drive. Surely you can give up two hours of the morning, if
+you can spare no more time!"
+
+"It isn't a question of what I'm willing to do. And I am not planning
+to work on Sunday. As you know, Sis, we bank our fires Saturday night
+and give the laborers a day off. Nearly all the men left for town last
+night to stay till Monday. But listen. Burford tells me that, on every
+clear Sunday, we can expect a visit from most of the land-owners for
+miles around. And not just from the land-owners themselves: their
+sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts; and the children, and the
+neighbors, and the family cat. They want to see for themselves just
+how the work is going on. When you stop to think, it's their own work.
+Their money is paying for every shovelful of dirt we move, and every
+inch of levee-work. And they're paying every copper of our salaries,
+too. They have a right to see how their own investment is being used,
+Sis."
+
+"So you have to treat these country people as honored guests! Cart
+them up and down the canal, and show them the excavations, and let
+them pry into your reports, and ask you silly questions! Of all the
+tiresome, preposterous things!"
+
+"That's pretty much what we'll do. But there is nothing preposterous
+about it; it's their right. And we fellows want to do the decent
+thing. Now, more than ever, we want to do everything properly because
+Carlisle is sick and away. Burford says that Carlisle was more
+exacting about these visits of inspection than about anything else on
+the plant. He said that when a man builds a house to protect his
+family he has the right to oversee every inch of the construction, if
+he likes. On the same principle, these farmers who are digging canals
+and putting up levees to protect their lands should have the right to
+watch the work, step by step. Burford says, too, that Carlisle, with
+his everlasting patience and courtesy, was steadily winning over the
+whole district; even the men who had fought the first assessments
+tooth and nail. It is the least we boys can do to keep up the good
+feeling that Carlisle has established."
+
+"Well, I think it is all very absurd. Why should I come down to the
+work? These people do not even know that I exist. And if you really
+need somebody to talk to their wives and be gracious and all that, why
+can't Mrs. Burford do it better than I? She is right on the ground,
+anyway."
+
+"Yes, she's right on the ground. And so is Thomas Tucker's newest
+tooth. The poor little skeezicks howled half the night, Burford says.
+He has stopped yelling just now, but he won't let his mother out of
+his sight for one minute. Mrs. Burford is pretty much worn to a
+frazzle. But I don't want to pester you, Marian." There was a worried
+note in Rod's voice now. "I wouldn't have you come for any
+consideration, if it were to make you ill or tired. So perhaps we'd
+better not think of it."
+
+Marian shrugged her shoulders. An odd, teasing question stirred in her
+mind.
+
+"I rather think I can stand the day if you can. Finnegan and I will be
+at the landing in half an hour. I, and my best beads and wampum, and
+my new spring hat. There, now!"
+
+Not waiting for Rod's delighted reply, she hurried away to dress. A
+whimsical impulse led her to put on her freshest and daintiest gown, a
+charming lilac silk, with a wide, tilting picture hat, heaped with
+white and purple lilacs. She was standing at the little pier, tugging
+at her long gloves, when the duty-launch, with Rod himself at the
+wheel, shot round the bend. Rod waved his hand; then, at sight of her
+amazing finery, he burst into a whoop of satisfaction.
+
+"Will you look at that! Marian Hallowell, you're the best ever. I
+might have known you'd play up. Though I was scared stiff, for fear
+you'd think that just every-day clothes would do. My, but you're
+stunning! You're looking stronger, too, Sis. You're not nearly so wan
+and spooky as you were a week ago."
+
+"I'm feeling better, too." Marian's color rose. Even her sulky humor
+must melt under Rod's beaming approval. "Now give me my sailing
+orders, Rod. How many callers will we have? What sort of people will
+they be? Tart and grim, like Mrs. Chrisenberry, I suppose, or else
+kindly and bashful and 'woodsy,' like the Gateses? Will they stop by
+on their way home from church, or will they come promptly after dinner
+and spend the afternoon?"
+
+Rod laughed. "No telling, Sister. We may have ten callers, we may have
+a hundred. You'll find all kinds of people among them; precisely as
+you'll find all kinds of people on Mount Vernon Street, Boston,
+Massachusetts. There'll be nice, neighborly folks who'll drive up the
+canal road in Bond Street motoring clothes and sixty-horse-power cars.
+There'll be other nice, neighborly folks who'll ride in through the
+woods on their plough horses, wearing slat sunbonnets and hickory
+shirts. And they'll be friendly, and critical, and enthusiastic, and
+dubersome, all in a heap. You'll need all your social experience, and
+all your tact, and all the diplomacy you can muster. See?"
+
+"Yes, I'm beginning to see." Marian's eyes were thoughtful. Then she
+sprang up to wave her lilac parasol in greeting to the martin-box and
+Sally Lou.
+
+"Isn't this the most mournful luck that ever was!" Sally Lou sat with
+Thomas Tucker, a forlorn little figure, planted firmly on her knee.
+"To think that my son must spend his first afternoon of the season in
+cutting a wicked double tooth! Maybe it'll come through by
+dinner-time, though. Then he'll go to sleep, and I can slip over and
+help you entertain our people--Why, Marian Hallowell! Oh, what a
+lovely, lovely gown! You wise child, how did you know that to wear it
+to-day was precisely the wisest thing that you could possibly do!"
+
+"I didn't know that. I just put it on. Partly for fun, and--well,
+partly to provoke Rod, I suppose." Marian felt rather foolish. But she
+had no time for further confidences.
+
+Up the muddy canal road came a roomy family carriage, drawn by a
+superbly matched black team. That carriage was packed solid to the
+dashboard. Father, two tall boys, and a rosy little daughter crammed
+the front seat; mother, grandmother, and aunty were fitted neatly
+into the back; and a fringe of small fry swung from every direction.
+
+"Morning." The father reined in and gave everybody a friendly nod and
+smile. "How are you, Mr. Burford? Glad to meet you, Mr. Hallowell. No,
+thank you, we're on our way to Sunday-school and church, so we haven't
+a minute to stop. But I have been wanting to know how you think
+lateral four will work out; the one that turns down past my farm. Will
+that sand cut give you much trouble?"
+
+"It will make slower dredging, Mr. Moore. But we'll put it through as
+fast as we can."
+
+"Um. I'm in no hurry to see it go through. The high water isn't due
+for a month, anyway. Now, I don't know much about sand-cutting. But
+I've been told that your worst trouble in a sand streak is with the
+slides. After your dredge-dipper has dumped the stuff ashore, it won't
+stay put. It keeps tobogganing back into the channel and blocking your
+cut. So sometimes you have to hoist it out two or three times over."
+
+"That's exactly the case, Mr. Moore. Usually our levee gangs follow
+along and tamp the sand down, or else spread it back from the berm
+where it has no chance to slide. But it is getting so near the time
+set for the completion of our upper lateral cut that we are obliged to
+keep our levee shift at work on the upper laterals and take our
+chances on the sand staying where we pile it."
+
+"Just what I'd supposed. Now, I shall need a lot of that sand, in a
+week or so, for some cement work. S'pose I send you a couple of teams
+and half a dozen hands to-morrow, to cart off the sand under your
+direction. Would that help things along?"
+
+"Help things along? I should say it would!" Rod beamed. "It would be
+the most timely help we could ask."
+
+"But won't it put you to a lot of trouble, sir," asked Burford, "to
+take the hands off their regular farm-work in that way?"
+
+"W-well, no. Anyway they can haul sand for a day or so without making
+much difference. And it will be a heap handier for you boys to have
+the stuff carted off as fast as you throw it ashore."
+
+"It surely will. That's the best news we've heard in one while!" The
+boys stood smiling at each other, completely radiant. Mr. Moore
+nodded and turned his horses.
+
+"Glad if it will be any accommodation. Well, good day to you all. My
+good wishes to Mr. Carlisle. Tell him I said he left a couple of
+mighty competent substitutes, but that his neighbors will be glad to
+see him coming back, just the same."
+
+The big carriage with its gay load rolled away.
+
+"So Moore will send men and teams to help us on that sand cut!"
+Burford, fairly chortling with satisfaction, started toward the
+martin-box. "If all our land-owners treated us with half the
+consideration that he always gives, our work would be a summer's
+dream. I'm going up to tell Sally Lou."
+
+He had hardly reached the martin-box before he turned with a shout.
+
+"There come our next visitors, Hallowell. The commodore and Mrs.
+McCloskey, in that fat little white launch. See?"
+
+Commodore McCloskey it was, indeed. Finnegan's wild yelp of delighted
+greeting would have told as much. Marian promptly joined the hilarious
+race to the pier. The commodore, crisp and blinding-white in his
+starchy duck, stood at his launch wheel, majestic as if he stood on
+the bridge of an ocean liner. But Mrs. McCloskey, a dainty, soft-eyed,
+little old lady, with cheeks like Scotch roses, and silky curls white
+as dandelion down blowing from under her decorous gray bonnet, won
+Marian's heart at the first glance. She was as quaint and gentle and
+charming as an old-time miniature.
+
+While the boys took the commodore up and down the laterals that he
+might see their progress since his last visit, Mrs. McCloskey trailed
+her soft old black silk skirts to the martin-box door and begged for a
+glimpse of the baby.
+
+"He's crosser than a prickly little porcupine," protested Sally Lou,
+handing him over reluctantly.
+
+"Oh, but he'll come to me just the minute! Won't you, lamb?"
+
+And like a lamb Thomas Tucker forgot his sorrows and snuggled happily
+into her tender arms, while his relieved mother bustled about and
+helped Marian to make a generous supply of lemonade; for half a dozen
+carriage loads of visitors were now coming up the road.
+
+"'Tis amazin'. Where do they all come from?" observed Mrs. McCloskey.
+"Yet there's nigh three hundred land-owners in this district. And the
+commodore, he passed the word yesterday that there's close on two
+hundred thousand acres of land that will be protected by this one
+drainage contract. Think of that, Miss Marian. Is it not grand to know
+that your brother is giving the power of his hands and his brains to
+such a big, helping work as all that?"
+
+"Why, I suppose so." Marian spoke absently.
+
+"And ye will be a help to him, too, I can see that." Mrs. McCloskey
+put out a hesitating little hand in a quaint old silken mitt and
+patted Marian's fluffy gown. "'Tis not everybody makes as bould as
+meself to tell you in so many words of your pretty finery. But sure
+'tis everybody that will appreciate it, an' be pleased an' honored
+with the compliment of it."
+
+Marian looked utterly puzzled.
+
+"You think that I can be a help to Rod? Why, I don't know the least
+thing about his work. I really don't understand----"
+
+"Well, aren't you a magic-maker, Auntie McCloskey!" Sally Lou put
+down the lemon-squeezer and stared. "Look at that precious baby! Sound
+asleep in your lap! While I haven't been able to pacify him for one
+minute, though I walked and sang all night!"
+
+"'Tis the cruel tooth has come through, I'm thinkin'." Mrs. McCloskey
+laid the peaceful little porcupine tenderly into his crib. "Now, I'll
+stay and watch him while you two go and meet your guests. I'll call
+you the minute he chirps."
+
+The two girls hurried to greet their callers, to offer them chairs on
+the shady side of the quarter-boat, to serve them with iced tea and
+lemonade. Much to Marian's surprise, she found herself chattering away
+vigorously and actually enjoying it all. As Rod had said, the slow
+stream that came and went all day included all sorts and conditions of
+folk. There were the gracious old clergyman and his sweet, motherly
+wife, who stopped for a pleasant half-hour, then jogged on across the
+country to his "afternoon meeting," twelve miles out in the lowlands.
+There were the two brisk young plutocrats from the great Kensington
+stock farm up-river, who flashed up in a stunning satiny-gray French
+car, for a brief exchange of courtesies. There were two of the
+district commissioners, quiet, keen-eyed gentlemen. One of these men,
+Rod told his sister later, was doing valuable service to the community
+by his experiments in improving the yield of corn throughout the
+district. The other commissioner was a lawyer of national reputation.
+Mrs. Chrisenberry stopped by, too: a brusque little visitor, sitting
+very stiff and fine in her cushioned phaeton, her beady eyes darting
+questions through her shrewd spectacles. Marian, feeling very real
+gratitude, devoted herself to Mrs. Chrisenberry. That lady, however,
+hardly spoke till just as she was starting to go. Then she leaned
+forward in her carriage. She fixed Marian with a gimlet eye.
+
+"It's agreeable to see that you think we district folks _is_ folks,"
+she said, very tartly indeed. "I'd some mistrusted the other day, but
+I guess now that you know what's what. Good-afternoon, all."
+
+"Well, Sally Lou! Will you tell me what she meant?"
+
+Sally Lou nodded wisely.
+
+"Your pretty dress, I suspect. Didn't you hear Mrs. McCloskey praise
+it, too?"
+
+"Oh!" And now Marian's face was very thoughtful indeed.
+
+Late in the afternoon came the one disagreeable episode of the day.
+
+The drainage district, upon which Roderick and Burford were employed,
+had become part of a huge league known as the Central Mississippi
+Drainage Association. This league had recently been organized. Its
+object was the cutting of protective ditches on a gigantic scale, and
+its annual expenditures for this work would run well past the million
+mark. Naturally there was strong competition between all the great
+engineering firms to win a favorable standing in the eyes of this new
+and powerful corporation. The Breckenridge Company, because of its
+superior record, was easily in the lead. None the less, as Rod had
+remarked a day or so before, it was up to every member of the
+Breckenridge Company, from Breck the Great down to the meekest cub
+engineer, to keep that lead.
+
+Burford jeered mildly at Rod for taking his own small importance to
+the company so seriously.
+
+"Just you wait and see," retorted Roderick.
+
+"Oh, I'll wait, all right," laughed Burford. To-day, however, he was
+destined to see; and to see almost too clearly for his own peace of
+mind.
+
+A sumptuous limousine car whirled up the muddy road. Its lordly door
+swung open; down stepped a large, autocratic gentleman, in raiment of
+startling splendor, followed by a quiet, courteous elderly man.
+
+"I am Mr. Ellingworth Locke, of New York. I am the acting president of
+the Central Mississippi Drainage Association," announced the
+magnificent one. "You gentlemen, I take it, are the--ah--the junior
+engineers left in charge by Mr. Carlisle?"
+
+Roderick and Burford admitted their identity.
+
+"This is Mr. Crosby, our consulting engineer. Now that this district
+has joined the association, it comes under our direct surveillance.
+Mr. Crosby and I desire to go over your laterals and get an idea of
+your work thus far."
+
+"We are honored." Burford bowed low and welcomed his guests with
+somewhat flamboyant courtesy. He led the way to the duty-launch.
+Roderick followed, bringing the cushions and the tarpaulin which the
+quick-witted Sally Lou hastily commanded him to carry aboard for the
+potentate's comfort.
+
+Of all their guests, that long day, the acting president was the sole
+critic. At every rod of the big ditch, at every turn of the laterals,
+he found some petty fault. The consulting engineer, Mr. Crosby,
+followed him about in embarrassed silence. He was obviously annoyed by
+his employer's rudeness. However, for all Mr. Locke's strictures, it
+was evident that he could find no serious fault with the work. Yet
+both boys were tingling with vexation and chagrin when the regal
+limousine rolled away at last.
+
+"What does ail his highness? Did ever you see such a beautiful
+grouch?" Rod mopped his forehead and stared belligerently after the
+car.
+
+"Nothing ails him but a badly swelled head." Burford's jaw set hard.
+"The fact of it is, that the worshipful Mr. Ellingworth Locke hasn't
+two pins' worth of practical knowledge of dredging. He is a New York
+banker, and he has no understanding of conditions west of the Hudson.
+His bank is to make the loans for the association's drainage, and he
+has bought a big tract of land in this district. That is why he was
+elected acting president. Do you see?"
+
+"Yes, that helps to explain things."
+
+"So he struts around and tries to pick flaws with the most trifling
+points of our construction, to keep us from guessing how little he
+really knows about the big underlying principles. Gentle innocent, he
+tries to think he's an expert!" Burford waved a disrespectful muddy
+paw after the flying car. "All that an acting president is good for,
+anyway, is to wear white spats and to put on side."
+
+"Well, that engineer knows his job."
+
+"Crosby? Yes, he's an engineer all right. And a gentleman, too. Just
+the same, I'm glad we kowtowed to Mr. Locke. His opinion is so
+influential that his approval may mean a tremendous advantage to the
+Breckenridge Company some day."
+
+"I'm hoping that Breckenridge himself will come before long and give
+us a looking over."
+
+"I'm hoping for that myself. Half an hour of Breck will swing
+everything into shape. You want to know Breckenridge if ever you get
+the chance, Hallowell. He's the grandest ever. Just to watch him tramp
+up and down a ditch, great big silent figure that he is, and hear him
+fire off those cool, close-mouthed questions of his at you, brings you
+bristling up like a fighting-cock. He's a regular inspiration, I call
+him."
+
+"I'm banking on the chance that I shall know him some day." Rod's eyes
+lighted. He remembered the words of his old professor, "To work under
+Breckenridge is not only an advantage to any engineer. It is an
+education in itself."
+
+It was nearly six o'clock when their last callers arrived. They were
+not an interesting carriage load: a gaunt, silent, middle-aged man; a
+sallow-cheeked young woman, in cheap, showy clothes, her rough hands
+glittering with gaudy rings; and a six-year-old girl--a pitiful little
+ghost of a girl--who looked like a frail little shadow against Sally
+Lou's lusty, rosy two-year-old son. Her warped, tiny body in its
+forlorn lace-trimmed pink silk dress was braced in pillows in her
+mother's arms. Her dim black eyes stared listlessly with the
+indifference of long suffering.
+
+Marian was always shaken and repelled by the sight of pain. But by
+this time Thomas Tucker was awake and loudly demanding his mother; so
+Marian must do her shrinking best, to make the new-comers feel
+themselves welcomed.
+
+"No, Mamie she don't drink lemonade. No, she don't want no milk,
+neither. We'll just set here in the cool and rest a while till pappy
+gets through lookin' around." The young, tired mother sat down on the
+little pier. She settled the wan little creature carefully into her
+arms again. "No, there's nothing you can get for her; nothing at all."
+
+"Doesn't she like to look at pictures? I have some new magazines,"
+ventured Marian.
+
+"She does like pictures once in a while. Want to see what the lady's
+got for you, Mamie?"
+
+Mamie roused herself and looked silently at the books that Marian
+piled before her. Bent on pleasing the little wraith, Marian cut out
+several lovely ladies, and on a sudden inspiration added rosy cheeks
+from Rod's tray of colored pencils.
+
+Those red and blue and purple pencils caught Mamie's listless eye. She
+even bestirred herself to try and draw a portrait or so with her own
+shaky little fingers.
+
+"Beats all," sighed her mother. A little pleased color rose in her
+cheeks. "I haven't seen her take such an interest for months. Not even
+in her dollies. We buy her all the playthings we can think of. Her
+pappy, he don't ever go to town without he up and brings her a whole
+grist of candy and toys and clutter. But we never once thought of the
+pencils for her. Nor of paper dolls, either. My, I'm glad we stopped
+by. And her pappy, he'll be more pleased than words can tell. He's
+always so heart-set for Mamie to have a little fun."
+
+"She must take these pencils home with her. Rod has a whole boxful."
+Marian tied up not only the pencils, but a generous roll of Rod's
+heavy drawing-paper, expressly adapted to making paper dolls that
+would stand alone. The child clutched the bundle in her little lean
+hands without a word of thanks. But her white little face was
+eloquent. So was her father's face when he came to carry her away, and
+heard her mother's story of the new pleasure.
+
+"Well, this day has meant hard work all right, even though it was a
+day of rest from my regular work," said Roderick. He was swinging the
+launch up the canal to the Gates's Landing. "It's a queer way to spend
+Sunday, isn't it, Sis? But it seems to be the only way for me just at
+present. And you can be sure that we're obliged to you, old lady, for
+the way that you've held up your end."
+
+"I didn't mind the day, nor did I mind meeting all those people nearly
+as much as I'd imagined that I would," pondered Marian. "Especially
+the McCloskeys, the dear things! And that poor little crippled child,
+too. I wish I could do something more for her. Y-yes, as you say, it
+was pretty hard work. I'm rather tired to-night. But the day was well
+worth while."
+
+But just how worth while that day had been, neither Rod nor Marian
+could know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE
+
+
+"Ready for breakfast, Miss Hallowell?" Mrs. Gates's pleasant voice
+summoned her.
+
+"Just a minute." Marian loitered at the window, looking out at the
+transformed woods and fields. She could hardly believe her eyes. Two
+weeks ago only stark, leafless branches and muddy gray earth had
+stretched before her. But in these fourteen days, the magic of early
+April had wrought wonders. The trees stood clothed in shining new
+leaves, thick and luxuriant as a New England June. The fields were
+sheets of living green.
+
+"It doesn't seem real," she sighed happily. "It isn't the same country
+that it was when I first came."
+
+"No more are you the same girl." Mrs. Gates nodded approvingly behind
+the tall steaming coffee-pot. "My, you were that peaky and piney! But
+nowadays you're getting some real red in your cheeks, and you eat more
+like a human being and less like a canary-bird."
+
+Marian twinkled.
+
+"Your brother is gettin' to be the peaky one, nowadays," went on Mrs.
+Gates, with her placid frankness. "Seems to me I never saw a boy look
+as beat out as he does, ever since that big cave-in on the canal last
+week. I'm thankful for this good weather for him. Maybe he can make up
+for the time they lost digging out the cave-in if it stays clear and
+the creeks don't rise any higher. He's a real worker, isn't he? Seems
+like he'd slave the flesh off his bones before he'd let his job fall
+behind. But I don't like to see him look so gaunt and tired. It isn't
+natural in a boy like him."
+
+Marian looked puzzled.
+
+"Why, Rod is always strong and well."
+
+"He's strong, yes. But even strong folks can tire out. Flesh and blood
+aren't steel and wire. You'd better watch him pretty sharp, now that
+hot weather is coming. He needs it."
+
+Marian pushed back her plate with a frown. Her dainty breakfast had
+suddenly lost its savor.
+
+"Watch over Rod! I should think it was Rod's place to watch over me,
+instead. And when I have been so ill, too!" she said to herself.
+
+Yet a queer little thorn of anxiety pricked her. She called Mr.
+Finnegan and raced with him down through the wet green woods to the
+canal. Roderick stood on the dredge platform, talking to the head
+dredge-runner. He hailed Marian with a shout.
+
+"You're just in time to see me off, Sis. I'm going to Saint Louis to
+hurry up our coal shipment."
+
+"The coal shipment? I thought a barge-load of coal was due here
+yesterday."
+
+"Due, yes. But it hasn't turned up, and we're on our last car-load
+this minute. That's serious. We'll have to shut down if I can't hurry
+a supply to camp within thirty-six hours."
+
+Marian followed him aboard the engineers' house-boat and watched him
+pack his suit-case.
+
+"Why are you taking all those time-books, Rod? Surely you will not
+have time to make up your week's reports during that three-hour trip
+on the train?"
+
+"These aren't my weekly reports. These are tabulated operating
+expenses. President Sturdevant, the head of our company, has just
+announced that he wants us to furnish data for every working day. He's
+a bit of a martinet, you know. He wants everything figured up into
+shape for immediate reference. He says he proposes to follow the cost
+of this job, excavation, fill, everything, within thirty-six hours of
+the time when the actual work is done. He doesn't realize that that
+means hours of expert book-keeping, and that we haven't a book-keeper
+in the camp. So Burford and I have had to tackle it, in addition to
+our regular work. And it's no trifle." Roderick rolled up a formidable
+mass of notes. There was a worried tone in his steady voice.
+
+"Why doesn't the company send you a book-keeper?"
+
+"Burford and I are planning to ask for one when the president and
+Breckenridge come to camp on their tour of inspection."
+
+"Could I do some of the work for you, Rod?"
+
+"Thank you, Sis, but I'm afraid you'd find it a Chinese puzzle. I get
+tangled up in it myself half the time. We must set down every solitary
+item of cost, no matter how trifling; not only wages and supplies, but
+breakdowns, time losses, even those of a few minutes; then calculate
+our average, day by day; then plot a curve for each week's work,
+showing the cost of the contract for that week, and set it against our
+yardage record for that week. Then verify it, item by item, and send
+it in."
+
+"All tied up in beautiful red-tape bow-knots, I suppose," added
+Marian, with a sniff. She poked gingerly into the mass of papers. "The
+idea of adding book-keeping to your twelve-hour shift as
+superintendent! And in this stuffy, noisy little box!" She looked
+impatiently around the close narrow state-room. The ceiling was not
+two feet above her head; the hot morning sunlight beat on the flat tin
+roof of the house-boat and dazzled through the windows. "How can you
+work here?--or sleep, either?"
+
+Rod rubbed his hand uncertainly across his eyes.
+
+"I don't sleep much, for a fact. Too hot. Sometimes I drop off early,
+but the men always wake me at midnight when the last shift goes off
+duty."
+
+"But the laborers are all across on their own quarter-boat. They don't
+come aboard your house-boat?"
+
+"No, but the quarter-boat is only fifty feet away. The cook has their
+hot supper ready at twelve, and they lark over it, and laugh and shout
+and cut up high-jinks, like a pack of school-boys. I wouldn't mind,
+only I can't get to sleep again. I lie there and mull over the
+contract, you see. I can't help it."
+
+"Why don't you come up to the Gates farm-house and sleep there?"
+
+"I couldn't think of that. It's too far away. I must stay right here
+and keep my eye on the work, every minute. You have no idea what a
+dangerously narrow margin of time we have left; 'specially for those
+north laterals, you know, Sis." His voice grew sharp and anxious.
+Marian looked at him keenly. For the first time she saw the dull
+circles under his eyes, the drawn, tired lines around his steady
+mouth.
+
+Then she glanced up the ditch. High on its green stilts, Sally Lou's
+perky little martin-box caught her eye.
+
+"I have it, Rod! Tell some of your laborers to build a cabin for you,
+like the Burfords'! Then I'll come down and keep house for you."
+
+Roderick shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I can't spare a solitary laborer from the contract, Marian; not for a
+day. We're short-handed as it is. No, I'll stay where I am. I'm doing
+well enough. Steam up, Mulcahy? Good-by, Sis. Back to-morrow!"
+
+Marian watched the launch till it disappeared in the green mist of the
+willows. Then she sat down to her brother's desk and began to sort the
+clutter of papers. But sorting them was not an easy matter. To her
+eyes they were only a bewildering tangle. Marian knew that she
+possessed an inborn knack at figures, and it piqued her to find that
+she could not master Roderick's accounts at the first glance. She
+worked on and on doggedly. The little state-room grew hot and close;
+the dull throb of the dredge machinery and the noisy voices from
+without disturbed her more and more.
+
+At last she sprang up and swept the whole mass into her hand-bag. Then
+she ran up the hill to the martin-box.
+
+Sally Lou, very fresh and cool in pink dimity, sat in her screened
+nest, with the babies playing on the scrubbed floor. She nodded in
+amused sympathy at Marian's portentous armful.
+
+"Aren't those records a dismal task! Yes, I've found a way to sift
+them, though it took me a long time to learn. Start by adding up the
+time-book accounts; verify each laborer's hours, and see whether his
+pay checks correspond to his actual working time. Roderick has fifty
+men on his shift, so that is no small task. Then add up his memoranda
+of time made by the big dredge; and also the daily record of the two
+little dredges up at the laterals. Then run over the steward's
+accounts and see whether they check with his bills----"
+
+Marian stared at Sally Lou, astonished.
+
+"Well, but Sally Lou! Think how much time that will mean! Why, I would
+have to spend all afternoon on the time-books alone."
+
+Sally Lou raised her yellow head and looked at Marian very steadily.
+A tiny spark glinted in her brown eyes.
+
+"Well, what if it does take all afternoon? Have you anything better to
+do?"
+
+There was a minute of silence. Then Marian's cheeks turned rather
+pink.
+
+"I suppose not. But it is horridly tedious work, Sally Lou. On such a
+warm day, too."
+
+"It certainly is." Sally Lou's voice was quite dry. She caught up
+Thomas Tucker, who was trying laboriously to feed Mr. Finnegan with a
+large ball of darning cotton. "You'd find it even more tedious if you
+were obliged to work at it evenings, as your brother does. Can't you
+stay to lunch, Marian? We'll love to have you; won't we, babies?"
+
+"Thank you, no. Mrs. Gates will expect me at home."
+
+Marian walked back through the woods, her head held high. The glint in
+Sally Lou's eyes had been a bit of a challenge. Again she felt her
+cheeks flush hot, with a queer puzzled vexation.
+
+"I'll show her that I can straighten Rod's papers, no matter how
+muddled they are!" she said to herself, tartly. And all that warm
+spring afternoon she toiled with might and main.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roderick, meanwhile, was spending a hard, discouraging day. Arriving
+at Saint Louis, he found the secretary of the coal-mining company at
+his office. Eager and insistent, he poured out his urgent need of the
+promised barge-load of coal. The consignment was now a week overdue.
+The dredges had only a few hundred bushels at hand; in less than
+forty-eight hours the engines must shut down, unless he could get the
+fuel to camp.
+
+"You can't be any more disturbed by this crisis than I am, Mr.
+Hallowell," the secretary assured him. "Owing to a strike at the mines
+we have been forced to cancel all deliveries. I can't let you have a
+single ton."
+
+Roderick gasped.
+
+"But our dredges! We don't dare shut down. Our contract has a
+chilled-steel time-lock, sir, with a heavy forfeit. We must not run
+over our date limits. We've got to have that coal!"
+
+"You may be able to pick up a few tons from small dealers," said the
+secretary, turning back to his desk. "You'll be buying black diamonds
+in good earnest, for the retail price has gone up thirty per cent
+since the news came of the mines strike. Wish you good luck, Mr.
+Hallowell. Sorry that is all that I can do for you."
+
+Roderick lost no time. He bought a business directory and hailed a
+taxicab. For six hours he drove from one coal-dealer's office to
+another. At eight o'clock that night he reached his hotel, tired in
+every bone, but in royal high spirits. Driblet by driblet, and paying
+a price that fairly staggered him, he had managed to buy over four
+hundred tons.
+
+"That will keep us going till the strike is settled," he told Burford
+over the long-distance.
+
+"Bully for you!" returned Burford, jubilant. "But how will you bring
+it up to camp?"
+
+"Oh, the railroad people have promised empties on to-morrow morning's
+early freight to Grafton. Then we can carry it to camp on our own
+barges. I shall come up on that freight myself. I shall not risk
+losing sight of that coal. Mind that."
+
+At five the next morning Roderick went down to the freight yards. His
+coal wagons were already arriving. But not one of the promised
+"empties" could he find.
+
+"There is a mistake somewhere," said the yard-master. "Can't promise
+you a solitary car for three days, anyway. Traffic is all behindhand.
+You'd better make a try at head-quarters."
+
+"I have no time to waste at head-quarters," retorted Rod. He was white
+with anger and chagrin. This ill luck was a bolt from a clear sky.
+"I'll go down to the river front and hire a barge and a tow-boat. I'll
+get that coal up to camp to-morrow if I have to carry it in my
+suit-case."
+
+His hunt for a barge proved a stern chase, but finally he secured a
+large flat-boat at a reasonable rental. But after searching the river
+front for miles, he found only one tow-boat that could be chartered.
+The tow's captain, noting Roderick's anxiety, and learning that he
+represented the great Breckenridge Company, promptly declared that he
+would not think of doing the two-days' towing for less than five
+hundred dollars.
+
+"Five hundred dollars for two days' towing! And I have already paid
+three times the mine price for my coal!" Roderick groaned inwardly.
+
+Suddenly his eye caught two trim red stacks and a broad familiar bow
+not fifty yards away. It was the little packet, the _Lucy Lee_. She
+was just lowering her gang-plank, making ready to take on freight for
+her trip up-stream.
+
+"I'll hail the _Lucy_. Maybe the captain can tell me where to find
+another tow-boat. Ahoy, the _Lucy_! Is your captain aboard? Ask him to
+come on deck and talk to Hallowell, of the Breckenridge Company, will
+you?"
+
+"The captain has not come down yet, sir. But our pilot, Commodore
+McCloskey, is here. Will you talk with him?"
+
+"Will I talk to the commodore? I should hope so!" Rod's strained face
+broke into a joyful grin. He could have shouted with satisfaction when
+Commodore McCloskey, trim as a gimlet in starchy white duck, strolled
+down the gang-plank and gave him a friendly hand.
+
+"Sure, I don't wonder ye're red-hot mad," he said, with twinkling
+sympathy. "Five hundred dollars for two days' tow! 'Tis no better than
+a pirate that tow-boat captain is, sure. But come with me. I have a
+friend at court that can give ye a hand, maybe. Hi, boy! Is Captain
+Lathrop, of the _Queen_, round about?"
+
+"The _Queen_? Why, her captain is the very man who demanded the five
+hundred dollars!" blurted Rod.
+
+At that moment the captain's head popped from the cabin door. He
+stared at Roderick. He stared at Commodore McCloskey. Then he had the
+grace to duck wildly back, with a face sheepish beyond words to
+describe.
+
+"Well, Captain Lathrop!" Commodore McCloskey's voice rang merciless
+and clear. "Tell me the truth. Is it yourself that's turned highway
+robber? Five hundred dollars for twenty hours' tow! Sure, ye must be
+one of thim high fin-an-ciers we read about in the papers. Why not
+make it five hundred dollars per ton? Then ye could sell the _Queen_
+and buy yourself a Cunarder for a tow-boat instead."
+
+Captain Lathrop squirmed.
+
+"How should I know he was a friend of yours, commodore? I'll take his
+coal all the way to camp, and gladly, for three hundred, seein' as
+it's a favor to you."
+
+"For three hundred, is it?" The commodore began a further flow of
+eloquence. But Rod caught his arm.
+
+"Three hundred will be all right. And I'm more obliged to you,
+commodore, than I can say. Now I'm off. If ever I can do you a good
+turn, mind you give me the chance!"
+
+It was late the next night when Roderick reached the camp landing with
+his precious black diamonds. He was desperately tired, muddy, and
+begrimed with smoke and coal-dust, hungry as a wolf, and hilarious
+with relief at his hard-earned success. Marian, Sally Lou, and Burford
+were all waiting for him at the little pier. Sally Lou dragged him up
+to the martin-box for a late supper. Afterward Marian, who was to
+spend the night with Sally Lou, walked back with him to his
+house-boat.
+
+  [Illustration: "WELL, CAPTAIN LATHROP!" COMMODORE McCLOSKEY'S VOICE
+   RANG MERCILESS AND CLEAR.]
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm all right, Sis. Don't fidget over me so." Roderick
+stepped into his state-room and dropped down into his desk chair.
+"Whew! I'm thankful to get back. I could go to sleep standing up, if
+it wasn't for making up the records for President Sturdevant. Run away
+now, that's a good girl, and let me straighten my accounts. Then I
+can go to bed."
+
+Even as he spoke Rod's glance swept his desk. Instead of the heaped
+disorder of the day before, he saw now rows of neatly docketed papers.
+He gave a whistle of surprise.
+
+"Who has been overhauling my desk? Burford? Why--why, did _you_ do
+this for me, sister? Well, on my word, you are just the very best
+ever." His big fingers gripped Marian's arm and gave her a grateful
+little shake. "You've squared up every single account, haven't you!
+And your figuring is always accurate. This means two hours' extra
+sleep for me. Maybe you think I won't enjoy 'em!"
+
+"I might have been keeping your accounts for you all these weeks,"
+returned Marian. She was a little mortified by Roderick's astonished
+gratitude. "It is not hard work for me. I really enjoyed doing it."
+
+"Maybe you think I don't enjoy having you do it!" Rod chuckled
+contentedly. "I've dreaded those accounts all day. Now I shall sleep
+the sleep of the loafer who has let his sister do his work for him.
+Good-night, old lady!"
+
+Marian tucked herself comfortably into her corner of the martin-box,
+but not to sleep. Try her best, she could not banish Rod's tired face
+from her mind. Neither could she forget the look of his little
+state-room. True, she had made it daintily fresh and neat. But the
+tiny box was hot and stuffy at best. What could she do to make Rod's
+quarters more comfortable?
+
+At last she sat up with a whispered exclamation.
+
+"Good! I'll try that plan. Perhaps it won't do after all. But it
+cannot hurt to try. And if my scheme can make Rod the least bit more
+comfortable, then the trying will be well worth while!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE BURGOO
+
+
+Very early the next morning, Marian set to work upon her brilliant
+plan for Roderick's comfort. The coast was clear for action. Both
+Roderick and Ned Burford had gone up the canal to oversee the
+excavation at the north laterals. Sally Lou had packed Mammy and the
+babies into the buckboard and had driven away to the nearest
+farm-house for eggs and butter. So Marian had a clear field. And she
+made eager use of every moment.
+
+Perhaps two hundred yards from the canal bank, set well up on a little
+knoll where it could catch every passing breeze, stood a broad wooden
+platform. High posts, built to hold lanterns, were set at the four
+corners and half-way down each side.
+
+"The young folks of the district built that platform for their picnic
+dances," Burford had told Marian. "But this year our dredges have
+torn up this whole section and have made the creek banks so miry and
+disagreeable that no picnic parties will come this way till the
+contract is finished and the turf has had time to grow again."
+
+Marian measured the platform with a calculating eye.
+
+"It is built of matched boards, as tight and sound as if they had put
+it up yesterday. It will make a splendid floor for Rod's house. But
+when it comes to building the house itself--that's the question."
+
+The contract supplies, she knew, were kept in a store-room built
+astern of Roderick's house-boat. For a hot, tiresome hour she poked
+and pried through high-piled hogsheads and tiers of boxes, hoping that
+she might find a tent. But there was no such good fortune for her. She
+dragged out bale after bale of heavy new canvas. But every one of the
+scores of tents provided by the company was already pitched, to form
+the summer village occupied by the levee laborers. At last, quite
+vexed and impatient, she gave up her search.
+
+"Although, if I had any knack at all, I could sew up a tent from
+these yards on yards of canvas," she reflected.
+
+She carried one bolt of cloth on deck and unrolled it.
+
+"This is splendid heavy canvas. It is just the solid, water-proof sort
+that the fishermen at the lake last summer used for walls and roof of
+their 'open-faced camp,' as they called it. Now, I wonder. Why can't I
+lash long strips of canvas to the four posts of the platform for
+walls; then fasten heavy wires from one post to another and lash a
+slanting canvas roof to that! I can canopy it with mosquito-bar--a
+double layer--for there are dozens of yards of netting here. It would
+be a ridiculously funny little coop, I know that. But it would be far
+cooler and quieter than the boat. I believe Rod would like it. Anyway,
+we'll see!"
+
+Jacobs, the commissary man, came aboard a few minutes later with a
+basket of clean linen. He looked at Marian, already punching
+eyelet-holes in the heavy duck, with friendly concern.
+
+"Best let me give you a lift at that job, miss," he urged, when Marian
+had told him her plans. "I have an hour off, and I shall be pleased to
+help, if you will permit me. I'm an old sailor and I have my needle
+and palm in my kit. That kind of fancy work is just pastime to me.
+Indeed, I'd enjoy doing anything, if it's for Mr. Hallowell. We've
+never had a better boss, that's certain. You lace those strips of
+duck, then I'll hang them for you. We'll curtain off just a half of
+the platform. That will leave the other half for a fine open porch.
+We'll have this house built in two jiffies. Then I'll put Mr.
+Hallowell's canvas cot and his desk and his chair into place, all
+ready; so when he comes home to-night he will find himself moved and
+settled."
+
+It took longer than two jiffies to lash up the canvas shack, to hang
+mosquito bar, and to move Roderick's simple furniture. Returning from
+their drive, Sally Lou and Mammy Easter hurried to help; and, thanks
+to many willing hands, the tiny new abode was finished by afternoon;
+even to the brackets for Rod's lamp, which Jacobs screwed into a
+corner post, and the rack for his towels.
+
+At six o'clock, Roderick, fagged out and spattered with mud, came down
+the canal. He would have gone directly aboard his house-boat if
+Marian had not called him ashore.
+
+"March up here and see my out-door sitting-room," she commanded, with
+laughing eyes.
+
+"Oh, you and Sally Lou have made a play-house of that platform? That's
+all very nice. But wait till I can scrub up and swallow a mouthful of
+supper, Sis. My skiff tipped over with me up the canal, and I'm
+soaking wet, and dead tired besides."
+
+"Oh, no, Rod. Please come up right away. I can't wait, Slow-Coach. You
+really must see!"
+
+Roderick was well used to Marian's imperious whims. Reluctantly he
+climbed the slippery bank. Obediently he poked his head past the flap
+which Marian held back for him.
+
+There he saw his own cot spread white and fresh under its cool screen;
+his tidy desk; and even a "shower-bath," which clever Jacobs had
+contrived from a tiny force-pump and a small galvanized tank, borrowed
+from the company's store-room.
+
+For a long minute he stared about him without one word. Then his tired
+face brightened to a glow of incredulous delight.
+
+"Marian Hallowell! Did you rig up this whole contrivance, all for me?
+Well!" He sank down on the cot with a sigh of infinite satisfaction.
+"You certainly are the best sister I ever had, old lady. First you
+take my book-keeping off my hands. Next you build me a brand-new
+house, where I can sleep----whew! Won't I sleep like a log to-night, in
+all this quiet and coolness! On my word, I don't believe I could stand
+up to my work, Sis, if you didn't help me out as you do."
+
+Marian grew radiant at his pleasure.
+
+"Building it was no end of fun, Rod. I never enjoyed anything more."
+
+"Only I hope you haven't tired yourself out," said her brother,
+suddenly anxious. "You haven't the strength to work like this."
+
+"Nonsense! You don't realize how much stronger I am, Rod."
+
+"You surely do look a hundred per cent better than you did a month
+ago." Roderick looked at her with keen satisfaction. "But you must not
+overtire yourself."
+
+"Don't be so fussy, brother. It was just a trifle, anyway."
+
+"It won't mean a trifle to me. Quiet and sleep will give me a chance
+to get my head above water and breathe. Hello, neighbors!" For Sally
+Lou and Ned were poking their unabashed heads through the fly. "Come
+in and see my new mansion. Guess I'll have to give a house-warming to
+celebrate. What do you say?"
+
+"There's a celebration already on the way," laughed Burford.
+"Commodore McCloskey has just called me up on the long-distance. He
+says that he and Mrs. McCloskey will stop at the camp bright and early
+to-morrow morning to escort your sister and Sally Lou to the Barry
+County burgoo. I accepted the invitation for both you girls, for a
+'burgoo,' whatever it means, sounds like a jolly lark; especially
+since the commodore is to be your host. But I'll admit that I'm
+puzzled. What do you suppose a burgoo may be?"
+
+The four looked at each other.
+
+"It sounds rather like a barbecue," ventured Sally Lou.
+
+"Hoots! It is far too early in the spring for a barbecue."
+
+"Burgoo? _Barbecue?_" Marian spoke the mystic words over, bewildered.
+"What is a barbecue, pray? Two such grim, ferocious words I never
+heard."
+
+"A barbecue is a country-side picnic, where the company unite to buy a
+huge piece of beef; sometimes a whole ox. Then they roast it in a
+trench floored with hot stones. The usual time for a barbecue is in
+August. Then they add roasting ears and new potatoes to the beef, and
+have a dinner fit for a king."
+
+"Or for an ogre," returned Marian. "It sounds like a feast for giants.
+Yet a burgoo sounds even fiercer and more barbaric. I shall ask the
+commodore what it means, the minute he comes. Wasn't he a dear to
+think of taking us?"
+
+Bright and early, even as he had promised, Mr. McCloskey's trig little
+launch puffed up to the camp landing. The commodore, arrayed as
+Solomon in snowy linen, a red tie, and a large Panama, waved greeting.
+Beside him sat Mrs. McCloskey, her sweet little old face beaming under
+her crisp frilled sunbonnet.
+
+The two girls stepped aboard, with Finnegan prancing joyfully after.
+For to-day the Burford babies were to stay at home with Mammy, while
+Finnegan was to attend the burgoo, a specially bidden guest.
+
+"And now, Mr. McCloskey! Tell us quick! What may a burgoo be?"
+
+"A burgoo?" Commodore McCloskey reflected. "Well, then, so ye don't
+know a burgoo by experience. Wherever was ye brought up? A burgoo is a
+burgoo, sure. 'Tis the only word in the English language that
+describes it. 'Tis sack-races, an' pole-climbin', an' merry-go-rounds,
+an' pink limonade, an' a brass band, an' kettles full of b'iled
+chicken an' gravy, an' more mortial things to eat than the tongue of
+man can name. Ye must see it to understand the real po'try of it. For
+the half of it could not be told to you."
+
+The commodore was quite right. The burgoo was all that he had claimed,
+and more. At least two hundred people, gay in their Sunday best, had
+already gathered at the county picnic grounds, a beautiful open
+woodland several miles up the Illinois River. Vendors of candy and
+popcorn, toy balloons and pink lemonade, shouted their wares. A vast
+merry-go-round wheezed and sputtered; the promised brass band awoke
+the river echoes. And, swung in a mighty rank above a row of
+camp-fires cleverly built in a broad shallow trench, the burgoo
+kettles sizzled and steamed.
+
+"Burgoo," the girls soon learned, is the local name for a delicious
+stew of chicken and bacon and vegetables, cooked slowly for hours,
+then served in wooden bowls with huge dill pickles and corn pone.
+Sally Lou, housekeeper born, wheedled the head cook, a courteous,
+grizzled old negro, into giving her the recipe. Marian, chuckling
+inwardly, heard his painstaking reply.
+
+"Yes'um. I kin tell you jest how to go about makin' burgoo. First you
+want sixteen, maybe twenty, pounds of bacon, cut tolerable fine. Then
+four dozen chickens won't be too many. Start your meats a-b'ilin'.
+Then peel your taters--I used three bushel for this batch. Then put in
+tomatoes. I reckon two dozen cans might do, though three would be
+better. Then cabbage, an' beans, an' onions, if you like. Two dozen
+head of cabbage is about right. An' two bushels of beans----"
+
+Just then Sally Lou dropped her pencil in despair.
+
+"I'll be no more than a head of cabbage myself, if I keep on trying to
+reduce this recipe to the needs of two people," she groaned in
+desperation. "Come along, Marian, let's climb on the merry-go-round a
+while and see if it won't clear my addled brain."
+
+The merry-go-round proved delightfully thrilling, especially to Mr.
+Finnegan, who rode round and round in a gilded sea-shell, barking
+himself hoarse in dizzy ecstasy.
+
+Just before noon the crowd, now astonishingly large, gathered at the
+little running track to watch the sports. First came the sack-races;
+then the pole-climbing; then the potato-race. Finnegan, by this time
+delirious with excitement, had to be held down by main force to
+discourage his wild ambition to take an active part in each event.
+Last on the programme came the greased-pig race.
+
+Now, the greased-pig race dates back a hundred years and more, to the
+days when the Kentucky pioneers met for their rare frolics of
+house-raising or corn-husking. It is a quaint old sport, very rough,
+very grimy and breathless, very ridiculously funny. A lively little
+pig is chosen and greased with melted tallow from head to tail. Then
+he is set free on the running-track. Half a minute later, the
+starting-gun booms the signal for his hunters to dash in pursuit. The
+winner must capture piggy with his bare hands and carry the squirming,
+slippery armful back to the judges' stand. If piggy escapes en route,
+the race must be run over again from the very start.
+
+The competitors are boys and young men. Only the fleet-footed can hope
+for a chance at success. But even as the starter stood calling the
+race through his big red megaphone, a tall, elderly man shouldered up
+to their group and hailed Mr. McCloskey.
+
+"Good-day, commodore! You're here to see the greased-pig race? My
+faith, do you remember the race that we two ran, down in Pike County
+in '63?"
+
+The commodore beamed at his old neighbor.
+
+"'Deed an' I do. And it was meself that captured that elegant pig, I
+remember."
+
+"You did that. But it was by accident entirely. For I had all but
+laid my hand on the pig when you snatched it from under my grasp. I've
+grudged ye that pig ever since."
+
+The little commodore's eyes snapped. He bristled from the crest of his
+white head to the toes of his polished boots. His voice took on an
+ominously silver tone.
+
+"By my word, I'm sorry to learn that that small pig has stood between
+us all these years, Mister Jennings. If it could give you
+satisfaction, I'd beg you to run that race over again with me. Or, we
+might race each other in the contest that is just about to take place.
+What do ye say?"
+
+For a minute, the astounded Mr. Jennings found nothing whatever to
+say.
+
+"Now, commodore!" protested gentle Mrs. McCloskey, round-eyed with
+reproach. "You'd not think of runnin' a half mile this hot noon in the
+face of all your friends an' neighbors, an' all for one small pig! And
+you seventy last month, an' that suit of clothes bought new from Saint
+Louis not the fortnight ago!"
+
+"You don't understand, Mary. I'd run the race if there was no pig at
+all under consideration, so it would give my friend Mister Jennings
+peace of mind," said the little commodore hotly. "What do ye say, sir?
+Will you join me, an' prove once more which one of us is the rale
+winner?"
+
+Very red and disconcerted, Mr. Jennings stood on one foot, then the
+other, in a torture of indecision. Then he threw off his coat.
+
+"I've never taken a dare like that yet, McCloskey. And I don't begin
+now. Come along."
+
+"Commodore!" Poor Mrs. McCloskey's shocked voice pursued him. But the
+commodore would not hear. Mr. Jennings was already clambering the rail
+to the running-track. Lightly as a boy, the commodore vaulted after
+him. Shoulder to shoulder the two joined the group before the judges'
+stand.
+
+There ran a ripple of question through the crowd, then a storm of
+delighted cheers and laughter. Mr. Jennings wriggled in sheepish
+torment. The commodore, sparkling and debonair, bowed to the throng
+and hung his Panama on a fence-post.
+
+Then down the running-track fled a small, shiny black object,
+squealing in glad escape. Instantly a shot crashed; then came a
+thundering shout:
+
+"Ready--go!"
+
+With whoops and yells the group of runners raced away down the track.
+The commodore kept well in the lead. He ran as lightly and as easily
+as did the boys that forged alongside him. Mr. Jennings puffed and
+pounded farther in the rear at every turn. They made the first lap of
+the race. At the second turn the commodore, only third from the lead,
+waved his hand to Mrs. McCloskey and the girls with a flourish of
+mischievous triumph. Marian and Sally Lou, tearful and choking with
+delight, clasped hands and swayed together in helpless rapture. Thus
+completely absorbed in the spectacle, they let go of Mr. Finnegan's
+leash.
+
+That was all that Finnegan wanted. With one glad yelp he hurled
+himself through the fence and bounced like a ball, straight into the
+midst of the fray. Far in advance fled a shiny black object. Finnegan
+knew his duty. The commodore was hurrying to catch that object. It was
+Finnegan's part to aid in that capture at all costs. Yelping madly,
+he tore away down the track.
+
+"Oh, it's Finnegan! Oh, the little villain! If I had only left him at
+home!" Poor Marian strove to call him back. But against the uproar of
+the crowd her voice could not make a sound. "Oh, the naughty little
+sinner, he will catch that pig himself and spoil the race for
+everybody. Look, Sally Lou! He has almost caught up with the pig this
+minute!"
+
+Even as she spoke, Finnegan, running at top speed, shot ahead of the
+fleeing pig. Then, with a frenzied bark, he whirled and charged
+straight at the prize.
+
+This front attack was too much for any pig's self-control. Not content
+with galloping murderously at his heels, his pursuers had set this
+ferocious brute to destroy him! With a squeal of mortal panic the
+little fellow turned right-about and bolted. Shrieking, he dashed
+back, straight into the crowd of runners.
+
+"Oh--oh! He's right under the commodore's hand! Oh, if he wasn't so
+slippery--Look, quick, Marian!"
+
+"Well, will you look at that now!" Mrs. McCloskey's mild voice rose in
+a laugh of triumph. "Sure, I never yet knew the commodore to fail if
+once he'd set his head to do a thing!"
+
+"If only he can keep fast hold of the pig till he reaches the judges'
+stand," whispered Sally Lou. All three gazed in pale suspense at the
+commodore, now striding gayly up the race-track, the pig squirming and
+squealing wildly in his arms.
+
+"I'm mistrustin' that myself," said Mrs. McCloskey, nervously, "for
+the little animal is not so convenient to hold, bein' he's so glassy
+smooth. But trust the commodore. He'll not fail, now."
+
+The commodore did not fail. Calm and majestic, as if he strode a
+quarter-deck, he paced down the track and halted before the judges'
+stand, his shrieking prize held high. As the umpire bent forward to
+give him the champion's blue ribbon, the crowd broke loose. No Olympic
+victor ever received his laurel in the face of a more enthusiastic
+tumult.
+
+"I give up," puffed Mr. Jennings, fanning himself with his hat. "You
+caught that pig fair an' square, commodore. The honors are yours."
+
+"Tut, tut, 'twas no great matter," declared the commodore modestly, as
+the girls heaped him with praises. "'Twas just a moment's divarsion.
+And it took no skill whatever, though I will own that to carry the
+little felly back to the judges' stand demanded some effort on me
+part. You will observe that a pig furnishes but few handholds,
+particularly when he's that slippery and excited-like. Yes, Mary,
+perhaps we'd best be startin' home, as it's so near sundown."
+
+"Well, but these girls must not go home empty-handed," urged Mrs.
+McCloskey. "Think of your poor boys, who could not take a day off for
+the burgoo! We must carry home a taste for them. Go to yonder booth
+and buy a market-basket, commodore. Then we'll pack in a few samples."
+
+Marian and Sally Lou looked on in silent amaze while Mrs. McCloskey
+packed the few samples, including a tall jar of the delicious burgoo,
+a dazzling array of cookies and preserves, and a fat black-currant
+pie. Meanwhile the commodore was fitting his treasured pig neatly into
+a small crate, much to the dismay of the pig and the keen joy of a
+large group of on-lookers.
+
+At last basket and crate were made ready. Tired out by their long,
+absurd, delightful day, the party settled themselves aboard the
+commodore's launch and started home. The trip downstream to camp was
+made in rapid time. It was just dusk when they reached their own
+landing. Roderick and Ned Burford had heard the commodore's whistle
+and were waiting to help them ashore.
+
+"What sort of a day was it, Sis?"
+
+"Yes, tell us, quick, if you had any fun. We have put in a gruelling
+day of it here," added Burford. "Three break-downs on the little
+dredge and a threatened cave-in on the first lateral! Go on and tell
+us something cheerful."
+
+Marian and Sally Lou stole a glance backward. The commodore was just
+putting his boat into mid-stream. He was safely out of earshot. With
+almost tearful laughter the two girls poured out the story of the day.
+
+"You brought home the best of the day to us," said Ned, as they spread
+the "samples" on a tiny deck table, picnic-fashion. "We fellows only
+laid off our levee shifts a few minutes ago. We're rushing that
+construction before the creeks rise any higher. So neither of us has
+eaten a mouthful since noon. This luncheon will taste like manna in
+the desert. S'pose Mammy Easter would make us a pot of coffee, Sally
+Lou? Then we could ask no more."
+
+"I'll go to the cabin and coax her to do it. I want a peep at the
+babies, anyway."
+
+Sally Lou sprang up and started toward the gangway. At the cabin door
+she stopped short. Her voice rang out, a frightened cry.
+
+"Ned Burford! Come quick! What is that blazing light away up the
+ditch? Is it--Oh, it is one of the boats--it is the big dredge! And it
+is on fire!"
+
+Ned Burford leaped up. His startled voice echoed Sally Lou's cry.
+
+"Hallowell! It's the big dredge, the giant Garrison! Wake up and pitch
+in. Hurry!"
+
+Days afterward Marian would try to recall just what happened during
+those wild moments; but the whole scene would flicker before her
+memory, a dizzy blur. She remembered Roderick's shout of alarm; the
+rush of the day-shift men from their tents; the clatter of the racing
+engine as Rod pushed them into the launch, then sent the little boat
+flying away up the canal. Then, directly ahead, she could see that
+dense black pillar of smoke rising straight up from the dredge deck,
+shot through with spurts of flame.
+
+Burford's half-strangled voice came back to them as he groped his way
+across the deck.
+
+"It's a pile of burning waste, right here by the capstan. Bring the
+chemical-extinguishers ... no time to wait for the hose.... Wet your
+coats, boys, and let's pound her out.... Whe-ew! I'm 'most
+strangled.... Sally Lou Burford! _You clear out!_ You and Marian, too.
+Go away, I tell you. This is no place for you!"
+
+Sally Lou and Marian stood doggedly in line passing the buckets of
+water which one of the laborers was dipping up from over the side.
+Roderick, stolid as a rock, stood close by that choking column of
+smoke and flame and dashed on the water. Burford rushed about,
+everywhere at once, half mad with excitement, yet giving orders with
+unswerving judgment.
+
+"Can't you start the pumping engine, boys? Swing out that emergency
+hose, quick. There you are! Now turn that stream on those oil barrels
+yonder--and _keep_ it there. Start the big force-pump and train a
+stream on the deck near the engines. The fire mustn't spread to the
+hoisting-gear. Mind that. Mulcahy, give me that chemical-tank. Wet my
+handkerchief and tie it over my mouth, Sally Lou. No, give me your
+scarf. That's better. I'm going to wade right in. Aha! See that?"
+
+The smoke column wavered, thinned. A shower of water, soot, and
+chemicals drenched everybody on deck. Nobody noticed the downpour, for
+the smoke column was sinking with every moment.
+
+Burford staggered back, half smothered. The extinguisher fell from his
+hand. But the force-pumps were working now at full blast. Stream after
+stream of water poured on the fire, then flooded across the deck. Two
+minutes more of frantic, gasping work and not a spark remained--nothing
+save the heap of quenched, still smoking waste.
+
+Dazed, Marian found herself once more on the house-boat deck. Ashore
+the laborers were flocking back to their tents, laughing and
+shouting. For them it had been a frolic rather than a danger. But the
+four on the house-boat deck looked at each other without a word. They
+were too shaky with relief to move or to speak. Sally Lou, the
+steady-willed, dependable Sally Lou, clung trembling to Marian, who in
+her turn leaned rather weakly against the rail. Roderick, ashen white,
+confronted Burford, who stood absently mopping his wet, smarting eyes
+with Sally Lou's singed and dripping crêpe scarf. Suddenly Burford
+broke the tension with a strangled whoop.
+
+"Our--our daily reports to the company!" he gurgled. "President
+Sturdevant wants every day's detail. Let's put it all in. 'I have the
+honor to report that while your engineers were stoking with burgoo and
+black-currant pie, Garrison Dredge Number Three was observed to be on
+fire. Your engineers, assisted by their partners, said engineers' wife
+and sister, all of whom displayed conspicuous bravery, attacked the
+fire. Thanks to their heroic efforts, the conflagration was
+extinguished. I beg further to report that damages are confined to one
+pile of waste, one smooched pink silk scarf, and'"--he passed his
+hand over his smutty forehead--"'and one pair of eyebrows.'"
+
+"I'm going straight home to bed," vowed Marian, as the laughter died
+away in exhausted chuckles. "This day has brought so many thrilling
+events that it will take me at least a week to calm myself down. Do
+let us hope that nothing whatever will happen for a while. I'm longing
+for monotony--days, months, ages of monotony, at that!"
+
+And, even as she spoke, there was a shout from the pier. Mulcahy came
+running toward them at top speed.
+
+"Will you look at Mulcahy, sprinting up from the ditch! I'll wager he
+has some more bad news for us. Come, Hallowell. Hurry!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL
+
+
+"Bad news, is it?" puffed Mulcahy. "Indeed, sir, I'm sorry to be the
+one to bring it to you. Lateral Four has caved in again."
+
+"Lateral Four! The cut where we've spent more time and work, filling
+in, than we've spent anywhere else on the whole ditch!"
+
+"Yes, Lateral Four. The ungrateful piece of fill she is! And when you
+have shored up the margins with brush, twice over!"
+
+"How far up is the cave-in, Mulcahy?"
+
+"Half a mile from the mouth. Right where Mr. Ellingworth Locke's land
+begins, sir."
+
+"Right on President Locke's land! Will you hear that, Hallowell? And
+he's the biggest grumbler in the whole district! And the most powerful
+grumbler, too. Of all the hard luck!"
+
+"I do hear. And I'm going to get busy." Rod pulled himself together
+with a grim little chuckle. "It's an all-night job, Burford. Or else
+we can add one more calamity to our head-quarters report. 'One bad
+cave-in, on lateral draining land owned by H. R. H., the acting
+president of the Central Mississippi Association.' Do you see us
+putting in that cheery news?"
+
+"No, I don't. Not just yet." Burford wiped the last soot-streak from
+his chin and jumped into the launch. "Here we go!"
+
+"Wait a jiffy, Burford. You'd better stay by the dredge an hour or so.
+Keep the men at work flooding her deck. We can't be certain-sure that
+the fire is completely out. There's always a risk."
+
+"That's a fact. You go up to the cave-in and set the levee crews to
+work. I'll follow in an hour."
+
+Rod started his engine, but Marian stopped him.
+
+"Wait, Rod. Take me up to the lateral, too."
+
+"Take you up to the cave-in, you mean? Why on earth should you go? At
+this time of night----"
+
+"Because I want to see just what you have to do. I'm getting very
+much interested in the work, truly. Please, brother."
+
+"Of all the notions!" Rod looked completely puzzled. Yet a warm little
+gratified smile brightened his tired face. Again he felt the
+heart-warming satisfaction that he had felt on the day he had come
+home, fagged and blue, to find that Marian had sorted all his accounts
+and cleared up his reports for him. It was wonderfully pleasant to
+find that his sister could show such real comradeship in his work.
+
+"Of course you shall go with me if you wish, dear. Hop in. Careful!"
+
+"Let me steer, Rod."
+
+"Think you can see all right?"
+
+"With this big search-light? I should hope so. Lie down on the
+cushions and rest for two minutes. I'll run very carefully."
+
+"Good enough." Rod stretched his weary bones on the seat. At the end
+of the six-mile run he sat up, with a shamed grin.
+
+"Lazy sinner I am, I dropped off the minute I struck those cushions.
+My, that snooze makes one thirsty for more! Put the launch inshore,
+Sis. Hello there, boys! Is that Dredge A crew? Why, how did you swing
+the dredge downstream so quickly?"
+
+"We had steam up, so we dropped down the lateral the minute we got
+word of the cave-in," answered the dredge foreman. "It was Mister Jim
+Conover who happened by and saw the landslip, sir. He came a-gallopin'
+over with his horse all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen
+minutes after it happened. Then he called his own hired men and a
+crowd of neighbors, and they all set to to shore up the bank, above
+and below the break, with sand-bags and brush. They're workin' at it
+now, sir, lickety-cut." He pointed up the lateral to a dim glow of
+torch-light. "Shovellin' away like beavers they are, sir. There won't
+be another slump in that margin, you can depend on that. They've saved
+you and the company two days' work and five hundred dollars clear in
+damages alone, I'm thinkin'."
+
+"Five hundred damages? It would have been nearer a thousand if they
+hadn't stopped that slide on the double-quick." Roderick sat staring
+at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of smoky light. He could
+hardly grasp this amazing stroke of fortune. "But how--why--I never
+heard of such a royal piece of kindness!"
+
+"It's all Conover's doing. He said you folks had done mighty
+neighborly by him, and that he wanted to show his appreciation."
+
+"_Conover!_ Why, I never even heard the man's name till now!"
+
+"Conover?" Marian screwed up her forehead. A vague recollection
+flickered in her mind.
+
+"Yes, sir, Conover. He has a good-sized farm back here a piece. Likely
+you've forgotten. There's him and his wife and his little girl.
+Crippled she is, the poor child. Mamie, they call her."
+
+"Mamie Conover--Oh! The poor little soul who was so delighted with
+your red pencils, Rod! That visitors' Sunday, don't you remember?"
+
+"Oh, to be sure. You're better at remembering than I am, Sis. Well,
+I'm going up to thank him, this minute. Then we'll ship the dredge
+into trim and begin digging out the channel again. Think it will take
+us all night?"
+
+"Now that Conover's gang has stopped the slide so good and square for
+us, we ought to be able to cut out and tamp down, too, by daybreak,
+sir. Maybe sooner. Here comes Conover this minute."
+
+Coated with mud, squashing heavily into the sodden crest of the bank
+with every step, Conover tramped down the ditch. In that shambling
+figure, Marian instantly recognized little Mamie's father. Vividly she
+remembered his deep, weary look at her, the infinite tenderness with
+which he had lifted the little frail body from her arms.
+
+In the white glare of the search-light, his gaunt face was radiant
+with friendly concern.
+
+"We've done what little we could, Mr. Hallowell," he said, in reply to
+Rod's eager thanks. "Little enough at that. But now if you'll put in a
+few hours' dredging to get out that slide, your ditch will be all
+right again. Mr. Locke there, whose land borders on this lateral, is a
+little--well, a little fussy, you know. That's why we fellows kinder
+butted in and set to work without waitin' to hear from you. Land, it
+wasn't nothing to thank us for. Just a little troke between neighbors.
+You here, Miss Hallowell? My buckboard is right up-shore. Can't I
+drive you to Mr. Gates's? It's right on my way home--only a mile or
+so off my road, that is."
+
+"Run along, Sis. Please. It's late and damp, and chilly besides.
+Scoot, now."
+
+"But I don't want to go, Rod. I want to stay and see the dredge make
+the cut over again. This is the most interesting performance I ever
+dreamed of."
+
+"I'd much rather have you go home, old lady. You can't see much in
+this half-light. And you can't help me. Worse, you'll catch cold sure
+and certain." Yet that odd little glow warmed Rod's heart once more.
+It was a wonderful satisfaction to hear Marian speak with such keen
+interest of his beloved work.
+
+"Well, then--" reluctantly Marian scrambled ashore. Mr. Conover wiped
+his muddy hands on the lap-robe and helped her into the buckboard,
+with awkward care. They drove swiftly away, up the wide country road,
+between the dark, level fields.
+
+Neither spoke for some minutes. At last Marian began, rather clumsily,
+to tell him of their exciting day.
+
+The man made no comment. Still more clumsily, she tried to thank him
+for his generous and timely aid to Roderick.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Conover turned to her. In the faint starlight she saw
+that his dull face was working painfully.
+
+"So you want to thank me for this job, eh? Why, if I'd done ten times
+as much, I wouldn't have begun to do what I want to do for you and
+your brother. I've been aimin' to come over and tell you, long ago.
+But seems like I never get around to it. Don't you mind about them red
+pencils?"
+
+"Those red and blue pencils of Rod's, you mean? What of them?"
+
+"What of them? My, if you could see Mamie with them, you wouldn't
+ask!" The color burned in his thin face. His eyes were shining now.
+"They're the one pleasure that ain't never failed her. If I could ever
+tell you what they've meant! I've sent to the city and bought her
+three or four dozen assorteds, so's to be sure she never gets short of
+all the colors. No matter how bad her back hurts, she'll set there in
+her pillows and mark away, happy's a kitten. Seems like long's she's
+workin' with those pencils, she forgets everything, even the pain. And
+that's the best we can ever do for our baby." His voice broke on a
+terrible and piteous note. "The only thing we can do--help her
+forget."
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"An' then you talk as if what I did to-night could count for
+anything--alongside of _that_!"
+
+Marian's own lips were quivering. She did not dare to reply.
+
+Yet as she put out her bedroom candle and stood looking out on the
+dark starlit woods, the narrow black ribbon of the canal, a whimsical
+wonder stirred in her thought.
+
+"I'll tell Rod to-morrow that his red pencils must have the credit of
+it all. It's the story of the little Dutch hero who stuffed his thumb
+into the crack in the dike and saved the city, right over again. Only
+this time it's something even tinier than a thumb that has saved the
+day. It's just a little red lead-pencil. And, oh, how glad I am for
+Roderick's sake! The dear, stodgy old slow-coach, I'm proud of every
+inch of his success. Though maybe Slow-Coach isn't just the fitting
+name for Rod nowadays. Sometimes the slow coaches are the very ones
+that win the race--in the long run."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HONORED GUESTS
+
+
+Marian's wish for quiet and monotonous days was promptly granted. Only
+too promptly and too thoroughly, she owned ruefully. The next morning
+dawned bleak and gray, with a chill east wind and a driving rain. Held
+prisoner in the house by the storm, Marian amused herself through the
+long dreary day as best she could. At supper-time, feeling very lonely
+indeed, she called Roderick up on the telephone; but their
+long-distance visit gave her little satisfaction.
+
+Roderick had spent a hard day, hurrying from one lateral to another,
+crowding the levee work to the highest possible speed; for in this
+wide-spread rain the creeks to the north were rising an inch an hour,
+and every inch meant danger to his half-built embankments. Marian
+sympathized eagerly and declared that she would come down to the canal
+the next day and help him with his reports.
+
+"Not if it rains you won't," croaked Roderick hoarsely. "Don't let me
+catch you outside the house. You'll catch cold just as I have done,
+wading through this swamp. Mind, now. Don't you dare leave the
+farm-house unless it clears."
+
+Marian promised. When the morning came, dark and drizzly, she found it
+hard to keep her word. The hours went on leaden feet. The downpour
+never slackened. It was impossible for her to go out-doors even as far
+as the driveway. In that flat, low country a two-days' rain means an
+inundation. Meadows and fields were like flooded marshes. Sheets of
+water spread through the orchards; the yard paths were so many brooks,
+the barn-yard was an infant lake.
+
+"It won't last very long," Mrs. Gates consoled her. "A year ago we'd
+have been heart-broken at the sight of such a rain. It would have
+meant ruin for all the crops. The surplus water would not have drained
+off in a fortnight. But since they began digging the ditches, we know
+that our crops will be safe, even if it rains for a week."
+
+"I'm glad to learn that Rod's hard work counts for something," said
+Marian impatiently. She flattened her downcast face against the pane.
+"In the meantime, I feel like a marooned pirate. If I can't get out of
+doors for some fresh air before long, I'll develop a pirate's
+disposition, too."
+
+At dusk she tried again to call Roderick on the telephone, to demand
+sympathy for her imprisonment. But to her astonishment she could get
+no reply from central.
+
+"The wires are all down, I dare say," said Mrs. Gates cheerfully.
+"It'll be three or four days before the line-men can get around to
+repair damages. The roads are hub deep. No telling when they can haul
+their repair wagons through. You'll see."
+
+Marian did see. The district roads had been all but impassable ever
+since her coming. Now, thanks to this downpour, they would be
+bottomless pits of mire.
+
+"Well! It's worse this morning, if anything," Mrs. Gates announced
+cheerfully, as Marian appeared on the third gray morning. "'Pears to
+me that you won't get out-doors again before the Fourth of July."
+
+"But I must have some air. I can't stay cooped up forever," cried
+Marian. "If you'd only lend me your rubber boots, Mrs. Gates; the ones
+you wear when you're gardening. Then I could put on my mackintosh and
+my rubber bathing-cap and splash about beautifully. Besides, I must go
+down to the canal. I must see how Rod is getting on. Think, it has
+been two days since I have heard one word from him. Yet he is barely
+two miles away!"
+
+Mrs. Gates yielded at last to her coaxing. Soon Marian started out,
+wearing the borrowed boots and Mr. Gates's oil-skin coat. She stumbled
+and splashed away through the dripping woods, with Finnegan romping
+gayly behind. Rainy weather held no melancholy for Finnegan. Shut in
+the house, he had made those three days memorable for the household,
+especially for poor irate Empress, who had taken refuge at last on the
+top rafter of the corn-bin. On the way to camp he flushed three
+rabbits, chased a fat gray squirrel into chattering fury, and dragged
+Marian knee-deep into a bog, in his wild eagerness to dig out an
+imaginary woodchuck.
+
+"I wish I had a little of your vim, Finnegan." Marian sat down, soaked
+and breathless, on the step of Sally Lou's martin-box. From that
+eminence she surveyed the canal and its swarms of laborers. Her eyes
+clouded.
+
+In spite of her growing interest in Roderick's work, to look upon that
+work always puzzled her and disheartened her. The slow black water;
+the ugly mud-piled banks; the massive engines throbbing night and day
+through a haze of steam; the gigantic dredge machines, swinging their
+great steel arms back and forth, up and down, lifting tons of earth
+from the bottom of the ditch and placing it on the waiting barge with
+weird, unerring skill. Most of all, the heavy tide of hurry and
+anxiety that seemed to rise higher every day. All these things vexed
+her and harassed her. When Rod talked over his work with her with all
+his eager enthusiasm, she could share his triumph or lament his
+disappointment, as the case might be. But the work itself was so huge,
+so complicated, that she could never quite grasp it. She could never
+understand her brother's passionate interest.
+
+"Although I don't despise the very sight of camp, as I did at first,"
+she reflected. "It is rather queer that I don't, too. Perhaps one can
+get used to anything. And I do want to learn more about Rod's work,
+for he loves it so dearly, and I know he wants me to enjoy it too.
+Though how anybody can enjoy such a life! To spend day after day,
+month on month, toiling like a slave in a steaming marsh like this!"
+
+A brisk finger tapped on the window-pane above her.
+
+"Come in, Miss Northerner! Poor dear, you're all but drowned. Stand on
+the oil-cloth and drip till Mammy can help you to take off those boots
+and put on my slippers."
+
+Marian entered the dry, warm little house with a sigh of pleasure.
+Presently she sat at the window with Thomas Tucker bouncing on her
+knee. Thomas Tucker had charms that could cheer the most pensive
+spirit. Yet Marian stared soberly past his bobbing yellow head at the
+swarming camp below.
+
+"Don't look so droopy, Miss Northerner. Perk up, do!" Sally Lou gave
+her ear a gentle nip. "You and I will have to manufacture
+cheerfulness in car-load lots this week, to counterbalance our
+partners' gloom."
+
+"Why? Have the boys met with more ill-luck on the contract?"
+
+"More ill-luck!" Sally Lou checked off point by point on her slim
+fingers. "Day before yesterday--the morning after the fire--the
+district inspector was due here to pass judgment on the two upper
+laterals. As you know, the contract provides that the inspector must
+look over every yard of excavation and approve it before it can be
+considered as actually done. Lo and behold, no inspector appeared. The
+boys were wild with anxiety to start their levee-work before the rain
+should wash the soft new banks down into the canal; for the company is
+responsible for every cave-in, and every slide of land means double
+labor in digging all that soil out of the ditch again. By noon the
+inspector had not been heard from, but two small cave-ins had
+occurred, and the company was losing money at the rate of thirty
+dollars an hour, because of the enforced idleness of the laborers and
+the shutting down of the machinery. Finally Roderick took his launch
+and started out in search of the inspector. At Grafton he managed to
+get telephone connections with his office, and he was cheerfully
+assured that the inspector would appear on the scene 'as soon as the
+rain stops.'"
+
+"'As soon as the rain stops?' Why, Sally Lou! Then he hasn't come at
+all!"
+
+"Precisely. Back came poor Rod, very cross and doleful indeed. Then he
+and Ned gave up work on the laterals and set the men to hacking away
+at the regular excavation. The laborers are sulky accordingly.
+Yesterday they threatened a strike. I don't blame them. The
+bank-cutting is all very well in dry weather, but in this rain it is a
+miserable task."
+
+"Well, Rod can keep the men pacified. He's a splendid manager."
+
+"Yes; and the men like him. But the work is terribly wearing on both
+the boys. And the third calamity arrived last night. The dipper-handle
+broke."
+
+"The dipper-handle? On the big dredge? Sally Lou, how dreadful!"
+
+"Yes, it is dreadful. It means, of course, that twenty of the
+laborers will stop work and enjoy a vacation at the company's expense
+while the new handle is being made and put in. Luckily the boys have
+one set of duplicate chains and timbers, and the company blacksmith is
+wonderfully capable. But it will cost the company a lump loss of a
+thousand dollars. Imagine, Marian, how those poor boys will groan when
+they make out their week's reports for President Sturdevant. 'One
+fire. One delay and two cave-ins, due to non-appearance of district
+inspector. One strike. One smashed dipper-handle.' Think what a dismal
+task the writing of that report will be!"
+
+"Don't let me hear any more croaking, Sally Lou," came a wrathful
+voice from the door. "For we're facing the worst smash yet. What do
+you suppose this telegram says?"
+
+Sally Lou shook a small fist at the yellow slip in his hand.
+
+"Don't you dare tell me that it's some new misfortune!"
+
+"Two of 'em. That lordly, gloomy grouch, Mr. Ellingworth Locke, acting
+president of the Central Mississippi Association, is headed for this
+luckless camp. He's on his way up-river this identical minute. With
+him comes Crosby. Crosby, consulting engineer for the whole Valley
+Association. Coming on a tour of inspection, _if_ you please. Just
+think of the lovely job that they have come a thousand miles to
+inspect!"
+
+There was a stricken pause.
+
+"President Locke! That--that potentate! Ned, you don't mean it! And
+Mr. Crosby, whose word is law on every question of engineering!"
+
+"And they're coming to-day! To 'inspect' this soaking, miry,
+half-baked camp!"
+
+"And just this minute I've had some more news, Burford." Roderick
+bolted up the steps and entered the room. He tried to wrench his face
+into a reassuring grin; but beneath the grin he was the picture of
+angry dismay. "A big white launch is just coming up the canal, with
+two passengers aboard. If I'm not mistaken, they are our honored
+guests. Come along, Burford, and help me welcome them."
+
+Burford, pop-eyed with amazement, meekly obeyed. Wordless, the two
+girls watched the boys pelt away toward the landing.
+
+"Well!"
+
+Sally Lou and Marian looked at each other eloquently.
+
+"Well! I could find it in my heart to wish that the boys were not
+obliged to unfold quite so many tales of misery! Then the broken
+machinery and the quarrelling laborers! But we mustn't let ourselves
+fidget over it, Marian. It will come out all right, somehow."
+
+Roderick and Burford pounded down to the shore. The white launch was
+just putting into the landing. At the bow sat Mr. Ellingworth Locke,
+wrapped in a huge storm coat. Evidently he was scolding the launch
+pilot with some energy. Behind him stood Crosby, his gray, keen eyes
+searching every inch of the ditch construction.
+
+"His Jove-like Majesty looks even grumpier than usual," whispered
+Burford the irreverent. "Come along, Hallowell. It is our professional
+duty to welcome them with heart and soul."
+
+"Mr. Burford?" Mr. Locke stepped upon the landing and put out a plump
+gloved hand. "Ah, Mr. Hallowell? How goes it? We hope that you have
+no ill news of the contract to give us." He led the way up the shore,
+with ponderous dignity. "The three contracts in central Illinois,
+which we have just inspected, have shown deplorable results from the
+high water. I trust that you have no such misfortunes to report."
+
+"We haven't anything but misfortunes to report," muttered Burford.
+Aloud he said, "We have not been able to bring the work to the desired
+point, sir. We have had several accidents and delays. If you can face
+the discomforts of a boat trip in this rain, perhaps you will make a
+tour of inspection and see how matters stand."
+
+The honorable Mr. Locke hesitated. The canal looked very muddy and
+uninviting. The sky was black with rain clouds.
+
+"Perhaps it would be as well for us to confer with you. Then we could
+go back to Saint Louis immediately."
+
+"Beg pardon, Mr. Locke." Mr. Crosby spoke for the first time. His gray
+face had no particular expression; but his voice held an oddly
+pleasant note. "You go back right away, if you like. But I'll look
+over this excavation with my own eyes. I want to discuss it with the
+executive committee day after to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, of course, if you insist!" Mr. Locke turned impatiently to
+Burford. "Where is your boat, sir? Let us start at once."
+
+That tour of inspection! Silent, humiliated, miserable, Roderick and
+Burford plodded after the two Olympians, up and down the narrow
+laterals, back and forth through the maze of seeping, half-cut
+channels. Every question that they must answer told of some unlucky
+happening. Every report was apologetic, unsatisfactory.
+
+"This ruinous high water isn't our fault. Neither is Carlisle's
+illness, nor the broken dipper-handle, nor the district inspector's
+delay. Just the same I feel like a penny-in-the-slot machine for
+grinding out explanations," whispered Roderick to Burford. Burford
+merely scowled in reply.
+
+Thus far, Mr. Crosby had had nothing to say. He strode on ahead, his
+keen eyes judging, his shrewd mouth shut hard. President Locke made up
+for his silence. He hectored the boys with fretful questions and
+complaints. He criticised the laborers, the equipment, the weather.
+
+"Your company's losses, indeed! The Breckenridge Company will be
+fortunate, Mr. Burford, if, under the present management, this
+contract does not bring forfeitures as well as loss. As for the
+land-owners in this district, their dissatisfaction can be only too
+readily imagined."
+
+Just then the president caught Mr. Crosby's eye.
+
+"Do you not agree with me, Mr. Crosby? Is not this a most
+disheartening outlook? On my word, sir, the company has no chance to
+complete those laterals before the great June freshets. That calamity
+will mean ruin for the farmers and for the contract alike. To finish
+this work would be difficult with a full quota of experienced men. And
+with only cub engineers--" He threw out both fat hands, with a gesture
+of despairing scorn.
+
+Burford bit his lip and turned fiery red with mortification.
+Roderick's stolid face did not flinch. But his heart sank leaden to
+his miry boots. What an infuriating humiliation for the company! His
+company, the pride of his boy heart! And Breckenridge, Breck his hero,
+would have to hear it all!
+
+"You think it's as bad as all that?" Mr. Crosby spoke with slow,
+bland unconcern. Then he looked at the two boys. For one moment his
+lean gray face lighted with a curious, kindly sparkle. "H'm! Strikes
+me that their company is mighty lucky to have cub engineers employed
+on this job."
+
+"'Lucky?' Why, sir? Why?"
+
+"Well, because they're the only kind that any company can depend upon
+to have nerve enough and grit enough to swing such a forlorn hope of a
+contract through."
+
+He tramped on, up the landing. Burford threw back his shoulders. The
+blood flamed to his ears. Roderick's heart suddenly leaped up to its
+normal altitude and began to pound. His lagging feet swung into a
+jaunty stride. He met Burford's red, delighted face with a shamefaced
+grin. That vote of confidence had fairly set them afire.
+
+"At what time had we best start back to Saint Louis?" asked Mr. Locke.
+
+"By leaving camp at nine-thirty you will meet the north-bound limited
+at Grafton, sir."
+
+"Then, Crosby, we will stay here until that hour. But where shall we
+dine?"
+
+"It will be a pleasure to Mrs. Burford and myself if you and Mr.
+Crosby will dine with us at our cabin," interposed Burford eagerly.
+
+The stout potentate graciously accepted, and Burford fled to break the
+news to Sally Lou.
+
+"Mercy, Sally Lou, how can you manage it!" cried Marian, as Burford
+popped his head through the window, shouted his news, then hastily
+departed. "How on earth can you entertain such high mightinesses?"
+
+"Well, I should hope that I could give them one meal at least."
+
+"But you haven't enough dishes. That is, you haven't cups that
+match----"
+
+"Cups that match, indeed! H'm. They can be thankful to get any cups at
+all in this wilderness. I've promised Mammy Easter my pink beads if
+she'll make us some beaten biscuit, and I have sent Mulcahy to Mrs.
+Gates's for three chickens, and I'll open two jars of my white peach
+preserve. I don't care if they're the Grand Mogul and the Czar of all
+the Russias, they can surely condescend to eat Mammy's fried
+chicken."
+
+"Yes, they'll be sure to like chicken," conceded Marian.
+
+"They'd better like it. It's all they're going to get. Chicken and
+potatoes and biscuit, preserves and coffee, that's all. Yes, and
+lashin's and lavin's of cream gravy. It'll be fit for a king. Even his
+Highness, the acting president, won't dare complain!"
+
+If any complaints as to Sally Lou's hospitality were spoken, they were
+not audible to the human ear. As Roderick said afterward, it was
+fortunate that nobody kept the beaten biscuit score; while one grieves
+to relate that in spite of Sally Lou's generous preparation, poor
+Mammy Easter was obliged to piece out an exceedingly skimpy meal from
+the fragments of the supper, instead of the feast that she had
+anticipated. Even the pink beads proved a barely adequate consolation.
+
+The hour that followed, spent before the Burfords' tiny hearth-fire,
+was the best of all. For a while, the men worked over the mass of
+blueprints that recorded the excavation made during the month past.
+Here President Locke, the magnificent figure-head, gave way, promptly
+and meekly, before Crosby's wider experience. Roderick and Burford
+listened, all ears, to the elder man's shrewd illuminating comment,
+his quiet suggestion, his amused friendly sympathy. Both groaned
+inwardly when the launch whistled from below, a warning that their
+guests must be off to meet the north-bound train.
+
+President Locke bowed over Sally Lou's hand with majestic courtesy.
+
+"A most delightful hour you have given us, Mrs. Burford. We shall
+remember it always and with deep pleasure. But one thing is lacking in
+your hospitality. You have not given us the special pleasure of
+meeting your young sons."
+
+Then Sally Lou, the poised stately young hostess, colored pink to her
+curly fair hair.
+
+"It is high time that my sons were sound asleep," said she. "But if
+you really wish to see them, and can overlook their informal attire,
+Mammy Easter shall bring them in."
+
+In came two small podgy polar bears, wide-eyed at the marvel of
+company, and up-at-Nine-o'clock, dimpling, crimson-cheeked. Roderick
+and Burford stood gaping, to behold their august superiors now
+stooping from their heights to beguile small Edward and shy Thomas
+Tucker with clumsy blandishments.
+
+"_Where_ did you learn to handle a baby like that?" gasped Sally Lou,
+so astonished at Mr. Crosby's dexterous ease that she forgot all
+convention.
+
+"Six of my own," returned the eminent engineer, capably shifting
+small, slippery Thomas Tucker on his gaunt shoulder. "All grown up, I
+regret to say. My baby girl is a junior at Smith this year. Try him.
+Isn't he a stunner for a year old?" He plumped the baby into the arms
+of the lordly president, who was already jouncing Edward Junior on his
+knee and showing him his watch.
+
+"A whale," approved President Locke, with impressive emphasis. He
+stood up, gaining his footing with some difficulty; for both the
+babies were now clambering over him delightedly, while Finnegan yapped
+and nipped his ankles with cordial zest. "I wish we might spend
+another hour with these most interesting members of your household,
+Mr. Burford." His stern, arrogant face was beaming; he was no longer
+the exacting official, but the gracious, kindly gentleman. "Since we
+must go, we will leave behind us our good wishes, as well as our
+thanks for your most charming hospitality. And we will take with
+us"--his eye sought Mr. Crosby's; there passed between the two men a
+quick, satisfied glance--"we shall take with us our hearty certainty
+that these good wishes for your husband's work, as well as for his
+household, will be abundantly fulfilled."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the flickering torchlight of the landing Roderick and Ned watched
+their launch start away. Then they looked at each other.
+
+"Well! Do you feel like tackling your job again, Burford?"
+
+"Feel like tackling it!" Ned chuckled, softly. "When I know they're
+going to give their executive committee a gilt-edged report of our
+company and its work! When Crosby himself said that we were the right
+men on the right job! Feel like tackling it? Give me a shovel and I'll
+tackle the Panama Canal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL
+
+
+"What is the latest bulletin, Sally Lou?"
+
+Ned Burford, hot, muddy, breathless, ran up the martin-box steps and
+put his head inside the door.
+
+Sally Lou sat at Ned's desk, her brown eyes intent, her cheeks a
+little pale. A broad map lay spread before her. One hand steadied
+small Thomas Tucker, who clung against her knee. The other hand
+grasped the telephone receiver.
+
+"What's the news, I say? Doesn't central answer? Wires down again, do
+you s'pose?"
+
+"Yes, central answered, and we reached the operator at Bates Creek an
+hour ago. She says that the smaller streams below Carter's Ford have
+not risen since daybreak, but that Bates Creek itself has risen three
+inches in the last four hours."
+
+"Whew! Three inches since morning! That sounds serious. What about
+Jackson River?"
+
+"Below Millville the Jackson has flooded its banks. Above Millville
+the men are patrolling the levees and stacking in sand bags and brush
+to reinforce the earthwork."
+
+"That means, another crest of water will reach us to-morrow, early.
+Well, we are ready to face it, I'm thankful to say." Ned settled back
+in his big chair with a sigh of relief. "That is, unless it should
+prove to be more than a three-foot rise. And there is practically no
+danger that it will go beyond that stage. Our upper laterals are
+excavated to final depth. Our levee is growing like magic, and
+Hallowell is putting in splendid time on the lower laterals with the
+big dredge. So we needn't worry. As soon as he finishes all the
+lateral excavation, he will bring the dredges down to the main ditch
+and start in to deepen the channel to its final depth. When that
+second excavation is done, the channel will allow for a six-foot rise.
+That channel depth, of course, will put us far out of any danger of
+overflow. Then when the June floods come, the creeks can rise four
+inches or forty inches if they like. We won't care."
+
+Sally Lou looked sharply at his grimy, cheerful face. Her own did not
+reflect his contentment. She put down the receiver and bent frowning
+over the map. Her pencil wandered over the maze of fine red lines that
+marked the excavation.
+
+"Hallowell and I had nothing but bad luck on this contract until two
+weeks ago, when Locke and Crosby came on their inspection tour," Ned
+went on serenely. "But since their visit, we've had two solid weeks of
+the best fortune any engineer could ask. It has been almost too good;
+it's positively uncanny. Not a break in the machinery; only one
+cave-in, and that a trifle; not a solitary quarrel among the
+laborers--the shifts have moved like clock-work. It was Crosby's
+doing, I suppose. His coming heartened us all up; all of us; even to
+the dredges themselves. Though, on my word, Sally Lou, I'm almost
+afraid of such unchanging good luck. It's no' canny."
+
+Sally Lou turned to him suddenly. Her fingers tapped the desk with
+nervous little clicks.
+
+"Listen, Ned. Have you finished the upper laterals? Are they safe, no
+matter how high the water may rise?"
+
+"N-no. They are excavated, but the bank is nothing but heaped mud, you
+know. Still, it would stand anything short of a flood."
+
+"What about the lower laterals?"
+
+"Same state of affairs there. Only that the two lowest ditches aren't
+cut at all. Why?"
+
+Sally Lou swung round in the desk chair and faced her husband. Her
+eyes were very dark and anxious now.
+
+"One more question, Ned. Could the work stand a three-foot rise?"
+
+Ned stared.
+
+"A three-foot rise? No, it could not. A three-foot rise would stop our
+levee-building. A rise of four feet or more would put us out of the
+game. We'd be washed out, smashed, ruined. But why do you ask such
+questions? What makes you imagine----"
+
+"I'm not imagining, Ned. I had a telephone call not five minutes ago
+from the district inspector. Yes, I know you think he's always
+shouting 'Wolf!' but this time he may be right. He says that he has
+just come down from Chicago on the Central, and that the whole
+mid-section of the State is fairly submerged by these endless rains.
+Worse, the storm warnings are up for further rains. And he believes
+that there will be a rise of three feet within two days. That is,
+unless the rains stop."
+
+Ned started to his feet.
+
+"A rise of three feet! What is the man talking about? Don't you
+believe one word, Sally Lou. That inspector is a regular hoot-owl.
+He'd rather gloom and forebode than breathe. But maybe I'd better go
+and tell Hallowell. Perhaps we can ginger up our excavation. Yet the
+men and the machines are working up to their limit."
+
+He shuffled into his wet oilskins once more.
+
+"Where is Roderick, Ned?"
+
+"He just came in off his watch. He's sound asleep in the hammock over
+at his shack. Marian is over there too. She made Mr. Gates bring her
+down at five this morning, and she has worked like a Turk every
+minute. She spent the morning with Hallowell, up the laterals. She has
+learned to run his launch better that he can, so he lets her manage
+the boat for him. Then she takes all his notes, and does all his
+telephoning, and passes along his orders to the commissary men, and
+seconds him at every turn. Did you ever in all your life see anybody
+change as she has done? When I remember the listless, useless, fretful
+specimen that she was, those first weeks, then look at her now, I can
+hardly believe my eyes."
+
+Sally Lou listened a little impatiently.
+
+"Yes, I know. Ned, please go and tell Roderick about the inspector's
+message. He surely ought to know."
+
+"All right, I'm going." Ned put down his frolicking small sons
+reluctantly. Sally Lou laughed at his unwilling face. Yet she looked
+after him anxiously as he sauntered away. Then her eyes turned to the
+brimming canal. Tree branches and bits of lumber, washed down from the
+upper land by the heavy storm, rolled and tumbled past. The sky was
+thick and gray, the wind blew straight from the east.
+
+"I hate to fidget and forebode. But I--I almost wish that I could make
+Ned forebode a little. I'm afraid he ought to worry. And Roderick
+ought to be a little anxious, too."
+
+Suddenly the telephone bell rang. Sally Lou sprang to answer it.
+
+"Yes, this is the contract camp. A Chicago call? Is it--Is it
+head-quarters? Oh, is this _Mr. Breckenridge_ who is speaking? Shall I
+call Mr. Burford?"
+
+Strong and clear across two hundred miles of storm the voice reached
+her, a hurrying command.
+
+"Do not call your husband. No time. Operator says the wind raging here
+may break connections at any minute. Tell him that we have positive
+word that a tremendous rise is on the way. A cloudburst north of
+Huntsville started this new crest two hours ago. Moreover, a storm
+belt extends across the State, covering a district thirty miles wide
+directly north of you. Tell our engineers to spare neither money nor
+effort in making ready. Tell them, whatever else they must neglect, to
+save----"
+
+Click!
+
+The receiver dropped from Sally Lou's shaking hand. Not another sound
+came over the wire. She signalled frantically.
+
+"Oh, if he had only told me! 'To save'--to save _what_? The machinery,
+the levee, the laterals--Oh, central, please, please!"
+
+Still no sound. At last central's voice, a thin little whisper.
+
+"Chicago connections broken ... terrible storm ... sorry can't
+reach----"
+
+The thin little whisper dropped to silence.
+
+"Mammy, take these babies. I'm going away." Sally Lou rolled Thomas
+Tucker off her lap and dashed away to Roderick's shack. Trembling, she
+poured out her ill news.
+
+"This means business." Roderick, heavy-eyed and stupid, struggled into
+hip boots and slicker. "Breckenridge isn't frightening us for nothing.
+We daren't lose a minute. Come along, Burford."
+
+"Come along--where?" Burford stood stunned before this bewildering
+menace. "What more can we do? Aren't we rushing the whole plant to the
+danger notch of speed as it is?"
+
+"There is one thing we must do. Decide what part of the work we can
+abandon. Then put our whole force, men, machinery, and all, to work at
+the one point where it will do the most good."
+
+"What can we abandon? It's all equally important."
+
+"That is for you and me to decide. Come along."
+
+"If Breck had only finished his sentence! 'To save--' Surely he meant
+for us to save the dredges?"
+
+Again the boys looked at each other.
+
+"To save the dredges, maybe. But that doesn't sound like Breckenridge.
+'To save the land-owners from loss,' that's more like what he'd say."
+
+"If we could only reach him, for even half a minute----"
+
+"That is precisely what we can't do." Roderick's big shoulders lifted.
+His heavy face settled into lines of steel. "We'll bring all three of
+the machines down stream, and put up our fight on the main ditch. If
+we can cut through to the river, before the rise gets here, we will
+save the crops for most of the land-owners, anyway. That will check
+any danger of the water backing up into the narrow laterals and
+overflowing them."
+
+Burford frowned.
+
+"Do you realize that by making that move we shall risk wrecking the
+dredges? We will have to tow them down in this rough, high water
+against this heavy wind. We may smash and sink all three. And they
+cost the company a cool twenty thousand apiece, remember."
+
+Roderick's jaw set.
+
+"I realize just that. But it is up to us to decide. If we stop our
+excavation and huddle the machines back into the laterals, we will
+save our equipment from any risk. But the overflow will sweep the
+whole lower district and ruin every acre of corn. On the other hand,
+if we bring the dredges down here and start in full tilt to deepen the
+channel, we may wreck our machines--and we may not. But, whatever
+happens, we will be giving the land-owners a chance."
+
+Burford held back, but only for a moment. Then he put out his hand to
+Roderick, with a slow grin.
+
+"I'm with you, Hallowell. I'll take your lead, straight through. It's
+up to us, all right. We've got to shoulder the whole responsibility,
+the whole big, hideous risk. But we'll put it through. That's all."
+
+Together the boys hurried away. Left behind, the girls set to work
+upon their share of the plan with eager spirit.
+
+"You go with the boys and run the launch for them, Marian. I'll turn
+the babies over to Mammy and stay right here to watch the telephone
+and keep the time-books, although time-books could wait, in such a
+pinch as this. We'll all pull together. And we will pull out safely,
+never fear."
+
+Sally Lou was right. They all pulled together. Machines, laborers,
+foremen and all swung splendidly into line. As Ned said, the contract
+had never shown such team-work. Everybody worked overtime. Everybody
+faced the rain, the mud, the merciless hurry with high good-humor. The
+thrill of danger, the daring risk, the loyal zeal and spirit for the
+company, all spurred them on.
+
+Side by side with Roderick, Marian worked through the day. She had
+long since forgotten her frail health. She had forgotten her hatred of
+the dun western country, her dislike of Roderick's work, her
+weariness, her impatience. With heart and soul she stood by her
+brother. Only the one wish ruled every act: her eager desire to help
+Roderick, to stand by him through to the end of this tremendous
+strain.
+
+"We'll make it!" Roderick grinned at her, tired but content, as he
+came into the shack for his late supper. "Sally Lou finally reached
+Springfield on the telephone. The rain has stopped; so while the rise
+will come, sure as fate, yet it may not be as high as Breckenridge
+feared. At any rate, we have made splendid time with the big dredge
+to-day. There is barely an eighth of a mile more cutting to be done.
+Then we'll reach the river, and we'll be safe, no matter what freshets
+may happen along. Burford says I'm to take six hours' sleep; then I'll
+go on watch again. Twelve more hours of working time will see our
+land-owners secure."
+
+"Ned Burford is running up the shore this minute." Marian peered
+through the tent flap. "Mulcahy is coming with him. They're in a
+hurry. I wonder what has happened."
+
+"They'd better not bring me any bad news till I have eaten my supper,"
+said Roderick grimly.
+
+Burford and Mulcahy galloped up the knoll. Headlong they plunged into
+the tent. Burford was gray-white. Mulcahy stared at Roderick without
+a word.
+
+"What has happened? Burford, what ails you?"
+
+Burford sat down and mopped his sweating forehead.
+
+"The worst break-down yet, Hallowell. The dipper-bail on the big
+dredge has snapped clear through."
+
+The three stared at each other in helpless despair. Marian broke the
+silence.
+
+"The dipper-bail broken _again_? Why, it's not two weeks since you put
+on the new handle!"
+
+"True for you, miss. Not two weeks since it broke," said Mulcahy
+wrathfully. "And its smash means a tie-up all along the line. Not one
+stroke of ditch-work can be done till it's replaced. Who ever saw a
+dipper break her bail twice on the same job? 'Tis lightnin' strikin'
+twice in the same place. But 'tis no use cryin' over spilt milk. One
+of you gentlemen will have to go to Saint Louis and have a new bail
+welded at the steam forge. It will cost twenty-four hours' time, but
+it is the only way. I'll keep the boys hot at work on the levee
+construction meanwhile."
+
+"Go to Saint Louis to-night! And neither of you two have had a night's
+sleep this week!" Marian looked at Burford. His sodden clothes hung on
+him. His round face was pinched and sunken with fatigue. She looked at
+her brother. He had slumped back in his chair, limp and haggard. He
+was so utterly tired that even the shock of ill news could not rouse
+him to meet its challenge.
+
+Then she looked out at the weltering muddy canal, the dark stormy sky.
+
+"Never mind, Rod. We'll manage. You and Ned make out the exact figures
+and dimensions for the new bail. Then Mulcahy can take me to Grafton
+in the launch. There I'll catch the Saint Louis train. I'll go
+straight to the steam forge and urge them to make your bail at once.
+Then I'll bring it back on the train to-morrow night."
+
+Promptly both boys burst into loud, astonished exclamations.
+
+"Go to Saint Louis alone! I guess I see myself letting you do such a
+preposterous thing. I'll start, at once."
+
+"Stop that, Hallowell. You can't possibly go. You're so sleepy that
+you haven't half sense. I'll go myself."
+
+"Oh, you will. Then what about your watch to-night? Shall I take it
+and my own, too?"
+
+Burford stopped, quenched. He reddened with perplexity.
+
+"We can't either of us be spared, that's the fact of it. But Miss
+Marian must not think of going."
+
+"Certainly not. I would never allow it."
+
+"Yes, Rod, you will allow it." Marian spoke quietly, but with
+determination. "The trip to Saint Louis is perfectly safe. Once in the
+city, I'll take a carriage to the College Club and stay there every
+minute, except the time that I must spend in giving orders for the
+bail. No, you two need not look so forbidding. I'm going. And I'm
+going this identical minute."
+
+Later Marian laughed to remember how swiftly she had overruled every
+protest. The boys were too tired and dazed to stand against her. It
+was hardly an hour before she found herself flying down the river, in
+charge of the faithful Mulcahy, on her way to catch the south-bound
+train.
+
+"The steam-forge people will do everything in their power to serve
+you," Roderick had said, as he scrawled the last memoranda for her
+use. "They know our firm, and they will rush the bail through and have
+it loaded on the eight-o'clock train. I'll see to it that Mulcahy and
+two men are at the Grafton dock to meet your train. But if anything
+should go wrong, Sis, just you hunt up Commodore McCloskey and ask him
+to help you; for the commodore is our guardian angel, I am convinced
+of that."
+
+The trip to the city was uneventful. She awoke early, after a good
+rest, and hurried down to the forge works, a huge smoky foundry near
+the river. The shop foreman met her with the utmost courtesy and
+promised that the bail should be made and delivered aboard the
+afternoon train. Feeling very capable and assured, Marian went back to
+the club and had spent two pleasant hours in its reading-room when she
+was called to the telephone.
+
+"Miss Hallowell?" It was the voice of the forge works foreman.
+"I--er--most unluckily we have mislaid the slip of paper which gave
+the dimensions of the bail. We cannot go on until we have those
+dimensions. Do you remember the figures?"
+
+Poor Marian racked her brain. Not one measurement could she call to
+mind.
+
+"I'll ask my brother over the long-distance," she told the foreman.
+But even as she spoke, she knew that there was no hope of reaching
+Roderick. All the long-distance wires were down.
+
+"And not one human being in all Saint Louis who can tell me the size
+of that bail!" she groaned. "Oh, why didn't I measure it with my own
+tape-measure--and then learn the figures by heart! Yet--I do wonder!
+Would Commodore McCloskey know? He has been at the camp so often, and
+he knows everything about our machinery. Let's see."
+
+Presently Commodore McCloskey's friendly voice rang over the wire.
+
+"Well, sure 'tis good luck that ye caught me at the dock, Miss Marian.
+The _Lucy_ is just startin' up-river. Two minutes more and I'd have
+gone aboard. So ye've lost the bail dimensions? Well, well, don't talk
+so panicky-like. I'll be with ye in two minutes, an' we'll go to the
+forge together. 'Tis no grand memory I have, but I can give them a
+workin' idea."
+
+"Oh, if you only will, commodore! But the _Lucy_! How can you be
+spared?"
+
+"Hoot, toot. The _Lucy_ can wait while I go shoppin' with you. Yes,
+she has a time schedule, I know well. But, in high wather, whoever
+expects a Mississippi packet to be on time? Or in low wather, either,
+for that matter. I'll come to ye at once."
+
+The commodore was as good as his word. Soon he and Marian reached the
+forge works. There his shrewd observation and his wise old memory
+suggested dimensions which proved later to be correct in every detail.
+Moreover, he insisted upon staying with Marian till the bail should be
+welded. Then, under his sharp eyes, it was loaded safely on the
+Grafton train. As he escorted Marian elegantly into the passenger
+coach, she ventured, between her exclamations of gratitude, to reprove
+him very gently.
+
+"You have been too good to me, commodore. But when I think of the poor
+deserted _Lucy_! And the captain--what will he say?"
+
+"He'll say a-plenty." The little commodore smiled serenely. "'Tis an
+unchivalrous set the steam-boat owners are, nowadays. If he were half
+as obligin' as the old captains used to be in the good days before the
+war, he'd be happy to wait over twenty-four hours, if need be, to
+serve a lady. But nowadays 'tis only time, time that counts. Sure,
+he's grieved to the heart if we make a triflin' loss, like six hours,
+say, in our schedule."
+
+"And I'm not thanking you for myself alone," Marian went on, flushing.
+"It is for Rod, too. You don't know how much it means to me to be able
+to help him, even in this one small way."
+
+Then the little commodore bent close to her. His shrewd little eyes
+gleamed.
+
+"Don't I know, sure? An' by that token I'm proud of this day, and
+twice proud of the chance that's led me to share it. For, sure, I've
+always said it--the time would certain come when you--_when you'd wake
+up_. Mind my word, Miss Marian. Don't ye forget! Don't ye let go--and
+go to sleep again."
+
+The train jarred into motion. His knotted little hand gripped hers.
+Then he was off and away.
+
+"The dear little, queer little commodore!" Marian looked after him,
+her eyes a bit shadowy. "Though what could he mean! 'Now you've waked
+up.' I do wonder!"
+
+Yet her wonder was half pretended. A hot flush burned in her cheek as
+she sat thinking of his words.
+
+"Well, I'm glad, too, that I've 'waked up,' although I wish that
+something had happened to stir me earlier."
+
+The train crept on through the flooded country. It was past eight
+o'clock when they reached Grafton. Marian hurried from the coach and
+watched anxiously while two baggagemen hoisted the heavy bail from the
+car.
+
+"Well, my share is done," she said to herself. "That precious bail is
+here, safe and sound. But where is Mulcahy? And the launch? Rod said
+that he would not fail to be here by train time."
+
+The train pulled out. From the dim-lit station the ticket agent called
+to her.
+
+"You're expecting your launch, Miss Hallowell? There has been no boat
+down to-day."
+
+"But my brother promised to send the launch," stammered Marian.
+"Surely they knew I was coming to-night!"
+
+Then, in a flash of recollection, she heard Roderick's voice:
+
+"And Mulcahy will meet you on the eight-o'clock train."
+
+"Rod meant the train that leaves Saint Louis at eight in the morning!
+Not this afternoon train. How could I make such a blunder! He does not
+look for me to reach Grafton till to-morrow."
+
+She looked at the huge, heavy bail.
+
+"If that bail could reach camp to-night, they could ship it up and
+start to cutting immediately. It would mean seven or eight hours more
+of working time. But how to take it there!"
+
+"There's a man yonder who owns a gasolene-launch," ventured the agent.
+"It's a crazy, battered tub, but maybe----"
+
+Marian looked out at the night: the black, sullen river; the ranks of
+willows swaying in the heavy wind; the thunder that told of
+approaching storm.
+
+"Call that man over, please. Yes, I shall risk the trip up-river. That
+bail shall reach camp to-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+PARTNERS AND VICTORIES
+
+
+"What time is it, miss?"
+
+Marian put down the gallon tin with which she had bailed steadily, and
+looked at her watch.
+
+"Almost midnight."
+
+"Only midnight!"
+
+The steersman gave a weary yawn and turned back to his wheel. Inwardly
+Marian echoed his discouraged word. It seemed to her that she had
+crouched for years in the stern of the crazy little motor-boat. Rain
+and spray had drenched her to the skin. She ached in every half-frozen
+bone. Yet she sat, wide awake and alert, watching her pilot keenly.
+
+He was a poor helmsman, she thought. However, an expert would have
+found trouble in taking an overloaded launch up-stream against that
+swollen current and in pitch darkness. Worse, the weight of the heavy
+dredge-bail weighed the launch down almost to water level. Every tiny
+wave splashed over the gunwale. Marian bailed on mechanically.
+
+She had had hard work to bribe the owner to risk the trip up-stream.
+The men at Grafton had warned her, moreover, that she was running a
+narrow chance of swamping the launch, and thus of losing her precious
+piece of machinery, to say nothing of the danger to her own life. But
+all Marian's old timidity had fled, forgotten. Nothing else mattered
+if just she might serve her brother in his supreme need.
+
+Through these four dreary hours the old commodore's quaint, frank
+words had echoed in her mind. And the commodore had been right, she
+owned, with a quiver of shame. Always, since their mud-pie days, Rod
+had done his part by her in full measure, generously, lovingly. Never,
+until these last days, had she even realized what doing her own part
+by Roderick might mean.
+
+"Although I have been slower than my blessed old Slow-Coach himself in
+realizing what my life ought to count for. Well, as the commodore
+said, I have waked up at last. And mind this, Marian Hallowell! _You
+stay awake!_ Never, never let me catch you dozing off again!"
+
+"There's the camp light yonder," the steersman spoke at last, with a
+sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Marian peered ahead through the cold, blinding mist. Away up-stream
+shone a feeble glimmer, then a second light; a third.
+
+"Good! And--there are the dredge search-lights! Only a minute more and
+we'll be there."
+
+Only a minute it seemed till the launch wheezed up to the landing and
+swung with a thud against the posts. Marian stumbled ashore.
+
+"Mulcahy!" she called to the dark figure standing on the dredge deck.
+"Send two men to unload the bail for us."
+
+"Marian Hallowell! Where under the shining sun did you come from?"
+Roderick leaped from the deck to the shore and confronted his sister.
+Then, in his horrified surprise at her daring risk, he pounced upon
+her and administered a scolding of such vigor that it fairly made her
+gasp.
+
+"Of all the outrageous, reckless----"
+
+"There, there, Rod! Look!"
+
+Still breathing threatenings and slaughter, Roderick turned. Then he
+saw the huge new bail which the men were hoisting ashore.
+
+"So that's what it all means! That's why you came up on the early
+train! You brought that bail yourself, all the way. You risked your
+life in that groggy little boat! All on purpose to help us out! Marian
+Hallowell, I'd like to shake you hard. And for two cents I'd kiss you
+right here and now. You--you _peach_!"
+
+Burford, awakened by the launch whistle, was hurrying down the bank.
+Reaching the landing his eye fell on the precious new bail.
+
+Utterly silent, he stared at it for a long rapt minute. Then, rubbing
+his sleepy eyes, he turned to Marian and Rod with a grin that fairly
+lighted up the dock.
+
+"Now," he said, with slow exultation, "now--we've got our chance to
+win."
+
+And win they did.
+
+True, the water had already risen close to the dreaded three-foot
+danger-mark. True, neither of the boys had had half a dozen hours of
+sleep in three days. As for the laborers, they were fagged and
+overworked to the limit of their endurance. But not one of these
+things counted. Not a grumbling word was spoken. This was their
+company's one chance. Not a man held back from seizing that chance and
+making good. Not a man but felt himself one with the company, a living
+vital element of that splendid struggling whole.
+
+Marian and Sally Lou stood on the shore watching the dredge as the
+great dipper crunched its way through the last submerged barrier. The
+canal rolled bank full. Little waves swashed over the platform on
+which they stood. Pools of seep-water already gathered behind the mud
+embankment, which was crumbling into miry avalanches with every sweep
+of rising water against it. Not by any chance could the levee stand
+another hour. But even as the dredge cut that narrow passage, the
+heavy overflow boiled outward into the river beyond. Minute by minute
+the rough surface of the canal was sinking before their watching eyes.
+Now it had fallen from six inches above to high-water mark; now to
+three inches below; now to mid-stage--and safety.
+
+As the freed stream rolled out into the river, a great cheer rose from
+the laborers crowded alongshore. Roderick and Burford stayed aboard
+the dredge until it was warped alongside the dock and safely moored.
+Then they crossed to land and joined the girls. Neither of the boys
+spoke one word. They did not seem to hear the shouts and cheers behind
+them. There was no glow of success on their sober faces. Perhaps their
+relief was so great that they were a little stunned before its wonder.
+Victory was theirs; but victory won in the face of so great a danger
+that they could not yield and feel assured of their escape.
+
+"We cannot reach head-quarters on the telephone, of course. But, by
+hook or crook, one of you boys must get a despatch through to Mr.
+Breckenridge. Think of being able to tell him that you have deepened
+the canal straight through to the river, so that the whole lower half
+of the district is safe from overflow! And that you have moved all
+these costly, treacherous machines down-stream without one serious
+accident, without so much as a broken bolt! It is too good to be
+true."
+
+"I'll take a launch and sprint down to Grafton and wire our report
+from there," said Burford. His tense face relaxed; he broke into a
+delighted chuckle. "Think of it: this once I can actually enjoy
+sending in my report to head-quarters! I'd like to write it out
+instead of wiring it. I'd put red-ink curlycues and scroll-work
+dewdabs all over the page. Think, Hallowell, you solemn wooden Indian!
+The crest of this flood is only two hours away. By noon the highest
+level will reach our canal. But it can't flood our district for us,
+for--for we got there first!"
+
+His rosy face one glow of contentment, he started toward the pier. But
+as he was about to step aboard the duty-launch, Roderick hailed him
+sharply.
+
+"Wait, Burford. Somebody is coming up the big ditch. A large gray
+launch, with a little dark-blue flag."
+
+"What!"
+
+Burford sprang back. He shaded his eyes and looked down the canal.
+Then, to Rod's amazement, he sat down on a pile of two-by-fours and
+rocked to and fro.
+
+"Whatever ails you, Burford?"
+
+"Whatever ails me, indeed!" Burford choked it out. His ears were
+scarlet. His eyes were fairly popping from his head with delight. "Oh,
+I reckon I won't bother to send that report to head-quarters, after
+all. I'll just let the whole thing slide."
+
+Rod gaped at him.
+
+"Have you lost your last wit, Ned?"
+
+"Not quite. I'm going to give my report to my superior officer by word
+of mouth. That big gray power-boat is one of our own company's
+launches. That small blue flag is the company ensign. And that big
+gray man standing 'midships is--Breckenridge! Breck the Great, his
+very self."
+
+"Breckenridge!"
+
+"Breckenridge. All there, too--every splendid inch of him. Talk about
+luck! Our levee is saved. Our dredges are all anchored, right yonder,
+trim as a gimlet. Our schedule is put through up to the minute. And
+here, precisely on the psychological moment, comes our chief on his
+tour of inspection. Can you beat that?"
+
+Roderick merely stared down the canal.
+
+Close behind the launch pilot, scanning the bank intently as they
+steamed by, towered a broad-shouldered, heavily built man,
+gray-headed, yet powerful and alert in every movement. He was well
+splashed with mud; his broad, heavily featured face was colorless with
+fatigue. Yet as he stood there, with his big tense body, his tired,
+eager face, he seemed like some magnificent natural force imprisoned
+in human flesh.
+
+"Isn't he sumptuous, though?" said Burford, under his breath. "Look at
+those shoulders! What a half-back he would make!"
+
+"Half-back? Why, he could make the All-American," Rod whispered back.
+His eyes were glued to that tall approaching figure. His heart was
+pounding in his breast. So this was Breckenridge the Great, his hero!
+And, marvel of marvels, he looked the hero of all Rod's farthest
+dreams.
+
+Breckenridge stepped from the launch and shook hands heartily with the
+radiant and stammering Burford. He looked at Roderick with steady dark
+eyes. He hardly spoke in reply to Burford's introduction. But the grip
+of his big, muscular hand was warmly cordial.
+
+He asked a few brief questions. Then he listened, his heavy head bent,
+his heavy-lidded eyes half closed, to Burford's eager account of
+their struggles and their triumphs. Almost without speaking he
+clambered into the launch again and motioned the boys to follow.
+
+For four consecutive hours the three went up and down the rough miry
+channels. Roderick steered the launch. Burford answered Breckenridge's
+occasional questions. Breckenridge stood, field-glass in hand,
+sweeping first one bank, then another with tireless eyes. He made
+almost no comment on Burford's explanations; but the slow occasional
+nod of his massive head was eloquent.
+
+Finally they retraced the last lateral and brought the launch up to
+the main landing.
+
+"No, I'll not stop to dine with you, much as I should enjoy it. I must
+be getting on to the next contract. They're seeing heavy weather too."
+Breckenridge stood up, stretching his big, cramped body. As he stood
+there, brushing the clay from his coat, he seemed to loom.
+
+"I have nothing much to say to you fellows," he went on in his quiet,
+casual voice, "only to remark that you must have worked like Trojans.
+You have made a far larger yardage record than we had dared to
+expect. You've put brains into your work, too. Can't say I'm surprised
+at your success, by the way. I was pretty certain from what Crosby
+said that you two would swing this contract, all right. Crosby and I
+had a talk in Chicago a week or so ago. We were in Tech together.
+Naturally he's quite a pal of mine, though nowadays we're opponents in
+a business way. But his opinion weighs heavily with me. And now that I
+have gone over the ground for myself, I am inclined to think that
+Crosby rather--well, that he underestimated your services to the
+company." Again his big head bent with that queer slow nod. For a
+moment Breck himself, the real man, alert, just, keenly understanding,
+flashed a glance from behind that heavy mask of splendid, impassive
+flesh. "Later you will probably receive a more detailed explanation of
+my opinion on your work. Good luck to you both, and good-by."
+
+He stepped into the launch. The powerful boat dashed away down the
+rough yellow canal.
+
+The boys stood and looked after him. Burford was wildly exultant. But
+Roderick was silent. A curious, deep satisfaction lighted his stolid,
+boyish face. Every word that Breckenridge had spoken was tingling in
+his blood. At last he had met his hero face to face, man to man. And
+his hero had proven all that heart could ask.
+
+"I wish I knew what he meant by saying that you'd hear further as to
+his opinion on your work," pondered Marian.
+
+Just two days later her wish was gratified.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a rainy, dreary day. Rod had spent the morning up the laterals
+and had come home dripping. Marian was trying to dry his soaked
+clothes before the smoky little oil-stove, but without much success.
+Just before noon she heard a welcome whistle. She ran down the bank to
+meet the rural delivery-man in his little spider-launch. The roads
+were long since impassable; the mail and all the camp supplies must
+come by water.
+
+"Stacks of letters, Rod. A fat official one for the Burfords and a
+still fatter, more official one for you. Do read it and tell me your
+news."
+
+"All right, Sis." Rod pushed aside his blueprints and set to opening
+his mail.
+
+Marian looked over her own letters. They were all of a sort: pleasant,
+affectionate notes from her friends at home. All, with one accord,
+besought her to hurry back to college for commencement. All earnestly
+pitied her for the tedious weeks that she was spending "in that rough,
+dreadful western country."
+
+Marian's eyes twinkled as she read. At the bottom of the pile lay a
+note from her good friend Isabel, begging her for the twentieth time
+to spend August with her in her beautiful home at Beverly Farms.
+
+Marian read that letter twice. Her dark brows narrowed.
+
+Before her eyes gleamed Isabel's home, the great beautiful house, set
+on a terraced emerald-green hill. Behind it, dark, cool, mysterious,
+lay the pine woods; before it flashed and gleamed the sea. She could
+see its wide, stately rooms, its soft-hued, luxurious furnishings. She
+could feel the atmosphere of quiet contentment, of assured ease, which
+was to Isabel and her mother the very air they breathed.
+
+Then she looked around her.
+
+Here she sat in a tiny canvas shack with a rough board floor. She
+looked at its mended chairs, its rag-tag rug, and stringy curtains;
+Rod's wet clothes, dripping before the little oil-stove; Rod's
+battered desk, heaped with papers and blue-prints, a mass of
+accumulated work. Then she looked through the tent-flap. Neither blue
+ocean nor deep, still forest met her eyes. Only a narrow, muddy ditch;
+a row of wind-torn willows; a dark, swollen river, hurrying on beneath
+a dark, sinister sky.
+
+An exclamation from Rod startled her. He stooped to her, his tired
+face burning. With unsteady fingers he put a letter into her hand.
+
+"Read that, Sis. No, I'll not read it aloud to you. Look at it with
+your own eyes."
+
+     THE BRECKENRIDGE ENGINEERING COMPANY.
+     OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.
+     RODERICK T. HALLOWELL, C. E.,
+     _c/o Contract Camp, Grafton, Illinois._
+
+SIR: I beg to state that certain changes in the engineering force of
+the company have brought about a change in the position occupied by
+yourself with our firm. Beginning upon the first day of June, 1912,
+you will be transferred to the post of assistant superintendent on a
+large drainage contract in northern Iowa. While your position will be
+second to that of Mr. McPherson, our supervising engineer, yet you
+will be given entire charge of the assembling of the plant and its
+construction. Your salary will be two thousand dollars. Payment
+quarterly, as is our custom.
+
+Some objections to this promotion have been raised by members of our
+company on the score of your limited experience. Mr. Breckenridge,
+however, considers from his observation of your methods that you will
+prove fully equal to this exacting and responsible position.
+
+     I am, very respectfully,
+     THE BRECKENRIDGE ENGINEERING COMPANY.
+     _Per_ R. W. AUSTIN, _Sec'y_.
+
+Silent, wide-eyed, Marian read this amazing document. Then, with a cry
+of surprise and delight, she turned to her brother. But before she
+could speak, a storm of eager feet dashed up the cabin steps. In burst
+Sally Lou and Ned, headlong. Ned, breathless with excitement, waved a
+long official envelope. But Sally Lou, close at his heels with Thomas
+Tucker crowing on her arm, poured out the wild tale.
+
+"Oh, Marian! Oh, Roderick! Oh, it's too good and grand and glorious to
+be true! We're going home, home, straight back to Virginia!"
+
+"Yes, we're going home, we're fired," puffed Ned, as Sally Lou paused
+for breath. He sank down on the bench with a sigh of ecstasy. "Don't
+look so dazed, Hallowell. There is more news coming. We're ordered off
+this contract. But we're not ordered out of the Breckenridge
+Engineering Company. Not quite yet. Instead, I'm directed to report on
+the Dismal Swamp Canal the first of the month. My position will be
+practically the same as the one that I'm now holding. But we can live
+at home. _At home_, I say! Right in Norfolk, right in the midst of all
+Sally Lou's own home-folks, right around the corner from my own
+father's house. Won't we have a glorious year of it! And won't Edward
+Junior and Thomas Tucker be good and spoiled, though!"
+
+"We're so happy we can't even say it to each other!" Sally Lou sat
+down suddenly, hiding her April face in Thomas Tucker's small
+pinafore. "It took Mammy Easter to express our feelings for us. 'Land,
+honey,' said she, 'I cert'n'y am thankful that we's goin' back to
+civilization. I want to climb on a real street-car again. I want to
+ride in an elevator. I don't care if I never sets foot in one of dem
+slippery little launches again, long's I live. But most of all I want
+to tote dese lambs out of this swamp and on to de dry land before dey
+grows up plumb web-footed.'"
+
+In the midst of the laugh that followed, a launch whistled from down
+the canal.
+
+"There's Mulcahy now. Hurry, Ned. Go down to Grafton and send your
+telegram to head-quarters. Good-by, folks! Come over to the martin-box
+to-night and we'll hold one last celebration."
+
+Sally Lou tossed her baby to her shoulder. Away she sped beside her
+husband. Marian looked after the gay, hurrying figures. Then, still
+bewildered, she turned to Roderick.
+
+"Well! What will happen next! Ned and Sally Lou ordered to Virginia;
+you promoted--it takes my breath away! But, Rod!" Her voice rose with
+a startled note. She looked up keenly at her brother's grave face.
+"You--you dear, cold-blooded old slow-coach! How can you look so
+pensive and perplexed? Of all the splendid, splendid news! How could
+you keep still and not tell the Burfords? How can you keep still now?
+If I wasn't so tired, I'd dance a jig right here on your desk!"
+
+"I ought to be dancing jigs myself," Roderick answered. "I don't half
+deserve this magnificent chance, I know that. But I--I don't know what
+to say. I'm facing a dead wall."
+
+"Rod, what do you mean? Of course you will accept this promotion. You
+must. There can't be any question!" Marian was on her knees by his
+chair now, clasping his cold hands in her own. Her voice rang sharp
+with angry affection. "Don't halt and fumble so, brother! Don't you
+remember, three months ago, how you fretted and hesitated about taking
+the position that you are holding to-day? See how you have succeeded
+in it! Yet look at you! To-day you are wavering and boggling and
+hanging back, just as you did then."
+
+"I'm hanging back, yes. But not for the same reason." Roderick looked
+down at her with dark, troubled eyes. "That time, I hesitated to
+accept on your account. This time, I'm hesitating on my own."
+
+"Why, Roderick Hallowell! You are not afraid of hard work, nor of
+taking chances, either. Rod, tell me this minute. Are you ill? What is
+it, dear?"
+
+"Nonsense. I'm perfectly well. But I am tired out. I don't know how to
+tell you what I mean. So tired that I dread the mere thought of going
+on a new contract, and taking charge of a new crew, and breaking
+myself in to a new piece of work. Yes, it does sound cowardly. But I
+cannot see my way clear. I don't believe I dare take it up."
+
+Marian looked at him closely.
+
+"Sleep on this, Rod. A night's rest will give you a different light on
+the matter."
+
+"A night's rest won't make any difference in the facts, Sis. The
+position is too complicated for a greenhorn like me. I believe I could
+assemble the plant, all right. And I think I could handle the
+laborers. But the endless outside detail is what I'm afraid of. That,
+and the responsibility, too. For instance, on a contract like this one
+in Iowa, the engineers must act as paymasters, each for his division.
+That means, reckon the men's time daily; make out their checks; handle
+their wages for them; and so on. Then there are my tabulated
+reports for the head office. Then my supplies. You have seen with your
+own eyes how much time and work just the buying of coal and machinery
+can demand. Then there would be a thousand smaller matters to look
+after. Taking it all in all, I don't want to make a try at this offer,
+then fail. So the sensible thing to do is, meekly to ask the company
+for a less impressive post."
+
+"All that you would need for the extra work that you describe would be
+a competent book-keeper, Rod."
+
+"Exactly!" Rod laughed shortly. "But a 'competent' book-keeper is the
+last employé that one can find for such hard, isolated work as this.
+What I need is not just a man to add columns for me. I need another
+brain, an extra pair of hands. I need the sort of first-aid that you
+have been giving me all these weeks, Sis. That's the sort of help that
+you can't buy for love nor money. That's all."
+
+  [Illustration: MARIAN WAS ON HER KNEES BY HIS CHAIR, CLASPING HIS
+   COLD HANDS IN HER OWN.]
+
+Marian studied her brother's face. When she spoke, her voice was very
+gentle and low.
+
+"All right, Rod. Telegraph head-quarters that you will accept."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--I am going to take that position as book-keeper. There,
+now!"
+
+Roderick sat up with some vehemence.
+
+"Marian Hallowell, I think I see myself letting you do any more of my
+work. You're going back to college next week, for commencement. Then
+you may come West again, if you're determined to stay somewhere near
+me. I'm mighty glad to have you within reach, I must admit that. But
+you are not to live down in the woods any longer. And not another
+stroke of my work shall you do."
+
+"Why not? Am I such a poor stenographer?"
+
+Roderick laughed at her injured tone. Pride and affection mingled in
+that laugh.
+
+"You have been invaluable, Sis. You know that perfectly well. I'd
+never have pulled through this month without you. You have been of
+more real use than any three ordinary stenographers rolled together.
+For you have used your own brains and will and courage. You have not
+stood gracefully by and waited for orders. You have marched right on,
+and you have done a man's work straight through. But our long pull is
+over now. And you are well and strong again, I'm thankful to say. So
+back to the East you go, old lady. No more contract jobs for you."
+
+Marian's eyes narrowed ominously. Deliberately she seated herself on
+the arm of her brother's chair. Gently but firmly she seized him by
+both ears.
+
+"Now, Roderick Hallowell, listen to me. Three months ago the company
+offered you this position. I wanted you to accept it. But, of all
+things, I did _not_ want to go West with you. I teased and coaxed and
+whined. Much good my whining did me. For you just set that
+Rock-o'-Gibraltar chin of yours, and took me firmly by the collar and
+marched me along.
+
+"Now, Roderick Hallowell, look at me!"
+
+Chuckling and shamefaced, Roderick struggled to turn his face away;
+but Marian's fingers gripped mercilessly tight.
+
+"Look at me, I say. Answer. Didn't you bully me into giving up to your
+wishes, by threatening to refuse this position unless I'd come West
+with you? Didn't you drag me out here willy-nilly? Very well. You have
+had your way. You have brought me here, and--_you can't send me back_.
+There now."
+
+"Marian, this is not fair." Roderick freed one ear and looked sternly
+at his sister. "You must finish your education. I have no right to
+keep you trailing around the country with me, wasting your time and
+cutting you off from your friends and denying you any home comfort.
+You shall not sacrifice yourself----"
+
+"Sacrifice myself, indeed!" Marian took a fresh grip. "All I ask is to
+stay with you until next February. Then I'll go back and take up my
+college work at the exact point where I laid it down. I cannot
+graduate with my class, no matter how hard I try. My illness last
+winter took too much time. So I may as well join the class following,
+at mid-years'. In the mean time, we will have eight splendid months
+together. No, I have waked up, Rod. You can't hush me off to my
+selfish doze again."
+
+"But, Marian, I can't possibly permit----"
+
+"Yes, you can. And you will. As to home comforts--isn't it home,
+wherever we two are together? As to being cut off from my
+friends--aren't you the best chum I ever had? How do you suppose I
+like being cut off from you, brother?"
+
+Rod did not answer. At last he looked up. The sober gratitude in his
+eyes brought an answering radiance to Marian's own.
+
+"I give up, Sis. You shall stay with me for the summer, anyway. Then
+we'll see. Now run away, you blessed old partner!" His big hands shut
+on her shoulders with an eloquent grip. "I'm going to write to
+head-quarters and accept that position before I have time to turn
+coward again and change my mind."
+
+Marian gave him a vigorous hug of satisfaction, and ran away. Letter
+in hand, Roderick went to his desk.
+
+Carefully he set down his formal, courteous acceptance. He read the
+finished letter with critical care. Something was lacking. Yet he had
+taken all possible pains. What more could his reply need?
+
+Suddenly his face brightened. He took up his pen. Slowly and
+carefully he added a final paragraph:
+
+"In accepting this promotion, I wish to do so with the understanding
+that my sister, Miss Hallowell, who has acted as my assistant during
+the past month, shall continue to hold that position under the new
+contract. As her work is to be counted as a part of my own, I will
+request that my quarterly checks shall be made out, not to R. T.
+Hallowell, but to 'Hallowell & Hallowell,' as the salary is to be
+drawn by us on a basis of equal partnership."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He put down the finished sheet. His boyish face lighted with a slow,
+triumphant glow. He looked out across the gray wet country, the
+fog-banked river. To his eyes the dull scene was illumined. For his
+steady vision could see past that gray dreariness, far up the broad
+high-road of work and success that he had now set foot upon. These
+three months of heavy toil had proven him. He had seized his fighting
+chance, and he had made good. And now all the royal chances of his
+profession were waiting at his call.
+
+"Though I never could have put it through without Marian," he said
+under his breath. "My splendid, plucky little old Sis! No wonder I
+made good, with such a partner. And from now on she shall be my real
+partner, bless her heart. 'Hallowell & Hallowell,' now and forever!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hallowell Partnership, by 
+Katharine Holland Brown
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41052 ***