"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 ma.s.sed, 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

"h.e.l.lo, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.ls 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 a.s.sessments 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, Ma.s.sachusetts. There'll be nice, neighborly folks who'll drive up the ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ash.o.r.e, 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."