"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 a.s.sessment 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 trespa.s.s 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 trespa.s.ses 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 bra.s.s. 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 ap.r.o.n.

Amiable creature, she wanted to play with him! Enchanted, the puppy let go the table-cloth and dashed at her, under full steam. His st.u.r.dy 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 ap.r.o.n hem in his white milk teeth and bit out a feather-st.i.tched 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 trespa.s.s 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.