"Who for? That Ad Banks? If he's drowned in the ditch I wouldn't much care."
"I'd forgotten all about him," confessed Hiram. "But come on. I want to look at something."
Curiously Orrin followed him while the old man and the boy sought their bunks. The rain had washed and rutted the road deeply. The ditches were carrying the surplus water off, however.
At the first cross-drain through the recently planted corn and pea field Hiram flashed the light of his lantern into the ditch. A stream of water the size of his leg was spurting from the opening.
"Cracky! Look at that!" ejaculated Orrin. "Why, Strong, the darned thing works!"
"Of course it works. Didn't I tell you it would?" replied the young farm manager.
They went on along the road, and at every such opening the yellow flood poured forth. That particular twenty acres of Sunnyside Farm would never be sour or lumpy to work as long as Hiram's simple underdraining scheme continued to work so successfully as it was now doing.
They were about to turn to go back to the house when Orrin clutched Hiram by the arm and pointed toward Yancey Battick's place.
"What's the matter down there do you suppose?" he asked, with anxiety.
There was a sudden glow against the sky, seemingly rising from behind Battick's buildings. Then a long streamer of flame bannered into the air above the treetops.