"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."
"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."