"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!