Sally Lou turned to him suddenly. Her fingers tapped the desk with nervous little clicks.
"Listen, Ned. Have you finished the upper laterals? Are they safe, no matter how high the water may rise?"
"N-no. They are excavated, but the bank is nothing but heaped mud, you know. Still, it would stand anything short of a flood."
"What about the lower laterals?"
"Same state of affairs there. Only that the two lowest ditches aren't cut at all. Why?"
Sally Lou swung round in the desk chair and faced her husband. Her eyes were very dark and anxious now.
"One more question, Ned. Could the work stand a three-foot rise?"
Ned stared.
"A three-foot rise? No, it could not. A three-foot rise would stop our levee-building. A rise of four feet or more would put us out of the game. We'd be washed out, smashed, ruined. But why do you ask such questions? What makes you imagine——"
"I'm not imagining, Ned. I had a telephone call not five minutes ago from the district inspector. Yes, I know you think he's always shouting 'Wolf!' but this time he may be right. He says that he has just come down from Chicago on the Central, and that the whole mid-section of the State is fairly submerged by these endless rains. Worse, the storm warnings are up for further rains. And he believes that there will be a rise of three feet within two days. That is, unless the rains stop."