"This means business." Roderick, heavy-eyed and stupid, struggled into hip boots and slicker. "Breckenridge isn't frightening us for nothing. We daren't lose a minute. Come along, Burford."
"Come along—where?" Burford stood stunned before this bewildering menace. "What more can we do? Aren't we rushing the whole plant to the danger notch of speed as it is?"
"There is one thing we must do. Decide what part of the work we can abandon. Then put our whole force, men, machinery, and all, to work at the one point where it will do the most good."
"What can we abandon? It's all equally important."
"That is for you and me to decide. Come along."
"If Breck had only finished his sentence! 'To save—' Surely he meant for us to save the dredges?"
Again the boys looked at each other.
"To save the dredges, maybe. But that doesn't sound like Breckenridge. 'To save the land-owners from loss,' that's more like what he'd say."
"If we could only reach him, for even half a minute——"
"That is precisely what we can't do." Roderick's big shoulders lifted. His heavy face settled into lines of steel. "We'll bring all three of the machines down stream, and put up our fight on the main ditch. If we can cut through to the river, before the rise gets here, we will save the crops for most of the land-owners, anyway. That will check any danger of the water backing up into the narrow laterals and overflowing them."