CHAPTER XXXIII
QUESTIONS
Hervey had now no incentive to leave the vicinity of camp. Doubtless he could have performed the great stunt without outside help (now that he knew it to be a stunt) but luck favored him as it usually did, and the new work going forward in the cove was enough to occupy his undivided attention.
He made his headquarters there and hobnobbed with civil engineers and laborers in the true democratic spirit which was his. The consulting engineer they called him, which was odd, because Hervey never consulted anybody about anything. The men all liked him immensely.
Another to benefit by the work on the new dam was Robin Hood, or Mr. Hood as he was respectfully called. He ran the flivver truck between the camp and the cove, carrying stone, and also cement and supplies which came by the railroad. They had to cut a road from the main road through to the cove.
But one thing was not brought by the flivver, and that was the suction dredge, a horrible monster, a kind of jumble of house and machinery which came on a big six-ton truck and was launched into the lake. Its whole ramshackle bulk shook and shivered when it was in operation sucking the bottom of the lake up through a big pipe and shooting it through another long pipe which terminated on the land. Thus sand and gravel were secured and at the same time the lake was dredged by this mammoth vacuum cleaner. The pipeline which terminated on the shore was supported on several floats a few yards apart, and the first scout to perform the stunt of walking on this pulsating thing was——
Guess.
About a week after work on the dam had begun, Tom rode over to the cove on the truck with Robin Hood. He had struck up a friendship with the stranger and liked him, as every one did. The young man was quiet, industrious, intelligent. He did not encourage questions about himself, but Tom was the last one to criticise reticence.